About
Building on many years of experience in producing and delivering OU modules, I chair the module team for the masters module H880 Technology-enhanced learning, a 60 credit (30 ECTS credits) masters module in our Online and Distance Education programme delivered through the FutureLearn platform. I previously chaired H817 Openness and innovation in elearning which has now completed its final presentation. In addition, I help run this programme which includes an increasing number of microcredentials, through staff tutor and assessment responsibilities. My contribution to teaching also includes supporting faculties in areas of learning analytics. Primarily through supporting projects in the University's Scholarship Centres, and in particular, PRAXIS, the Scholarship Centre for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) by providing analyses and reflection that enables colleagues to better pursue the enhancement of their curriculum and the student experience.
My research and scholarship interests call on extensive experience of working across faculties and University units, and centres on methods to better structure and understand student study pathway and experience data (Edwards, 2017; Rienties et al, 2018; Clow et al, 2019; Edwards and Gaved, 2020). This links strongly to the Erasmus+ Complex Trajectories project I am currently working on. This interest in the student experience also encompasses assessment and feedback. Including the development of a permanently available, automated feedback tool for the coherence in essay writing, the Open Essay Optimiser, which further develops OpenEssayist (Edwards et al, 2022). Previously, my research activity was directed towards the TeSLA project, which explored the use of e-authentication tools within online student assessment (Edwards et al, 2018 (a) and (b); Edwards et al, 2019; Okada et al, 2019). Also, The MOVEME project, also called 'MOOC Italiano Inglese in Tandem', in the project section (Perez-Cavana and Edwards, 2017).
Biography
Chris is a senior lecturer in the Institute of Educational Technology IET and chairs the masters module ‘H880 Technology-enhanced learning’, one of the University's first modules to be delivered through the FutureLearn platform as part of the exploration of how new approaches can benefit OU students and learners. He has authored on ‘H819 The critical researcher: educational technology in practice’. He has also written and taught on a FutureLearn MOOC to develop international students academic English, provides learning analytics support to faculties, and has held institutional responsibilities for the Stage-gate process and for scrutiny and use of learning outcomes. Chris has a range of research interests that centre on understanding and improving the student experience. He has developed a student experience pathways model that introduces a step change in enabling a full understanding of the student experience; advised in the development of the Open Essay Optimiser, and led the trial of this new student facing tool; and reviews wider issues, for example, the impact of different assessment strategies and students' experience of the National Student Survey.