Chris Valentine's profile document
Description for Chris Valentine
Chris Valentine
Chris Valentine
Chris
Valentine
Project Officer
Joining the OU in the Spring of 1992, my initial projects were related to the transcription of course material for print-disabled students. I was a founding member of KMi when it was launched in 1995. I am now a web applications developer using PHP and mySQL, writing custom code or extensions for open source CMS like Drupal or Wordpress.
I am particularly interested in the application of mobile technology to teaching and learning in remote locations. Projects have included a photo and audio blog for L204, a second level Spanish language course which made custom use of Google Maps for location data. I was also part of the award-winning team for ERA - the use of wireless networking technology to make geology field trips accessible to disabled and/or remote students.
I worked on the website that hosts the Open University's immensely popular podcast service http://podcast.open.ac.uk and the OU's webcast hosting system STADIUM. I have been involved in four EU-funded projects related to language teaching and inter-cultural competence.
Outreach projects include collaboration with the Halle Orchestra and the Field Studies Council. I worked on Making The News (a web-based news system being used in schools nation-wide http://mtn.e2bn.net), ROSTRA, CLUTCH, CABER, VDC, MK Schools OnLine and the citischool project (teaching for kids who dropped out of mainstream education in the Milton Keynes area).
I have also created web applications for the OU's Research School including PhDSkills (to track the progress of all PhD students at the OU) and the Research Diary. I both judge and run the online part of the annual research students' poster competition where new PhD students show off their projects (https://researchposters.open.ac.uk)
In 2008 I was a recipient of two OU Teaching Awards, for my role in T189 'Digital photography: creating and sharing better images' (https://www.open.ac.uk/courses/short-courses/tg089) and as part of the ERA team. I received a third Teaching Award in 2014 for my part in webcasting the Student Connections conference. I have since contributed to the OU's new photography course 'Creating a Professional Portfolio' including a Raspberry Pi-powered remote SLR and hosted on FutureLearn.
I now work mostly on Citizen Science projects including iSpot (https://ispotnature.org)
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The Open University account for Chris Valentine
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Chris Valentine's membership at KMi
Chris Valentine on LinkedIn
Chris Valentine's participation in Alternative Media for Print Disabled Students
Alternative Media for Print Disabled Students
Alternative Media for Print Disabled Students
1994-01-01
1999-04-01
Accessibility through CD-ROM technology
This work brings together CD-ROM technology as a delivery medium, navigation software that is accessed through enabling technologies (screen-reading, magnification), and digital media (text, images, audio) that give a rich choice of study media to print disabled students.
Chris Valentine's participation in XO
XO
XO
2002-07-19
The automatic presentation creator
The playback engine XO Stage and its companion editing tools XO Editor and XO ButtonEd make the creation and viewing of multimedia presentations a breeze. It uses a combination of Apple QuickTime and Macromedia Flash to provide an easy way to create professional looking presentations.
Chris Valentine's participation in CABER
CABER
CABER
2002-02-01
2003-07-31
CLUTCH As a Broadband Educational Resource
Supported by the East of England Broadband Consortium, the CABER project draws upon the successes of the CLUTCH Club Millennium Awards Scheme by further testing the concept of involving parents and children at school in the process of researching, editing and presenting a local history topic on the internet. The project seeks to exploit the potential of broadband connectivity by facilitating the recording, editing and sharing of rich multimedia assets which have been collected using digital video and oral history techniques. As with the CLUTCH Scheme, the CABER project is being operated in partnership with the Living Archive, an established documentary arts organisation based in Milton Keynes.
Chris Valentine's participation in CEFcult
CEFcult
CEFcult
2009-11-01
2011-10-31
Online assessment of intercultural competence
CEFcult provides an online environment that brings together the worlds of higher education and enterprise for the assessment of oral proficiency for intercultural professional purposes. The target groups are employees, those about to (re)enter the workplace, language teachers and in-company trainers.
Chris Valentine's participation in citischool
citischool
citischool
2001-06-01
2004-05-31
Where young people are citizens and citizens are teachers
CitiSchool (The Citizens' School) is an exciting new initiative being pioneered in the UK by Milton Keynes, to support disaffected young people in maintaining their interest in learning, and gaining qualifications. Adapted for the UK from a proven model in the US, some of the city's largest employers (including The Open University, BT, The British Army, and Abbey National) have joined forces to design and deliver Key Skills training to young people truanting or excluded from school, but who nonetheless have demonstrated their desire to learn. Citischool starts in September 2001, in collaboration with the major educational providers and agencies in Milton Keynes.<BR>
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The Knowledge Media Institute is supporting Citischool by providing the technical infrastructure to manage this "school without walls". Students, mentors, work placement employers, administrators and tutors must communicate and coordinate work across the city, posing unique challenges for traditional systems. This infrastructure is absolutely critical to the project's success, and KMi is adapting and extending in-house Web-based technologies (originally developed for the Millennium funded CLUTCH Project) to help administer Citischool over the Internet.
Chris Valentine's participation in FIT4RRI
FIT4RRI
FIT4RRI
2017-05-01
2020-04-30
Fostering Improved Training Tools for Responsible Research and Innovation
Bridging the gap between RRI and Open Science to manage the rapid transformation processes affecting science, requires a critical mass of experts that is available at the European level. Acknowledged experts from both Universities and Institutes have multi-disciplinary expertise.
Chris Valentine's participation in CLUTCH - Millennium Awards
CLUTCH - Millennium Awards
CLUTCH - Millennium Awards
1999-11-01
Computer Literacy Understanding Through Community History
The Open University has worked in partnership with the Living Archive, an independent documentary arts organisation based in Wolverton (Milton Keynes), to run a highly-successful and ground-breaking Millennium Award Scheme called CLUTCH - Computer Literacy Understanding Through Community History. Supported by the Millennium Commission from National Lottery funding, the scheme provided free web-based ICT training and support for over 300 parents of local school-aged children to complete a local history project of their choosing. The work of the resulting 60 school-based CLUTCH Clubs can be seen by visiting the main CLUTCH Club Millennium Award Scheme homepage.
Chris Valentine's participation in Interacting in A Virtual Gallery
Interacting in A Virtual Gallery
Interacting in A Virtual Gallery
2002-04-04
Adding interactivity to virtual reality movies
There's nothing new about virtual reality, but recently considerable advances have been made in how interactive it can be. Using the latest version of Apple's QuickTime virtual reality authoring, combined with advanced digital photography and image editing, CNM have developed a fully interactive approach to virtual environments, with a customised interface that can link to Internet resources.
Chris Valentine's participation in webCEF
webCEF
webCEF
2006-10-01
2009-09-30
Language learning assessment to the Common European Framework
KMi joined the webCEF project on language learning assessments, based on the Common European Framework of Reference. We developed an online tool which helps:
WebCEF allows:
- language learners to let their samples be assessed by teachers all over Europe
- language teachers the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues across Europe and to improve their skills in the use of the CEF scales
- language researchers the access to a vast database of samples and assessments
The WebCEF project runs until September 2009 and is funded under the Socrates - Minerva programme of the European Commission.
Chris Valentine's participation in Phone the Web
Phone the Web
Phone the Web
2002-08-22
The window through which users will access information from networks is widening
Advances in speech recognition, natural language interfaces and software assistants will mean that the way we interact with information and each other over the network will soon be very different too. The range of services available on the Internet could soon be available wherever you are, whenever you need it.<BR>
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The popularity of text messaging, mobiles and email shows that people-to-people services are the ones that really catch the popular imagination. With this opening window, not just individuals, but groups, clubs, organisations and communities can keep in touch easily. The range of applications for these technologies will link more people and communities than was previously possible using only computer terminals.
Chris Valentine's participation in ROSTRA
ROSTRA
ROSTRA
2001-04-01
Technologies for Intelligent News Agency
ROSTRA is a web-based news and content management tool written in PHP. Through the use of templates, it can be customised to fit into existing website designs, or act as a stand-alone website. Article submission is via a simple web form and can be accompanied by a wide variety of media including still images, movies (QuickTime, Windows Media, or FlashBlog), Word and Excel documents and PDF files. Images are resized automatically on the server to save bandwidth. Templates have been created so that ROSTRA can present material in blog formats and/for webcasting. All content is categorised and is fully searcheable. Posting can be done by authorised users or by guests, in which case the system supports message moderation by email. email digests of postings can be created automatically and stories can have permalinks. Certain templates allow authorised users to comment on postings. ROSTRA supports a heirarchical structure allowing sub-ROSTRA to feed into a master ROSTRA. In 2004, ROSTRA was adopted (as 'Making The News') for hundreds of schools across England by the East of England Broadband Consortium.
Chris Valentine's participation in ROSTRA Live
ROSTRA Live
ROSTRA Live
2002-11-19
Rostra Live provides new forms of access to news and dynamic information
ROSTRA news services now support a range of new engines to allow novel forms of access to their own changing information world. The ROSTRA LIVE engines use Macromedia Flash interfaces to read XML feeds from the ROSTRA servers. These news and event feeds can be dynamically mixed with other sources to support a range of animated views of significant changing data.
Chris Valentine's participation in Safety Centre
Safety Centre
Safety Centre
2001-11-26
Website design for the Milton Keynes Safety Centre
The Safety Centre is a prominent community inititative based in Milton Keynes. Their website has to appeal to a wide range of users - teachers, students, potential visitors, safety professionals and the general public. We used simple games, built with Macromedia Flash to support the childrens use of the site; and downloadable worksheets, in Adobe Acrobat, to support the teachers and parents use of the site.
Chris Valentine's participation in Station X
Station X
Station X
2001-09-01
The CNM input to Bletchley Park
This is part of a CNM outreach initiative which highlights the local heritage site of Bletchley Park which was the WWII location of the codebreaking section called Station X. This project has focused on a reworking on their website in conjunction with the release of the film ENIGMA, and the development of some interesting code related games
We are also exploring the creation of accessible resources for schools that use Codes and Hacking in National Curriculum Exemplars.
Chris Valentine's participation in VDC
VDC
VDC
2001-09-19
The Virtual Degree Ceremony
In this project we are exploring how to use technology to appropriately support a strongly social type of event - the celebration of the award of degrees to students in a virtual format. Our second worldwide virtual degree ceremony was webcast live on April 18th 2001. The live ceremony included chat, slides and animations as well as audio and video from the Berrill Lecture Theatre in Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom. Apart from staff on stage, the auditorium itself was entirely empty during the presentation - as all the audience were remote!
In addition to the UK based participants, students attended from as far away as New Zealand, Brazil, Denmark and the USA. In this ceremony, students graduated at home whilst baby-sitting, in the office with colleagues and a glass of champagne, and even with a cappuccino in a local cyber-cafe. A student in New Zealand joked that it was so early/late that he was graduating in his pyjamas!
Chris Valentine's participation in XO Backlot
XO Backlot
XO Backlot
2003-02-26
The Stadium Backlot system facilitates the management and maintenance of both live web casts and rep
The KMi Stadium project has supported a vast range of educational webcasting experiments, both within the Open University and for external clients. The logistics of managing such events, from a web based access point of view, has led to the development of the Stadium Backlot System.
Chris Valentine's participation in Xtreme Webcasting
Xtreme Webcasting
Xtreme Webcasting
2002-08-09
Taking webcasting to the xtreme
A combination of technologies can allow people all over the world to witness extrordinary events.
The Matterhorn, August 2002. A mountaineer takes a leading-edge mobile phone on his ascent of the famous Swiss landmark and sends images and voice messages to the KMi lab in Milton Keynes, UK. Using Macromedia's FlashCom technologies provided "out of the box" in the latest version of Flash MX we have assembled a dynamic, multimedia website for this event. Viewers from around the globe can tune in to the event and even interact via a text chat facility.
Everest, May 2006. The same mountaineer makes a transmission via satellite phone from the summit of Everest - made available in seconds to his many friends, relatives and followers around the world - as part of his challenge to conquor the highest mountain on each of the seven continents of the world.
Spain, August 2007. Students on the OU second level course L204 used our technology for less extreme podcasting, posting images and recordings as they explored the historic town of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. The website was built using the same technology we had developed for the 7 Summits website.
Chris Valentine's participation in Making the News
Making the News
Making the News
2004-01-01
Syndicating School News
This is a project based on the KMi Rostra technologies. The Making the News website is a 'one stop shop' for Primary and Secondary Broadband schools in the UK, where students and teachers can access news, activities and resources. They can create their own news, register, become a roving reporter and produce informative, groundbreaking news stories. Stories judged to be of a high standard are shared automaticlly with other schools in the region and, via RSS, published on the national Making the News website.
Chris Valentine's participation in Podcasting
Podcasting
Podcasting
2006-01-17
A short introduction to podcasting
The word 'podcasting' is a combination of the words 'broadcasting' and 'iPod'. Podcasting is a means by which audio and video programs can be distributed via the internet by allowing users to subscribe to 'feeds'. These feeds contain details and descriptions of the programs, which are logically displayed for the user, and provide an easy way to download the associated files for users to listen to at their leisure. By using a subscription model the user can regularly check for new content to download to a computer and subsequently upload on to an iPod.
Chris Valentine's participation in ERA
ERA
ERA
2007-10-01
Enabling Remote Activity
ERA (Enabling Remote Activity) is an Open University project that supports remote participation by students in fields studies trips. Using a wireless network, digital stills and video cameras and two way audio communications, students are enabled to gather data and otherwise interact with colleagues in remote locations.
The project has supported Earth Sciences summer schools in 2006 (Kindrogan) - 2007 (Heath and Reach), providing local network access and internet connectivity to the field. Future summer school support is planned for 2008.
This website will tell you about the project, the equipment we've used, and introduces the team.
Chris Valentine's participation in L204 Summer School Blog
L204 Summer School Blog
L204 Summer School Blog
2007-01-01
A photo and audio blog for Spanish language students
Students on the L204 second level course "Viento en popa" sent images and voice recordings from their mobile phones as they walked around the historic town of Santiago de Compostela in North Western Spain during their week-long summer school in August 2007. The website was built around the same software and systems previously employed in KMi's Xtreme Webcasts, with the addition of Google Maps via their API.
Chris Valentine's participation in iTunes U
iTunes U
iTunes U
2010-08-01
2012-07-31
iTunes University and Podcasting from KMi
Since late 2005 North American Universities have been using Apple's iTunes as a powerful platform to reach their students and the wider world. On June 3, 2008, Apple finally invited some other countries into this exciting channel. The 3 European Universities to launch at that time were The Open University, University College London (from the UK) and Trinity, Dublin (Ireland). Each of us launched with a pretty decent selection of materials and podcasts.
KMi executed the launch, working closely with the Open University Learning and Teaching Solutions division. The team in LTS will take ahead the service and make it work effectively throughout the University work flows. KMi will take this work forward with an innovative range of new features and some exciting new support services for podcasting; and using the special features of this channel in some new ways...
Chris Valentine's participation in Hallé KTP
Hallé KTP
Hallé KTP
2009-05-01
2011-10-30
A Knowledge Transfer Partnership project between the Hallé Concerts Society and KMi
A Knowledge Transfer Partnership project between the Hallé Concerts Society and KMi and provides an opportunity for KMi to use and furtheer develop some of its key technologies in a real commercial setting, whilst proving the the Hallé Concerts Society with expertise in the field of New Media Technologies
For more information on KTPs, see www.ktponline.org.uk
Chris Valentine's participation in INTENT
INTENT
INTENT
2011-10-01
2014-09-30
Managing inter-cultural collaboration for language learners
Starting in October 2011, INTENT is 30-month EU-funded ERASMUS project to manage foreign language telecollaborations between classes of foreign language learners in higher education in geographically distant locations.
Of the eight partner organisations, KMi are the technical partner, developing the project and host websites using the Drupal open source content management system.
Chris Valentine's participation in WESPOT
WESPOT
WESPOT
2012-10-01
2015-09-30
Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies for Inquiry Based Learning
The weSPOT project, supported by the European Commission, aims to propagate scientific inquiry as the approach for science learning and teaching in combination with today's curricula and teaching practices.
weSPOT will create a Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies that supports users (from 12 to 25) to develop their inquiry based learning skills by means of:
(i) a European reference model for inquiry skills and inquiry workflows,
(ii) a diagnostic instrument for measuring inquiry skills,
(iii) smart support tools for orchestrating inquiry workflows including mobile apps, learning analytics support, and social collaboration on scientific inquiry,
(iv) social media integration and viral marketing of scientific inquiry linked to school legacy systems and an open badge system.
In inquiry-based learning co-learners take the role of explorers and scientists and are motivated by their personal curiosity, guided by self-reflection, and develop knowledge personal and collaborative sense-making and reasoning.
weSPOT will work on a meta-inquiry level in that it will:
1. define a reference model for inquiry-based learning skills,
2. create a diagnostic instrument for measuring inquiry skills, and
3. implement a working environment that allows the easy linking of inquiry activities with school curricula and legacy systems.
Chris Valentine's participation in IEREST
IEREST
IEREST
2012-10-01
2015-09-30
An Erasmus Multilateral Project which aims at developing an Intercultural Path for Erasmus students.
Given that 'mobility still remains the exception rather than the rule' (COM(2009) 329: 5), there is a need of further innovative efforts in promoting it, above all in higher education. Also, the quality of the young Europeans' mobility must be taken into account, since it is well known that residence in a foreign country does not of itself reduce students' stereotypical perceptions of otherness (Shaules, 2007; Strong, 2011).
IEREST will meet these needs by developing an Intercultural Path (namely, a set of teaching modules) to be provided to Erasmus students before, during, and after their experience abroad, in order to encourage learning mobility and to support students in benefiting as much as possible from their international experiences in terms of personal growth and intercultural awareness.
Chris Valentine's participation in GreenDATA
GreenDATA
GreenDATA
2015-12-01
Capturing and sharing renewable energy generation data.
A new project to capture, store and share power generation and use data from domestic renewable energy installations, including solar, wind and solar/geo thermal sources. We will employ low-cost off-the-shelf systems, such as the emon Pi, to send data to a central data store and allow students and courses to query that data in a wide variety of ways.
Chris Valentine's participation in Open Blockchain
Open Blockchain
Open Blockchain
Investigating The Potential Of Blockchains
A blockchain is a publicly shared immutable ledger � an append only log of transactions which uses crypto-currency techniques to minimise any security risk. Transactions are contained in blocks which are linked together through a series of hash pointers. Any tampering of a block can be detected since the hash pointer to it would no longer be valid. As a ledger system it is very open. In addition to the source code being openly available a key feature of blockchains is that in principle every user has their own copy of the entire blockchain. In fact, there is no central or master copy simply the multiple copies held by the volunteers in the user community. Volunteers are rewarded for their effort through a number of algorithmic processes which can result in payment. Small payments can be attached to individual transactions. Consensus on what types of blocks and transactions can be part of the blockchain is automatically reached according to whether the majority of blockchain holders accept newly proposed blocks. This attribute leads to a system where consensus is hardwired into the software. Without the need for any central control or mediator blockchains allow for leaderless democracy - a new way of governing human behaviour online through "one computer one vote". In this way, a blockchain can act as a provenance protocol for sharing data across disparate semi-trusting organizations.
Chris Valentine's participation in OU Go
OU Go
OU Go
OU Go has been developed for staff and visitors to locate the various campus buildings, car and cycle parking and outdoor artwork on the go. The app is designed in the Pokemon Go theme which adds some fun whilst seeking a building location and updates the users location in real time to make it easy to find the desired destination.
Along with providing users with a selection of character (avatar) choices the app displays campus in 3D allowing the user to select the building or event they seek which is then clearly displayed by a rotating OU shield or calendar icon . By switching on outdoor art, car parking and cycle parking the map will display icons that are interactive to touch and display details about the selected area of interest.
Currently the events data is entered manually but this will be automated in due course.
Chris Valentine's participation in FOSTER Plus
FOSTER Plus
FOSTER Plus
2017-05-01
2019-04-30
FOSTER Plus project focuses on promoting the practical implementation of Open Science, with activities targeting academic staff and young scientists.
FOSTER Plus (Fostering the practical implementation of Open Science in Horizon 2020 and beyond) is a 2-year, EU-funded project, carried out by 11 partners across 6 countries. The primary aim is to contribute to a real and lasting shift in the behaviour of European researchers to ensure that Open Science (OS) becomes the norm.
Research communities, research performing institutions, and research funders have each recognised that OS skills are increasingly essential for researchers to undertake responsible research and innovation. While there is increasing agreement around the need to improve OS skills amongst all stakeholders, the adoption of OS approaches has been quite limited to date. Indeed general awareness of OS approaches has improved among EU researchers. However, there is still a lack of practical guidance and training to help researchers learn how to open up their research within a particular domain or research environment. For this reason, FOSTER Plus places specific emphasis on creating discipline-specific guidance and is partnering with expert organisations representing the scientific areas of life science, social science and humanities.
FOSTER Plus will enhance existing materials and co-produce new training content. The resources will be discipline-specific and their practical and tangible outcomes can directly be applied into researchers’ daily practices. The training activities will be addressed to all relevant stakeholders in the European Research Area, with a focus on young scientists, academic staff and policy makers. A strong train-the-trainer approach and network of open science trainers to act as ambassadors will help to reach a wide audience.
Chris Valentine's participation in OpenLang Network
OpenLang Network
OpenLang Network
2018-09-01
2021-12-31
A language learning network for Erasmus+ KA1 mobility participants
The OpenLang Network addresses the needs for linguistic skills and culture awareness of Erasmus+ KA1 mobility participants and the training needs of language teachers:
a) Erasmus+ KA1 mobility participants (HE students & staff, Vocational education and training, Adult & School education staff, Youth learners, Youth Workers, Youth Entrepreneurs) that need to boost their language skills and cultural awareness.
b) Volunteer language teachers who will support the Erasmus+ KA1 mobility participants offering their professional experience while receiving professional certified training on the creation, sharing and use of language Open Educational Resources (OERs).
The OpenLang Network envisages to:
1) Connect these 2 groups in an interactive collaborative environment (web-based and mobile-based) that will support more efficiently their effort to raise language awareness of the target mobility EU languages and to develop European intercultural knowledge covering all EU cultures.
2) Foster the Open Education European multicultural and multilingual vision to all OpenLang Network members.