The Study-Space AppKeith Brown | Julie Letchford | Albert Bolhuis

Study SpaceDesigned by students, for students

Student Co-Design using Agile

1. Some students perceive their main-stream social media as ‘personal’ and do not want to use it for ‘work’.

2. Impact on digital identity of users. Main-stream social media data hosted on external databases & not private

Barriers

• A ‘work’ app – private to the uni• Data is internally hosted on uni servers• Anonymous

A way forward

Mainstream Social Media

Overview•Additional resource to supplement VLE

• Internal Social Media type App• Privacy

• Anonymous postings - most students have

chosen to post anonymously

• Ethos: Student-Driven Development

Trial from mid-February to mid-May 2016

• One programme unit – Applied Pharmaceutical Microbiology• 2nd Year Mpharm Students• Access limited to student cohort and 2 academics• Students can post, vote, answer questions and competitions• Academics can post, vote, make questions and competitions

The first pilot ran mid-February to mid-May 2016 with a cohort of around 140 pharmacy students

60% of students

Timeline•Posts•Anonymous Posts•Up/Down Vote

Question

Voting Competition

Question

Voting Competition

Results from pilot

• A convenient way to engage with students outside of lectures• Enables staff to monitor how well students have understood

taught material• Easy to use • Minimal workload

Importantly, students are not only asking, but also answering questions that have been posted, and the app thus facilitates a lively peer support community for the unit.

Academic View

Dr Albert BolhuisUnit Convenor

Results from pilot

•90% find the app easy to use•85% found the app useful to support learning•100% posted anonymously•85% thought that the app is a good way for

students to help each other•95% thought that the app facilitated a community

of students and academics working together

n = 24

Student Evaluation

What were the most useful things about the app in terms of your learning?

• Both students and lecturers could post in the same place

• when lecturers posted some important notes• When people asked a question the answers helped

my knowledge and I could also try to answer questions which helped me to learn more

• Getting answers from students AND staff. • Aided my revision • Lecturers' responses • Was able to ask questions and get help from other

students. Lecturers could intervene if peers were wrong.

• The chance to talk to other students in an informal way. Sometimes it feels inappropriate to email the lecturer so having a means of consulting peers instead is very useful

• The lecturers answering any unanswered questions • A causal way to communicate and share ideas with the

lecturers and other students; rather than writing an email asking about some simple questions

• You could ask any question and in most cases it would be answered. It was useful in this way but also I'm quite shy so probably wouldn't have the confidence to ask the lecturers myself in case it was a stupid question, so this enabled me to get answers fast and without any worries

• It consolidated my knowledge by me helping other people

• It was useful to gain lecturer feedback on some of the questions

• very quick Q and A system; feedback from both academics and students

n=24

Student Evaluation

The Current StatusVersion 2 included additional features suggested by students.Trials across the university:• 25 channels• 11 programme units• 2 SSLC cohorts• 500 students• Some channels are more

successful than others• It works provided the academic is

proactive and makes it work!

One Channel per Programme Unit

Standard SetupCurrently 11 Units

Every clan has a channel:

Clan AgostiniClan CastiglioneClan De SantisClan FerrettiClan I figli del VesuvioClan InsigneClan Paes àClan Spietati

Multiple Channels per UnitOrganised Crime & Democracy in ItalyUsed by all students in this unitRole Play

Multiple Channels per UnitOrganised Crime & Democracy in Italy

“I have been looking for technology that can facilitate experiential learning, and the Study-Space app delivered in this respect. It added to the active learning of my role play unit by allowing us to vote instantly and have a continuous news thread. But, it did more than that it allowed me to communicate to my students and them to communicate to me and between themselves. It has added a new and exciting dimension to my teaching, Study Space became a key part of my teaching interface.”

Dr Felia AllumUnit Convenor

One Channel per Year GroupStaff Student Liasion Committees:

• Pharmacy Year One• Pharmacology Year One

Future• Funding for 5 projects with students as Co-Designers:• SSLC App with students as Co-designers:• 3 Students involved:• Toby - Programmer• Coding in Javascript, Angular, Cordova

• Harry and Harris - Analysts• Developing specification with

• Academics Reps• SU VP Education• Senior staff

Top Features Requested• Push Notifications:• Notifications when a lecturer makes any type of

post, or replies to a student post. • Configurable by the user

• Insert Images into posts• Embed Study-Space in VLE:

VLELTI

Social Learning Networks (SLN)Social Media designed for education Study-Space is a SLN, other examples include: Piazza | Learnium | Edmodo | Spiral In this model the SLN is an internal service similar to the VLE

Another related area are Enterprise Social Networks (ESN): Yammer | Slack

VLE

SLN

Student Records

Time-table

Wiki

Lecture Capture

the students

“If you make it easy enough, we will use it”

Keith Brown

The University of Bath

The Study-Space App

@KeithBrownBath blogs.bath.ac.uk/keithbrown

keith.brown@bath.ac.uk