Thomas Connolly | University of the West of Scotland (UWS) (original) (raw)

Papers by Thomas Connolly

—The recent trend in the development of education across the globe is the use of the new Learning... more —The recent trend in the development of education across the globe is the use of the new Learning Analytics (LA) tools and technologies in teaching and learning. The potential benefits of LA notwithstanding, potential ethical issues have to be considered and addressed in order to avoid any legal issues that might arise from its use. As a result of this, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) involved in the development of LA tools need to pay particular attention to every ethical challenges/constraint that might arise. This paper aims to identify and discuss several ethical issues connected with the practice and use of LA tools and technologies in analysing and predicting the performance of students in a shared network environment of HEIs. The study discusses the four ethical issues of Information and Communication Technology namely Privacy, Accuracy, Property and Accessibility (PAPA's Model) as well as other approaches to explain these future concerns. The paper also presents the empirical evidence of the views of students on the analytical use and storage of their data. The results indicate that even though students have high trust in the privacy and security of their data being used by their institutions, more than half of the students have ethical concerns with the accessibility and storage of their data beyond a certain period. In the light of this, generalised strategies on ethical issues of the use of learners' data in an HEI shared networked environment are proposed.

The term " Business Intelligence " (BI) has evolved from Management Information Systems to Decisi... more The term " Business Intelligence " (BI) has evolved from Management Information Systems to Decision Support Systems since the mid-1960s. Today, modern decision making methodologies and technologies are referred to under the term " Business Intelligence ". The main purpose of this technology is to improve both the efficiency of users' decision making and the effectiveness of decisions. Decision support technology has been implemented and researched in industry and academia for more than half a century, however, challenges in teaching of this field still remain such as access to suitable data sets, finding interesting business cases, and providing realistic and meaningful experiences. Interestingly, the top rank of CIO global technological priorities is still Business Intelligence and Business Analytics, but the skills gap is significantly wide and negatively impacts on business. Moreover, it is not only the BI skills that are needed but also the 21 st Century skills, such as, communication, social skills, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, productivity, and risk taking – as suggested by the European Community to meet the requirements from the job market. This situation drives BI instructors to improve their teaching strategies or to have considered alternative methods to educate their students. Business Simulation Games are recognized as an effective educational method to enable students to learn how to make decisions and manage the business process in a modern enterprise, link abstract concepts to real world problems, and improve quantitative skills. Additionally, a game is a future technology trend that will be able to support developing new skills, because game characteristics can contribute and sustain 21 st Century skills. Therefore, the " BI Academy " (BIA) project at the Stuttgart Media University in collaboration with the University of the West of Scotland has developed a business simulation game, called BI game. It is anticipated that using the BI game can help instructors to overcome the limitations and challenges in teaching BI, support students to improve their BI skills and 21 st Century skills through the learning process, help students to get a better understanding of how to use BI tools to support decision making, and can leverage students' BI maturity level. This paper first presents the status of Business Intelligence in academia, the conceptual framework being used as the basis for game design, the technical framework supporting the game operation, and the organisational format of the BI game which provides a closed-loop learning environment. The paper then describes the preliminary results of students' self-assessment, which shows that most of the students assessed themselves as having quite good 21 st Century skills but quite low BI skills. Finally, the paper will provide directions for future research.

This paper provides an overview on the `state of art' of Web 2.0 use in Higher Education explorin... more This paper provides an overview on the `state of art' of Web 2.0 use in Higher Education exploring reasons why and how Web 2.0 tools, namely, wikis, blogs and online forums are being used in educational settings. This paper acknowledges that there is an apparent lack of evidence in the Web 2.0 literature regarding the steps taken by educators to introduce Web 2.0 in the classroom. A Web 2.0 implementation framework is presented which provides educators with a set of practical steps to follow when adopting the use of Web 2.0 for the first time. This framework can be tested and developed in educational settings based on the experience of other educators.

Computers & Education, 2011

A highly important part of software engineering education is requirements collection and analysis... more A highly important part of software engineering education is requirements collection and analysis which is one of the initial stages of the Database Application Lifecycle and arguably the most important stage of the Software Development Lifecycle. No other conceptual work is as difficult to rectify at a later stage or as damaging to the overall system if performed incorrectly. As software engineering is a field with a reputation for producing graduates who are inappropriately prepared for applying their skills in real life software engineering scenarios, it suggests that traditional educational techniques such as role-play, live-through case studies and paper-based case studies are insufficient preparation and that other approaches are required. To attempt to combat this problem we have developed a games-based learning application to teach requirements collection and analysis at tertiary education level as games-based learning is seen as a highly motivating, engaging form of media and is a rapidly expanding field. This paper will describe the evaluation of the requirements collection and analysis game particularly from a pedagogical perspective. The game will be compared to traditional methods of software engineering education using a pre-test/post-test, control group/experimental group design to assess if the game can act as a suitable supplement to traditional techniques and assess if it can potentially overcome shortcomings. The game will be evaluated in five separate experiments at tertiary education level.

Fuel and Energy Abstracts, 2011

Computer games have become a highly popular form of entertainment and have had a large impact on ... more Computer games have become a highly popular form of entertainment and have had a large impact on how University students spend their leisure time. Due to their highly motivating properties computer games have come to the attention of educationalists who wish to exploit these highly desirable properties for educational purposes. Several studies have been performed looking at motivations for playing computer games in a general context and in a Higher Education (HE) context. These studies did not focus on the differences in motivations between online and offline game players. Equally the studies did not look at the differences in motivations of people who prefer single player games and people who prefer multiplayer games. If games-based learning is to become a recognised teaching approach then such motivations for playing computer games must be better understood. This paper presents the combined analysis of three studies at HE level, performed over a four year period from 2005 to 2009. The paper focuses on differences of motivations in relation to single player/multiplayer preference and online/offline game participation. The study found that challenge is the top ranking motivation and recognition is the lowest ranking motivation for playing computer games in general. Challenge is also the top ranking motivation for playing games in HE while fantasy and recognition are the lowest ranking motivations for playing games in HE. Multiplayer gamers derive more competition, cooperation, recognition, fantasy and curiosity from playing games and online gamers derive more challenge, cooperation, recognition and control from playing games. Multiplayer gamers and online gamers ranked competition, cooperation and recognition significantly more important for playing games in HE than single players and offline participants.► Challenge is the top ranking motivation for playing computer games in general and HE. ► Fantasy and recognition are the lowest ranking motivations for playing computer games in HE. ► Multiplayer gamers and online gamers derive more competition, curiosity and recognition.

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2009

This paper explores the concept of Web 2.0 and provides an overview of three types of Web 2.0 too... more This paper explores the concept of Web 2.0 and provides an overview of three types of Web 2.0 tools currently used in education today, namely, wikis, blogs and online forums. The paper also presents the results of a systematic literature review on Web 2.0 in education, the findings of which revealed a lack of Web 2.0 pedagogical models in the literature. This paper makes a contribution to knowledge in the area of Web 2.0 use in education by presenting a Web 2.0 pedagogical model to inform educators of how to apply the learning theories associated with Web 2.0 in the classroom. In addition, the paper presents the findings of a teacher training course based on the Web 2.0 pedagogical model taught through the use of an integrated Web 2.0 platform that was carried out as part of a large-scale evaluation of Web2.0 across Europe.

The Internet represents a new industrial revolution, arguably with a more significant socio-econo... more The Internet represents a new industrial revolution, arguably with a more significant socio-economic impact than the previous two industrial revolutions. The impact of the Internet has resulted in significant changes within education with eLearning now an accepted and commonplace form of education. However, the online tools that are used in eLearning tend to be first generation Web tools rather than second generation, Web 2.0, tools. Some reasons for this are the lack of empirical evidence supporting their use in education, the perceived complexity of the tools and lack of training. This paper presents the results of a large-scale European pilot into the use of Web 2.0 tools across all educational sectors through an innovative and simple-to-use platform that allows teachers to customize which Web 2.0 tools they wish to use in their courses.

The Learning Organization, 2010

Fuel and Energy Abstracts, 2011

Over the last decade, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), a form of narrative often involving multipl... more Over the last decade, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), a form of narrative often involving multiple media and gaming elements to tell a story that might be affected by participants’ actions, have been used in the marketing and promotion of a number of entertainment related products such as films, computer games and music. This paper discusses the design, development and evaluation of an ARG aimed at increasing the motivations of secondary school level students across Europe in the learning of modern foreign languages. The ARG was developed and implemented as part of a European Commission Comenius project and involved 6 project partners, 328 secondary school students and 95 language teachers from 17 European countries. The collaborative nature of ARGs provides a potentially useful vehicle for developing collaborative activities within an educational context. This paper describes the educational value of ARGs, in particular the ARG for supporting the teaching of modern European languages and the specific activities that were developed around Web 2.0 and gaming that underpinned the ARG and helped promote cooperation and learning within an educational environment. An evaluation of the ARG was conducted using an experimental design of pre-test → ARG intervention → post-test. 105 students completed the pre-test, 92 students completed the post-test and 45 students completed both the pre-test and post-test questionnaires. In general, student attitudes towards the ARG were very positive with evidence suggesting that the ARG managed to deliver the motivational experience expected by the students. The majority of students who completed the post-test either agreed or strongly agreed that they would be willing to play the game over a prolonged period of time as part of a foreign language course. In addition, through using the ARG, students believed that they obtained skills relating to cooperation, collaboration and teamwork.

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2008

ABSTRACT

British Journal of Educational Technology, 2007

For some time now, computer games have played an important role in both children and adults' leis... more For some time now, computer games have played an important role in both children and adults' leisure activities. While there has been much written on the negative aspects of computer games, it has also been recognised that they have potential advantages and benefits. There is no doubt that computer games are highly engaging and incorporate features that are extremely compelling. It is these highly engaging features of computer games that have attracted the interests of educationalists. The use of games-based learning has been growing for many years now; however, within software engineering, there is still a dearth of empirical evidence to support this approach. In this paper, we examine the literature on the use of computer games to teach software engineering concepts and describe a computer game we have been developing to teach these concepts.

Abstract: The study of database systems is typically core in undergraduate and postgraduate progr... more Abstract: The study of database systems is typically core in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes related to computer science and information systems. However, one component of this curriculum that many learners have difficulty with is database analysis ...

—The recent trend in the development of education across the globe is the use of the new Learning... more —The recent trend in the development of education across the globe is the use of the new Learning Analytics (LA) tools and technologies in teaching and learning. The potential benefits of LA notwithstanding, potential ethical issues have to be considered and addressed in order to avoid any legal issues that might arise from its use. As a result of this, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) involved in the development of LA tools need to pay particular attention to every ethical challenges/constraint that might arise. This paper aims to identify and discuss several ethical issues connected with the practice and use of LA tools and technologies in analysing and predicting the performance of students in a shared network environment of HEIs. The study discusses the four ethical issues of Information and Communication Technology namely Privacy, Accuracy, Property and Accessibility (PAPA's Model) as well as other approaches to explain these future concerns. The paper also presents the empirical evidence of the views of students on the analytical use and storage of their data. The results indicate that even though students have high trust in the privacy and security of their data being used by their institutions, more than half of the students have ethical concerns with the accessibility and storage of their data beyond a certain period. In the light of this, generalised strategies on ethical issues of the use of learners' data in an HEI shared networked environment are proposed.

The term " Business Intelligence " (BI) has evolved from Management Information Systems to Decisi... more The term " Business Intelligence " (BI) has evolved from Management Information Systems to Decision Support Systems since the mid-1960s. Today, modern decision making methodologies and technologies are referred to under the term " Business Intelligence ". The main purpose of this technology is to improve both the efficiency of users' decision making and the effectiveness of decisions. Decision support technology has been implemented and researched in industry and academia for more than half a century, however, challenges in teaching of this field still remain such as access to suitable data sets, finding interesting business cases, and providing realistic and meaningful experiences. Interestingly, the top rank of CIO global technological priorities is still Business Intelligence and Business Analytics, but the skills gap is significantly wide and negatively impacts on business. Moreover, it is not only the BI skills that are needed but also the 21 st Century skills, such as, communication, social skills, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, productivity, and risk taking – as suggested by the European Community to meet the requirements from the job market. This situation drives BI instructors to improve their teaching strategies or to have considered alternative methods to educate their students. Business Simulation Games are recognized as an effective educational method to enable students to learn how to make decisions and manage the business process in a modern enterprise, link abstract concepts to real world problems, and improve quantitative skills. Additionally, a game is a future technology trend that will be able to support developing new skills, because game characteristics can contribute and sustain 21 st Century skills. Therefore, the " BI Academy " (BIA) project at the Stuttgart Media University in collaboration with the University of the West of Scotland has developed a business simulation game, called BI game. It is anticipated that using the BI game can help instructors to overcome the limitations and challenges in teaching BI, support students to improve their BI skills and 21 st Century skills through the learning process, help students to get a better understanding of how to use BI tools to support decision making, and can leverage students' BI maturity level. This paper first presents the status of Business Intelligence in academia, the conceptual framework being used as the basis for game design, the technical framework supporting the game operation, and the organisational format of the BI game which provides a closed-loop learning environment. The paper then describes the preliminary results of students' self-assessment, which shows that most of the students assessed themselves as having quite good 21 st Century skills but quite low BI skills. Finally, the paper will provide directions for future research.

This paper provides an overview on the `state of art' of Web 2.0 use in Higher Education explorin... more This paper provides an overview on the `state of art' of Web 2.0 use in Higher Education exploring reasons why and how Web 2.0 tools, namely, wikis, blogs and online forums are being used in educational settings. This paper acknowledges that there is an apparent lack of evidence in the Web 2.0 literature regarding the steps taken by educators to introduce Web 2.0 in the classroom. A Web 2.0 implementation framework is presented which provides educators with a set of practical steps to follow when adopting the use of Web 2.0 for the first time. This framework can be tested and developed in educational settings based on the experience of other educators.

Computers & Education, 2011

A highly important part of software engineering education is requirements collection and analysis... more A highly important part of software engineering education is requirements collection and analysis which is one of the initial stages of the Database Application Lifecycle and arguably the most important stage of the Software Development Lifecycle. No other conceptual work is as difficult to rectify at a later stage or as damaging to the overall system if performed incorrectly. As software engineering is a field with a reputation for producing graduates who are inappropriately prepared for applying their skills in real life software engineering scenarios, it suggests that traditional educational techniques such as role-play, live-through case studies and paper-based case studies are insufficient preparation and that other approaches are required. To attempt to combat this problem we have developed a games-based learning application to teach requirements collection and analysis at tertiary education level as games-based learning is seen as a highly motivating, engaging form of media and is a rapidly expanding field. This paper will describe the evaluation of the requirements collection and analysis game particularly from a pedagogical perspective. The game will be compared to traditional methods of software engineering education using a pre-test/post-test, control group/experimental group design to assess if the game can act as a suitable supplement to traditional techniques and assess if it can potentially overcome shortcomings. The game will be evaluated in five separate experiments at tertiary education level.

Fuel and Energy Abstracts, 2011

Computer games have become a highly popular form of entertainment and have had a large impact on ... more Computer games have become a highly popular form of entertainment and have had a large impact on how University students spend their leisure time. Due to their highly motivating properties computer games have come to the attention of educationalists who wish to exploit these highly desirable properties for educational purposes. Several studies have been performed looking at motivations for playing computer games in a general context and in a Higher Education (HE) context. These studies did not focus on the differences in motivations between online and offline game players. Equally the studies did not look at the differences in motivations of people who prefer single player games and people who prefer multiplayer games. If games-based learning is to become a recognised teaching approach then such motivations for playing computer games must be better understood. This paper presents the combined analysis of three studies at HE level, performed over a four year period from 2005 to 2009. The paper focuses on differences of motivations in relation to single player/multiplayer preference and online/offline game participation. The study found that challenge is the top ranking motivation and recognition is the lowest ranking motivation for playing computer games in general. Challenge is also the top ranking motivation for playing games in HE while fantasy and recognition are the lowest ranking motivations for playing games in HE. Multiplayer gamers derive more competition, cooperation, recognition, fantasy and curiosity from playing games and online gamers derive more challenge, cooperation, recognition and control from playing games. Multiplayer gamers and online gamers ranked competition, cooperation and recognition significantly more important for playing games in HE than single players and offline participants.► Challenge is the top ranking motivation for playing computer games in general and HE. ► Fantasy and recognition are the lowest ranking motivations for playing computer games in HE. ► Multiplayer gamers and online gamers derive more competition, curiosity and recognition.

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2009

This paper explores the concept of Web 2.0 and provides an overview of three types of Web 2.0 too... more This paper explores the concept of Web 2.0 and provides an overview of three types of Web 2.0 tools currently used in education today, namely, wikis, blogs and online forums. The paper also presents the results of a systematic literature review on Web 2.0 in education, the findings of which revealed a lack of Web 2.0 pedagogical models in the literature. This paper makes a contribution to knowledge in the area of Web 2.0 use in education by presenting a Web 2.0 pedagogical model to inform educators of how to apply the learning theories associated with Web 2.0 in the classroom. In addition, the paper presents the findings of a teacher training course based on the Web 2.0 pedagogical model taught through the use of an integrated Web 2.0 platform that was carried out as part of a large-scale evaluation of Web2.0 across Europe.

The Internet represents a new industrial revolution, arguably with a more significant socio-econo... more The Internet represents a new industrial revolution, arguably with a more significant socio-economic impact than the previous two industrial revolutions. The impact of the Internet has resulted in significant changes within education with eLearning now an accepted and commonplace form of education. However, the online tools that are used in eLearning tend to be first generation Web tools rather than second generation, Web 2.0, tools. Some reasons for this are the lack of empirical evidence supporting their use in education, the perceived complexity of the tools and lack of training. This paper presents the results of a large-scale European pilot into the use of Web 2.0 tools across all educational sectors through an innovative and simple-to-use platform that allows teachers to customize which Web 2.0 tools they wish to use in their courses.

The Learning Organization, 2010

Fuel and Energy Abstracts, 2011

Over the last decade, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), a form of narrative often involving multipl... more Over the last decade, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), a form of narrative often involving multiple media and gaming elements to tell a story that might be affected by participants’ actions, have been used in the marketing and promotion of a number of entertainment related products such as films, computer games and music. This paper discusses the design, development and evaluation of an ARG aimed at increasing the motivations of secondary school level students across Europe in the learning of modern foreign languages. The ARG was developed and implemented as part of a European Commission Comenius project and involved 6 project partners, 328 secondary school students and 95 language teachers from 17 European countries. The collaborative nature of ARGs provides a potentially useful vehicle for developing collaborative activities within an educational context. This paper describes the educational value of ARGs, in particular the ARG for supporting the teaching of modern European languages and the specific activities that were developed around Web 2.0 and gaming that underpinned the ARG and helped promote cooperation and learning within an educational environment. An evaluation of the ARG was conducted using an experimental design of pre-test → ARG intervention → post-test. 105 students completed the pre-test, 92 students completed the post-test and 45 students completed both the pre-test and post-test questionnaires. In general, student attitudes towards the ARG were very positive with evidence suggesting that the ARG managed to deliver the motivational experience expected by the students. The majority of students who completed the post-test either agreed or strongly agreed that they would be willing to play the game over a prolonged period of time as part of a foreign language course. In addition, through using the ARG, students believed that they obtained skills relating to cooperation, collaboration and teamwork.

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2008

ABSTRACT

British Journal of Educational Technology, 2007

For some time now, computer games have played an important role in both children and adults' leis... more For some time now, computer games have played an important role in both children and adults' leisure activities. While there has been much written on the negative aspects of computer games, it has also been recognised that they have potential advantages and benefits. There is no doubt that computer games are highly engaging and incorporate features that are extremely compelling. It is these highly engaging features of computer games that have attracted the interests of educationalists. The use of games-based learning has been growing for many years now; however, within software engineering, there is still a dearth of empirical evidence to support this approach. In this paper, we examine the literature on the use of computer games to teach software engineering concepts and describe a computer game we have been developing to teach these concepts.

Abstract: The study of database systems is typically core in undergraduate and postgraduate progr... more Abstract: The study of database systems is typically core in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes related to computer science and information systems. However, one component of this curriculum that many learners have difficulty with is database analysis ...