Dr Rebecca Ferguson

Profile

I am currently researching Educational Futures, with a particular interest in

• online social learning
• social learning analytics
• digital literacies
• augmented learning.

Qualifications

The Open University                                              PhD

The Open University                                              MSc (Research Methods in Educational Technology)

Homerton College, University of Cambridge         PGCE

Birkbeck College, University of London                 MA Early Modern History

Royal Holloway College, University of London      BA (Hons) English 2(i)

Research Interests

2011

Ferguson, Rebecca (2011). Meaningful learning and creativity in virtual worlds. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 6(3), pp. 169–178.

Ferguson, R. (2011). Use of questions to facilitate social learning in a Web 2.0 environment. Revista de Universidad y Sociedad del Conocimiento, 8(1). http://oro.open.ac.uk/26312/

Ferguson, R., & Buckingham Shum, S. (2011). Learning analytics to identify exploratory dialogue within synchronous text chat. Paper presented at the 1st International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, Banff, Canada. http://oro.open.ac.uk/28955/

Little, S., Ferguson, R., & Rüger, S. (2011, 27 June-1 July). Navigating and discovering educational materials through visual similarity search. Paper presented at the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (EDMEDIA), Lisbon, Portugal. http://oro.open.ac.uk/28987/

2010

Sheehy, K., Ferguson, R., & Clough, G. (Eds.). (2010). Virtual Worlds: Controversies at the Frontier of Education. New York: Nova Science.

Clough, G., & Ferguson, R. (2010). Virtual worlds are authentic sites for learning. In K. Sheehy, R. Ferguson & G. Clough (Eds.), Virtual Worlds: Controversies at the Frontier of Education. New York: Nova Science.

Ferguson, R. (2010). Peer Interaction: the experience of distance students at university level. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 574-584. http://oro.open.ac.uk/24727/

Ferguson, R., & Sheehy, K. (2010). Breaking down the barriers between teachers and learners. In K. Sheehy, R. Ferguson & G. Clough (Eds.), Virtual Worlds: Controversies at the Frontier of Education. New York: Nova Science.

Ferguson, R., Sheehy, K., & Clough, G. (2010). Challenging education in virtual worlds. In K. Sheehy, R. Ferguson & G. Clough (Eds.), Virtual Worlds: Controversies at the Frontier of Education (pp. 1-16). New York: Nova Science.

Ferguson, R., Whitelock, D., & Littleton, K. (2010). Improvable objects and attached dialogue: new literacy practices employed by learners to build knowledge together in asynchronous settings. Digital Culture and Education, 2(1), 116-136. http://oro.open.ac.uk/21460/

Ferguson, R., Clough, G., & Hosein, A. (2010). Shifting themes, shifting roles: the development of research blogs. In L. Creanor, D. Hawkridge, K. Ng & F. Rennie (Eds.), 'Into Something Rich and Strange' - Making Sense of the Sea-Change. The 17th Association for Learning Technology Conference (ALT-C 2010) (pp. 111-118). Held 7-9 September 2010, University of Nottingham, England, UK. http://oro.open.ac.uk/22962/

Ferguson, R., Harrison, R., & Weinbren, D. (2010). Heritage and the recent and contemporary past. In T. Benton (Ed.), Understanding Heritage and Memory (pp. 277-315). Manchester: Manchester University Press. http://oro.open.ac.uk/25653/

2009

Ferguson, R. (2009). The Construction of Shared Knowledge through Asynchronous Dialogue. Unpublished PhD, The Open University, Milton Keynes. http://oro.open.ac.uk/19908/

Gillen, J., Twining, P., Ferguson, R., Butters, O. W., Clough, G., Gaved, M., et al. (2009). A learning community for teens on a virtual island - The Schome Park Teen Second Life Pilot project. http://www.elearningeuropa.info/files/media/media19741.pdf

Thorpe, M., Godwin, S., & Ferguson, R. (2009). Technologies in use: how context and design drive their effects. In U. Bernath, A. Szücs, A. Tait & M. Vidal (Eds.), Distance and E-learning in Transition (pp. 595-606). London: ISTE. http://oro.open.ac.uk/19910/

2008

Sheehy, K., & Ferguson, R. (2008). Educational inclusion and new technologies. In T. B. Scott & J. I. Livingstone (Eds.), Leading Edge Educational Technology. New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Sheehy, K., Ferguson, R., & Clough, G. (2007). Learning and teaching in the panopticon: ethical and social issues in creating a virtual educational environment. International Journal of Social Sciences, 2(2), 89-96. http://oro.open.ac.uk/8615/

2007

Ferguson, R., Clough, G., & Hosein, A. (2007). Postgraduate blogs: beyond the ordinary research journal. In S. Wheeler & N. Whitton (Eds.), Proceedings of the 14th Association for Learning Technology Conference (ALT-C 2007) Beyond Control: Learning Technology for the Social Network Generation (pp. 179-189). http://oro.open.ac.uk/12275/

Current Research Projects

Educational Futures

Working at the intersection of complex social and technological change, the intellectually driven, cross-disciplinary Educational Futures network profiles and fosters Open University research that is (re)conceptualising contemporary and next-generation educational practices and technologies.
The work of the network engages with the substantial challenges associated with learning for life in the 21st century. Rooted in the university’s distinctive history of educational innovation and commitment to social justice and widening participation, the network showcases the diverse ways in which The Open University is working to build educational futures. Researchers across the University are envisaging, theorising and instantiating new places and spaces for learning, both formal and non-formal – offering distinctive local solutions to global challenges.

EnquiryBlogger

This project, funded by the Learning Futures programme in 2010-2011, tuned a blogging tool to scaffold authentic enquiry-based learning. That initial project ended in Sept 2011 with the release of the software.

Run jointly by the Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute, and University of Bristol’s Centre for Systems Learning & Leadership, EnquiryBlogger provides a set of plugins which extend one of the world’s most popular, robust, open source blogging platforms, WordPress (multisite edition, enabling admin of many child blogs under a parent blog).

Schome

Schome is an ongoing research initiative which is working to develop a ‘fit for purpose’ education system for society today. We are working on developing a system which will support people learning throughout their lives, from the cradle to the grave. Unlike other initiatives to transform education the Schome Initiative takes the view that you need to start with a vision of the ideal education system that would genuinely meet the needs of society and individuals in the 21st Century and would be unconstrained by pre-conceptions of existing education systems.

As part of this work, the Schome Park Programme consisted of a series of research projects, which set out to extend thinking about what education systems might be like. Nearly two hundred 13 to 17 year olds, and around 50 adults, have had some level of involvement with the programme, which used our ‘closed’ island(s) in Teen Second Life™ virtual world alongside a project wiki and forum.

SocialLearn

The SocialLearn Project is part of Open University R&D playing at the intersection of the tectonic forces now moulding the learning landscape.
Think new models of social learning, collective sensemaking, open educational resources, quality, p2p/mentoring relationships, authentic inquiry, learning narratives, internet business…
Right now, SocialLearn is investigating what it means to tune social media spaces for learning:

• conceptual foundations for social learning and sensemaking
• human-centred design perspectives on open, social systems
• prototyping and evaluation

SoLAR

The Society for Learning Analytics Research is an inter-disciplinary network of leading international researchers who are exploring the role and impact of analytics on teaching, learning, training and development.

Publications

Blog posts

08May

SoLAR Summit

Following the LAK12 conference, I was invited to join the learning analytics summit organised by SoLAR. The Society for Learning Analytic Research (SoLAR) is taking the lead in the field by organising the LAK conferences and working to coordinate research plans and new initiatives. The summit brought together 60 people, including foundations, grant agencies, organisations, [...]

08May

Social Learning Analytics: Five Approaches

2 May, and my main LAK12 conference paper on social learning analytics - co-authored with Simon Buckingham Shum. This provides a context for the learning analytics research and development work that we are currently carrying out on SocialLearn. Social learning analytics: LAK 2012 View more PowerPoint from Rebecca Ferguson Video recording (to come: after conference). [...]

08May

Evidence Framework for Innovation and Excellence in Education

While at LAK, I was invited to take part in a focus group to inform the U.S. Department of  Education’s Evidence Framework for Innovation and Excellence in Education. The team working on this has already produced a draft report, Enhancing Teaching and Learning Through Educational Data Mining and Learning Analytics, that references my state-of-the-art review [...]

08May

Slideshare stats

Slideshare emailed me recently to point out that my presentations have had 10,000 views. It’s difficult to know how seriously to take this figure – after all, many of these ‘views’ may be people or bots browsing through and not reading anything. Perhaps more meaningful is the fact that I have currently had my presentations [...]

08May

Mentoring Analytics

In Vancouver for LAK 2012, the second Learning Analytics and Knowledge conference. Lots of good representation from the Open University: Simon Buckingham Shum taking the lead as one of the programme chairs, Doug Clow joining the panel on building a data governance model for learning analytics, Fenella Galpin and Sharon Slade leading a workshop on [...]

20Apr

Use of Visual Analysis to Investigate Networked Learning in Online Forums

At the beginning of April, I took the Eurostar to Belgium and then travelled on to Maastricht to attend the Networked Learning conference at the School of Management. The conference included at a drinks reception at the nearby government building, where the Treaty of Maastricht was signed 20 years ago, leading to the introduction of [...]

20Apr

Towards a social learning space for open educational resources (chapter)

In November 2010, Simon Buckingham Shum travelled to Barcelona to present our jointly authored paper at OpenED2010. That presentation evolved into a chapter for Collaborative Learning 2.0: Open Educational Resources, ‘a collection of the latest research, trends, future development and case studies within the field’. Ferguson, R. & Buckingham Shum, S. (2012), Towards a social [...]

07Feb

Distributed cognition in a virtual world

New article out, in a special issue of Language and Education on literacies and sites of learning. Gillen, J., Ferguson, R., Peachey, A., & Twining, P. (2012). Distributed cognition in a virtual world. Language and Education, 26(2), 151-167. Abstract Over a 13-month period, the Schome Park Programme operated the first ‘closed’ (i.e. protected) Teen Second [...]

07Feb

2012 Horizon Report

The report on social learning analytics that I wrote with Simon Buckingham Shum last year has been cited in the 2012 Horizon Report. Each year, the Horizon Project describes findings from the NMC Horizon Project, a decade-long research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and [...]

09Jan

Tools for digital scholarship

On 31 December 2011, I came to the end of a year-long project to record a screenshot a day on Tumblr. This was prompted, in part, by a post on Martin Weller’s Ed Techie blog about the tools used by digital scholars. I can sum up some of the key tools I use fairly quickly, [...]