Knowledge Centre blogs

How do funders measure success, especially when a traditional funding model just doesn't cut?

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 13th April 2012

One of the questions that should keep any funder awake at night is: are we doing the best that can be done with the money?

Answering this naturally leads any funder to ask how do we measure our success?

On one level they can obviously reflect on the work of the projects they fund or partner with. After all, a core measure of success is what happens with the money. But in a wider sense, funders work in different ways and so to understand their effectiveness there has to be an understanding of the strengths or weaknesses of their funding model. For example, are they all about supporting the continuation of work by existing organisations? Or are they an early stage investor who tries to get new ideas off the ground? In this case, how do you measure success when you're starting up new projects? more >

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Symptoms and Causes: The Digital Divide...a digital problem?

By: Simon Knight
On: 12th April 2012

I have data!

But, sorry to tease, I’m not going to talk about it at all today…In this blog, I’m going to give an overview of research looking at differences in access to internet information. My broader research looks at the ways students use talk to think about what knowledge they need to solve problems, and then actively attempt to address those problems. I’ll write more specifically on that topic as I go on, but today I’ll focus on the problem of finding information:

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Is giving access the best way to address technology inequality?

By: Simon Knight
On: 27th March 2012

Yesterday I gave a brief introduction to how I think about the research process.

Today I want to give a (briefer) overview of what that means for a particular study. I talked before about measuring ‘success’ in search engine tasks – and that’s one part of my study. But my main interest is in the reasons for differences in success, on a sociocultural level. So, rather than asking “does this group have access to information”, we also need to ask “can this group use the information they have, effectively”. Part of that will involve looking at skills, part about how they’re supported – by friends, family, professionals, part about structural issues for example, if they need to travel to a job interview, can they afford to do so. more >

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What we do, just is what we know

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.