I am a Lecturer in the Institute of Educational Technology (Learning and Teaching Innovation) at The Open University. My research crosses the areas of Education and Human-Computer Interaction. I’m particularly focused on the design and evaluation of systems that support inclusion, creativity, and openness in learning. Current projects explore the experiences of online and open education for disabled students, the uses of open data as a material for learning, teaching community-led design practices through online courses, and collaborative authoring of open online courses to widen participation in higher education. I am currently working on projects funded by AHRC, Leverhulme, and HEFCE in these areas. My expertise is primarily in qualitative user-centred and participatory research. However I also work on approaches to analyse the large quantitative data sets generated by learners at scale, and am interested in how we interpret these learner analytics to inform pedagogic and technology design decisions. I was previously a Horizon Digital Economy Research Fellow and Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, working on projects funded by RCUK and AHRC to investigate online participation and learning through data.
My current teaching includes educational technology, accessible online learning, and computing project courses. I also have roles as a Data Wrangler for the WELS faculty and LTI, and as the Open Media Associate and Accessibility Coordinator for LTI.
I am an Accessibility Coordinator and an Open Media Associate. The OU has a mission to widen participation and success in education, and through these roles my work involves understanding how we can offer the most effective learning opportunities to the most people.
I co-supervise four PhD students: Irina Rets,George Alain,Francisco Iniesto and Jo Buxton. I also co-supervise two EdD students: Wendy Fowle and Karen Foley.
I am a Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded Empowering Design Practices project and a core member of the Leverhulme-funded international network:Disabled students, ICT, post compulsory education and employment: in search of new solutions
I recently led a HEIF SKE-funded project that supported the development of Our Journey. This is a set of openly licenced tools to support students to represent their experiences of study over time. We are exploring a variety of use cases for this, including as a tool for reflective learning, feedback at scale, and dialogue between staff and students.
Previously I worked as a Horizon Research Fellow and Lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham. I was involved in a range of research projects including ArtMaps, Creativity Greenhouse, and Stories of User Appropriation.
Before that, I worked as a researcher at the Institute of Educational Technology at the OU, working on the Bridge to Success, Digital Scholarship and Out There and In Here projects.
Before that, I completed my PhD research in Computer Science at the University of Bath, studying how computers can be designed to support creative interaction.
2018
- Coughlan, Tim; Pitt, Beck and Farrow, Rob. (). Forms of Innovation Inspired by Open Educational Resources: A Post-Project Analysis. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-learning (In Press).
- Iniesto, Francisco; McAndrew, Patrick; Minocha, Shailey and Coughlan, Tim. (). Open Education while discussing accessibility with MOOC providers and learners. In: OER18: Open to All, 18-19 Apr, Bristol.
- Coughlan, Tim and Lister, Katharine. (). The accessibility of administrative processes: Assessing the impacts on students in higher education. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (Web4All 2018), ACM Press, New York.
- Iniesto, Francisco; McAndrew, Patrick; Minocha, Shailey and Coughlan, Tim. (). Widening disabled learners’ participation to HE through the use of MOOCs. In: Widening Participation Conference: Is widening participation to higher education enough?, 26-28 Apr 2018, Milton Keynes.
- Alain, George; Coughlan, Tim; Adams, Anne and Yanacopulos, Helen. (). A Process for Co-Designing Educational Technology Systems for Refugee Children. In: British HCI 2018, 4-6 Jul 2018, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK.
- Alain, George; Coughlan, Tim; Adams, Anne and Yanacopulos, Helen. (). Qualitative Data Analysis Challenges in Co-Designing Educational Technology Systems for Refugee Children. In: British HCI 2018, Workshop Title: Qualitative Data Research in HCI, 3 Jul 2018, Belfast.
- Ullmann, Thomas; Lay, Stephanie; Cross, Simon; Edwards, Chris; Gaved, Mark; Jones, Edwina; Hidalgo, Rafael; Evans, Gerald; Lowe, Sue; Calder, Kathleen; Clow, Doug; Coughlan, Tim; Herodotou, Christothea; Mangafa, Chrysoula and Rienties, Bart (). Scholarly insight Spring 2018: a Data wrangler perspective. Open University UK, Milton Keynes.
- Ferguson, Rebecca; Herodotou, Christothea; Coughlan, Tim; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike (). MOOC development: priority areas. In: Luckin, Rosemary eds. Enhancing Learning and Teaching with Technology: What the Research Says London: UCL IOE Press.
2017
- Evans, Elizabeth; Coughlan, Tim and Coughlan, Vicky. (). Building digital estates: Multiscreening, technology management and ephemeral television. Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 12 (2) pp. 191-205.
- Iniesto, Francisco; McAndrew, Patrick; Minocha, Shailey and Coughlan, Tim. (). What are the expectations of disabled learners when participating in a MOOC?. In: L@S '17 Proceedings of the Fourth (2017) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 225-228.
- Iniesto, Francisco; McAndrew, Patrick; Minocha, Shailey and Coughlan, Tim. (). Auditing the accessibility of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In: 14th AAATE Congress 2017, 13-14 Sep 2017, Sheffield.
- Iniesto, Francisco; McAndrew, Patrick; Minocha, Shailey and Coughlan, Tim. (). How can MOOCs be more accessible?. In: OER17: The Politics of Open, 5 & 6 Apr 2017, London.
- Iniesto, Francisco; McAndrew, Patrick; Minocha, Shailey and Coughlan, Tim. (). What do MOOC providers think about accessibility?. In: EARLI 2017: Education in the crossroads of economy and politics – Role of research in the advancement of public good, 29 Aug - 2 Sep 2017, Tampere, Finland.
- Iniesto, Francisco; McAndrew, Patrick; Minocha, Shailey and Coughlan, Tim. (). An investigation into the perspectives of providers and learners on MOOC accessibility. In: TEEM'17: international conference technological ecosystems for enhancing multiculurality, 18-20 Oct 2017, Cadiz, Spain.
- Ferguson, Rebecca; Coughlan, Tim; Herodotou, Christothea and Scanlon, Eileen (). MOOCs: What the research of FutureLearn’s UK partners tells us. Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes.
- Rienties, Bart; Rogaten, Jekaterina; Nguyen, Quan; Edwards, Chris; Gaved, Mark; Holt, Deborah; Herodotou, Christothea; Clow, Doug; Cross, Simon; Coughlan, Tim; Jones, Jan and Ullmann, Thomas (). Scholarly insight Spring 2017: A Data Wrangler Perspective. Open University UK.
- Rienties, Bart; Clow, Doug; Coughlan, Tim; Cross, Simon; Edwards, Chris; Gaved, Mark; Herodotou, Christothea; Hlosta, Martin; Jones, Jan; Rogaten, Jekaterina and Ullmann, Thomas (). Scholarly insight Autumn 2017:a Data wrangler perspective. Open University UK.
- Coughlan, Tim; Ullmann, Thomas Daniel and Lister, Kate. (). Understanding Accessibility as a Process through the Analysis of Feedback from Disabled Students. In: W4A '17 Proceedings of the 14th Web for All Conference on The Future of Accessible Work, ACM, New York, USA.
2016
- Iniesto, Francisco; McAndrew, Patrick; Minocha, Shailey and Coughlan, Tim. (). The current state of accessibility of MOOCs: What are the next steps?. In: Open Education Global Conference 2016, 12-14 Apr 2016, Krakow, Poland.
- Iniesto, Francisco; McAndrew, Patrick; Minocha, Shailey and Coughlan, Tim. (). Accessibility of MOOCs: Understanding the Provider Perspective. Journal of Interactive Media in Education.
- Ferguson, Rebecca; Coughlan, Tim and Herodotou, Christothea (). MOOCS: What The Open University research tells us. Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes.
- Rienties, Bart; Edwards, Chris; Gaved, Mark; Marsh, Vicky; Herodotou, Christothea; Clow, Doug; Cross, Simon; Coughlan, Tim; Jones, Jan and Ullmann, Thomas (). Scholarly insight 2016: a Data wrangler perspective. Open University UK.
- Muñoz Civantos, Angeles; Brown, Michael; Coughlan, Tim; Ainsworth, Shaaron and Lorenz, Katharina. (). Using mobile media creation to structure museum interpretation with professional vision. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 20 (1) pp. 23-36.
- Coughlan, Tim; Rodriguez-Ascaso, Alejandro; Iniesto, Francisco and Jelfs, Anne. (). OLA! A Scenario-Based Approach to Enhance Open Learning Through Accessibility. In: Computers Helping People with Special Needs: Proceedings of the 15th ICCHP conference, Springer, 445-452.
- Lawson, Glyn; Brown, Michael; Floyde, Anne; Coughlan, Tim; Baurley, Sharon; Elliot, Meretta; Koppe, Therese and Tsai, Allen. (). Enhancing the Design Process with Drama-Related Methods. The Design Journal, 19 (4) pp. 605-623.
- Schnädelbach, Holger; Sun, Xu; Kefalidou, Genovefa; Coughlan, Tim; Meese, Rupert; Norris, James and Mcauley, Derek. (). Creativity Greenhouse: At-a-distance collaboration and competition over research funding. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 87 pp. 1-19.
2015
- Evans, Joanna; Brown, Michael; Coughlan, Tim; Lawson, Glyn and Craven, Michael P.. (). A systematic review of dementia focused assistive technology. In: Human-Computer Interaction: Interaction Technologies, Springer, 406-417.
- Coughlan, Tim (). Using Open Data as a Material for Introductory Programming Assignments. In: Atenas, Javiera and Havemann, Leo eds. Open Data as Open Educational Resources: Case studies of emerging practice London: Open Knowledge: Open Education Working Group, pp. 38-48.
- Coughlan, Tim; Carletti, Laura; Giannachi, Gabriella; Benford, Steve; McAuley, Derek; Price, Dominic; Locatelli, Cristina; Sinker, Rebecca and Stack, John. (). ArtMaps: interpreting the spatial footprints of artworks. In: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2015, 18-23 Apr, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
- Baron, Nick; Carletti, Laura; Muñoz Civantos, Angeles; Coughlan, Tim; Allen, Robert; Lach, Pamella; Davies, Catherine; Tyler-Jones, Richard and Ferran, Bronac. (). Spatial Humanities Moving Beyond the Dot on a Map. In: Proceedings of the Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts Conference, DRHA2014, 111-116.
- Schnädelbach, Holger; Coughlan, Tim; Kefalidou, Genovefa; McAuley, Derek and Meese, Rupert. (). Creativity Bento Box: a physical resource pack to support interaction in virtual space. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 31 (11) pp. 790-804.
2014
- Shipp, Victoria; Coughlan, Tim; Martindale, Sarah; Ng, Kher Hui; Evans, Elizabeth; Mortier, Richard and Reeves, Stuart. (). Wearables or infrastructure: contrasting approaches to collecting behavioural data in the home. In: HomeSys 2014, 7 Sep 2014, Seattle, WA, USA.
- Coughlan, Tim; Brown, Michael; Lawson, Glyn; McAuley, Derek; Baurley, Sharon; Tsai, Allen; Koppe, Therese; Elliott, Meretta; Green, Stephen and Martin, Jen. (). Living with the user: design drama for dementia care through responsive scripted experiences in the home. In: UbiComp 2014, 13-17 Sep 2014, Seattle, WA, USA.
- Brown, Michael; Coughlan, Tim; Blum, Jesse; Lawson, Glyn; Houghton, Robert; Mortier, Richard; Goulden, Murray and Arunachalam, Unna. (). Tailored Scenarios: A Low-Cost Online Method to Elicit Perceptions of Home Technologies Using Participant-Specific Contextual Information. Interacting with Computers, 27 (1) pp. 60-71.
- Brown, Michael; Tsai, Allen; Baurley, Sharon; Koppe, Therese; Lawson, Glyn; Martin, Jen; Coughlan, Tim; Elliott, Meretta; Green, Stephen and Arunachalam, Unna. (). Using cultural probes to inform the design of assistive technologies. In: Human-Computer Interaction. Theories, Methods, and Tools, Springer, 35-46.
2013
- Coughlan, Tim; Brown, Michael; Lawson, Glyn; Mortier, Richard; Houghton, Robert J. and Goulden, Murray. (). Tailored scenarios: a low-cost online method to elicit perceptions on designs using real relationships. In: CHI 2013 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 27 Apr - 02 May 2013, Paris.
- Coughlan, Tim; Ebrahimi, Nassim; McAndrew, Patrick and Pitt, Rebecca. (). Assessing OER impact across varied organisations and learners: experiences from the "Bridge to Success" initiative. In: OER13: Creating a Virtuous Circle, 26-27 Mar 2013, Nottingham, UK.
- Coughlan, Tim; Leder Mackley, Kerstin; Brown, Michael; Martindale, Sarah; Schlögl, Stephan; Mallaband, Becky; Arnott, John; Hoonhout, Jettie; Szostak, Dalila; Brewer, Robin; Poole, Erika; Pirhonen, Antti; Mitchell, Val; Pink, Sarah and Hine, Nicholas. (). Current Issues and Future Directions in Methods for Studying Technology in the Home. PsychNology Journal, 11 (2) pp. 159-184.
- Coughlan, Tim; Pitt, Rebecca and McAndrew, Patrick. (). Building open bridges: collaborative remixing and reuse of open educational resources across organisations. In: 2013 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems ‘changing perspectives’ (CHI 2013), 29 Apr - 02 May 2013, Paris, France.
- van der Linden, Janet; Rogers, Yvonne; Coughlan, Tim; Adams, Anne; Wilson, Caroline; Haya, Pablo; Martin, Estafania and Collins, Trevor. (). Evocative computing – creating meaningful lasting experiences in connecting with the past. In: Interact 2013, 2-6 Sep 2013, Cape Town. South Africa.
- Brown, Michael; Coughlan, Tim; Lawson, Glyn; Goulden, Murray; Houghton, Robert J. and Mortier, Richard. (). Exploring Interpretations of Data from the Internet of Things in the Home. Interacting with Computers, 25 (3) pp. 204-217.
2012
- Coughlan, Tim; Brown, Michael; Houghton, Robert and Lawson, Glyn. (). Exploring new connections between the physical and digital for future heritage interpretations. In: CHI 2012 Workshop: Heritage Matters, 5-10 May 2012, Austin, Texas.
- Coughlan, Tim; Brown, Michael; Mortier, Richard; Houghton, Robert J.; Goulden, Murray and Lawson, Glyn. (). Exploring acceptance and consequences of the Internet of Things in the home. In: iThings 2012, 20-23 Nov 2012, Besancon, France.
- Coughlan, Tim; Collins, Trevor D.; Adams, Anne; Rogers, Yvonne; Haya, Pablo A. and Martin, Estefania. (). The conceptual framing, design and evaluation of device ecologies for collaborative activities. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 70 (10) pp. 765-779.
- Coughlan, Tim; van der Linden, Janet and Adams, Anne. (). Local connections: designing technologies for discovery and creativity within the community. Interactions, 19 (1) pp. 18-22.
2011
- Adams, Anne; Coughlan, Tim; Lea, John; Rogers, Yvonne; Davies, Sarah-Jane and Collins, Trevor. (). Designing interconnected distributed resources for collaborative inquiry based science education. In: ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, 13-17 Jun 2011, Ottawa.
- Adams, Anne; Coughlan, Tim; Rogers, Yvonne; Collins, Trevor; Davies, Sarah-Jane; Blake, Canan and Lea, John. (). Live linking of fieldwork to the laboratory increases students inquiry based reflections. In: CSCL 2011: International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 04-08 Jul 2011, Hong Kong.
- Coughlan, Tim; Adams, Anne; Collins, Trevor; Davies, Sarah-Jane; Lea, John and Rogers, Yvonne. (). Working with ‘mission control’ in scientific fieldwork: supporting interactions between in situ and distanced collaborators. In: The 2011 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 19-23 Mar 2011, Hangzhou, China.
- Coughlan, Tim; Adams, Anne; Rogers, Yvonne and Davies, Sarah-Jane. (). Enabling live dialogic and collaborative learning between field and indoor contexts. In: The 25th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction, 04-08 Jul 2011, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
2010
- Middup, Christopher P.; Coughlan, Tim and Johnson, Peter. (). How Creative Groups Structure Tasks through Negotiating Resources. In: COOP 2010: the 9th International Conference on Designing Cooperative Systems, 18-21 May 2010, Aix-en-Provence, France.
- Coughlan, Tim; Adams, Anne and Rogers, Yvonne. (). Designing for balance: 'Out There and in Here'. In: 24th BCS Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI2010): Play is a Serious Business, 6-10 Sep 2010, Dundee, Scotland.
2009
- Coughlan, Tim and Johnson, Peter. (). Designing personal information management systems for creative practitioners. Journal of Digital Information.
- Coughlan, Tim and Johnson, Peter. (). Understanding productive, structural and longitudinal interactions in the design of tools for creative activities. In: Creativity and Cognition, 26-30 Oct 2009, Berkeley, California.
2008
- Coughlan, Tim and Johnson, Peter. (). An exploration of constraints and end user development in environments for creative tasks. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 24 (5) pp. 444-459.
2006
- Coughlan, Tim and Johnson, Peter. (). Interaction in creative tasks: ideation, representation and evaluation in composition. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2006 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2006, ACM Press, 531-540.
Current
Go the Distance
BBC | 1st November 2017
Past
Conference Presentation
23rd April 2018
The accessibility of administrative processes: Assessing the impacts on students in higher education
Web for All 2018 Conference
Conference Presentation
19th April 2016
Reflecting back on the diverse innovations and impacts prompted by an OER project.
OER16: Open Culture University of Edinburgh, UK
Social media
Areas of expertise
Affiliations
Research Students
Professional Memberships
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy