Dr Jen Ross
Senior Lecturer

- Moray House School of Education, IECS
- University of Edinburgh
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 651 6133
- Email: jen.ross@ed.ac.uk
- Web: Jen's website
Address
- Street
-
Moray House School of Education, SJL Rm 4.15
- City
- University of Edinburgh (Holyrood Campus)
- Post code
- EH8 8AQ
Background
I am a Senior Lecturer in Digital Education and co-director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education. I research, teach and publish on online and open education, digital cultural heritage engagement, digital cultures and futures, and online reflective practices. I'm one of the team behind the Manifesto for Teaching Online and the E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC. I have worked on recent research, public engagement and consultancy projects with a range of organisations including National Galleries of Scotland, Tate, Scottish Parliament, World Bank, and the Council for At-Risk Academics.
Postgraduate teaching
On the MSc in Digital Education , I lead Digital Futures for Learning", and Course Design for Digital Environments, and teach on the “Introduction to digital environments for learning” and “Education and digital cultures” courses. I was the director of the MSc programme between 2012-15.
In 2013-14, I was part of the team that developed and taught one of the UK's first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) - E-learning and Digital Cultures (EDCMOOC).
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Areas of interest for supervision
I supervise PhD and MSc dissertations on topics relating to digital education and digital cultures.
Past PhD students supervised
- Janan Dean - Examining Social Work and Technology: A Cross-Disciplinary Analysis of Technology Issues in Violence Against Women Shelters in Ontario, Canada (2015)
- Jeremy Knox - Posthumanism and the Massive Open Online Course: contaminating the Subject of Global Education (2014)
- Claire Sowton (Wright) - Arts evaluation and the transformative power of the arts: A visual ethnography of transformative learning in a collaborative
community (arts) film (2013)
Research summary
- Online and distance learning and teaching
- Cultural heritage learning and engagement
- Digital cultures
- Reflective practices
- Online learning and identity
- Higher education
- Creativity and digital futures
Research activities
Project activity
- 2017-18: CI - Methodological Innovations for Assessing Learning in Digital Spaces. Edinburgh-Sydney Partnership Collaboration Award, 2017-18. With PIs Dragan Gasevic and Jen Scott Curwood.
- 2015-16: PI – Artcasting and ARTIST ROOMS on Tour: Using mobilities-informed methods to support new approaches to arts evaluation. AHRC, 2015-16. With CIs Jeremy Knox and Chris Speed.
- 2015-16: PI – Digital Cultural Heritage Research Network, University of Edinburgh Academic Networking Fund, 2016. With CIs Sian Bayne, James Loxley and Chris Speed.
- 2014-15: PI – Dissertations at a Distance. Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme, University of Edinburgh
- 2014-17: Partner – CONSTRUIT!: Making construals as a new digital skill for creating interactive open educational resources. Funded by ERASMUS+, with Warwick (lead partner), Edumotiva (Greece), University of Eastern Finland, Helix 5 (Netherlands), Comenius University (Slovakia), and the University of Edinburgh. (2014-17)
- 2014-15: Project team: Coding the MOOC teacher.
- 2013-16: Lead consultant on a project with the World Bank, Washington DC, supporting the development of their MOOCs. (2013-15)
- 2012-2016: Member of the ARTIST ROOMS Research Partnership, Engagement and Learning strand. Partnership Lead: Neil Cox. (2012-16)
- 2013-14: Fellow, Beltane Parliament Engagement Fellowship on the topic of “Distance and online learning for an innovative and inclusive Scotland”.
- 2014: Co-author, Higher Education Academy commissioned report: ‘MOOC pedagogy: the UK view’. With Sian Bayne. Report details: Bayne, S. and Ross, J. (2014) The Pedagogy of the MOOC: the UK View. York: Higher Education Academy.
- 2013-14: Member of local organising committee, Networked Learning 2014, Edinburgh.
- 2013-14: Research associate, Putting art on the map . Funded from a NESTA Digital R&D award, a partnership between the Imperial War Museum, Historypin and the University of Edinburgh.
- 2011-12 – co-investigator, New geographies of learning: Distance education and being “at” Edinburgh. (PI Dr S Bayne)
- 2010-11 – co-investigator, Digital Futures for Cultural Heritage Education in Scotland seminar series. Funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
- 2009-11 - principal investigator, Student writing: innovative online strategies for assessment and feedback
- 2009-10 - co-principal investigator, "Research Perspectives: discussion, debate and dialogue" series for doctoral students and early career researchers in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh
- 2007-2009 - National Museums Online Learning Project, research strand (Research Associate)
-
Casting a line : Digital co-production, hospitality and mobilities in cultural heritage settings
(18 pages)
In:
Curator: the museum journal, vol. 61, no. 4, pp. 1-18
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12280
Contribution to journal › Article (Published) -
Mobilising connections with art : Artcasting and the digital articulation of visitor engagement with cultural heritage
(20 pages)
In:
International Journal of Heritage Studies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2018.1493698
Contribution to journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Assessment in a digital age : Rethinking multimodal artefacts in higher education
(2 pages)
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution (Published) -
Speculative Method as an Approach to Researching Emerging Educational Issues and Technologies
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (Published) -
Artcasting, mobilities, and inventiveness : Engaging with new approaches to arts evaluation
DOI: https://doi.org/20.500.11820/e30c4d10-3b56-455b-ae9f-6730d190d4dc
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
If it’s creative, it doesn’t feel like evaluation : Implications for practice from the Artcasting project
(11 pages)
In:
The Museum Review, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1-11
Contribution to journal › Article (Published) -
The ‘campus imaginary’ : Online students’ experience of the masters dissertation at a distance
In:
Teaching in Higher Education, pp. 1-16
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2017.1319809
Contribution to journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
For whom, and for what? Not-yetness and thinking beyond open content
In:
Open Praxis, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 7-16
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.9.1.406
Contribution to journal › Article (Published) -
Speculative method in digital education research
In:
Learning, Media and Technology, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 214-229
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2016.1160927
Contribution to journal › Article (Published) -
Making construals as a new digital skill : Dissolving the program - and the programmer - interface
(8 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/iTAG.2015.10
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution (Published) -
“Where does this work belong?” : New digital approaches to evaluating engagement with art
Contribution to conference › Paper (Published) -
Manifesto for Teaching Online 2016
(2 pages)
(Published) -
Complexity, mess and not-yetness : Teaching online with emerging technologies
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Open education : The need for a critical approach
In:
Learning, Media and Technology, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 247-250
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2015.1065272
Contribution to journal › Article (Published) -
Socially reconstructing history: the Social History Timestream application
(12 pages)
In:
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, no. June, pp. 1-12
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2015.1051802
Contribution to journal › Article (Published) -
Guest editor's notes
(3 pages)
In:
TechTrends, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 3-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-014-0811-0
Contribution to journal › Editorial (Published) -
Spotlight Issue : Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh
In:
TechTrends, vol. 59, no. 1
Contribution to journal › Special issue (Published) -
MOOC Pedagogy
(22 pages)
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Engaging with “webness” in online reflective writing practices
(14 pages)
In:
Computers and Composition, vol. 34, pp. 96-109
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2014.09.007
Contribution to journal › Article (Published) -
MOOC pedagogy: the UK view
Book/Report › Commissioned report (Published)