HUMLO

This cross-School interdisciplinary project (Music, Archaeology, English literature and Modern Languages) aims to build on existing e-learning design templates and expertise developed within Modern Languages to develop subject specific study skills resources for e-learning in the form of flexible, pedagogically sound, learner-centred materials.

These online learning materials are created as 'learning objects' (LOs) for the Humanities (HUMLOs). HUMLOs are made using an authoring tool (LOC Tool) which has been developed at the University and for which training is available.

The Study Skills Toolkit is offered to all University students and teaching staff through Blackboard and provides a comprehensive set of generic LOs with feedback and other support to scaffold students' learning. Feedback from staff and students has indicated that some LOs within the Toolkit could be made more useful if they were specifically designed for the writing styles and conventions of subject areas (e.g. the Arts and Humanities) and embedded into the face to face teaching programme. Research also indicates that further development is needed to adapt tasks that new students find particularly difficult and which they might more easily engage with if the tasks were broken down into a series of smaller activities and made more relevant to their area of study.

The project is addressing these needs by developing over 15 hours of interactive online materials in the form of reusable LOs which will be embedded in undergraduate programmes within the School of Humanities and made available to university of Southampton students and staff through the Study Skills Toolkit in Blackboard.

April 2009

This successful collaborative project has now come to an end and output has exceeded the 20-24 LOs planned for.

Here is a sample of the project outputs in interactive format:

A further stage of evaluation is now planned. This is to be carried out during the next academic year 2009/2010. The full list of developed LOs with a generic (Humanities) focus or discipline-specific focus is given below:

Archaeology

Using archaeological fieldwork and scientific data to support written statements
Recognising appropriate supporting evidence for writing in Archaeology
Structuring content in academic writing in Archaeology
Avoiding plagiarism in Archaeology essays
Recording objects in Archaeology

English

Analysing examples in English Literature
Meeting the criteria for a good assignment grade in English
Avoiding plagiarism in English essays
Defining terms effectively in English Literature essays
Defining Stage and Screen terms in English literature essays
Scanning poems
Writing introductions for English essays
Writing conclusions for English essays

Modern Languages

Hartley Library challenge for Modern Language students
Understanding tutor feedback for French
Error analysis for French language learners
Error analysis for German language learners
Error analysis for Portuguese language learners
Error analysis for Spanish language learners

Music

Using music examples to support written statements
Introduction to references and bibliographies for Music
Managing your references and bibliographic entries for Music
Avoiding plagiarism in Music essays

Humanities (general)

Using examples to support written statements in the Humanities
Using graphic illustrations to support written statements in the Humanities
Academic writing style for the Humanities
Producing concise and clear writing in the Humanities