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Christopher Douce

Considering employability

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Wednesday, 5 Oct 2022, 12:49

Over the last few days, I’ve been having a look through some materials about employability which have been published by AdvanceHE, specifically the recent 2016-2021 employability literature review (AdvanceHE). I’ve also had a read of a couple of edited collection of papers, also from AdvanceHE. The first is called Employability: breaking the mould (AdvanceHE) and the other is a compendium of case-studies (AdvanceHE).

I’ve also done a couple of other things. Whilst studying A230 as a student, I’ve been reading about the OU employability framework, through a set of pages called FutureYou (which is mentioned in the first collection of papers that I’ve mentioned). This, in turn, led me to look through the OU employability website which has taken me to a useful booklet called Your Career Planning Guide (pdf).

There is also something called the OU Employability Hub (OU website), which provides a wealth of free Open Learn courses which connect to the “ten components of the OU’s Employability Framework”. Users of this hub can filter on each of the ten components to get to resources which relate to each of these components. I’ve mentioned the Employability Hub in an earlier blog a few years ago, and it is great to see how many resources there are available.

Whilst looking through all these different resources, reports and summaries, I asked myself a question: how can I make sense of the topic of employability? 

One way to do this is to think of the whole area in terms of dimensions. Different papers, articles, initiatives, or frameworks could be characterised as a point on a number of different dimensions. What follows is a summary of those dimensions. 

These dimensions are, of course, fully open to debate and scrutiny. As I learn more, and debate more, these may well adapt and change, but I do feel that they are a useful way to think about the employability landscape. These ideas have emerged, in part, through reading through the resources that I’ve mentioned above.

Dimension 1: Embedded/non embedded employability

This dimension refers to the extent to which the topic of employability, or the provision of employability services are embedded within a programme or study, or a module. 

Services might be embedded in the way that they are in during the start of the module I’ve been studying, or they might be entirely external to a module, such as the provision of an information and advice services through a careers service.

Dimension 2: Programme/module integration

I think this second dimension can be through of a subset of the first dimension. To what extent is employability information embedded within a specific module, or does it feature across and between modules or a broader programme of study? Is there, for example, a separate module that relates to employability, with all the other modules presenting academic material, or is it functionally embedded within all the modules that a student may study? There may, of course, be differences between how this manifests itself between disciplines.

Dimension 3: Self-directed/facilitated

This dimension might also be a sub-dimension of the first dimension. One of the themes that is pretty evident is the development of reflection skills, specifically in relation to employability planning and personal development. Some of these planning activities can be carried out on our own, as a personal reflective activity. Other activities might be interactive workshops, which might go some way to sharing perspectives and understandings.

Dimension 4: Domain specific/Domain agnostic

Some employability skills are specific to a particular job, role, or activity. My home discipline is computing, in which students might need to master a specific programming language or tool. When a student masters a programming language, they may also develop of broader problem solving strategies and skills, which may be transferrable to other contexts. Similarly, there are wider and broader employability skills which can be developed, such as planning, reflection. Some of these skills relate back to the OU employability framework.

Dimension 5: Student voice/employer voice

This dimension relates to the question of whose voice, or perspective, is prioritised. If the student voice is prioritised, there may be activities which interrogate current skills, knowledge and abilities, and activities may be taken to develop those skills, knowledge, and abilities. If the employer voice is emphasised, the employer (or employer community) might emphasise the need for the development of particular skills to meet particular needs.

Dimension 6: Internally directed/externally directed

This final dimension relates to the locus of control. If employability related activities are internally directed, they are informed by the organisations in which students are situated. In other words, the HEI makes the decisions about the frameworks that they use and any initiatives that they apply. If employability is externally directed, initiatives may emerge from industry. An interesting example is, of course, industrial certifications. 

In reality, an institution's approach to employability is likely to be neither one nor the other.

Reflections

This rough set of dimensions (which can be criticised and debated) is a simple framework that can be used to understand and to characterise the different kinds of employability development activity that can take place.

The literature review that I’ve mentioned earlier emphasises the relationship between the broad notion of employability (which can, of course, be subject to criticism), and different conceptions of capital. 

When considered at a surface level employability is easily equated to the gaining of jobs, paid employment and successful graduate outcomes. Whilst it can immediately be related to economics and economic success, it can also be related to social and cultural capital. Getting a job might mean gaining a role that makes an effective and positive contribution to a community.

There is also a link between the notion of employability and the notion of mindset. Key points that I’ve noted from the AdvanceHE documents include coping with uncertainty, identifying opportunities, the ability to make things happen, manage risk, learning how to network with others, solving problems in a creative and strategic way, and being able to act independently. From this perspective, you can also consider “employability” in terms of skills which enable students to apply their learning from their chosen area of study.

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Christopher Douce

OU Employability conference - April 2019

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Friday, 26 Apr 2019, 12:43

I don’t think I’ve ever been to an employability conference before. The first I’ve been to took place on 3 April 2019 at the OU campus in Milton Keynes. 

Employability is a theme that crops up pretty regularly in Computing and IT. Employers, I understand, want graduates who know about certain bits of technology, know their way around a sets of subjects, and have a mastery of some important and necessary skills (such as problem solving, writing and team working). 

What follows is a quick blog summary of the event that has been taken from some notes and handouts I gathered from the event. I will add the usual blog disclaimers: these are entirely my own reflections, and I’ve probably missed a lot of really good stuff that was spoken about (especially since I had to leave the conference towards the end to attend another meeting). My apologies to any speaker if I have failed to adequately represent your work and research.

Nations perspective

I managed to miss the welcome address and the first presentation called ‘external perspective on employability’, but managed to catch the ‘nations perspective’ talk by Darren Jones who was from the OU in Wales. I was interested to hear that 48% of students in Wales are from widening participation (WP) backgrounds.

Darren talked about the types of service the OU careers service in Wales offered. Apparently this included the provision of 12 internship placements with employee partners. Darren also referred to something called Go Wales, a student focussed employability skills programme.

Building career focussed online discussions

The next talk was by Leigh Fowkes. The full title of Leigh’s talk was: Building career focussed online discussions forums for OU students in a social media age. Leigh revealed that before joining the university he worked in career service in school. This was very much a research talk, where he was exploring how and why students use forums for careers development.

His talk began with a brief literature review, which featured terms such as: career learning theory, career construction, career identity, and community interaction theory. Some interesting point was that ‘career’ is a contested topic, and there were an ‘ecology of communities’ that related to career and career studies (or advice).

I felt that this talk really addressed what the conference was all about: studying the notion and concept of career, career studies and career advice as a subject that could be studied academically. To give good advice and to understand the needs of students, it’s important to know the domain, and understand the terms, and appreciate what terms might be contested.

Assessing a student conference: S350 evaluating contemporary science

Next up was a presentation by Simon Collinson and Rachel McMullan who talked about developing an embedding employability skills within a science module: S350 Evaluating Contemporary Science (OU website).

S350 uses a tool called OpenStudio which is used in U101 Design Thinking, and a number of other OU computing and engineering modules. OpenStudio is used to share poster presentations (which are sometimes an important part of academic conferences) which have been designed by students. Student activities in the module feed into Personal Develop Plans (PDP) and the identification of SMART goals.

Students are offered a choice of topics from which they can create their poster presentations. As a part of the assessment process, students are required to offer feedback on two posters: one poster that is from their own discipline, and another one that is from a different discipline.

One of the problems that were faced is that sometimes student don’t follow instructions as closely as they should do. One way the module team responded to this is to create a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs).

I really liked this approach; it reminded me of a presentation at a HEA conference that I attended which described a module where students had to make submissions to an institutional student journal which had the look and feel of a proper peer reviewed journal. I also liked that students were asked to offer feedback to each other. 

Emotional and social aspects of career adaptability

This presentation was made by Matt Haigh from the Faculty of Business and Law. The full title of Matt’s presentation was: Career vulnerabilities in light of the UKs decision to leave the European Union. 

Matt’s presentation was very topical, given the never ending political crisis that seems to be taking place at the time of the conference. Matt introduced a term: career adaptability. Career adaptability is the ability of adapt to career change, and handle that change. It is considered to be a subjective experience and a social experience.

Another term was adaptive capabilities: curiosity, confidence, concern and control. Armed with these people can cope with change, which is also a social process. I also noted down that career adaptability was a social skill.

Matt’s presentation was also about his research. He spoke about carrying out interviews with bankers, both insiders and outsiders to the industry, asking them the question: “how has Brexit affected your career plans?” I can’t summarise the whole of Matt’s presentation, but I did also note down the words ‘there is a mixture of hope and frustration’.

Workshop: reframing digital literacies in the language of employers

Just before the lunch break, I attended an interactive workshop, facilitated by Cheryl Coveney, which was about understanding the role of different frameworks. There is something called the employability framework (HEA website), the digital and information literacy (DIL) framework (Open University) that has been created by the OU library, and the JISC learner profile. Interestingly, the old MCT faculty tried to weave DIL skills into their module designs.

We were provided with a big poster that was, essentially, a person spec for a job, and 3 sets of cards from each of these different framework tools. We had to put the cards next to each of the points on the person spec to see how each card related to the role. Soon became clear that each framework described the skills slightly differently; some fitted more easily than others.

It was a fun activity and a fun way to be introduced to these different frameworks. I was surprised to learn about how much similarity between each of them.

Developing employability through open educational resources

The first afternoon session was presented by Terry O’Sullivan’s who spoke about OERs that could offer guidance about business networking. 

A point was made that MOOCs can have a role to play in skills development. Two resources were compared: an effective networking MOOC from FutureLearn versus a short course that was run through Google Digital Garage (which was something I had never heard of before).  The digital garage led to something that was called a certificate in the fundamentals of digital marketing. The FutureLearn course MOOC had the title: Business fundamentals - effective networking. Each OER used different pedagogic approaches.

A personal reflection is that I’ve directed students to different OpenLearn OERs, and I know that there are a lot of other resources that can be used in combination with other aspects of study. (I also need to study some of them too, if only to appreciate more of the contents that they contain).

Supporting DD102 students to articulate skills, behaviour and values

This presentation was by Leman Hassan, from the Faculty of the Arts and Social Science. During this talk I noted down the use of an employability framework. The focus was on research using mixed methods action research which aimed to understand employability skills.

PDP and employability: comfortable bedfellows in postgraduate study?

The final presentation of the conference that I attended was by Gill Clifton and Alison Fox. Both presenters spoke about a couple of modules that make up the MA in Education. PDP planning is assessed during the end of module assessment (EMA) and has a focus on academic learning, professional learning and professional skills. One of the modules, EE812 Educational Leadership - exploring strategy employs ‘peer PDP coaches’ who are former students.

Students are asked to carry out a skills audit, and these are mapped against learning outcomes. Students were also told about a reflection cycle, where they had to identify, plan, act, record and review.

One of the important question that was asked was: how do you encourage students to engage with PDP planning and reflection? Also, a question that module team members who are considering using this approach need to consider how students demonstrate their skills through module activities.

Reflections

There are, of course, different view about the role of education; some view that it should be for the common good, others hold the view that it should be instrumental, in the sense that it should help the individual to get a job. The importance of employability skills as a subject (and within a subject) may well, of course, depend on your view of education.

One of the stand out things from this conference was that there were colleagues who were doing some serious academic research into the subject. All this makes sense, since there is a direct connection to the subject of careers, both in terms of research, and in terms of that there are roles where people provide careers advice.

Two other stand out points was that it was interesting to hear about different employability and skills frameworks, also the range of services that are actually offered by the university. I didn’t realise that the university worked with external organisations to provide internships.

A final comment was that I was surprised at how well attended the conference was. I estimate that there were in excess of around 60 delegates from across the university.

Links and resources

The university has an employability hub site which is open to OU students and staff. It is described as “a repository of information for OU staff to help support students to achieve their career and personal development goals”.

There is also an OU employability and scholarship Twitter feed, @OUemployscholar. The conference had an accompanying hashtag: #ouempconf19.

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Christopher Douce

Enhancing the employability of computing students through an online professional presence

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Monday, 13 Jul 2020, 12:17

A HEA workshop held on Friday 9 June at Birmingham City University set out to answer the following questions, 'how important is our online presence to prospective employers?' and, 'what can students do to increase their online visibility?'  Of course, there are many other related questions that connect to the broader subject of online identity, and a number of these were explored and debated during this workshop.

This blog post is a summary of the workshop.  It is, of course, a personal one, and there's a strong possibility that I might not have picked up on all the debates that occurred throughout the day.  If there are other themes and subjects that some of the delegates think I'm missed, then please do feel free to post comments below.

Pushing employability for computing graduates

Mark Ratcliffe from the HEA kicked off the day by talking about the employability challenges that computing graduates face, connecting with his experience as being head of subject at Aberystwyth  University and his work at eSkills.  An interesting point and observation was that demand for computing skills has increased over the last ten years but the number of computing graduates has been reducing.  There is also a gap between computer graduates and graduates from some other disciplines in terms of gaining full time employment six months after graduation.

Technical skills are fundamental and necessary skills, but so are interpersonal and business skills.  Placements were cited as an important way to enable students to develop and to gain first-hand experience.  Technical skills are important, and evidence of them can be gained through application forms and interviews, but also through approaches such as portfolios of evidence.   Evidence of our work and interests is increasingly available to be seen by others through online sources.

The second introductory presentation was by Mak Sharma, Head of School at Birmingham City University.  Mak spoke about some of the changes that were occurring to the institution, and also mentioned a number of familiar (and unfamiliar) technologies, all of which can play an important role in computing and technology education: Alice, Greenfoot, Scratch and Gadgeteer.  An interesting point was the connections between industry training providers and the university.  I sense that collaborations between the two sectors are going to become increasingly important.

ePortfolios in the big bad world

Andy Hollyhead, from Birmingham City Business School started his presentation (Prezi) by sharing with a video entitled Stories of ePortfolio integration, produced by JISC and BCU (YouTube). The video features a demonstration of an ePortfolio system called Mahara which has been linked to the university's Moodle virtual learning environment.

An ePortfolio is, in essence, a tool which can be used to store data, usually documents.  It is also a tool that can have different uses.  On one hand it can be used to help students to reflect on their own studies.  On the other it can be used to share information with a wider community of people, and this may potentially include potential employers. An ePortfolio can also be used to demonstrate evidence of continuing professional development (CPD) within an organisation.

An important question is 'how long can I have access to my data for?' This question is particularly relevant if a university implements an ePortfolio that can be used to create a professional presence and suggests that institutions need to consider policy as well as technical issues.  To circumvent this challenge, standards bodies have proposed standards to allow the sharing of ePorfolios between different systems.  Andy mentioned other systems such as VisualCV and PebblePad.  One of the greatest challenges is, of course, to understand the variety of different ways in which ePortfolio systems can be used.

Using code repositories in programming modules

Whilst ePortfolios can be used to share information and documents, John Moore from the University of West London spoke about the notion of source code repositories and considered how their use may enhance the employability profile of students.

Version control systems are an essential part of the software development process.  The facilitate collaboration and sharing.  They also enable developers to learn how software has changed over time. 

There are, of course, a wide range of different systems, such as CVS and Subversion (Wikipedia).  John focussed on GIT (Wikipedia), which is a distributed version control system that has been created for Linux kernel development.  John also shared with us a number of different public repositories that may be used, such as Bitbucket, Gitorious  and Github (none of which I had heard of before).

John said that 'logs define you as a programmer' (logs, of course, being commit or change logs, recordings of when a programmer has made an addition or change to a repository).  To boost a 'programmer profile', students are encouraged to participate in open source software development.  Not only may this present evidence of technical abilities and understanding, evidence of participation also represents evidence of team skills.

John's presentation gave way to a really interesting debate about how experience and understanding of version control systems represents an important employability skill.  I also remember hearing that students from different backgrounds (and perhaps different undergraduate degrees) have different levels of expertise.  What is without question is that industry makes extensive use of such tools, and it is the challenge of educators to encourage their use.

Student professional online branding

Thomas Lancaster from Birmingham City University introduced us to the notion of a 'personal brand', before describing what we might be able to do to create an online version.  One thing that students could do is create a LinkedIn profile.  Thomas then went onto mentioning tools such as Facebook and Twitter, which can yield potentially more immediate information about a potential candidate. Thomas argued that computing students should ideally have their own professional website which presents an identity whilst also practically demonstrating their technical skills to other employers.

Sharing information online is, of course, not without its risks, and everyone needs to be mindful of this.  One thought is that no-one can say who is going to be doing the next internet search against your name.  Since the web had now become the 'read-write' web, we now need to be careful about what we share, a balancing act between information availability and information privacy, a point that was returned to time and again throughout the day.

Building professional web presences

Building on some of the points that Thomas made, Shovan Sargunam gave us a practical demonstration of how to create an online professional presence, through the creating of a WordPress (Wikipedia) based website.  A couple of the steps included registering your own domain (if it's not too late), then choosing an internet provider, and then installing or configuring WordPress.

WordPress isn't the only way to go.  In some ways, it very much depends on the tools that you are familiar with.  Shovan also mentioned some other useful sites (in addition to LinkedIn) that enables users to create online profiles, such as About.Me and CreativePool.

Student's online profiles for employability and community

Information about ourselves that we share online can have a number of different uses.  One other use lies with the way in which information can be useful in the development of an online community. Karen Kear and Frances Chetwynd from the Open University described a research project that is aiming to uncover more about how online profiles are used by students who make use of online discussion forums.  Research is carried out by through questionnaires and online synchronous focus groups.  There are, of course, a spectrum of different opinions (and practices).  Some students are happy to share information and photographs of themselves, whereas others have concerns about privacy.

Exploring the employer use of professional presences

Vanessa Gough, from IBM, presented a rather different perspective and one that was very welcome.  Vanessa is responsible for industrial trainees and she makes the point that given the number of applicants that are made to IBM, she (and perhaps some of her colleagues) just don't have the time to go rummaging around on the internet for information about candidates.  This said (and these are my own words here, rather than Vanessa's), it doesn't mean that this doesn't happen.

Vanessa described how new recruits can make use of social media to communicate with each other to become increasingly familiar with the organisation in which they work.  Twitter and Facebook can be used to share information about what it is to work and live in certain locations.

A really good point was the social media offers candidates a way to 'get to know' an organisation and begin to understand a bit about its culture.  Engaging with an organisation's social media streams and learning from them has the potential to enable candidates to stand out from the crowd.

How social media can enhance your employability

The final presentation of the day was by Vanessa Jackson, from Birmingham City University.  Her presentation had the interesting subtitle of, 'can you tweet your way into a job?' (which follows on nicely from the earlier presentation).  Vanessa introduced us to a site called SocialMediaTutorials.  This is a set of Open Educational Resources which are available through Creative commons.  One of the videos describes a case where a student was able to gain a work placement or internship by directly contacting people who worked within a local radio station.

Reflections

One term that I had not heard of before, was DPQ, or drunken post quotient (as introduced by Andy Hollyhead).  The higher the metric, the more trouble we might (potentially) cause ourselves.  It was a concept that was immediately understandable, for a number of reasons that I'm not going to go into.

My own personal opinion is that having an online professional presence is a 'good thing', especially if we work within a technical discipline such as information technology or computing.  This said, there are certainly differences of opinion.  Some of us simply don't want to share aspects of ourselves online, and there are good reasons for this, which we should respect.

These thoughts made me consider online presence in terms of a number of different dimensions.  Firstly, there is the dimension of security and privacy, and the tension that exists between the two.  Then there is dimension of the personal and public (or personal and professional).  Coming back to ePortfolios, there's also the dimension of demonstration (of achieve) and reflection (to achieve).  Finally, there is the dimension of the audience - a difference between the general and specific.

Towards the end of the day there were a number of interesting debates.  Two questions that I've noted are, 'how might we embed the notion of professional presence into the computing (and wider) curriculum?' and 'what is the perception of others if one doesn't have an online professional presence?'

An interesting thought is that it's not always what you share on the internet that is a concern - the people who you know may potentially cause some difficulties.  The canonical example of this where a friend or colleague shares pictures of a 'night out' somewhere, the details of which should have remained personal.  A point here is that we all need to be vigilant.  Performing internet searches against our own names (or 'ego-googling') is no longer an activity that can be mildly interesting or titillating.  Instead it could now be a necessity to ensure that correct and appropriate information is available to be shared with others.

For me, one of the outcomes of the day is a reminder that different tools can be connected together.  For a while I used to be an avid Twitter user until I discovered that it was gradually taking over my life and felt that I had to 'reclaim back' some of my privacy.  I've now reassessed my own online professional presence, and what I want to do is use Twitter more as a feed for other social platforms, such as LinkedIn and Facebook.  So, in time, I hope to increase my online visibility - but I am also very aware that I'm unlikely to have a complete understanding of the implications of doing this.  I guess what I'm going to do is to always be careful about what I share and when.

The workshop slides are available (BCU website). Many thanks to Birmingham City University for organising an interesting and thought provoking event!

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Visit to University of Abertay, Dundee

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Friday, 24 Feb 2017, 18:05

During a motorcycle touring holiday at the beginning of May, I found a bit of time to pop into the University of Abertay, Dundee, for a couple of hours.  This was the first time I had ever been to Dundee.  One of the reasons for the to visit was to find out more about the university's Dare to Be Digital video game competition which has been running since 2000 (becoming an international event in 2005).

Dare, as it is known, is a tough event to enter; students and teams have to competitively apply.  When students have been accepted, they work together within interdisciplinary teams to create a whole computer game for the duration of the event.  I sense that Dare is unusual and powerful vehicle since representatives from industry play an important role.  Industrial contributors are said to be involved for a number of reasons: to offer support and guidance to student teams, to gain new ideas and inspiration and also to be introduced to participants who may be looking for a foothold within the industry.

In an earlier HEA gaming and animation event I attended I heard it said that the best way to demonstrate one's own technical abilities is to provide a demonstration of a completed game.  I've always felt that a CV and interview is a thoroughly inadequate selection approach, especially for software roles which are, in my opinion, intrinsically creative.  I've always wanted to show an employer what I've coded but have, on occasions, been scuppered by convention and copyright.  In a way, creating something to add to a 'digital portfolio' takes a leaf straight out of the creative arts book.  Showing a development (which is what the Dare participants produce) allows not only a demonstration of technical skill, but also facilitates opportunities for further discussion about some of the challenges that had to be overcome during the production of a game.

I was interested to learn that Dundee has what is known as a Games Festival (BBC News), an event that I hadn't heard of before.  There are film festivals, music festivals and book festivals and games connects with all these different types of media.  I would even go as far as writing that there are some games which strike me as works of art, combining breath taking animation, complex characterisation, awesome sound all of which have the potential to create strong emotional responses.  The thought of a games festival reminds me of a suggestion in the earlier HEA event that students should try to make the time to visit such events.

During my visit to Abertay I remember having a chat about the challenges of working within the games industry.  I remember once hearing that commercial software developers have what is becoming known as a half-life.  This means that after a number of years being really technical and cutting code, the challenge of learning 'yet another tool' and juggle code in the developers short term memory becomes activities that become tiring rather than exciting.  It is felt some roles within the games industry, perhaps the more technically focussed ones, can also have a career or role half-life.

This said, being involved in the games industry isn't just about cutting code (games engines can be utilised and harnessed), there's also roles which relate to the production of a game or product.  Understanding the bigger picture and being able to work with other disciplines (such as graphical design, music and business) are skills that are arguably more important than pure technical talent.

One comment that I remember from the visit was that some students choose to study games because they enjoy playing them.  It strikes me that there is a huge chasm between the attractiveness of the end product and the intense and detailed development activities that must take place to create a game.  It is akin to the difference between watching a film and thoroughly understanding the technical and artistic dimensions of film production.  I came away having confirmed my sense that working in the industry is hard work, and it was encouraging that the staff I met were able to convey first-hand industrial experience to their students.

I'll close this blog with three different thoughts: an observation, a personal reflection and some thoughts about research.  The observation is of a mural that could be seen in the building I visited.  The mural depicted a graphical history of three different things (I hope I'm remembering this correctly!)  The first is a timeline of gaming hardware, the second (I think) is a timeline of important games, and the third seemed to be a timeline of important companies or publishers.  Such a mural offered a visible reminder of the context in which students were working and that we are a part of an emerging history which continually changes as technology changes.

The second thought, the one that is personal, is closely connected to the mural.   Those of us who have grown up with technology have our own unique relationship with games.  In some ways the industry may play a formative role in the way that we interact with technology.  My own history with gaming began with home computers of the 1980s particularly the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (which was apparently built in the now closed Timex factory in Dundee; a fact that had passed me by!)  I remember buying cassette games from specialist computer shops and, later, budget games at my local newsagent (a reflection on how the marketing of games operated at the time).

More powerful technology led to better (and more exciting) games, particularly Elite (Wikipedia), which was played (during my school lunch hours) on a BBC Model B equipped with an exotic piece of technology known as a disk drive.  Elite was astonishing.  It made use of three dimensional wire frame graphics - a player could explore an entire galaxy and cause no end of trouble by shooting at space stations. 

My games history also includes ownership of two different generations of Sony Playstation but concludes with some meddling with on-line worlds and games hosted on mobile devices.  This movement to different platforms and then onto the internet reflects how gaming (and the games industry) has changed with developments in technology.

Finally, onto the subject of research.  I have thoughts that reflect two rather different questions.  The first relates to understanding the career stability and demands placed on those who work within high technology industries, and the ways in which career trajectories can change and develop.  Understanding the quality and diversity of careers within an industry has the potential to offer useful and practical guidance to programmes of study that aim to equip students for work within an industry.  I don't know if the games industry has been subject to any form of systematic study, but perhaps this is an interesting question to ask.

The second question relates to an increasingly strong research interest, namely the effect of geography and which other influences may affect the development of a particular technology or industry.  Perhaps there is something special about Dundee that has affected how the city has emerged as centre for games education.

A few final words: many thanks to those at the University who were able to spare some of their valuable time to talk to me; I felt very welcome.  I was minded of the fact that scratching the surface of gaming revealed a complex creative industry and one that relies on the creativity and talent of people from many disciplines. My visit reminded me of the exciting (and challenging) nature of digital media and emphasised that continual change and evolution in both the industry and technology is a constant.

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Computer Forensics Workshop

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Monday, 21 Jan 2019, 10:56

This is a short blog to summarise my visit to the 7th Annual Teaching Computer Forensics Workshop that I attended on 10 November.  The event was held at the University of Sunderland, a university that I have never visited before.  In fact, my first real visit to the Tyne and Wear area was only earlier this year, and was also one that was very brief, so I was travelling in unfamiliar territory. 

If someone were to tell me that I would be taking two trips to 'the north' this year, I wouldn't have believed them.  During this most recent trip not only was I able to learn more about the domain of computer forensics, but I was also able to experience my first journey on the Tyne and Wear metro: this was a fun experience for someone based in London who is overly familiar with the rigours of the tube. 

Introduction

All delegates were welcomed to the forensics workshop by David Blackwell, Assistant Dean for student experience.  David's welcome gave way to an introduction by Alistair Irons who outlined the objectives for the day.  Alistair played the key role of chair and master of ceremonies throughout the whole of the workshop. 

Rather than to summarise everything in sequence, what I'm going to do in this blog is to connect the different talks by themes (and hope it makes sense!)  I call for the organisers' forgiveness in taking this liberty.  This said, I'm going to break this plan the moment I've introduced it by starting with the first presentation, which was all about geo-positional forensics.

Geo-positional forensics

The first presentation of the day was by Harjinder Lallie from the University of Warwick.  Harjinder introduced geo-positional forensics, the subject of a book that Harjinder has been invited to edit.  The subject is an interesting one.  Given the title, I originally imagined smart phones which contained GPS devices which were used to collect data, but like so many things, there is so much more lurking under the surface.

Geo-location data can be extracted from satellite navigation systems, for instance.  Location information might also be obtained from mobile telephone networks by identifying which base stations a mobile phone used to connect to a network.  Another route to location might be to make use of techniques to identify the location of devices that are physically connected to the internet, such as routers.  The more you begin to think about this subject, the more you begin to uncover.  There are, of course, important legal issues that relate to the gathering of location evidence (legal issues being one of the themes that are exposed later on during the day).

If you're interested, or would like to find out more about Harjinder's book, there is a web page which you might find of interest.

Teaching forensics

The second presentation of the day, and the first of a bunch of presentations that relate to the teaching of computing forensics, was by Michelle Govan, Glasgow Caledonian University.  Michelle's presentation had the title 'Developing active learning in digital forensics'.  I liked Michelle's presentation since it referenced both a learning strategy and a method that is important to digital forensics at the same time: the making of notes.  Notes, it is argued, can be used as a reflective tool that can help to facilitate learning and improve comprehension and understanding.  When it comes to digital forensics, notes are an essential tool to help record how, for example, how evidence was secured (the use of contemporaneous notes, as it is known, features quite extensively within the Open University M889 module).  Michelle also referenced something called Pendley's lego exercise which I had never heard of before.  This led to a discussion about the extent to which notes, within a real forensic environment, are used.

Another interesting aspect of Michelle's presentation was that she covered a significant number of different pedagogic approaches in what was a very short time: experiential, reflective, inquiry based, problem based, critical exploration, constructivist, action, and so on...  I also was introduced to a new term: 'nintendo forensics'.  Whilst the forensic analysis of gaming consoles is likely to be a subject in its own right, the term refers to tools where buttons are pressed and results are gained with relative ease.

Xiaohua Feng, from Bedfordshire University gave a talk entitled 'Incident response teaching strategy'.  She presented what is known as the DRRP security model.  DRRP is an abbreviation for Detect, Respond, Report and Prevent.  Frameworks and models have, of course, the ability to represent the essence of useful ideas which might be able to either affect practice or develop further understandings.  We were also introduced to something called the BERR 2008 report.  Aspects of Xiaohua's presentation reminded me of some of the themes from a postgraduate information security management module, M886, which covers an international standard that offers structured guidance about how to protect information systems.  Security and forensics, I sense, are very easily spoken in the same breath.

Craig Thurlby and Caroline Langensiepen from Nottingham Trent University presented a very compelling way to teach one of the most fundamental aspects of computing forensics, which is, how to effectively seize digital evidence.  The essence of their presentation lies in its title: 'use of a crime scene house to enhance learning'.  Nottingham Trent University own a former student house which has been kitted out with a set of hidden video cameras.  These cameras record how students gather evidence from a 'crime scene'.  We were treated to a small number of clips where students were shown to be rummaging through arm chairs (on multiple occasions) looking for mobile devices and puzzling over whether a couple of laptops were turned on.  I can clearly see how the use of video material can be used to facilitate reflection and learning: one's own mistakes can be laid bare for all to see!

The discussions that followed were really interesting.  I never knew, for example, that some universities have their own mock law courts (but on further reflection, perhaps I ought to be surprised if they didn't!)  This exposed some of the difficulties that many subjects face, namely, the issue of interdisciplinary and how to get different people from different subjects working together, such as Computing and Law, for instance, to share resources.

Forensics projects

What makes a computer forensics project?  This was the question that Diane Gan and David Chadwick from the University of Greenwich asked.  Diana and David described a number of postgrad projects.  These included a flash memory tool to extract data from volatile memory (a utility that was written in Perl), a prototype for investigating GPS devices (which nicely links back to Harjinder 's earlier presentation on geo-positional forensics), a system that helps students to understand the ACPO guidelines (Wikipedia), and an analysis of attacks on a honeypot.  Regarding the honeypot project, my understanding is that honeypots are computers that can be used to uncover the ways in which hackers may attack systems.  Forensic methods are necessary to determine what has been done to them and potentially uncover how attacks may have been perpetrated.

It was interesting to see that some of these project required students to write software as opposed to just performing an analysis of digital media, such as hard disk drives.  This connected to the broader debate of whether or not forensic analysts need to be able to write software, and the extent to which the understanding of software development might help investigators in their roles.

After Diana and David's presentation, a discussion emerged that centred on the question of 'what makes a good project?' and whether different institutions might be able to share project ideas.  This reminded me of a debate in an earlier HEA workshop where participants were discussing the possibility of sharing forensic images (which can be quite time consuming to create).

Keeping on the theme of projects, Maurice Calvert from Leeds Metropolitan University gave a presentation entitled 'Final year projects for computer forensics students'.  Maurice outlined four different types of products: the forensic analysis of storage media, examination of media to determine what artefacts different types of software leave behind (which is an important skill to understand how things work), investigate security issues and considering incident response plans, and finally, design some kind of system that is relevant to computer forensics (which might mean implementing a system of some kind).

Maurice highlighted a number of different issues that (broadly) relate to the teaching of digital forensics.  These were (according to my notes): is the traditional computing project suitable (for forensics students), and to what extent might we need different project guidelines?  Also, should digital forensics be separate from computing (or computer science)?  The issue of employability was also raised (but more of this later).

Legal Issues

The law is one of those subjects that is fundamentally important to digital forensics.  It is so important that some of the necessary nitty gritty technical issues are almost secondary.  There are two points that were clearly underlined from this workshop.  Firstly, if you don't capture evidence in a way that is appropriate and in line with good practice, your evidence may be inadmissible in court.  Secondly, digital investigators need to be aware of legal issues since the actions that they take during an investigation may potentially open themselves up to prosecution.

Rita Esen, from the University of Northumbria, gave a very clear presentation about the importance of different types of legislation.  Rita outlined the different laws that that digital investigators need to be aware of, such as the fraud act, data protection act, computer misuse act, sexual offenses act, police and justice act, human rights act and the regulation of investigatory powers act (I'm sure there were others too!)  Rita also told us about a very new development, which was the UK government's ratification of the cybercrime convention (wikipedia).

Other perspectives

Richard Overill, from King's College London introduced us to a term known as the CSI effect (wikipedia), which is about how high profile TV shows influence broader public perception of forensic science.  In his presentation, which is entitled, 'the inverse CSI effect in digital forensics' Richard considers whether 'the effect' might change the behaviour of cyber criminals.  Richard's talk reminds me of the term 'anti-forensics' that I discovered whilst studying M889.

One of the last presentations of the day was by Ali Al-Sherbaz from Northampton University.    Ali directed us to an interesting web page which is entitled, The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook which has a really nice graphic.  (Digital privacy is one of those issues that is addressed on an Open University module called TU100, My Digital Life). Ali also introduced us to a pedagogic tool called Dale's cone of experience.

Forensics and Employability

Alistair Irons gave the final presentation of the day on the topic of forensics and employability.  Employability was one of those workshop themes that featured almost continuously throughout the day; it is something that is certainly on everyone's minds.  One thing was clearly apparent: digital forensics is a very popular subject amongst students, but there are not enough vacancies in the industry for the number of graduates that the university sector is providing.

There was, therefore, a really important question that was asked, which was: do digital (or computer) forensics students end up in a position where they can do other jobs?  There seems to be a consensus that this certainly seems to be the case.

I remember having a chat with a psychology lecturer a number of years ago.  He was ruminating on a very similar question, i.e. how many of his students ended up being employed as professional psychologists.  There is a difference between doing something as a career, and choosing a subject which gives you general skills that can be used in other areas.  Psychology, it was argued is a fabulous subject since it enables students to gain a firm understanding of scientific method, learn how to think critically about evidence, gain skills dealing with statistics and enables students to hone their writing skills.

Similar things can be said about digital forensics: it enables students to gain a detailed technical understanding of computing devices, allows students to begin to grapple (and understand) the intricacies of legal frameworks,  appreciate how to solve problems and assess (digital) evidence, and learn how to communicate their findings in a clear and effective way.

All these important benefits of a forensics education relate to a very important issue: the difference between education and training, and the extent to which a university level education should equip students with the precise needs of industry.  This issue is particularly important since the needs of the digital forensics industry are continually evolving due to the relentless march of technology.  Industry requires well trained people who can do particular jobs, whereas universities provide fundamentals that enable learners to become quickly and effectively trained in particular roles.  Education can facilitate training, but there is, of course, frequent cross over between one and the other, and debates about what universities should be doing and what industry expects will run and run.

Connections with other workshops

Throughout the day I could see clear connections to a number of other HEA workshops.  One of the most obvious one was with the recent BotShop that was held in Derby.  There was a connection in the sense that some robotic systems are embedded systems.  Devices such as smart phones and Satellite Navigation Systems are embedded devices.  You need similar skills and tools to both extract data from (and to debug) embedded systems.

Another connection that I could make (apart from the recent distance education workshop that was held within the OU), was to the e-learning workshop that was held in the University of Greenwich.  During the Greenwich workshop, there was also a reference to the use of peer assessment .  Technology can has the potential to enable learners to comment (and learn from) the work of others. 

Summary

One of the most interesting comment from the day was along the lines of, 'seeing that video of the crime scene house has got me thinking about what I might be able to do it my own class... obviously I don't have a house, but perhaps I might be able to do something similar in the rooms that I could use'.  This comment clearly shows the benefits of getting people together to share ideas and practice experience.

Rita's presentation, to me, emphasised the fact that digital forensics is very much an interdisciplinary subject.  Not only is law is fundamentally important, but so are domains such as software development and embedded systems.   When it comes to social networking systems, social science disciplines have the potential to play a role too.

One of the biggest themes of the day was, of course, employability.  Although I am very much an outsider to the world of digital forensics (although I do remain a curious computer scientist), I certainly have the sense that it's a subject that equips students with a broad range of skills.  Debates about the extent to which software development should feature are likely to continue, along with the extent to which university level modules should explicitly support the needs of industry (particularly when it comes to commercial tools such as EnCase, FTK and mobile phone tools).

All in all, an expertly organised, fun and interesting event that had a real buzz about it. It was great to recognise a number of familiar faces and also to bump into my former Open University forensics tutor.  My interest in digital forensics remains as strong as ever.

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