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

273 results found

Investigating the motivations of female students choosing an open versus named qualification

Elaine McPherson Mary Keys

UK universities (including the OU) have continued to struggle to recruit women to certain subjects within STEM despite best efforts to address this gender imbalance. In 2017, the OU introduced a ‘BSc (Hons) Combined STEM’ degree (R28) alongside its single and joint honours degrees in STEM.

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An investigation into the breadth of learning objectives and skills developed in OpenSTEM Labs experiments

Helen Lockett

Highly Commended at the 6th eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Awards 2023.

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The value to students of drop-in tutorials to support assessment

Maria Townsend

Open University standard online tutorials are generally tutor-led with the tutor setting the agenda and content to be covered. Although they include both presentation and activities, some students are reluctant to actively participate.

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How one module can serve multiple qualifications through tailored implementation of presentation

Carol Calvert Rachel Hilliam

Students taking qualifications mainly in science, economics and data sciences are now the majority of the students on a second-year undergraduate statistics course.

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Evaluating the design of the virtual microscope with students

Christothea Herodotou

Existing studies about the design of the Virtual Microscope (VM) detail the technical specifications of the microscope such as improving the client response time when requesting an image and portability across computer platforms (Çatalyürek et al., 2003; Fereira et al., 1997) and report on develo

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Using Bitesize Videos to Enhance Students’ Experiences in a Level 2 Programming Module

Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui Mark Hall Marina Carter

TT284 is a popular level 2 Web technologies module attracting over 1000 students in each presentation.

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Evaluation of D-flag students accessibility to and use of online tutorials and forums in L2 modules

Sarah Daniell Lorraine Waters

It remains the case that despite different initiatives to encourage tutorial attendance, few students attend live online tutorials in LHCS.

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How successfully are students engaging with the Python component of SM123?

Gemma Warriner

SM123: Physics and Space is a Level 1 module aimed at preparing students to study physics, astronomy or planetary science at OU level 2. Most students are not new to the Open University and will have already studied S111: Questions in Science.

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Degree-Apprenticeships: Embedding learning in the practice-tutor, apprentice, employer tripartite

Alexis Lansbury Autumn Thomson Andy Hollyhead

This project will focus on the undergraduate degree-apprenticeships offered by the School of Computing and Communications in England and Wales.

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Day time tutorials for apprentices – what is best practice in computing?

Autumn Thomson Marina Carter

At the Open University (OU) we are still learning about the best way to support our apprentice learners in their academic study. Degree Apprentices are learners in full time employment with study funded through the apprenticeship levy and other government sources.

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