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The HumBox: changing educational practice around a learning resource repository

The HumBox: changing educational practice around a learning resource repository
The HumBox: changing educational practice around a learning resource repository
The HumBox is a learning resource repository for the Humanities educational community in the UK. Over the last three years the challenge for Humbox has been to act as not only a shared library for its community, but also to change the working practices of individuals in that community by encouraging them to work in a more open way and to actively share their materials and ideas with others. Getting users to engage with and adopt innovative systems is a well-known problem; with the HumBox our approach was to focus on user experience (UX) design through agile development and ongoing participatory and co-design activities. In this paper we present a mixed methods evaluation of the success of this engagement over the past three years, focusing especially on the way that users have appropriated the system and its services in order to solve real problems. Our evaluation reveals that for many HumBox users we have been successful in creating a technology that is invisible (meaning beneath the level of notice and concern) and that the result of this is less micro-appropriation (users adopting and using specific features in new ways) and more macro-appropriation (users adopting and adapting the site as a whole). We conclude that in the case of HumBox invisible technology coupled with the social framework of co-design and user engagement activities, has allowed a diffusion of ownership, and created a safe social and technical environment where the community can debate high-level issues, and that this has led to changes in both professional and pedagogical practice.
human–computer interface, learning communities, open educational resources, learning object repositories
0360-1315
287-302
Millard, David E.
4f19bca5-80dc-4533-a101-89a5a0e3b372
Borthwick, Kate
34fa2da0-35c3-4302-932c-141b94aec4b4
Howard, Yvonne
8aecbf0f-ed6a-4ce6-9530-5fa43226a3b0
McSweeney, Patrick
10339c24-3b5b-4696-90a6-63f4a011115c
Hargood, Charlie
9c24b7b0-ee48-41ba-9868-5b97b804f7d3
Millard, David E.
4f19bca5-80dc-4533-a101-89a5a0e3b372
Borthwick, Kate
34fa2da0-35c3-4302-932c-141b94aec4b4
Howard, Yvonne
8aecbf0f-ed6a-4ce6-9530-5fa43226a3b0
McSweeney, Patrick
10339c24-3b5b-4696-90a6-63f4a011115c
Hargood, Charlie
9c24b7b0-ee48-41ba-9868-5b97b804f7d3

Millard, David E., Borthwick, Kate, Howard, Yvonne, McSweeney, Patrick and Hargood, Charlie (2013) The HumBox: changing educational practice around a learning resource repository. Computers & Education, 69, 287-302. (doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2013.07.028).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The HumBox is a learning resource repository for the Humanities educational community in the UK. Over the last three years the challenge for Humbox has been to act as not only a shared library for its community, but also to change the working practices of individuals in that community by encouraging them to work in a more open way and to actively share their materials and ideas with others. Getting users to engage with and adopt innovative systems is a well-known problem; with the HumBox our approach was to focus on user experience (UX) design through agile development and ongoing participatory and co-design activities. In this paper we present a mixed methods evaluation of the success of this engagement over the past three years, focusing especially on the way that users have appropriated the system and its services in order to solve real problems. Our evaluation reveals that for many HumBox users we have been successful in creating a technology that is invisible (meaning beneath the level of notice and concern) and that the result of this is less micro-appropriation (users adopting and using specific features in new ways) and more macro-appropriation (users adopting and adapting the site as a whole). We conclude that in the case of HumBox invisible technology coupled with the social framework of co-design and user engagement activities, has allowed a diffusion of ownership, and created a safe social and technical environment where the community can debate high-level issues, and that this has led to changes in both professional and pedagogical practice.

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Published date: November 2013
Keywords: human–computer interface, learning communities, open educational resources, learning object repositories
Organisations: Web & Internet Science

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 355182
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/355182
ISSN: 0360-1315
PURE UUID: 1698e837-9c55-4cbc-b73b-2ab5b1a43f53
ORCID for David E. Millard: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7512-2710
ORCID for Kate Borthwick: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2251-7898

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Date deposited: 31 Jul 2013 13:55
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:25

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Contributors

Author: David E. Millard ORCID iD
Author: Kate Borthwick ORCID iD
Author: Yvonne Howard
Author: Patrick McSweeney
Author: Charlie Hargood

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