The second Simshare ‘roadshow’ event will take place in York on Wednesday, 21 April. It will follow a similar format to the first workshop in Cardiff in March, with the morning session containing talks on simulation OERs and some simulation case studies. The afternoon session will look in more detail at designing and developing simulations, and introduce delegates to the project website at http://www.simshare.org.uk. Delegates will have the chance to examine the simulations already on the site, and also to upload their own materials.

The venue for the event is Langwith College, University of York. Registration takes place in the Langwith Foyer from 1000-1020. For more information, contact Hansa Surti at UKCLE.

Glamorgan Building - Committee Room

It was a sunny morning when we arrived at the University of Cardiff’s elegant Glamorgan Building, constructed in 1889 and originally home to the Glamorgan county council. The room itself was covered in elegant Victorian boiserie from which hung portraits of past Glamorgan county councillors. Not necessarily the first place you would expect an event to illustrate the benefits of OER and simulation learning.

To begin the day Professor Paul Maharg of Northumbria University gave a presentation on simulation learning and how it can be used in higher education. He covered the pros and cons of creating simulations and offered advice for creating your own. Slides of the presentation are available on his slideshare site and there will be a slidecast available from the Simshare site shortly. He has also written a short  blog about the event here.

There was a short break for coffee and conversation before the day progressed to a series of case studies of simulation led learning.

• Martin Lynch, University of Glamorgan, opened with his game based simulation ‘Tileworld’. He also covered a very realistic medical simulation and a disaster management simulation which included battlefield casualties
• Karen Counsell, University of Glamorgan, discussed her repurposing and reapplication of simulations she had adapted as OER simulations
• Finally Julie Price & Pat Brand, University of Cardiff, discussed a project involving real life situations (defending clients through a pro bono clinic) which could potentially be adapted as a simulation.

The afternoon workshop was led by Karen Barton from the University of Strathclyde. Karen is part of the Simshare team and as such has extensive knowledge of using simulation in education. Her session described the best tools and practices for creating effective simulations. There were several group discussions each giving way to ideas for creating simulations. Karen’s presentation was recorded and will be available as a slidecast on the Simshare site shortly.

Patricia McKellar then gave a presentation on Simshare, hopefully the future home of any sims born of the previous session. People were talked through the various features of the site, particularly the social features. Simshare’s success depends upon the ‘community’ of users surrounding it. Collaboration and sharing are essential so everyone was invited to sign up and begin accessing the simulations already housed there. You can join the community even if you’re without a simulation, comment on an existing resource, share how you used it in class; any contribution, no matter how small, is welcome!

The last presentation of the day was an informal panel discussion, with the purpose of clearing up any further confusions of OER and simulation learning. It was also a chance for people to give comment on what they had seen of Simshare. The feedback was generally positive; some highlights included compliments on the site being easy to use and relief that there are no excessive forms to fill in or restrictions on file types.

Throughout the day it became apparent to some of the delegates that they have been using sims for years but didn’t recognise it as such (e.g. some PBL case studies lend themselves to sim learning). Other delegates were not entirely sure and don’t necessarily understand what is meant by OER so we need to do a bit more on this in future. We’re looking at ways to get the message across and in the post event discussions Paul Maharg suggested something along the lines of the Yale Admissions video- although not sure if we’ve got the singing voices!

The HEA is conducting a  survey to discover the attitudes and awareness within the academic community to OERs. We’d like to do this before all the OER projects make significant dissemination- which will be from Spring 2010. The findings will be made available to all subject centres and will reflect the disciplines which have responded. We’ll make sure the results are reported here. It’s a baseline survey which will help measure the current perception of OERs- and it isn’t too long. If you would like to help inform the OER movement please complete the survey which can be found at https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/heacademy/oerbase

At LILAC there was a very interesting presentation by Amy Musgrove and Vicky Thirlaway from Leeds Metropolitan University on evaluation of a simulated employment exercise.  To address problems of student progression Amy and Vicky introduced a new way of working within the Employment Law module. Students took on the role of para-legals with the academics taking the roles of solicitors and they interacted with one another using a closed discussion board. Information was released to the groups and they were given a number of tasks to complete. Amy and Vicky agreed there was quite a steep learning curve for those involved- not least when after the first weekend they had 1600 emails to deal with in the project- but included how should the project be assessed, what media could be used, how to address peer assessment, feedback and the tight deadlines they had set themselves and the students. Amy and Vicky have agreed to work with the Simshare project team to prepare their sim for the sharing. We welcome them, and our other LILAC recruits, on board!

The simSHARE project set up a stand at LILAC, the annual learning and teaching conference run for legal educators from the UK and beyond by UKCLE.

Over a day and a half, Sheila, Patricia and Julian spoke to several delegates. We have expressions of interest from 21 people from 17 institutions, some of whom either signed up for one of the roadshow workshops or indicated that they would be able to supply simulations for distribution through the project.

As a major part of the project’s dissemination activities, simSHARE will be taking the project to various locations in the UK in a series of ‘roadshows’. Events are planned for:

• Cardiff on 15 March
• York on 21 April
• Edinburgh on 19 May

A fourth event will take place later in the year, probably in London

Each link will be free to attend. Participants will be introduced to the use of simulations in higher education and will have a chance to find out more about the different approaches to simulation-based learning and the simSHARE project resource site

Find out more on the UKCLE website workshop page, where you can book online for any of these events

The simSHARE project will be presenting at LILAC – the UKCLE’s annual learning and teaching conference at the University of Warwick.

We will be hoping to meet many educators interested both in using simulations in higher education and in contributing simulations to the project repository.

Professor Paul Maharg will present a paper on open educational resources at LILAC.

The simSHARE project has started with a core of eleven simulations, based primarily in areas of law. As part of the strategy for dissemination and sustainability, the project is now seeking not only to enlarge its resource base but also to broaden its subject coverage.

We are actively seeking simulation resources that have been developed for accredited programmes in higher education institutions. We will be hosting a wide range of simulation materials including online simulations, paper-based role plays and case-study scenarios from a wide range of disciplines. It doesn’t matter whether your simulation is designed to run in a single tutorial or take up only a few hours of student time; or whether it lasts an entire academic year – we’re keen to host all types, all sizes of simulations.

If you have simulation resources in any discipline and would like to become part of this project:

1. Read the call for more information.

2. Contact Patricia McKellar patricia.mckellar@warwick.ac.uk to note your interest and for further discussion.

3. The project team will work with you to repurpose the resources and ensure your contribution is recognised.