Conventional literacies require you to read and write appropriately in order to communicate with the people and communities that matter to you. Digital literacies require you to use the functionality of digital devices to achieve the same aim. The materials under this topic address popular digital applications such as the internet in general, search engines, Wikipedia, social media such as Facebook, blogs, etc. The materials explain how they can be used by researchers and students.
Learning topics
The learning topics on this website are listed below, along with descriptions. On each topic page you will find a list of open educational resources for the topic.
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Academic research involves many different kinds of writing – notes, reports, essays, presentations, emails, reviews etc. Some of this writing may be just for yourself, but a lot of it will be for others to read, respond to, and maybe even to criticise. The materials under this topic will help you to develop the confidence to write accurately and fluently for different audiences.
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Whether you are native speaker and writer of English, or have learned English as a second or other language, you may find some of the conventions of writing for academic purposes unfamiliar. While there is no 'one correct' EAP, academic readers often have particular expectations about the style and form of particular kinds of texts. The materials in this topic will cover some of the more specific requirements of academic research writing in English in the UK context.
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'Qualitative' usually refers to methods that do not rely on statistics for the analysis of data. There are many different approaches that are usually called qualitative: interviews, observations, diaries etc. The materials under this topic will help you to gain an understanding of strength and weaknesses of these approaches, and their relevance to particular fields of research.
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'Quantitative' usually refers to methods that use statistics to analyse the data. The materials under this topic will help you to gain an understanding of how these approaches work and which research fields they are most appropriate to.
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Plagiarism refers to the deliberate use of other people's words or ideas without acknowledgement. It is possible to plagiarise inadvertently if you do not know the conventions for acknowledging original sources, so the materials on this topic will help you to understand how to do this in the UK context.
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‘New technology’ usually refers to digital information and communication technologies (ICTs). Researchers have long used computers for data storage and analysis, communication and publishing, in both qualitative and quantitative research fields. New online applications of ICTs that are increasingly common in everyday use, such as blogs, wikis, facebook, twitter, flikr, You tube etc. are also beginning to be used in research. Issues for researchers that arise from the use of these technologies include managing and interpreting the different types of data that can be collected through ‘online’ methods, as well as the ethics of data collection and the publishing of results. The materials in this topic will introduce you to some of the main issues and help you to explore their implications.
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Conventionally, researchers have disseminated their work (methods, analyses, findings etc.) through printed journal articles and books. Newer technologies of communication have enabled alternative means of publishing, sometimes involving different attitudes to the status and ownership of work. Open online publishing, for example, can give many more people the opportunity to review and comment on work while it is still in the process of being completed. These new practices can raise issues for researchers who are trying to build individual reputations in competitive fields. The materials in this topic address some of the ways that you can use online technologies to reach a more immediate audience for your research.
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All research builds on the work of others. Usually we access other work through reading research papers and articles in journals and books. Reading and understanding others’ work is rarely straightforward, as we may not share all the background knowledge that the author has, or else be unfamiliar with conventions of expression that they use. The materials in this topic will help you to develop an understanding of how research papers are organised and structured, and enable you to read them more quickly and with more understanding.
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Few researchers work alone. Most are linked to others through networks of scholars who share ways of thinking about, and investigating, research questions. Networks can be both ‘actual’ (located in a shared space in the physical world) and ‘virtual’ (located in digital space in the online world). The materials in this topic will help you to explore some of the characteristics of virtual networks of researchers, so that you are able to find networks of your own and play an active part in them.
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A relatively new phenomenon in the world of online research is the development of large open databases of numerical data that represent widespread phenomena under investigation by hundreds of researchers globally (for example, climate change data, population data, economic data, online shopping data etc.). Some of this data is provided by websites that record hits and track users. The materials under this topic will introduce you to the most common forms of tracking data used in research, and to some of the ways in which large online databases can be used.
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In UK universities, all research that involves human or animal subjects is monitored by institutional ‘ethics committees’ to ensure that the interests of the subjects are protected. Similarly, many aspects of the research process (theory, methods, findings etc.) draw on ideas and procedures that are the legal ‘intellectual property’ of others and must not be used without their permission. The materials under this topic will introduce you to key ethical and intellectual property issues that might affect your research, and help you to know where you can go for advice in specific circumstances.
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Research is a job like any other, and success in your job may depend on developing a reputation in a particular field. Reputations today can be considerably enhanced by developing an online profile or ‘academic identity’, that brings your work quickly to the attention of larger numbers of people than you can reach through conventional publishing. The materials in this topic address the ways that you can begin to build your research profile online.
