Several doctoral students and staff supervising research in the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) at Dublin City University (DCU) were delighted to accept “best paper” awards at two recent European conferences. At the EDEN Research Workshop in Barcelona, PhD students Elaine Beirne and Conchúr MacLochlainn and Professor Mairéad Nic Giolla Mhichíl were presented with an award for their paper on Moody MOOCs: An Exploration of Emotion in an LMOOC. The paper was singled out for its originally, unique methodological design and investigation of a relatively new area of research in the area of online learning.
DCU was also well represented at the full-day Doctoral Symposium as part of the research workshop, with five doctoral students presenting on aspects of their research. In addition, NIDL scholars had a strong presence in the main workshop programme with another five full papers showcasing current research activities. A full list of scholarly outputs produced by the NIDL team over the course of 2018 is available on the NIDL website.
More recently at the European Conference on e-Learning (ECEL), PhD student Colette Kirwan, supervised by Dr Eamon Costello and Dr Enda Donlon received an award for her paper on Computational Thinking and Online Learning: A Systematic Literature Review. Colette is an Irish Research Council scholar currently investigating the teaching of computational thinking online.
Congratulations to recipients of these two research awards and we look forward to a growing doctoral community, particularly now that DCU Institute of Education has launched a new doctoral strand in the area of Digital Learning in the Doctor of Education (EdD) programme.
Digital Learning Dispatches 