Knowledge Centre blogs

By: Simon Knight
On: 26th March 2012

Who are you?
Over my next few blogs I’m going to talk a bit more about what I’m doing and how. I hope it’s of some interest to people in itself, but I also want to use it to illustrate some wider points about data collection.

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I would never have thought archiving would be quite such a fascinating thing.. .

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 7th March 2012

You, like me, probably think of archiving as towers of dusty books locked away in a bomb proof basement somewhere, solely of interest to aged historians. You might also think that this is a long way from the world of open data, however today I’ve discovered that they may be inextricably linked.

This is all thanks to Andrew Cooper, Research Manager at The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund who held a fantastic event today with Jack Meyers, President of the Rockefeller Archive Centre to talk about archiving in foundations.

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Open Learning Analytics and measuring 'success'

By: Simon Knight
On: 7th March 2012

Open Learning Analytics - what is it, how can it help?

In my last couple of blogs, I’ve looked a bit at the importance of innovation in platforms and curricula design over content delivery (here), and one example – Edu-Browse – of a possible tool, alongside some other sources for Ed-Tech tools.

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Open Intelligence

By: Ed Anderton
On: 7th March 2012

Q: Can a general theory of intelligence help us to better understand what we're up to with this whole open data business?

A: Yes. Yes it can. more >

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Reflections on Opening Doors open data event

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 6th March 2012

Well the dust is only beginning to settle on the Opening Doors conference on Open Data last week, and we’re beginning to bring together all the learning from the day.

We had a great opening session with Karl Wilding (Head of Research and Policy at NCVO) throwing down the gauntlet and asking why we should really be interested in open data at all – how can it help charities? Dan Sutch, Head of Development Research here at Nominet Trust, starting to answer that question by highlighting how developments in technology map on to an historical strength of charities in trying to improve how we address social challenges (including an example from 1854 http://understandinguncertainty.org/coxcombs). more >

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The feedback loop that keeps on (Globally) giving

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 14th February 2012

In my last post RCTs should only be part of the story I argued that:

We need to accept that different types of evaluation are suitable for programmes at different stages of development
A crucial role of evaluation is to create formative feedback loops not just summative snaps shots

So if you’re working in a space where you have lots of pilot projects testing new ideas, and are interested in how you get continuous evaluation of more >