News Story

KMi technologies feature in the FT

Kate Dungate, Wednesday 29 Jul 2015

The Financial Times published an article at the weekend on how universities, including The Open University, are using student data to predict academic performance.

Our former Director, Peter Scott, introduced journalist, Helen Warrell to OU Analyse, a project led by Zdenek Zdrahal (see photo). The data collected by the technology created by Zdenek’s team includes how much of the online textbooks students have read and how they have engaged on student forums.

Peter mentioned how student data can inform HE institutions to encourage learners to head in the right direction. He went on to say that data could also be used by the student themselves to maximise their chances of succeeding.

“We want to give you the data so you manipulate yourself.” – Peter Scott

When the FT came to visit us they also filmed some our work to find out how digital technology is changing the way people learn. Fridolin Wild and Giuseppe Scavo took this opportunity to showcase their work with Augmented Reality and how it can help people learn skills remotely. The “Ghost Hands” technology, featured in the video on the FT’s site, allows an instructor to talk pupils through complicated manoeuvres via the Internet.

Read the full article here.