Technology Assisted Project Supervision TAPaS

1
Technology Assisted Project Supervision (TAPaS)

• Manish Malik
• Dept. of Electronic and Computer Engineering
  The ExPERT Centre
• University of Portsmouth, UK
• Manish.malik_at_port.ac.uk

2
Presentation Outline

• Introductory video
• Boundaries in project supervision
• Issues faced in project supervision
• Why use technology? Blurring the boundaries?
• Question and Answers

3
Video

• Some of the possible student types
• Independent works on their own, mostly,
• Dependent works under directions and guidance
  from the supervisor,
• Pretender attempts to impress the supervisor
  mostly,
• Collaborator attempts to seek help from more
  than one person including supervisor.
• Link to Video

4
The Campus and Project students
Project Students
The Classroom
The Teacher/ Supervisor
The Lab
Various Boundaries
Project Co-ordinator
The Campus
Some of the project students
5
Project related Issues

• Isolation (Group size 1)
• Social boundaries.
• Varying Supervision Style
• Makes it difficult to find peer support social
  boundaries.
• Pressure (or lack of) to demonstrate progress
• Scheduled formal meetings/ milestones Time
  boundaries
• Experience of Independent work (lack of)
• Overcome the How? (processes).
• Plus the What/Why of doing project work.
• Low Efficiency in individual guidance
• Processes are common space/time/social
  boundary.
• Topics may well be related too
  space/time/social boundary.
• Paper Log books are a missed opportunity.

6
Why use technology?

• Blending multiple channels (real/virtual) for
  creating a community of interest within the
  supervised group of student.
• Making communication more efficient / effective.
• Identifying student types and providing a
  tailored supervision for individual students
  (independent, dependent, collaborator and
  pretender).
• Addressing student isolation.
• Blurring the boundaries

7
Blurring the Boundaries

• Space and Time boundaries
• Between students/tutors can be blurred using open
  and shared asynchronous communication tools.
• e-logs blurs boundaries between the student and
  tutor(s).
• Social Boundaries
• Are blurred using anonymity/avatars
• Less is more
• Personalised guidance using e-logs

8
Tools used

• For open and shared communications
• Twitter What are you doing?
• For regular progress reporting and flexible
• virtual supervision
• E-logs like the paper based log but shared and
  used for feedback/guidance
• For a collaborative working and as a
• repository
• Wiki online collaborative editing of shared
  documents and web pages.
• Shared repository of all work that is project

9
The e-Gurukul (Projects)
The Supervisor
The e-Gurukul
Supervision/ Monitoring via f2f, twitter, Wiki
e-logs
Individual E-log Feedback
Peer support through twitter
Individual E-log Interaction
Twitter encourages succinct informal messages
Twitter brings the Students supervisor
Closer
10
Questions

• Thanks for your time ?
• Any questions