The interim and final reports for your HEAT 3 project should follow the structure set out in this
template. Please note that the suggested word limits are for guidance only and should be
adapted as appropriate to your project \u2013 for example, providing a shorter report supplemented by
sample materials may be a more suitable format. We welcome any supporting materials you are
able to provide, including photographs, video clips and sample learning resources.

HEAT3
JISC TechDis Service
The Higher Education Academy Building
Innovation Way
York Science Park
York
YO10 5BR

1. Why did you undertake
this particular inclusion
project?

This project aimed to utilize mobile technology to ascertain the study
spaces used by students at University of Leicester. Free wifi access
is readily available on the University of Leicester campus, and
students were required to use the twitter microblogging system
(http://twitter.com) regularly to record short messages describing
where and what they are studying using an iPod touch (or on a
personal mobile phone via SMS if they chose). Student messages
were tracked by RSS and data aggregated centrally for analysis. The
current interest in the student experience
(http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/studentexperience) has included
those looking at the learning environment and in particular the
physical space and tools used by students when studying. This
project was in-line with our institutional progress towards monitoring
and recording the student experience. In terms of inclusivity in its
widest sense, the project was designed to allow us to investigate the
use of the mobile device by students.

2. What was the context in which you used/developed this inclusion approach?

This project was carried out at University of Leicester, a research-led
university. Data generated by students using a microblogging
service had not previously been explored at the University. The iPod
touch devices were used by two different cohorts of students. The
first group of participants were campus-based first year
undergraduate science students, all 18-19 years old. The second
group were campus-based postgraduate masters-level arts students
who ranged in age from 21-41. Mobile devices score highly on
flexibility but other than for video and audio are poor input devices,
e.g. for large amounts of text. The use of a microblogging service
enabled us to assess the flexibility of a short text based system on
these devices. While there are limitations on the accessibility of
mobile devices, in particular in terms of visual impairment, mobile
devices such as the iPod Touch score highly for students with limited
mobility and for mature students living at a distance from the
campus. They can also be used while students are in transit, e.g. on
public transport.

3. What technologies
and/or e-tools were
available to you?

We wanted to explore the iPod Touch as a relatively low cost, flexible
and attractive device with multiple affordances. We were awarded 10
iPod touches, mobile, wifi-enabled devices. These devices were
chosen for their ease of use, wifi capabilities and the high quality of
screen display allowing a good mobile browsing experience for the
users.
Microblogging services are available on a wide variety of platforms,
including mobile phones (native format on smartphones and via SMS
on older phones), web interfaces and desktop clients. We selected
twitter (twitter.com) as the sector-leading microblogging service, to

offer stability and integrated technologies such as Twitpic for photos.
On the iPod Touch there are a wide range of free twitter clients
available, but the service is also available via a simple web page and
by mobile phones through SMS. Free web clients for desktop/laptop
use are also available, such as Twhirl and Tweetdeck, or free
browser plug-ins such twitterfox for Firefox.

The aim was to recruit students from two main cohorts (School of
Biological Sciences undergraduates, and Museum Studies
postgraduates). Participating students were required to post
messages ("tweet") at least four times per day, e.g. "I am in the

devices to be active over six months and be rotated through several
groups of students, to build an accurate picture of where and when
student-defined learning spaces on and off-campus are utilized, and
for what purposes. By rotating the devices through various student
cohorts, we aimed to localize preferred learning spaces for the
disciplines covered by the project in time and space. Students would
be selected at random from each group to keep the iPod Touches at
the end of the project as an inducement to recruitment.
Five members of staff were involved in the project:
Two academic members of staff, one from each department involved:
Dr Alan Cann and Dr Ross Pary
Two elearning technologists : Dr Jo Badge and Alex Moseley
One member of central Student Support and Development Service :
Stuart Johnson.

Students were recruited with the incentive of keeping some of the
iPod Touch devices at the end of the project. Initially, despite this
incentive, very few students volunteered to participate in the project.
However, once the project had been advertised to students already
using twitter and running for a few weeks, we had further requests for
students to be involved. At the launch of the project in November
2008, twitter was still unfamiliar to the students and was unheard of in
the general media. The first cohort chosen received instruction
through an IT key skills module on using twitter and those students
were targeted for recruitment to the project. Staff involved in the
project created new twitter identities to follow the students and offer
support encouragement and advice for all aspects of student life.

Cohort sizes were determined by the number of devices available
(maximum of 10). However, due to the low numbers of volunteers
involved we decided to change the original project plan and allow the
each cohort of students to keep the iPod Touches for 4 weeks. The
students that were recruited were very enthusiastic about using the
devices. The students readily added a given hashtag
(http://hashtags.org/) to label their tweets (#uolh3 for Museum Studies