University of Southampton

The University of Southampton is one of the most prestigious in the United Kingdom, with a turnover of £500m, research income of more than £120m, with 23,000 students and 6,000 staff. The university is truly international, drawing students from over 130 different countries and benefiting from a wide and varied culture. It is ranked in the top 20 (15th) in the UK and is participating in a high number of collaborative research projects and related initiatives. The academic unit of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) is the largest school of its kind in the UK. ECS is internationally regarded for its outstanding research, and for its ability to pursue new research directions with broad, transformative impact. In REF 2014, 100% of our computer science research impact was recognised as world-leading or internationally excellent. As part of ECS and the Web Science Institute, the Web and Internet Science (WAIS) research group led by Professor Leslie Carr, who led the creation of the ePrints repository and is renowned for its role in developments in several critical areas of the digital economy: from Web science, semantic technologies, and linked data to crowdsourcing and social machines. WAIS has many scientists with interests in education technologies, with a focus on digital accessibility, networked learning and open practices. To mark its academic excellence, ECS was awarded UK’s first Regius Chair in computer science in 2013, which is held by Prof Dame Wendy Hall from WAIS. The Web Science Institute (WSI) is a pan-University interdisciplinary institute established by the University with a £2.1m initial investment with industrial support and in partnership with the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Europe’s largest application-oriented research organisation. Its aims are to promote and coordinate Web science research, web-based education innovation approaches, among other innovation activities across the University. The WSI is leading the world in pioneering interdisciplinary, holistic approaches to big data and real-time analytics including learning analytics, which combine large-scale computational techniques with educational, economic, social, political, psychological, and legal insight to shape and inform our understanding of the real-world. Our Centres for Doctoral Training are home to 60 PhD students who research the impact of the Web on society and new forms of value in the digital economy, including the education sector.

University of Southampton (UK): The university will lead the research stage of the project (IO1). They will also be responsible for providing installations and support of edShare, a service for storing and open publishing of OERs (IO4). Like all university partners, they will be responsible for the creation of MOOCs (in English and Spanish), with an advisory role on how to make them open, accessible, inclusive, and networked. The university will also contribute with experts in best digital education practices who will deliver online training and webinar sessions (IO3 – IO4 – IO5).

Professor Leslie Carr
Professor Leslie Carr is the head of WAIS, which studies the impact of the web on society — the way in which the global communications infrastructure changes our personal, social and economic landscape, including the interplay between the Web and educational systems. Together with the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton and with our partners from industry and government, Les is trying to understand how to identify the future opportunities of the digital economy whilst trying to navigate its current challenges, to maximise the educational, social and economic benefit that the online world offers.

Manuel León Urrutia

Manuel León-Urrutia is a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Electronics and Computer Science Department (ECS) of the University of Southampton, leading and steering the operations of the Southampton Data Science Academy as a Head Tutor and Course designer. Prior to joining the ECS, Manuel had a leadership role in the MOOC programme of this University, in partnership with FutureLearn. Manuel specialises in the learning design and delivery of Data Science online courses.

Nicholas Fair

Nic Fair is a Knowledge Engineer with the IT-Innovation group at the University of Southampton. He holds a PhD in Digital Education and Web Science and research interests in Personal Learning Networks and Networked Learning. He has spent eighteen years teaching in a wide range of educational contexts, including leading a range of innovation modules at the University of Southampton. He is Lead Academic and Designer of the FutureLearn ‘Learning in the Network Age’ MOOC and the bespoke ‘Learn SSM’ online training course. He has a range of conference presentations, journal papers and chapters (see nicfair.co.uk), including one entitled A Framework for the Analysis of Personal Learning Networks in the forthcoming book ‘Networked Learning Research Series: Conceptualizing and innovating education and work with networked learning’.

EA Draffan

E.A. Draffan trained as a Speech and Language Therapist working with those who have complex communication needs, before specialising in the use of Assistive Technology and issues of digital accessibility. She has since worked with disabled students in Further and Higher Education, set up a university Assistive Technology Centre assessing and supporting disabled students and been part of a UK national Assistive Technology resource group. Over the last thirteen years she has worked as a Senior Research Fellow within the Web and Internet Science Group at the University of Southampton. Research interests remain linked to the ease of use and accessibility of technologies and their content, the mainstreaming of assistive technologies and working with cultural and language differences in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC and symbol use). She has developed international elearning inclusion and digital accessibility MOOCs and recent projects have included ‘AI and Inclusion’ as part of the Alan Turing Institute work and involvement with an EU project for mobile app choices for those with literacy difficulties (A is for App). Ongoing work includes supporting a UNICEF project on AAC and Early Intervention with the development of freely available Moodle elearning materials and working with the W3C WAI WCAG cognitive task force on web-based accessibility for those with cognitive impairments and learning disabilities.

Kelly Terrell

Kelly Terrell leads the EPrints strategy for open education repositories and developing University of Southampton’s technical offering in this area. Kelly is also a member of the EPrints management team overseeing the smooth running of EPrints Services and edShare consultancy activities. With an MSc in Digital Education, Kelly’s areas of interest include: digital education technologies, open education, discoverability of OERs, engagement and awareness of OERs, challenging traditional educational practices in a digital world.