You may have seen from my colleagues Lorna Campbell (In the meantime…) and Sheila MacNeill (Sideways) that the University of Strathclyde office for Cetis is closing at the end of the month. Things are slightly up in the air right now but we are hopefully the …

Here's some posts which have caught my attention this month:

Martin Hamilton’s blog: How to be a Hacker: Code Poets, Technocamps, and the IT Skills Crisis – July 19, 2013 Seven rules of successful research data management in universities | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional… – July 16, 2013

From the postbag Marjolein Hoekstra (CleverClogs) writes:

Short description
Can you make a Google Script for me that compares two strings character by character? If differences are found, the script should point these out. If no differences are found at all, the script should put out the text "[ id. …

This was the question that came in over the wire this morning. The solution ... switch to Google Sheets List view

Something I’m increasingly become aware of is SEO is not just about having the right metadata on your webpage, in fact arguably this is the least important aspect. The area I’m particularly interested in is the tools/techniques the SEO community use to gain ‘actionable insight’. In this post I highlight how some of my tools have made it into the SEO community and why this area should be on your radar.

Some stuff from last night that caught my eye (reflections follow each tweet):

"Jisc ITT: Feasibility Study on digital repository infrastructure solutions for ‘unsupported’ digital assets" http://t.co/12ShR75nQ6

— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) July 16, 2013

There’s also been an interesting series of posts from Brian Kelly around this area (here…

For a long time I’ve been in awe of live bloggers like Nicola Osborne and Doug Clow and on several occasions benefitted from being able to point to the information they have captured in posts. This extends to events I’ve not been able to attend such as Doug’s extensive notes …

This is my first ever attempt at ‘live blogging’ and haven’t done any tidying other than cropping images. You might want to explore the LASI-UK a twitter summary by @sheilmcn  (complete #lasiuk twitter archive here) Giles Carden (University of Warwick) Good data visualisations solve real business problems Covering key components for effective data visualisation. Informed ...

This is my first ever attempt at ‘live blogging’ and haven’t done any tidying other than cropping images. You might want to explore the LASI-UK a twitter summary by @sheilmcn  (complete #lasiuk twitter archive here) Sheila MacNeill (JISC CETIS) Setting the scene: learning scenarios [Slides are here http://www.slideshare.net/sheilamac/lasiuk-learningscenarios-smn] Overview of learning scenarios, broad-brush, what data ...

Access control to Google Analytics data is very coarse. Via the web interface you can have full access or none at all. Given the growing interest in data driven decision making at all levels of the institution I thought it would be beneficial to demonstrate how Google Spreadsheets and Google …

Here's some posts which have caught my attention this month:

Is Google Dumping Open Standards For Open Wallets? – ReadWrite – June 4, 2013 Reeder, gReader & Other Popular Feed Reading Apps Partner With Feedly Ahead Of Google Reader Shutdown | TechCrunch – June 4, 2013 Institutional Web Team Blog …

Another day, another presentation. Today I’m at ALT Scotland’s SIG highlighting some of the experiences of developing/delivering the ocTEL open course. Slides are embedded below. This is a shorter version of a webinar I gave for ocTEL, a recording of this is here. ALT’s ocTEL MOOC experience: Designing the platform from Martin Hawksey

In this presentation I will demonstrate simple techniques for generating data visualisations: using tools (including MS Excel and Google Spreadsheets), drawing packages (including Illustrator and Inkscape) and software libraries (including d3.js and timeline.js). As part of this participants will be introduced to basic visual theories and the concepts of exploratory and explanatory analytics. The presentation will also highlight some of the skills required for discovering and reshaping data sources.

On the 20th June I have the pleasure of presenting some of the work around open courses I’ve been doing as part of ocTEL. The event is free and has a great list of other presenters working on open education in Scotland

The ALT-Scotland special interest group will be …

Jisc CETIS in partnership with the Open University in Scotland and the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics will be hosting a one day event on the 5th July in the Informatics Forum (Edinburgh) focusing on Learning Analytics.

Here’s some posts which have caught my attention this month: Learning analytics for open and distance education | Learning together online – May 24, 2013 Notes on Narrative Science and Automated Insights | OUseful.Info, the blog… – May 22, 2013 The last ever MOOCshow #openandonline » FOLLOWERS OF THE APOCALYPSE – May 20, 2013 scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com ...

In this post I want to cover three things. First I want to introduce a little app I’ve developed which allows you to create a RSS feed for any of your Gmail labels (with the option to remove certain links – useful if you don’t want others unsubscribing you from mailing lists). Secondly I explain how it was made and how you can use it yourself. Finally I want to discuss how this could be used in an open course environment, utilising the vast processing power from services like Twitter and reusing there target marketing emails to your benefit with a bit of ‘dark social judo’

The Google Apps Script team have recently announced a host of new features. The three that caught my eye were: Script editor added to Google Docs and Forms Addition of the Forms Service which lets you programmatically manipulate forms Extending Google Docs functionality using Custom menus and user interfaces including creating custom sidebars The last ...

Learning Analytics appears to be increasingly on peoples mind's and I'm aware of a number of staff being asked to contribute on this area in their teaching and learning strategies. I thought it would be useful to spotlight some resources produced by Cetis and Jisc in this area that might help.

Quick look at generating a punchart chart in Google Spreadsheets. The data shaping is straight forward but limited chart options give questionable results

A quick look at how the intercom customer relationship management tool might fit into open online courses (MOOCs)

As part of ocTEL on the 15th May at 16:30BST (check in your own timezone) I’ll be doing a webinar on platforms for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), in particular focusing on some of the connectivist style recipes I’m aware of. As part of this I’ll be taking participants behind the scenes of the ocTEL ...

Ready for a ramble? In this post I take you on a journey from my dotbirth, RSS feeds, Chrome Apps, touching upon how I created an RSS feed for Scoopit searches, before kicking the 'Tin Can'

The term ‘dashboard’ currently seems to have a similar effect to marmite, you either love it or hate it. In this post I show how you can create an activity data endpoint for bbPress forums which can be dashboarded in Google Spreadsheets

Just a quick note to highlight a guest post I’ve written for the Google Apps Developer Blog on How Apps Script Makes Classroom Observation Quicker and Easier. In this Google Apps Script example I show how a couple of lines of code can do some custom Google Form handling.

Having recently posted the ingredients card for ocTEL I thought I flesh out some of the details and give ‘mama’s secret recipe’. Like most recipes it’s not perfect and I encourage you to try it yourself and refine where necessary. Also it’s worth remembering that even though the course is in progress the recipe is being continually ...

One of the nice things working for CETIS is when organisations like the Association of Learning Technologists (ALT) approach you to contribute to their projects it’s often an opportunity to field test cutting edge innovation. This was the case when ALT recruited me for their Maths Apps Index project. As part of this we implemented LRMI/schema.org resource descriptions into community generated reviews

Here's some posts which have caught my attention this month: SFC Further and Higher Education ICT Strategy – summary and reflections – April 23, 2013 6 Free Realtime Google Analytics Dashboards | Notes – Dan Barker – April 22, 2013 Behavio Team Joins Google, Shuts Down Behavior Tracker Project – April 14, 2013 Half an ...

This post originally appeared on the ocTEL blog on 15th April and was written in collaboration with David Jennings. I’ve reposted it here as it outlines some of the broad ideas we are using with this open course, but in particular I wanted to highlight the use of the WordPress plugin MailPress to distribute course ...

One of the nice things about open courses like ocTEL is whilst having your own blogging space wasn’t a mandatory requirement we were aware that a number of participants had setup one up anyway. Conscious that activities like blogging can be very lonely and also aware that this is often a critical moment in motivating ...