UK Centre for Materials Education
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Awarded to: John Marchment
Institution: Isle of Man College
Funded in: 2001
Project description: It is proposed that a teaching development grant be used to further the work already done by the Isle of Man College in collating and disseminating a database of websites for use by teachers, lecturers and students in materials. Each site search will result in the appearance of an abstract of the content of the sites, indicating content and likely uses.
Background: As a result of a research project conducted by the applicant, it became apparent that one particular difficulty that has been encountered by students and lecturers in their research using the web, is that with the explosion in the number of web sites, it has become much more difficult for people with limited experience to find relevant information quickly. The search engines, whilst very powerful, are now responding to simple, unsophisticated queries with several thousand web addresses. Using this facility students will be able to search these selected sites to find the information they seek and so limit the time that can be wasted on fruitless searches. It will also provide lecturers with a known range of sites so that research work and information searches can be more directed with the likelihood of a positive outcome.
Objectives: It is felt by the applicant that this facility will enhance the UK Centre for Materials Education website and make it better known to teaching staff and students in schools as well as higher and further education. Many schools do not have the range of materials textbooks in their libraries and for teachers whose main discipline is not materials, this facility will mean that they can easily access relevant information without having to contact libraries at remote sites.
Deliverables: The deliverable of the proposal is a fully operational database and web page to allow the searching by users of a number of sites useful in the field of materials. This web page can, if required, be accessed via the UK Centre for Materials Education website or placed in its own URL. The database and web page will have a purpose-designed maintenance page to allow the ready updating of the content of the database.
