DrClaire McGuinness

The widespread availability of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT are set to have a transformative effect within higher education. Their ability to generate tailor-made text on demand has the potential to disrupt established methods for teaching. However, they may also present new opportunities for innovation in teaching and learning, as they may force the rethinking of tradition as well as enable new types of assessment. It is therefore crucial that the full impact of this technology is understood along with its potential benefits and risks. This project project aims to partner with students to develop knowledge about the impact of LLMs on teaching, learning and assessment.

Development and delivery of a pilot media literacy training curriculum and module for Irish public librarians

This project extends our work on digital research skills for undergraduates. Where the Research Accelerator module was inclusive of students and staff in approach – with students participating in testing of module content via Brightspace – the proposed project expands on our vision of student participation. Students will develop video content to enhance the module for the BSc student population. BSc students will be invited to take part in video creation, producing high quality videos for roll out in the module. They will receive training with a videographer, who will further assist them with the video creation and editing process; the video content will be managed through a YouTube channel and linked to Brightspace. The content of the student-created videos will importantly focus on key research skills, helping to embed lessons provided in general module content. We envision that each student will take a critical digital research skill, method, or approach (e.g., research ethics) and, then working in groups, will develop brief videos to provide their learning experience around the topic that will help another student also develop and use a given digital research skill. Students will further lead an evaluation of the project to create video content. BSc student participants will lead and organise focus groups to evaluate the student video addition in the module. Focus groups, run after video content has been finalised, will be student-led and assisted by a research assistant.

Research Accelerator for the Social Sciences

Co-Principal Investigator with Dr. Claire McGuinness. This project supports the development of digital research skills through creating and embedding interactive e-tutorials in the curricula of the BA and BSocSc degrees. Students today face multiple challenges in learning how to do research in an increasingly complex digital environment. Research has shown that while digital technologies have had a mostly positive impact on student research skills, enabling increased self-sufficiency and opening up 'a vast world of multimedia resources,' they also make it more challenging to find credible information, and may in fact discourage students from using a wider range of resources for research (Purcell et al., 2012). In addressing these issues, this digital research skills initiative enables a scaffolded approach to learning across the curriculum, embedding foundational, intermediate, and advanced level e-tutorials in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year courses to complement and enhance the teaching of traditional research and information literacy skills. Focusing on key digital research topics, the e-tutorials blend text, image, audio, and video components to offer an engaging and interactive experience for the students; additionally, interactive quizzes provide immediate feedback to students, enabling formative learning at the point of need.