The Open Habitat project team would like to thank all those involved in the Users and Innovation programme especially Lawrie Phipps the programme manager. The programme’s pioneering approach brought together a vibrant project team and provided inspiring and innovative forums and events. Many of these forums were arranged and facilitated by the Emerge support project members of whom the Open Habitat project would also like to thank.
We really appreciate all of the open-minded students who took part in the piloting activities and took the time to feed back and reflect on what they had experienced.
We would also like to thank the members of the JISC funded ‘Preview’ project which was also researching the use of MUVEs but in this case for continuing professional development. They offered us a lot of indispensible encouragement and advice.
The Open Habitat team comprised the following members.
Oxford University
- David White.
Dave was the project’s Principal Investigator. He is the Co-Manager of TALL, the Technology-Assisted Lifelong Learning Unit based within the Department for Continuing Education. More information about TALL can be found at http://www.tall.ox.ac.uk/.
- Marianne Talbot.
Marianne is Director of Studies in Philosophy at the Department for Continuing Education. She led the philosophy pilots.
- Alison Le Cornu.
Alison joined the project team in November 2008 as researcher and general project coordinator.
alison.lecornu@conted.ox.ac.uk
Leeds Metropolitan University
- Ian Truelove.
Ian is Principal Lecturer (Technology Enhanced Learning) at the Leeds School of Contemporary Art and Graphic Design, in the Faculty of Arts & Society. He led the art and design pilots. Ian designed the Open Habitat magazine and developed the Manual for use within an MUVE environment.
- Graham Hibbert.
Graham is an Associate Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art and Graphic Design at Leeds Metropolitan University, mainly concentrating on digital abstract photography and moving image, but increasingly involved in web-based identity and virtual spaces. He was an in-world mentor and Second Life design expert for the art and design pilots.
Kings College London
- Steven Warburton.
Steve is an e-Learning manager at KCL and a Fellow of the Centre for Distance Education at the University of London. Steve oversaw the general evaluation of the project and worked at developing the Principles of Good Practice that are one of the main project outcomes.
- Margarita Pérez García.
Marga is a researcher in education science. She steered the story telling methodology for gathering data, and together with Steve Warburton she took responsibility for the project evaluation and for the development of the Principles of Good Practice.
Consultants
- Dave Cormier.
Dave is a web technologies specialist at the University of Prince Edward Island (Canada), cofounder of Edtechtalk, and president of Edactive Technologies, a social software consulting firm. Dave contributed a number of papers to the project’s Magazine and website, and is the overall Open Habitat webmaster.
- Michael Gardner.
Michael is Deputy Director of Chimera at Essex University. Chimera is part of the Institute for Social and Technical Research which combines the social and technological sciences to generate insights into the personal and social use of information and communication technologies. Michael provided Project Wonderland, an MUVE which we considered using in order to run the pilots.
