Exploiting The Potential of Blogs and Social Networks Workshop:
Biographical Details


This page provides biographical details of the speakers at the Exploiting The Potential Of Blogs And Social Networks which is being organised by UKOLN.

Speakers

Stephen Clarke

Photo of Stephen Clarke Stephen Clarke has worked supporting the use of IT in education for over 20 years, starting as a secondary school teacher and network manager before moving into higher education 10 years ago.

Stephen Clarke is now the Head of eLearning at the University of Birmingham, where he introduced WebCT as the institutional virtual learning environment in 2002. The University is now a major user of elearning with over 100,000 visits per week to the elearning systems and 50% of courses with an online component.

Stephen will give a talk on "Blogging In A Managed Environment".

Stephen can be contacted at <s.j.clarke@bham.ac.uk>.

Melissa Highton

Photo of Melissa Highton Melissa Highton is Senior Staff Development Officer at the University of Leeds. She is a University teaching fellow and has a wealth of experience in supporting staff use of technology tools in HE. She has taken a lead role in the institutional VLE project and the creation of the Blended Learning Futures Group on campus.

Melissa will give a talk on "Leedsfeeds: a Blogging Service based on the Open Source Elgg Application".

Melissa can be contacted at <m.highton@adm.leeds.ac.uk>.

Alison Wildish

Photo of Alison Wildish Alison Wildish is Head of Web Services at Edge Hill University where she leads a team responsible for the development of the corporate Web site(s), intranet sites and Web services. Prior to joining Edge Hill, Alison was developing Web applications in the commercial sector. Most recently Alison has led the University portal project, the development of applicant and community Web sites, and has contributed to IDM and Single Sign-On implementations. Alison has an active interest in the opportunities offered by personalisation and user owned technologies and gave a plenary talk at this year's Institutional Web Management Workshop in York entitled "Let the Students do the Talking..."

Alison will give a talk on "Put Yourself Out There".

Alison can be contacted at <Alison.Wildish@edgehill.ac.uk>.

Tom Milburn

Tom Milburn is Vice President Education at Bath University Students' Union. As representative of students he has worked with the University of Bath to produce guidelines on the use of Facebook and also advises the University on the e-learning needs of students.

Tom will give a talk on "The Student Perspective".

Tom can be contacted at <sueducation@bath.ac.uk>.

Dr Stuart D Lee

Photo of Stuart Lee Dr Stuart D Lee is the current acting Director of Oxford University Computing Services, as well as being a lecturer in English literature at Oxford. His main work has been in the areas of e-learning and digital library development and digitisation. He sits on several senior IT committees at Oxford and nationally, and assisted in the development of Oxford's ICT Strategy.

Stuart will give a talk on "The Hidden Dangers of Social Networks: You can log-on but you cannot hide".

Stuart can be contacted at <Stuart.Lee @oucs.ox.ac.uk>.

David Harrison

David Harrison is Assistant Director of Information Services at Cardiff University with responsibility for Futures (including Strategy) and User Enablement. He had previously been a Director and a Head of Service at two other universities. He is also Chair of the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA), the body that represents the whole of higher education, and increasingly further education, in the provision and development of academic, management and administrative information systems, providing a network of contacts and a powerful lobbying voice. He is also the CEO of Welsh Networking.

In his role with UCISA he is committed to putting leadership at the top of the agenda and in working to ensure that the current and next generation of ICT leaders are ready and prepared to take on business aligned roles within their institution. He believes passionately in working through partnership and the enablement of users as vital components of service delivery.

David will give a talk on "Disruptive technology and its implications for University Information Services".

Brian Kelly

Photo of Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is UK Web Focus - a post funded by the JISC and MLA which provides advice and support to the UK Higher and Further Education communities and the museums, libraries and archives sector on Web issues. Brian is based at UKOLN.

Brian's interests include Web standards, Web accessibility, quality assurance for Web services and innovative Web developments, including collaborative Web tools, Web 2.0 developments, etc.

Brian will give the "Introduction to the workshop". Brian is also a chair of the workshop organising committee.

Brian can be contacted at <b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk>.