Projects

eSTEeM is providing a mechanism for professional development through practice-based scholarship within a mentored community. Much of our work is organised on a project basis with project management aimed at the delivery of new educational outcomes and scholarship outputs. 

eSTEeM supports a rolling portfolio of approx. 80 active scholarship projects under a number of themes which include:

  • Access, Participation and Success
  • Innovative assessment
  • Online/onscreen STEM practice
  • Supporting students
  • Technologies for STEM learning

To learn more about our projects, please click on the project titles or use the search feature below by entering keywords. To search by the name of a project leader, please use the 'Filter by Project Leader' tab on the right-hand side of this page.

Search results

203 results found

Evaluation and improvement of print packs use for Environmental Science students

Fiona Aiken Chris Hutton

Winner of the 8th eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Award 2025.

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Typical Support Seeking Behaviour of STEM Students, their Outcomes and Successes

Paul Collier Fiona Aiken

The importance of personal, non-academic support of students especially in a distance learning environment is well documented in the literature.

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Impact of introducing new practical and dataset project options to the science undergraduate capstone project module (S390)

Hannah Gauci Julie Robson Jon Golding Janette Wallace

S390 is the undergraduate science capstone project module.

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Black student experience and attainment on S112: improving a level 1 STEM module

Louise MacBrayne Jennie Bellamy

Highly Commended at the 7th eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Awards 2024.

Winner of the 8th Best Poster Competition at the 12th eSTEeM Annual Conference, 19-20 April 2023.

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An evaluation of use and impact of zero grades in assessment; are we being consistent, fair, and transparent?

Karen New Fiona Moorman

Assessment is at the core of teaching and learning at the Open University.  It is used to measure student learning against institutional and AQA standards and, most importantly, assessment has a pivotal role in consolidating student understanding and in supporting progression along their lea

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Evaluating the Impact of Implementing Learning Design Approaches in STEM over 4 Years

Tom Olney

In 2016, the OU was restructured into four super-faculties (STEM, WELS, FASS & FBL). Amongst many other things, each faculty was tasked with developing structures, governance and procedures that would support module teams in designing teaching and learning appropriate to their context.

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Online peer mentoring at scale: Benefits and impacts from a student buddy perspective

Julie Robson Chris Hutton

The benefits of peer mentoring for students studying in Higher Education are well established and have been demonstrated in online, blended and hybrid settings. Best practice in establishing financially sustainable schemes in online settings at a large scale is under researched.

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Embedding research into teaching: practices, motivations and impacts

Sarah Davies

Academics are often interested in using their own research in their teaching – this can be a valuable way of sharing their passion for their subject, connecting students with cutting edge research knowledge, and enabling students to experience authentic science practices.

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Early Start for TM470 project students

Christine Gardner

Students on the IT/computing named degree have a compulsory project to complete at the end of their studies (TM470), yet for some this is a major challenge due to the independent nature of the research, with relatively little taught content in the module.

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Pair marking: Working together to improve our teaching

Nigel Gibson Kate Sim

This project aims to investigate using dynamically shared marking documents to support new tutors. In the process it will also provide this group some additional mentoring, and it allow experienced tutors to reflect on their own work and to share and develop good practice.

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