Educational Informatics Research Group
Educational informatics research is an interdisciplinary field given recent impetus by rapid developments in the use of the Internet as both an information environment and an environment for learning and teaching. It has two main areas of concern: first, to understand the effects on people of using digital information resources, services, systems, environments and communications media for learning and education; second, to contribute to the development of practical knowledge of relevance to diverse forms of learning/education using information and communication technology (ICT) and digital resources. It is a growing area of research activity within the School.
We have ongoing projects funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the areas of information literacy and Web-based information seeking. Examples of recent projects include an EU Framework IV project, DEDICATE, which developed networked learning courses in information literacy and user education (with partners in Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden); an evaluation of the use of virtual reality environments to support problem-based learning; and an EU LEONARDO project, MERLIN 2000, which developed Web-based distance learning techniques in engineering. The NetLinkS project, funded by the HEFCE JISC eLib programme, focused on the role of information professionals in networked learning support in higher education. Networked information has been the principal focus of extensive studies of local electronic communities, which have contributed significantly to the development of a range of networks throughout the South Yorkshire region.
The group comprises seven members of academic staff as well as a number of research staff and students. A PhD project funded by PriceWaterhouseCoopers is designing an electronic version of the Good University Guide. Other current PhD projects include studies of: Internet literacies and the secondary school curriculum, multi-professional learner support teams in high education, cognitive models for information-seeking, e-learning and dyslexia, the hidden Internet, and constructivist on-line learning environments.