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The outcome from the research being reported in this paper is the design of an accessibility audit to evaluate Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for accessibility and to arrive at solutions and adaptations that can meet user needs. This accessibility audit includes expert-based heuristic evaluations and user-based evaluations of the MOOC platforms and individual courses.

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are making low cost learning opportunities available at large scale to diverse groups of learners. For that reason, MOOCs need to be accessible so that they can offer flexibility of learning and benefits to all. In order to direct efforts towards developing accessible MOOCs, it is important to understand the current expectations of disabled learners. Analysis of data from MOOC surveys that support disclosure of disability provide quantitative information such as the proportions participating in MOOCs; their reasons for participating, and the types of MOOCs they prefer. This paper presents analysis of pre- and post-study survey data from eight MOOCs offered by the UK’s Open University on the FutureLearn platform. Results from disabled learners are compared with those of other learners and preliminary findings are used to frame an agenda for our further work.

The part-time PhD is attracting increasing interest in the face of modern economic pressures, particularly in the engineering and computing disciplines. This paper considers how we can ensure that part-time PhD students studying at a distance engage fully with the research discourse, when distance presents obstacles to communication and interaction. Focusing on the use of social software to support research discourse and dialogues, the paper identifies a framework of key communication functions. It reports on a repeated survey (2010 and 2014) of part-time Computing PhD students' use of digital technologies to support them in engaging in formal and informal doctoral dialogues, documenting and reflecting on their research, engaging with the community, and keeping themselves informed. This longitudinal study highlights both changes in technology use (e.g., the increasing use of tools in the public domain) and persistent phenomena (e.g., that despite the widespread adoption of social media technologies, email remains the most important tool for both researchers and supervisors). The paper reports on both what technologies are adopted, and how they are used. The real key to successful application of technology in research dialogues is fitness-for-purpose; this paper provides evidence of 'what works' in students' deployment of technologies.

Virtual worlds are three-dimensional (3D) persistent multi-user online environments in which users interact through avatars. Virtual worlds support many kinds of activities, including education, socialising, gaming and e-commerce. Our research focuses on how virtual worlds can be used to facilitate business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce involving real items. Examples of affordances of virtual worlds for e-commerce include 3D simulations, multi-user environments and avatar-based interactions. We have conducted empirical research to gather data about consumers’ experiences in virtual worlds to understand ways to utilise their affordances for B2C e-commerce. Based on our empirical research and a literature review, we have derived design guidelines for the design and evaluation of B2C e-commerce environments involving virtual worlds. This poster presents a summary of the research project and a subset of the guidelines.

As a part of The OpenScience Laboratory (http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/open-science/), we have developed a virtual Geology field trip in a three-dimensional (3D) environment (https://learn5.open.ac.uk/course/format/sciencelab/section.php?name=skiddaw_1), using the Unity 3D software (https://unity3d.com/). The learning activities within this 3D application are designed to mirror the experience of a field trip in the Skiddaw mountains of UK’s Lake District. \ud \ud The primary objective of developing an authentic 3D avatar-based interactive environment has been to provide an immersive experience to the users through sense of space. The application is based around a 10km x 10km low to medium detail model of the terrain around Skiddaw with overlaid photogrammetry-derived mesh and textual imagery, and augmented with in-built Unity terrain and flora. The virtual embodiment in the form of avatars and the multi-user environment give a sense of co-presence and provides opportunities for collaborative learning. \ud \ud In this presentation, we will reflect on the design and development process of the 3D App: how the pedagogical aspects of Geology and fieldwork were integrated with the affordances of 3D environments and the capabilities of Unity 3D, the development platform. We will discuss the interaction design of the 3D App including its navigation and wayfinding aspects that provide a sense of presence, sense of place, and an immersive learning experience for the students. We will analyse the pedagogical design of the 3D App to highlight the spatial and contextual learning opportunities for the students. \ud \ud With this Virtual Skiddaw App as an example, we will reflect on the following: a) opportunities offered by 3D virtual field trips for science education in both schools and higher education; b) comparisons (advantages and obstacles) of the 3D experience with 2D field trips (for example, via the websites or DVDs) – for example, the real-time multi-user interactions offered by a 3D environment and their impact on learning and student engagement; and c) limitations of 3D virtual field trips with respect to real world field trips.

We report students’ experiences of using a mobile virtual reality application to learn about the environmental impact of large scale developments on nature reserves, by comparing the physical field trip location to a location in virtual reality, which they accessed while in the field on a geography field trip. We present our research with 64 secondary school students who used Google Expeditions, a smartphone-based virtual reality application, on a geography field trip to their local nature reserve in south-east England. Google Expeditions (GEs) consists of over 700 expeditions or guided field trips that students experience on a smartphone through a virtual reality viewer. An expedition comprises of 360-degree photospheres of locations like the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, the Grand Canyon, Antarctica and Iceland. Through the use of virtual reality in the field and the affordances of the GE app, students became aware of the issues created by large-scale development on the environment, acquired knowledge about its implication for the ecosystem, and suggested actions for protection of the environment. Following the field trip, students sent letters to the Chiltern Society (a voluntary organization dedicated to conserving of Chilterns’ landscape in the UK) that discussed the implications of large scale development plans close to their local nature reserve in the Chilterns.

In this paper, we describe the introduction of a wiki for collaborative activities in a Requirements Engineering course offered at a distance to part-time learners. The paper describes the course and how wiki activities were incorporated. The paper then discusses the initial feedback from the students which shows that the wiki has been largely effective for developing students' understanding of the course concepts, the effectiveness of team working in Requirements Engineering and the use of wikis in practice. However, there are particular issues related to asynchronous working in distance education/eLearning that need to be better addressed. We conclude with a discussion of how we are tackling these issues and developing the use of the wiki on the course based on the students' feedbac

The move to remote online examinations during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the adoption of online examination proctoring systems. In this presentation, we will present a review of ethical\ud issues and controversies around online proctoring. We will frame the problem of online proctoring in our current research programme of ethical use, design and evaluation of educational technologies.\ud \ud Through a series of case studies and assessment strategies, we will discuss how assessment can be designed in an ethical manner for promoting academic integrity, for reducing academic misconduct,\ud and to discourage contract cheating and use of essay mills. We will highlight the ethical considerations and pedagogical advantages of designing ‘authentic’ assessment to replace more traditional or essay-based approaches. We will describe how educational technologies could become an essential part of an ethical assessment toolkit.

The emergence of pervasive and ubiquitous computing stimulates a view of future work environments where sharing of information, data and knowledge is easy and commonplace, particularly in highly interactive settings. Much of the work in this area focuses on tool development to support activities such as data collection, data recording and sharing, and so on. We are interested in this kind of technical development, which is both challenging and essential for science communities. But we are also interested in a broader interpretation of knowledge sharing and the human/social side of tools we develop to support this. We are keen to know more about how groups of different kinds of scientists can make their work understandable and shareable with each other in a multidisciplinary setting. This is a complex task because boundaries and barriers can emerge between disciplines engendered by differences in discourses and practices, which may not easily translate into other discipline areas. In the worst case, there may be some hostility between disciplines, or at least doubt and scepticism. Nevertheless, sharing approaches to research, research expertise, data and methods across disciplines can be a very fruitful exercise, and encouragement to engage in this activity is particularly pertinent in the digital era. Issues of privacy and security are also key aspects – knowing when and how to release data or information to other groups is crucial to providing a safe environment for people to work, and there are several sensitivities to be explored here.\ud \ud In this paper we describe an evolving situation that captures many of these issues, which we aim to track longitudinally.

At The Open University in the UK, we have conducted empirical qualitative research in Second Life, a virtual world. The first project is in the education domain in which we are investigating the designs of learning spaces in Second Life, while the second project is related to shopping and consumer behavior of users in Second Life. In this paper, we discuss our experiences of conducting empirical research in virtual worlds with a specific focus on the following aspects: ethical norms, real-world and virtual identities, privacy of the participants, communication modalities (voice, text and use of gestures), logistics of conducting user-based studies, and skills and training needs of researchers. Although our experiences are based on conducting empirical research in Second Life, we hope that our experiences and discussions in this paper will also be useful for researchers who aim to conduct research in avatar-based virtual worlds other than Second Life.

In this keynote, Shailey presented the results of a two-year research programme in which she and her colleagues have been investigating the role of activity monitors in active and healthy ageing of people aged over 55 years, and in self-monitoring of health and wellbeing of both carers and people being cared for. Activity monitoring technologies such as those from Fitbit, Garmin and Samsung help to track activity, exercise, food, weight and sleep. Shailey discussed how these technologies can bring about positive behavioural changes towards active lifestyles: how they help towards keeping fit, as a preventative measure towards medical conditions, and in monitoring health and mobility when suffering from a medical condition, during both prehabilitation and rehabilitation.

The goal of this workshop is to examine and discuss how educators and researchers can adopt and use social media tools such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter), social bookmarking tools, photo-sharing sites (e.g. Flickr), or social networking tools (e.g. Facebook) in the service of their teaching and research, and, particularly, in engaging with students and other researchers. \ud \ud We will cover the following topics in the workshop:\ud a. A catalogue of social media tools that can support teaching and research dialogues\ud b. Tips for social networking\ud c. Digital professionalism for educators and researchers\ud d. Social media etiquette for educators and researchers

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are making low-cost learning opportunities available at a large scale to diverse groups of learners. Therefore, MOOCs need to be accessible so that they can offer the flexibility of learning and benefits to all. To direct efforts towards developing accessible MOOCs, it is important to understand the current motivations of disabled learners. Analysis of data from existing MOOC surveys that request disclosure of disability provides quantitative information such as the proportions of disabled learners participating in MOOCs; their reasons for participating, and the types of MOOCs they prefer. Interviews from selected participants for this research, capture in-depth the experiences and motivations of disabled learners while participating in them. This paper outlines the interests that disabled learners who have experience participating in MOOCs have in studying Higher Education (HE) programmes, and the possibilities MOOCs offer them as vehicles to complement or offer alternative paths to their HE studies.

The Open University, Field Studies Council and Association for Science Education are conducting research into the use of Google Expeditions and other virtual reality tools to a) augment and extend field work experiences; and b) as an additional tool in the classrooms along with resources such as videos, photographs. \ud \ud The following aspects were discussed in this workshop:\ud \ud Does the virtual reality technology improve student engagement, and what are the implications for teachers?\ud \ud Think of one of the difficult concepts in Science: How could Google Expeditions (or Virtual Reality, in general) help you to teach that concept?\ud \ud How would you use Google Expeditions to encourage inquiry-based learning?\ud \ud What are the challenges that you would face in integrating Google Expeditions in your curriculum?

Our research project (http://www.shaileyminocha.info/digital-health-wearables/) at UK’s Open University and in collaboration with Age UK Milton Keynes aims to investigate whether behaviour changes in people aged over 55 years through the use of wearable activity-tracking technologies. Example technologies include those from Fitbit, Jawbone, or smart watches from Apple or Samsung. Typically, these devices record steps walked, sleep patterns, or calories expended. \ud \ud The benefits of regular physical activity for older adults and those with chronic disease and/or mobility limitations are indisputable. Regular physical activity attenuates many of the health risks associated with obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression and anxiety, and cognitive decline. As physical activity levels among older adults (both with and without chronic disease) are low, facilitating an increase in activity levels is an important public health issue. Walking has been identified as an ideal means of low-impact, low-risk physical activity that can boost physical and mental wellbeing. An author of a recent study said: “Physical activity may create a ‘reserve’ that protects motor abilities against the effects of age-related brain damage”. Walking has been shown to improve cognitive performance in older people. Our previous research has shown that walking with others can help reduce social isolation and loneliness among people aged 55 and over. \ud \ud In our year-long project (May 2016 – April 2017) and funded by the Sir Halley Stewart Trust, we have given activity-trackers to 17 participants in the age range from 55 – 80. Through monthly workshops, diaries that the participants are maintaining and sharing with us on a weekly basis, and through one-to-one interviews with them, we are investigating how the behaviours of our participants is changing – whether there is an increase in their activity such as walking or gardening, lifestyle changes, attitudes towards food/diet, and so on. There is already some evidence emerging such as: increase in activity levels in all the participants; increased awareness of food intake; and sharing of data with the GPs to diagnose the non-optimal sleep patterns (one of them now has a treatment plan in place for poor sleep). A couple of participants have joined the gym when they realised that their desk-based work-life doesn’t give them the opportunity to stay active during the week. \ud \ud In addition, we have conducted two surveys: the first survey is aimed at people aged 55 years and over who are already using these devices - to investigate their experiences and the changes in their behaviours that they perceive; and the second survey is aimed at medical professionals to explore whether they use the data from these devices for diagnosis and intervention. Most importantly, do medical professionals use data from these devices to determine the behaviour or lifestyle changes in people aged over 55 years? \ud \ud The Open University's Human Research Ethics Committee has approved the research design of this project (HREC/2016/2191/Minocha/1).

The aim of this tutorial is to present practical guidance for evaluating the effectiveness of educational initiatives involving social software and emerging technologies to support student learning and engagement. Examples of such initiatives are: inclusion of a blog in a course to encourage reflective learning, or having a wiki in a course for fostering team-working skills, or an activity in a 3D virtual world to enable students to learn through simulations, or the use of Delicious for bookmarking resources, or an App on a smartphone. ‘Evaluation’ implies investigating the usability, pedagogical effectiveness (does it meet the learning outcomes?), student experience, and impact on direct stakeholders such as educators and technical support staff (in terms of workload and support required).\ud \ud Educators, practitioners and educational researchers will find this tutorial useful for learning about evaluating initiatives in a systematic manner and yet be able to choose research methods that are not very resource-intensive for themselves and for the participants (primarily students but other direct stakeholders too such as technical support staff). Through examples of social software initiatives, we will discuss a number of data collection and data analysis methods in the tutorial ranging from traditional social science research (e.g. focus groups) to user-centred research methods (e.g. observations, diary studies) and to participatory design methods (e.g. experience sampling, student panels). We will also discuss about ethical considerations of conducting research, specifically, involving social software, where the personal and professional boundaries of user profiles (or identities) sometimes get blurred.

Social media such as wikis, blogs, social bookmarking tools, social networking websites (e.g. Facebook), or photo- and video-sharing websites (e.g. Flickr, YouTube) facilitate gathering and sharing of information and resources and enable collaboration. Social media is a new form of communication that is changing behaviours and expectations of students, educators, researchers, employers and funding bodies. Through case studies and examples from our empirically-grounded research on the role of social media in student learning and engagement, teaching, and in research discourse, I will discuss the challenges and opportunities of using social media tools in education. I will present the practical outcomes of our research such as frameworks and design guidance that can help guide students, educators, researchers and e-learning professionals who are aspiring to integrate social media tools in their activities.

A technology-enabled learning environment should be easy to use by the students and should meet the learning objectives for which it has been included in the course/curriculum. Evaluating the student experience can help in determining the usability and pedagogical effectiveness of the environment. Conducting such evaluations can be challenging in a distance education programme where the students and educators or course designers are not co-located. In this tutorial, we will present a toolbox of data collection and analysis techniques that educators and researchers can apply to evaluate the student experience. We will also discuss the ethical considerations of conducting educational research.

Accessibility focuses on supporting people with disabilities – such as those related to auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and vision requirements. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are no longer a novelty and the technologies associated with them should cater to all users irrespective of their accessibility requirements. In this paper, we will discuss the current state of research related to accessibility of MOOCs. We will then outline a research plan towards developing recommendations for the effective design of accessible MOOCs. The plan includes stages such as developing an evaluation instrument, evaluation of existing MOOCs and conducting empirical research with design teams of MOOCs and learners (MOOC-users).

When investigating the consumer experience in multi-channel retail service environments, one of the more themes is the decision-making process on channel choice. Most of the literature on channel choice addresses it as a single decision during the consumption process. The study reported in this paper describes how consumers often make several channel choices throughout the consumption process. The described study is an ethnographically inspired, in-depth case study that examined online and offline travel preparations. From the raw data travel stories were developed as the unit of analysis. The consumer behaviour observed from the travel stories shows evidence of multi-channel use and of movement between online and offline channels. The study has identified two types of movement between channels: parallel channel use and channel switching.

Dr Shailey Minocha (The Open University, UK) will introduce a current project at The Open University (http://crc.open.ac.uk/Projects/OlderPeople-BeingOnline) in collaboration with Age UK Milton Keynes, Cordia and JISC TechDis. The project involves investigating the role of on-line social interactions in supporting people aged 65 or over to avoid or overcome social isolation, and to maintain and develop social connectedness. These on-line social interactions may be via email or Skype, or participating in on-line communities such as on Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

We focus on exploring students' understanding of how blogs and blogging can support distance learning in Higher Education. We report on the findings from a survey of 795 distance learners at the UK Open University, and interviews with course designers whose courses utilise blogs. Despite enthusiasm from educators, the survey revealed that students are not enthusiastic about the potential for blogging activities to be built into their courses. Analysis of students' open-ended comments revealed that some students have positive expectations about blogging facilitating the sharing of material and ideas, for example, whilst the majority expressed concerns about subjectivity. We also discuss some empirically derived guidelines that we have generated that will enable educators to provide the appropriate scaffolds so that students can appropriate blogging tools for their own individual learning needs.

With growing competition in the global E-Market place, the focus of E-Businesses is moving from customer acquisition to customer retention. Towards this, E-Businesses, in addition to providing a usable site, are integrating Customer-relationship Management (CRM) strategies into the design and usability of E-Commerce environments. These CRM strategies include personalisation, providing consistent customer service across different communication channels of the E-Business, meeting customers' expectations with regards to product information, giving cues for trustworthiness (e.g. security seals, data protection assurances), etc. However, CRM strategies employed in American and West European market places are aimed at an individual's (customer–s) self-interest and self-gratification and these might not be applicable in other cultures, for example, in Asia where, loyalty to family and clan, filial piety, delayed gratification, and connections and networks of trust and obligations via relatives and extended family, are valued. \ud \ud Through several examples, this position paper highlights the challenges that E-Businesses face in the global marketplace of localising not only the user interface design issues of the E-Commerce Web site such as colours, language, currency formats, etc., or the cultural attractors such as religious iconography, beliefs, national symbols, and so on, but also the CRM strategies of the E-Commerce environment.\ud \ud The issues, therefore, for discussion in the workshop arising from this paper are as follows:\ud \ud – Significance of integrating both HCI / Usability and CRM strategies into the design and usability of E-Commerce environments for customer retention and loyalty;\ud – Localisation of CRM strategies in E-Commerce environments;\ud – Are the usability and CRM strategies genre-specific, that is, specific to a particular domain of E-Commerce, such as banking, shopping, travel, and so on;\ud – Which elicitation and usability evaluation techniques can be applied by designers and usability professionals in order to elicit values, attitudes, and expectations towards CRM of local customers?\ud – Are patterns of on-line purchasing becoming standardised (as more and more Web retailers follow Amazon's retail processing business model)? Are people learning to lead two different lives: responding to such standardised E-Commerce environments as well as to localised interfaces that meet their local preferences and requirements?

In this presentation in the track 'Aging and Disability', we will discuss the physical and non-physical characteristics of over 65s alongside the concepts of accessibility and digital inclusion and the implications for designing e-learning.