Innovative Use of Digital Technology at Pembroke Celebrated at OxTALENT 2017

NEWS |

We are delighted to report that at this year’s OxTALENT awards ceremony, which took place on 14th June, several Pembroke academics and research groups received significant awards. The OxTALENT awards recognise members of the University who have made innovative use of digital technology in order to foster learning and academic practice at either undergraduate or postgraduate level; develop more effective links between teaching and research; or, improve impact through outreach and public engagement.

Dr Kathryn Eccles, Senior Research Fellow in History at Pembroke College, along with her colleagues, Prof. Howard Hotson, Dr Silke Ackermann, Dr Giovanna Vitelli, Ted Koterwas, Erin Young, Sarah Griffin and Jamie Cameron, received first place in the ‘Innovation Challenges - Staff’ category, for ‘Cabinet’. It is a platform that makes available digital versions of objects, alongside course materials, texts and images to enrich the teaching and learning experience. This initiative draws on the strength and expertise of a cross-disciplinary team and is a resource that enhances and supports teaching across the University. The resource augments the handling sessions and other object-based study that is increasingly occurring within the University’s rich and varied museum and library collections.

Dr Eccles was thrilled to receive the award, she commented:

‘It was a terrific recognition of the hard work of the entire team in putting Cabinet together. Cabinet really seems to have captured people’s imagination, and we're now lucky enough to be working across all four University museums, and with Faculty in all four divisions of the University.  Much of Cabinet sits behind Single-Sign-On, with students accessing the platform through their department's WebLearn pages, but thanks to funding from the University's Van Houten Fund, we've recently been able to work with the Museums on public content which will be released on the site soon.’

Pembroke-based research group, The Quill Project, were awarded runner up in the ‘Data Visualisation’ category for ‘Modelling and Visualising the Creation of the American Constitution’. Spearheaded by Pembroke Senior Research Fellow in History, Dr Nicholas Cole, Quill seeks to make the negotiations of the Constitutional Convention widely accessible and as easy to as possible explore through their powerful website which presents this historical record from a range of perspectives. One of the OxTALENT judges commented on their favourite element, ‘the secretary’s desk’, which visualises what the desk of the committee’s secretary would have looked like at the end of each day, and lends a human perspective to the data.

Receiving the award on behalf of the Quill Project team, Research Assistant Olivia Griffiths commented:

‘We're honoured to have been given an award at such a prestigious event, and we’re thrilled that our entry stood out among the other 87 entries! We really enjoyed working on our submission and are looking forward to continuing our work in the future. Thanks to OxTALENT for the award and for such a fantastic evening at the prize-giving ceremony!’

Pembroke Supernumerary Fellow, Dr Janet Smart, won the ‘Innovative Teaching and Learning with Technology’ category for 'Using film in an undergraduate Technology and Operations Management course'. Identifying a need for students to relate theoretical readings as part of their Economics and Management course to real-world experiences, Dr Smart introduced film to the learning process. She replaced pre-lecture reading lists with watch-lists on YouTube and also asked students to create films on their phones to demonstrate critical thinking and awareness of operations. OxTALENT judges were particularly impressed by her sensitivity to the student’s point of view, and considered this to be a great example of active and participatory learning in the real-world dynamics of operations management.

Find out more about oxTALENT on their website.