Dr Maria Aristeidou PhD, FHEA, MSc, BA (Hons)

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Technology Enhanced Learning and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

I am a mixed-methods researcher that combines expertise from the Education, Human-Computer Interaction and Citizen Science fields. The main focuses of my research are the design and evaluation of engaging learning technologies and the higher education student experience.

Teaching experience

I develop projects around the 'changing learner' as part of the Quality Enhancement and Innovation (QEI) team. Insights from these projects help the OU to take useful actions to better support the learning experience and outcomes of students. My current projects are:

(a) The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the learning activities of the OU undergraduate students.

(b) Younger students: exploring the background, motivation, experiences and recommendations of OU's younger students.

In the past:

I evaluated the benefits and challenges of producing and presenting OU courses of high quality (i.e. H880, BXM840, BXM850 & D890) on the FutureLearn platform, for students and staff.

I also contributed to the following MA in Online and Distance Education (MAODE) modules:

• H880: Technology-enhanced learning: foundations and futures (module creation/authoring team)
  
• H800: Technology-enhanced learning: practices and debates (content check and plagiarism check)
  
• H819: The critical researcher: educational technology in practice (plagiarism check)
  

Research experience

I'm currently leading the following projects:

• CitSci Edu: understanding and improving the experience of educators who engage young people in citizen science activities. Funder: Santander; partner: University of Barcelona, Spain.
• PhD students well-being during Covid-19: understanding the potential impact of Covid-19 on the research progress and well-being of PhD students, worldwide. Funders: PVC-RES, IET, UCL; partner: University College London (UCL) School of management.

I'm currently contributing to the following projects:

• LEARN CitSci: looking to answer how we can use citizen science programming to better educate, enable and empower youth in science. My role is to understand how young people learn in citizen science online settings, and in particular on Zooniverse and iNaturalist. I am analysing young people's log data, and conducting and analysing surveys and interviews. Funders: NHS, Wellcome trust & ESRC.
  

Recently, I lead/contributed to these projects:

• CitSci diaries (lead): developing a methodology (settings, instructions, modes, time-frame, evaluation) for applying diary studies in citizen science as a way of capturing citizen engagement. Funder: European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST); partner: Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, Germany.
  
• nQuire (contributed): developing an online citizen inquiry platform for large-scale public experiments in psychology and social science, in collaboration with the BBC.

Research methods experiences

I am a mixed methods researcher with experience using social network analysis, data analytics, interviews, surveys, and content/vocabulary analysis.

Dr Maria Aristeidou is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at The Open University (OU), UK, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Her interests lie on the boundary between education, human-computer interaction and citizen science. She has contributed to the MA in Open and Distance Education (OU) and the evaluation of the OU FutureLearn courses. The focus of her research is the design and evaluation of engaging learning technologies and the experiences of Higher Education students. She is currently involved in the LEARN CitSci project (funded by the National Science Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and ESRC). She also holds funding from the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) to investigate citizen diaries as a method to capture citizens’ engagement in science projects; and a scholarship award from Santander to understand and improve the experience of educators who engage young people in citizen science activities (CitSci Edu). She is also contributing to the OU/BBC 'Tomorrow's World nQuire' project.

2021

• Aristeidou, Maria and Cross, Simon (2021). The impact of Covid-19 disruption on the learning activities of OU students (Final Report). The Open University.

• Aristeidou, Maria; Sharples, Mike and Scanlon, Eileen (2021). Technologies for citizen inquiry: participatory research in online communities. In: Burns, Danny; Howard, Joanna and Ospina, Sonia M. eds. The SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Enquiry London: SAGE Publications, pp. (In press).

• Aristeidou, Maria; Herodotou, Christothea; Ballard, Heidi L.; Young, Alison N.; Miller, Annie E.; Higgins, Lila and Johnson, Rebecca F.. (2021). Exploring the participation of young citizen scientists in scientific research: The case of iNaturalist. PLoS ONE.

2020

• Bruckermann, T; Lorke, J; Rafolt, S; Scheuch, M; Aristeidou, Maria; Ballard, H; Bardy-Durchhalter, M; Carli, E; Herodotou, Christothea; Kelemen-Finan, J; Robinson, L; Swanson, R; Winter, S and Kapelari, S. (2020). Learning Opportunities and Outcomes in Citizen Science: A Heuristic Model for Design and Evaluation. In: Electronic Proceedings of the ESERA 2019 Conference. The Beauty and Pleasure of Understanding: Engaging With Contemporary Challenges Through Science Education, University of Bologna, 889-898.

• Herodotou, Christothea; Aristeidou, Maria; Miller, Grant; Ballard, Heidi and Robinson, Lucy. (2020). What Do We Know about Young Volunteers? An Exploratory Study of Participation in Zooniverse. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice.

• Aristeidou, Maria and Herodotou, Christothea. (2020). Online Citizen Science: A Systematic Review of Effects on Learning and Scientific Literacy. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 5 (1) pp. 1-12.

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike. (2020). Learning outcomes in online citizen science communities designed for inquiry. International Journal of Science Education, Part B: Communication and Public Engagement, 10 (4) pp. 277-294.

• Herodotou, Christothea; Papathoma, Tina; Aristeidou, Maria; Miller, Grant; Ghadiri, Maryam; Lorke, Julia and Ballard, Heidi. (2020). What do young volunteers learn from participation in online crowdsourced citizen science? Environmental science learning through Zooniverse. In: ECSA conference 2020, 7-10 Sep 2020, Trieste, Italy.

2019

• Lorke, Julia; Ballard, Heidi L.; Aristeidou, Maria; Herodotou, Christothea; Ghadiri, Maryam; Swanson, Rebecca D. and Robinson, Lucy D.. (2019). “Don’t step on the volcanoes!” – Developing Environmental Science Agency through participation in Museum-Led Citizen Science Projects. In: The beauty and pleasure of understanding: engaging with contemporary challenges through science education (Proceeding of ESERA 2019), 26-30 Aug 2019, Bologna, Italy.

• Herodotou, Christothea; Muirhead, Dave K.; Aristeidou, Maria; Hole, Malcolm J.; Kelley, Simon; Scanlon, Eileen and Duffy, Marcus. (2019). Blended and online learning: A comparative study of virtual microscopy in Higher Education. Interactive Learning Environments (Early Access).

• Sharples, Mike; Aristeidou, Maria; Herodotou, Christothea; McLeod, Kevin and Scanlon, Eileen. (2019). Inquiry learning at scale: pedagogy-informed design of a platform for citizen inquiry. In: L@S 2019: Sixth ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale, 24-25 Jun 2019, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

• Ballard, Heidi; Herodotou, Christothea; Lorke, Julia; Aristeidou, Maria; Robinson, Lucy; Johnson, Rebecca; Young, Alison; Higgins, Lila; Jennewein, Jessie; Miller, Annie; Pratt-Taweh, Sasha; Sanghera, Harpreet; Miller, Grant and Pauly, Greg. (2019). Characterizing Youth Participation in Natural History Museum-led Citizen Science: Online and in the Field. In: Citizen Science Association, 13-17 Mar 2019, Raleigh, North Carolina.

2018

• Aristeidou, Maria and Herodotou, Christothea. (2018). Tomorrow’s World nQuire: young people’s requirements for engaging with inquiry-led, civic engagement technologies. In: Proceedings of 17th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn 2018), LearnTechLib, 51-53.

• Herodotou, Christothea; Aristeidou, M.; Scanlon, E. and Kelley, S.. (2018). Best Practice in Teaching with the Virtual Microscope: A Comparative Study of Blended and Online Learning. In: 7th eSTEeM Annual Conference, 25-26 Apr 2018, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.

• Herodotou, Christothea; Aristeidou, Maria; Sharples, Mike and Scanlon, Eileen. (2018). Designing citizen science tools for learning: lessons learnt from the iterative development of nQuire. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning.

2017

• Sharples, Mike; Aristeidou, Maria; Villasclaras-Fernández, Eloy; Herodotou, Christothea and Scanlon, Eileen. (2017). The Sense-it App: A Smartphone Toolkit for Citizen Inquiry Learning. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 9 (2) pp. 16-38.

• Aristeidou, Maria. (2017). Science Learning Experiences in Citizen Inquiry Communities. In: CALRG Annual Conference 2017, 14-16 Jun 2017, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike (2017). Design processes of a citizen inquiry community. In: Herodotou, Christothea; Sharples, Mike and Scanlon, Eileen eds. Citizen Inquiry: Synthesising Science and Inquiry Learning Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 210-229.

• Muirhead, David K.; Herodotou, Christothea; Aristeidou, Maria; Hole, M. J.; Kelley, Simon; Scanlon, Eileen and Duffy, M.. (2017). A Comparative Study of Blended and Online Learning using the Virtual Microscope for Earth Sciences. In: Horizons in STEM Higher Education Conference: Making Connections and Sharing Pedagogy, 39 Jun - 30 June 2017, Heriot-Watt University, UK.

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike. (2017). Design Guidelines for Sensor-based Mobile Learning Applications. In: mLearn 2017 Proceedings of the 16th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning, ACM, New York, NY, USA.

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike. (2017). Profiles of engagement in online communities of citizen science participation. Computers in Human Behavior, 74 pp. 246-256.

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike. (2017). Science learning in online communities of scientific investigations: evidence and suggestions. In: American Educational Research Association Annual Conference 2017, 27 Apr - 01 May 2017, San Antonio, Texas, USA.

• Herodotou, Christothea; Aristeidou, Maria; Kelley, Simon and Scanlon, Eileen. (2017). Students' engagement with practical science online: Pedagogical implications of the use of virtual microscope in distance learning. In: EARLI 2017, 29 Aug - 2 Sep 2017.

2016

• Aristeidou, Maria (2016). Citizen Inquiry: Engaging Citizens in Online Communities of Scientific Inquiries. PhD thesis Institute of Educational Technology.

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike. (2016). Engaging citizens in online communities of scientific investigations. In: Citizen Science Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy, First ECSA Conference 2016, 19-21 May 2016, Berlin, Germany.

2015

• Sharples, Mike; Aristeidou, Maria; Villasclaras-Fernández, Eloy; Herodotou, Christothea and Scanlon, Eileen. (2015). Sense-it: A Smartphone Toolkit for Citizen Inquiry Learning. In: The Mobile Learning Voyage – From Small Ripples to Massive Open Waters, 366-377.

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike. (2015). Weather-it: evolution of an online community for citizen inquiry. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Knowledge Technologies and Data-driven Business, i-Know 2015, ACM.

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike (2015). Weather-it missions: a social network analysis perspective of an online citizen inquiry community. In: Conole, G.; Klobučar, T.; Rensing, C.; Konert, J. and Lavoué, E. eds. Design for Teaching and Learning in a Networked World, Proceedings of 10th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2015, Toledo, Spain, September 15-18 Springer, pp. 3-16.

2014

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike. (2014). Inquiring Rock Hunters. In: Open Learning and Teaching in Educational Communities, Springer International Publishing, 546-547.

2013

• Aristeidou, Maria; Scanlon, Eileen and Sharples, Mike. (2013). A design-based study of Citizen Inquiry for geology. In: EC-TEL 2013 Eighth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, 17-21 Sep 2013, Paphos (Cyprus).

Current

	LEARN CitSci (LEARN CitSci: Learning and Environmental science Agency Research Network for Citizen Science )	2017 - 2021
	PhD students well-being during COVID-19	2020 - 2021
	CitSci Edu (Understanding and improving the experience of educators engaging young people in citizen science activities)	2019 - 2021

Completed

	CitSci diaries (Citizen diaries as a method to capture citizens’ engagement in science projects)	2019 - 2020
	nQuire	2017 - 2020

OU Life | 28th January 2021

Times Higher Education | 10th December 2020

Open University Research | 1st October 2020

Past

Invited Talk

11th June 2020

Learning in online citizen science

#CitSciWebinar Online Citizen Science & Learning

Conference Presentation

14th November 2018

Tomorrow's World nQuire: young people’s requirements for engaging with inquiry-led technologies

mLearn 2018

Awards

Coronavirus research fund:

Coronavirus research fund:

Early Career Research Travel Award

Santander Research & Scholarship Award:

Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) grant: