I am currently Deputy Director of the Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement at the University of Strathclyde. I am also the Director of the REAP project (Re-engineering Assessment Practices), a £1m initiative funded by the Scottish Funding Council under its e-Learning Transformation Programme and involving three Scottish Universities (Strathclyde, Glasgow and Glasgow Caledonian).
I am currently a member of the Steering Group of the UK Heads of E-Learning Forum, the BECTA e-portfolio group, the ALT-C Research Committee, the Universities' Scotland, Educational Development Committee and the Member of Advisory Committee of Higher Education Academy, Education Subject Centre (ESCalate). I am also involved in a number of international collaborations with Australia and US universities (see projects).
My interest is in applied educational research in three inter-related areas:
- the assessment of student learning;
- the application and effectiveness of online, computer mediated and distributed learning (e-learning);
- and the management of change brought about by developments and innovations in assessment and e-learning in higher education.
Projects
Projects I direct or am a consultant to:
The Re-engineering Assessment Practices Project (Scottish Funding Council)
In 2005, I secured £1m from the Scottish Funding Council (under competitive bidding process) to fund the Re-engineering Assessment Practices (REAP) project. I am the Director of the REAP project which is piloting and evaluating transformational change in assessment practices using new digital technologies across three higher education institutions - the University of Strathclyde, the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Caledonian University. More information (External Link)
First Year Experience and Assessment (QAA Scotland)
I am the Director of a project funded by the Scottish Quality Assurance Agency Scotland to carry out a literature review identifying the ways in which formative assessment practices might enhance the students experience of the first year, and to identify exemplars of good practice nationally and internationally. This review is due to be published by QAA Scotland in late 2007 and will be widely distributed as a resource for teachers and policy-makers in the HE sector. More information (External Link)
Assessment & Disciplines: Developing E-tivities Research (Leicester University)
The ADDER project will build on the work undertaken by the ADELIE project, which was a Higher Education Academy Pathfinder Project carried out by Leicester University. This project is investigating assessment practices based on e-tivities and their impact on the learner experience in 4 disciplines at 4 universities over 12 months. I am on the Steering Group for this project which is led by Professor Gilly Salmon. More information (External Link)
DMEM: Distributed Innovative Design Education and Teamwork (DIDET) project.
This project involves the Universities of Strathclyde, Stanford (US) and Olin College (US) and was funded (£0.5m) by JISC (UK) and the National Science Foundation (US). Over the last four years, the project has been testing models to support students working in global design teams supported by new technologies. I provide pedagogical advice and developed the evaluation strategy for this project. In collaboration with DMEM staff I have produced three refereed journal papers plus some conference papers on this work (Breslin, Nicol et al, 2007: Nicol et al, 2005: McGill, Nicol et al, 2005). More information (External Link)
Learning from Digital Natives (Higher Education Academy)
I am a partner in this Higher Education Academy funded project that is led by Professor Littlejohn and Dr Anoush Margaryan of Glasgow Caledonian University. This project is producing a literature review of the issues raised by students informal uses of new technologies and software (e.g. social networking software) for their formal learning at university. It is also producing case examples and recommendations for institutions wishing to enhance formal learning using, for example, social networking software. More information (External Link)
Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories (CDLOR) (JISC)
I was the senior consultant on learning communities to this project funded by JISC (£199k). This project investigated barriers and enablers to the successful use of repositories of learning resources in support of teaching and learning, within different types of learning communities. The project was led by Professor Allison Littlejohn of Glasgow Caledonian University. More information (External Link)
Change Management: Cost-Benefit Analysis (JISC)
Between 2000 and 2004, I and Michael Coen, Head of Innovation Services and Projects in Learning Services at the University of Strathclyde secured three tranches of funding (£63,000) from the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) for the INSIGHT project. The work of the INSIGHT project involved devising and pilot testing a cost-benefit model to be used to evaluate investment decisions regarding the use of new technology in teaching and learning. The pilot work was carried out across the FE and HE sector (Universities of Bangor, DeMontford, UHIMI, Belfast Institute and Stoke College). We have published three papers (Nicol and Coen, 2003 a,b: Ceon & Nicol, 2007) in refereed journals, developed a software implementation and provided advice to HE institutions (see 3.2). This is an important and growing area of research interest both to DfES and to the Funding Councils given the level of investment new technologies in teaching require. More information (External Link)
Change Management: Risk Management of ICT investments (JISC)
In 2003-2004, Michael Coen (Head of Innovation Services at Strathclyde) and I in collaboration with Kilmarnock College, secured from JISC two tranches of funding (£80,000) to investigate the risks associated with failing to invest or investing inappropriately in e-learning in FE and HE. This involved interviewing personnel across 20 HE/FE institutions as well as those in key stakeholder agencies (e.g. all four Funding Councils, BECTA, DfES. HE Academy). The outputs of this project were a senior management briefing paper, a framework for managing risks institutionally (including questions) and a set of workshop plans for FE/HE institutions. All this has been publicised on the JISC website as an InfoKit linked to the Strathclyde website (see below). Consultancy advice has been provided to a number of HE institutions based on this work. Publications include Coen & Nicol, 2007: Nicol & Coen, in press. More information (External Link)
Research and publications
Recent publications are on formative assessment including technology-supported assessment, digital libraries and shared workspaces in learning and on the use of electronic voting systems in the classroom. I have also published on change management, risk and cost-benefit analysis of e-learning investments in higher education.
Journal articles
Nicol, D, (submitted), Assessment for Learner Self-regulation: Enhancing achievement in the first year using Learning Technologies, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education
Breslin, C., Nicol, D., Grierson, H., Wodehouse, A., Juster, N., and Ion, W (2007). Embedding an integrated learning environment and digital repository: lessons learned, British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(5), 805-816
Nicol, D (2007) E-assessment by design: using multiple-choice tests to good effect, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31(1), 53-64.
Nicol, D (2007). Laying a foundation for lifelong learning: case studies of e-assessment in large first year classes, British Journal of Educational Technology, 18(4), 668-678
Coen, M and Nicol, D (2007) Managing investment in teaching and learning technologies, Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 11(1), 25-28.
Nicol, D (2006), Increasing success in first year courses: assessment redesign, self-regulation and learning technologies, Refereed paper presented at ASCILITE, Sydney, December 2006.
Nicol, D, J. & Macfarlane-Dick (2006), Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice, Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 199-218.
McGill, L., Nicol, D., Littlejohn, A., Grierson, H., Juster, N. & Ion, W (2005), Creating an information rich environment to enhance design learning: challenges and approaches, British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(4), 629-641.
Nicol, D., Littlejohn, A. & Grierson, H. (2005). The importance of structuring information and resources within shared workspaces during collaborative design learning. Open Learning, 20(1), 31-49
Nicol, D.J. & MacLeod, I, A. (2004). Using a Shared Workspace and Wireless Laptops to Improve Collaborative Project Learning in an Engineering Design Class, Computers & Education, 44(4) 559-575
Nicol, D.J. & Boyle, J.T. (2003), Peer Instruction versus Class-wide Discussion in large classes: a comparison of two interaction methods in the wired classroom, Studies in Higher Education, 28(4), 457-473
Nicol, D. J., Minty, I. & Sinclair, C. (2003), The social dimensions of online learning, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 40(3), 270-280
Nicol, D.J. & Coen, M. (2003) A Model for Evaluating the Institutional Costs and Benefits of ICT Initiatives in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Association for Learning Technology Journal, 11(2), 46-60
Nicol, D.J. & Coen, M. (2003) The importance of cost-benefit analysis: a response, Association for Learning Technology Journal, 11(3), 122-124
Boyle, J.T. and Nicol, D. J. (2003). Using classroom communication systems to support interaction and discussion in large class settings, Association for Learning Technology Journal, 11(3), 43-57
Nicol, D.J. (2003). Conceptions of learning objects: social and educational issues. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, [http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/2003/1/]
Book Chapters
Nicol, D. and Coen, M (in press), Getting from here to there: strategies for change. In J, Boys and P. Ford, The e-Revolution and Post-Compulsory Education: Using e-Business Models to Deliver Quality Education, Routledge: London
Nicol, D. & Macfarlane-Dick, (2005), Improving feedback to students, In Reflections on Assessment Volume II, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 105-119.
Nicol, D. J. & Milligan, C. (2006), Rethinking technology-supported assessment in terms of the seven principles of good feedback practice. In C. Bryan and K. Clegg (Eds), Innovative Assessment in Higher Education, Taylor and Francis Group Ltd., London.
Nicol, D.J. & Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2004). Rethinking formative assessment in HE: a theoretical model and seven principles of good feedback practice. In, C. Juwah, D. Macfarlane-Dick, B. Matthew, D. Nicol, D. & Smith, B. (2004) Enhancing student learning though effective formative feedback, York, The Higher Education Academy.