News

July 2008

We have added the LexDis Methodology Report for JISC (July 2008) to the Research section of the website and we have been adding mini-guideswith links to the many TechDis Accessibility Essential guides. During the summer we are also adding student strategies to the database and working out how to integrate this aspect of the project with other aspects of the website, as can be seen from the whiteboard diagram below!

June 2008

Despite examinations and dissertations students have continued to support the project throughout the last six months. We have gathered a considerable number of helpful strategies and learnt much about the way e-learning can impact on a university experience from those who have offered their help to the LexDis project.

We had a focus group lunch and Jane prepared some slides which are pictured - they show a group of questions related to the discussion with bubbles stating that LexDis participants are possibly resourceful and adaptable, have a love/hate relationship with technology and have to make informed and sometimes complex decisions about their choice of technologies. This picture comes thanks to Reena's skills with the camera!

Thanks to Joe Price we were able to view some sample web pages. These are now available for anyone to vote for their preferences when it comes to layout and colour. Just go to the pictures of the layouts - The submission is anonymous but you can leave comments to help us make decisions.

We have also been lucky enough to have a few well known colleagues in the field of Higher Education and disability, who have been kind enough to evaluate our work to date. They have helped us make changes to the database table names with comments related to how they would like to work through the data.

Dissemination has continued with acceptance of papers at international and national conferences and workshops with local groups as well as further afield. We have a chapter in a book that is due to be published by Wiley-Blackwell and this even has an entry on Amazon.co.uk before a single page has been printed! Several students have kindly agreed to allow us to use quotes in the chapter on Assistive Technology.

Finally, having collected a large number of strategies we are now trying to sort them into a series of topics. There is an enormous variation and lots of tips that will be available on the website. In the meantime this mind map shows the main topics - computer interface adaptations, using tools to organise learning materials and writing and finally on-line strategies including different ways of communicating. Later this month we hope to have a focus group meeting with a few students who attend the Additional Learning Needs Service at the University of Bournemouth to see if they are using any similar strategies.

30/11/07 A Day spent with Patsy Clarke at the University of Nothampton

Thanks to Rob Howe and Gemma Towle from e4L I joined a training day on NVIVO and found it to be invaluable.

The LexDis team have worked out a coding framework, which will be added to the wiki as soon as we have trialled it. We hope this will allow us to share the burden of coding around 30 transcripts which represent roughly 45 minutes of discussion with students based on the Learner Profile. The Interview Plus idea has generated a considerable amount of data and it is hoped that this can be gathered together in an on-line database that will provide the basis for the website sharing issues, strategies and guides. The research data will be stored in NVIVO and quantitative data will be collected using a combination of NVIVO and Excel.

In collaboration with Gemma Towle we are building a workflow framework for the use of NVIVO - this is very much work in progress. We hope to also share hints and tips that have helped us with our interview processes.

Work flow for Coding in NVIVO

• Set up a project journal to act as a diary and personal blog. Ctrl+ Shift+ T puts in date and time. The Journal is the journey - how did we get from A to B - the process - it can become part of the audit trail - evidence base, time line etc.
• Model your initial thoughts on the outcomes - make this a static model with a date.
• Code the Proposal or project document or fill in types of codes to be used as free nodes
• Import the transcriptions as Case studies that may be part of a set of data over time.
• Fill in demographic data - may need to import from Excel spreadsheet or also keep in Excel spreadsheet.
• Everything must be named, dated and described using the dialog boxes.
• Begin coding transcripts as free nodes, which may later develop into tree nodes with a hierarchy. Free nodes = free ideas - what is this about?
• Don't forget to 'Turn off' coding stripes when coding as this can slow the computer.
• VIP - Back up everything you write/code - change the save properties in NVIVO (tools - application options) from every 15 mins to every 5mins.
• Annotate as you go along and need reminders or want to make instant comments.
• Use Memos to reflect on what you are coding - do this regularly - based on the following possible questions (taken from the Oxford Broookes notes.

• Aha! That's interesting!
• WHY is that interesting?
• Why am I interested in THAT?
• What's this category a SORT of? (The start of a tree node structure).
• WHAT are the implications of that for my data/topic/research?

Memos engage with the nodes and are individual - they must be dated as part of the audit trail. They also feed into the reports - they say what did I learn from this - am I answering the research questions?

Once you have an overview of the initial coding for all the documents you can 'code on' to make tree nodes and more in depth analysis across all nodes within the chosen documents. You can drag text to tree-nodes and it helps to keep the parent tree node empty - the children nodes carry the content.

Code key readings as part of the literature review for the final report and link to data.

Go back to the Model of your initial thoughts on the outcomes and set up another one to see the changes. Date it and make it static if you want to keep looking back at the changes.

Query the data to see if the data produces expected or unexpected outcomes and answers original research questions. Record the details about your queries -

• This is what I searched - I asked this question...
• I found....
• Results when evaluated...
• Conclusion and how I got there...
• What do I need to convince people - for reports.

Keep a record of the queries run to save duplication and wasted time.

Links to external documents - these can't be queried.

Use 'compact and repair' occasionally to pull everything together and tidy files (it's version of defragging).

Useful guides taken from Patsy's slides

'Getting started' Guide in PDF

Lyn Richard's 'Ten teach yourself tutorials' in PDF

Lyn Richard's 'Up and running' post workshop guide in PDF

Pat Bazeley's 'Formatting your data for NVIVO 7' in PDF

QSR free Web-based Help Forum and FAQ

5^th September, 23^rd October, 13^th November Meetings

These meetings have centred on meeting new students, the Interim Report and In Their Own Words Report, student data collection and coding transcripts, presentations for dissemination.

Meeting New Students

By the end of September we had a leaflet ready to give the Student Services, Learning Differences Centre and the Assistive Technology Service, who were kind enough to agree to hand them on to students. The results have been patchy but we now have at least 18 students, of whom 13 have been interviewed and whose transcripts we are now beginning to code.

Interim Report and In Their Own Words Report

Having drafted the Interim Report it was very interesting to read the 'In Their Own Words Report' as this resulted in a discussion around the subject of 'beliefs'. As a result Jane Seale made some notes on the subject with the title 'An exploration of the definition of 'beliefs' in the context of the LEXDIS Project'.

Student Data Collection and Coding Transcripts

We have continued to collect student strategies as we meet students and work through the Interview Plus as part of the Learner Profile (seen at the end of the Interim Report). We have offered the chance to use video but students seem happier to make recordings to go with their strategies as can be seen from Elad's strategy.

The 13 transcripts ready for coding are being checked for typos and sent to students for checking as part of their participation. Some students provide comments and notice errors. The team are experimenting with NVIVO and hand coding with an Excel spreadsheet for quantitative data.

Presentations for Dissemination

All the presentations are available on the LexDis website. Jane Seale presented at an internal departmental seminar for the Higher Education Research Group on the subject of Participatory Research Approaches with Disabled Students.

The RAATE conference has provided another chance to present some student strategies under the title of Assistive Technology Workarounds for Social Networking.

A journey to Boulder, Colorado at the invitation of the Access Technologists Higher Education Network, for the Accessing Higher Ground Conference, provided a chance to learn more about developing accessible learning materials.

October Update to the LexDis Webpages

We have updated our web pages to include Accessibility Guides. These were initially designed for the students who took part in Phase One of the project as a very small thank you. They are now publicly available.

Some students helping us with Phase Two of the project have already offered some of their accessibility tips and are happy for us to share them on these web pages. The files can be downloaded or viewed directly.

• Sarah's Basic Accessibility Options or download the PowerPoint file Basic Accessibility Options.
• Robert's Organising Favorites in Internet Explorer or download the PowerPoint file Organising Favorites.
• Elad's method for checking complex words using Microsoft Word, Google and Babylon spell checkers in Internet Explorer.

These strategies and hopefully many others will eventually find their way into an on-line database of issues that have been mentioned by students participating in the LexDis project with examples of more strategies, plus links to guides and supporting materials.

4^th and 5^th Team Meeting

Over the summer two team meetings were held that covered the following main items.

Ethics Committee Approval

The project received Ethics committee approval on 14^th May thanks to Jane. Hints and Tips were posted on the LexDis website along with the questionnaire and student version of the project. B5 leaflets were distributed to Learning Differences Centre (LDC), Student Services (SSS) and Assistive Technology Service (ATS) who also made a poster.

Project Plan and Workpackages

The updated project plan has been accepted and has been posted on the JISC Website without the budget.

The Advisory Group

Acceptances were received from:

• Paul Blenkhorn - Sensory Software, Emeritus Professor University of Manchester, researches into speech and sight rehabilitation engineering needs for people with disabilities. - expert in assistive technologies and software development
• Natasha Boskic - Educational Technology Manager, University of British Columbia-- e-learning and accessibility specialist. SOL*R project (Shareable Online Learning Resources)
• Martyn Cooper - Senior Research Fellow, Accessible Educational Media, Open University EU4ALL Project.
• John Sewell - Senior Advisor Specialist colleges, TechDis
• Gary Wills - Senior Lecturer, Learning Societies Lab. University of Southampton - Personal Information Environments (PIEs) and their application (usability) in industry, medicine and education.
• James Llewhellin - Alumni from ECS, University of Southampton, Web developer. (wheelchair user)
• Reena Pau - Postgraduate student in computer science, acting as a pilot student (Dyslexic)
• Izac Ross - Undergraduate taking Art course on-line in USA (Dyslexic). Experienced user of assistive technologies with e-learning and social networking applications.
• Sarah Moore - Graduate Associate of the Learning Sciences Research Institute (LSRI) SchoolofEducation research interests in social networking experiences of people with disabilities and the transmission of the social facets of disability into the digital domain.

Senior Member of the Advisory Group - It was decided that as Hugh Davis is the line manager for the project, as Director of LSL, he would represent the senior member of the university.

Publication request from JISC

Although we have not confirmed which journals or the topics we hope to discuss when writing academic papers about the LexDis project (as part of our dissemination), it is hoped that we will achieve publications in several journals. Perhaps for education 'Studies in Higher Education'; assistive technology - 'Journal of Assistive Technology' and an e-learning journal such as 'Alt-J'.

Finally...

Meetings with students were discussed - how many and the type - it was decided the first meeting would not be the interview and there would be a need for a few meetings to discuss strategies, but it is hoped e-mails can also be used to collect data and possibly focus groups later in the year. As has been discussed in the report up to September 2007 much time has been spent designing a database that will work on-line and provide an easy method for maintaining the website and updating content.

Phase One Completed June 30^th 2007

Thank you so much to all those who took part. The team are very grateful to the time given by students and the support and advice received from the University of Southampton Student Services.

E-mails were sent from Southampton Student Services and Learning Differences Centre - A4 posters and small B5 handouts provided to the departments including in the Assistive Technology Service in the Library.

Students were directed to a web page with information and initial questions. This system provided a totally anonymous reply by use of an accessible form sent to the Project manager via e-mail.

Those who wished to participate further were given a chance to provide their e-mail address whilst also having the option of accessing a hints and tips page. Goodies were also on offer and those that have been in touch for a meeting, have been offered lunch/coffee and given some hand-made biscuits as a small present.

Phase Two

Students who have already met the Project Manager have all been willing to go onto Phase Two. We have had 50 replies from the first set of e-mails, despite the fact they were sent out just before and during the summer examinations. We will be e-mailing more students in October.

Thoughts So Far

The students found it hard not to answer the questions and rarely did they leave comments, as to how they could be re-worded, to make them more understandable or to their liking. It would perhaps have been better to use wording such as “The questionnaire has no right or wrong answers. It is your opinion that matters…”. However, on meeting around 10 students individually they all had comments to make. These will be collated and decisions will be made as to how best to phrase the questions used for the interviews for Phase Two. These questions will relate to the research objectives. The outcome will be shared with those who have participated in Phase One, the Student Service departments and the Advisory Group for the project. Once final comments have been received and the Learner Profile has been incorporated we will begin interviewing students.

It should be admitted that many of the students taking part in Phase One, as they went through the questions often offered up ideas related to their e-learning and use of technologies. Before Phase Two has begun, with no strategies discussed, it seemed that:

• Few were overawed by the e-learning technologies and most thought of them as tools and were often critical in a constructive manner – The School (dept) VLE for ease of use versus Blackboard.
• Interactive materials were helpful and some students went off to seek them elsewhere on the web.
• Discussion tools were an issue - some preferred the ease of use offered by Facebook or email.
• Planning ahead was important, as there was a lack of appreciation that more time may be needed to work with materials using Assistive Technologies.
• Many felt that too many PowerPoint slides in one go was not helpful e.g. over 50! Often too cluttered and not speech friendly.
• There were not enough bite sized learning objects and modules need to be more digestible! Those using Assistive Technologies may have to take breaks – listening to text with a computer voice is not always relaxing!

Team Meeting - 3^rd May 2007

This meeting tackled several issues that may affect the progress of the project.

• Progress of the Ethics committee to ratify our questions which may impact on our planned meetings with the student services departments who will hopefully be able to help us to contact students.
• Copyright issues related to the learner experience items that might be made by students such as podcasts, videos etc.
• Methodologies such as IPA and Interview Plus - analysis time - need for some adaptations to IPA and the length of time allowed for coding etc.

These and other elements are being added to the risk analysis and we are experimenting with the use of the JISC Project Controls Database, designed for this purpose. It is felt that the report produced by this needs to be extended to include an actions section. This has been done but still needs some more work.

Team meeting - 19^th April 2007

This meeting began with discussions about some of the questions we had previously set-out.

What do we mean by Assistive Technology and Enabling Technology?

Any piece of technology you use to help you access your computer or information presented on the computer. Examples would include screen-readers, mind-mapping, software, screen magnification software and alternative in-put sytems

What do we mean by on-line learning?

Any formal or informal learning resource or activity that oyu have to access or engage with using the internet. Examples would include materials lecturers put in the university virtual learning environment like Blackboard, discussion lists, blogs, wikis, e-mail, podcasts, library information databases.

What do we mean by social-networking?

Using the internet to communicate or interact with other individuals or groups (students or tutors) in order to enhance learning activities or experiences (formal and informal). Examples could include using collaborative wikis, blogs, forums or messaging services.

We then discussed the disability codes and the fact that Southampton University has slightly different ones compared to the UCAS codes used by students on their admissions forms as well as possible skill requirements with computer interactions Here is a table of possible disability categories.

Dates for meetings with Student Service Managers were discussed to link in with the Ethics Committee meeting, discussions about confidentiality and Data Protection before making decisions about sending out e-mails to possible participants.

Project planning, workpackages and dissemination were discussed along with preparation for Ellen Lessner's meeting on May 11^th. The project management meeting with JISC is on May 1^st.

Team Meeting - 30^th March 2007

Team Meeting at Southampton University with Mike Wald, Jane Seale and E.A. Draffan

Initial discussions were based around the questions we debated at the JISC meeting on 29/03/07 - There was some reshaping of our original questions within the categories provided and an understanding that clarification was needed on several elements. See Synposis.

It was decided that in may be helpful to think about the meaning of 'assistive technology' in relation to the project as this is far from clear in many peoples' minds… see attached document.

A literature review of the 'Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach' to data collection may help and any references appropriate to the project will be made available on the LExDis project website.

There is also the categories of disability as mentioned in the 'Notes on the learner profile' - The UCAS codes being a possibility, however the other option discussed was the use of task/functional requirements linked to e-learning. Here are some initial ideas that will need refining or changing completely - these are very much at a brainstorming stage.

• In-put/Output systems - e.g. scanners, keyboard and mice, Braille embossers, electronic notetakers.
• Organisation - time, planning, memory, recording.
• Communication - listening devices, SMS, mobile phones.
• Personal Customisation of the computer to aid access - magnification, colours etc.
• Ergonomics - seating etc - impact on learning - pain etc.
• Reading - screen readers, text to speech.
• Writing - spelling and proof reading.

We also continued the discussion about how to engage 'student voices' and the issues of ethics and confidentiality.