DCU – Page 11 – Digital Learning Dispatches

On Tuesday a large group of friends, colleagues and invited guests, including the Lord Mayor of Dublin and senior government officials, gathered at O’Connell House on Merrion Square in Dublin to celebrate the formal launch of “Irish 101“, Dublin City University’s (DCU) free online course on Irish language and culture. The event also formally launched the wider Fáilte ar Líne (Welcome online) project co-funded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht under the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030.

Speaking at the launch, Minister of State for the Irish Language, Gaeltacht and the Islands, and the Government’s Chief Whip, Joe McHugh TD, congratulated DCU on this important online lifelong learning initiative. He reported that “As Minister of State with responsibility for the Irish language, and in my previous role as Minister of State for the Diaspora, I have witnessed at first hand the incredible interest and passion that there is for our language and culture worldwide.”

Professor Mairead Nic Giolla Mhichíl, project lead, Head of the NIDL Ideas Lab, and a member of DCU’s Irish Language School, Fiontar agus Scoil na Gaeilge, noted in her speech that we want to give first, second and third generations of the Irish diaspora an opportunity to learn more about Irish language and culture. Mairead went on to say the initiative is:

An important step in enhancing the global, online presence of the Irish language; connecting with the Irish diaspora; and promoting opportunities to study in and to visit Ireland.

The “Irish 101” MOOC, which will start on the 29th of January, is being delivered in conjunction with FutureLearn. DCU will also offer a MOOC on “High Performance Computing in the Cloud” starting on the same day. The two MOOCs, which may appear at very different ends of the knowledge continuum, reflects both the diversity of courses and degree programmes available through DCU, and metaphorically speaking the contemporary face of Ireland where traditional culture and today’s modern hi-tech digital society co-exist.

Professor Mark Brown, Director of the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL), talked about the significance of DCU’s partnership with FutureLearn in the context of the new Higher Education System Performance Framework and the Government’s goal to lift Ireland’s current low level of participation in life-long learning. Ireland is currently well below the EU average. Mark also noted DCU’s strong commitment over many years to opening up access to higher education through DCU Connected, and the opportunity for Ireland to be a global leader in meeting growing demand worldwide for university-level education through new pathways and online learning solutions.

There have already been thousands of enrolments in “Irish 101” with so far people registering from over 110 countries. Irish 101.jpg A programme of research is also associated with this initiative which builds on the NIDL’s growing reputation in this burgeoning area, as evidenced by DCU being selected to host the 2019 ICDE World Conference on Online Learning. Further free short online courses are planned in the future along with a number of other exciting digital learning developments as DCU builds on its strategic partnership with FutureLearn.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the University of Notre Dame for making O’Connell House available for this important event. We would also like to thank Mark Lecester, FutureLearn’s Director of Partnerships and DCU’s President, Professor Brian MacCraith for their support and contribution to the launch. And importantly we need to acknowledge the Ideas Lab and NIDL team centrally involved in the project, as this week’s launch would not have been possible without the many creative hours they have devoted to “Irish 101” and the wider mission of promoting Irish language and culture.

Read more about this initiative in the Irish language in DCU’s press release relating to this project.

On Friday the NIDL Research Group met for the first time this year to reflect on our accomplishments over 2017, including more than 100 scholarly outputs, and to share ideas, discuss progress and plan research and development opportunities available to us over 2018, and beyond.

To begin with the Group briefly discussed some of the lessons from the exercise of identifying the top 10 open access journal articles published over 2017, as described in a previous blog post on this topic. The final selection of our 2017 top 10 articles proved useful in promoting internal debate amongst the team over the so-called “best reads” of the year, and the list of open access publications was widely shared globally through a number of communication channels. Given the positive feedback from various sources the Research Group decided to repeat this activity adopting a similar methodology over the course of 2018.

On the theme of supporting research dissemination an update was provided on advance planning for the 2019 ICDE World Conference on Online Learning. A delegation from ICDE will be visiting Dublin in the middle of February 2018 for an extended meeting with our conference team and site visit of the Convention Centre Dublin. Also during this visit we hope the Minister of State for Higher Education will be able to meet with the Organising Committee to hear more about this high-profile conference, especially given the Government’s recent announcements to provide more support for online, flexible life-long learners.

WCOL Promo 2

On the topic of conferences, the NIDL is a strategic sponsor of this year’s OER18 conference in Bristol, as DCU is fully committed to promoting access, equity and social justice through open educational practices. OER18 Indeed, this week DCU will be making an important annoucement about a major new open learning initiative, and related programme of research through the NIDL, which is anchored in our mission of transforming lives and societies. More information to follow about this initiative.

The NIDL has another strategic partnership with the Association of Advanced Computing in Education (AACE) in the United States (US) and the Education Studies Association Ireland (ESAI) to select three Irish research papers for showcasing at this year’s Ed Media and Innovate Learning conference in Amsterdam. If successful, we anticipate this “Country showcase” initiative will become a feature at the annual Ed Media conference, which returns to Amsterdam in 2019.

EdMedia

Although our strong engagement with relevant professional associations is something we highly value, the NIDL team also understands the importance of disseminating research and contributing to new knowledge through more conventional forms of scholarship. Accordingly an update was provided to research group members on the edited book we are hoping to publish through Springer and some of the journal articles already accepted, under review or at various stages of preparation.

2358_037 During the meeting we also discussed the importance of supporting the next generation of researchers in the context of plans for new postgraduate qualification pathways in the general area of Digital Education, including the development of a specialist doctoral track. We believe this initiative through our Institute of Education will help to build a stronger culture of local research in this important and rapidly evolving area.

However, the NIDL also values our strong links to international bodies and we were delighted to hear the news that one of our doctoral students, Elaine Beirne, located in the Ideas Lab has been awarded a prestigious US research fellowship. More information to come once this award is formally announced by the major professional body.

Lastly, the NIDL Research Group discussed the importance of sharing our collective expertise across the team and investing in our own professional development. Therefore, we agreed to establish a series of workshops over the year on research topics of interest. A small working group was formed with a member from each unit of the NIDL to help plan, design and co-opt people to facilitate these workshops.

We look forward to another productive year of research as we will be shortly recruiting for two new Research Assistant positions to help us continue our work on a number of internal and externally funded projects.