This document discusses integrating university research, learning, and community engagement through case studies of #citizenrelay and Digital Commonwealth projects. #citizenrelay involved journalism students reporting on the 2012 Olympics torch relay using mobile devices and social media. Digital Commonwealth created digital stories and media around the 2014 Commonwealth Games across Scottish communities. Both projects brought the university closer to external communities, generated conversations around curriculum and research impacts, and provided students real-world experiences. The document argues for more flexible curricula and sustainable community partnerships to better achieve knowledge exchange between the university and public.

1. Extending the University
'community': Integrating Research,
Learning and Community
Engagement
Professor David McGillivray
School of Creative & Cultural Industries, UWS
@dgmcgillivray

2. Me
- Predominantly a researcher with interests in
event and digital cultures
- Also Joint Faculty Post Holder with Centre
for Academic Practice & Learning
Development (CAPLed)
- Chair of Student Experience Learning &
Teaching Forum (SELT)
- Interested in ‘practice-led’, ‘practice-based’
research & wider L&T benefits

3. External drivers
- Teaching and learning in ‘public’
- Changing learning environments - not always
on campus:
- Social/digital media bringing outside in
- Emergence of porous institutions
- ‘Mobile’ pedagogies: esp in creative/media
education
- External funding pressures: making R & KE
work for staff/students

4. Internal drivers
- ‘Situated learning’: in creative practice
- Embedding UWS in (learning) communities
(of practice and place)
- Employability/WRL: real world experiences
- Extension of research into online and social
media ‘communities’ and event cultures
(http://www.creativefutur.eu/)
- Challenging orthodoxy of the University
(estate) as the predominant space of learning

6. CASE STUDY 1: #citizenrelay
Journalism, events, creative practice
60 reporters
Smartphones & flip cams
Mobile newsroom (a minibus)
June 2012 Olympic Torch Relay

7. Small, alternative or citizen media offers space for
the digitally empowered citizen to break stories,
become media makers and storytellers of the now
digital tools permit flattened hierarchies, enabling
citizens to participate in leisure cultures (e.g. mega
events) to subvert controlled narratives and create
alternative, localised readings outside of commercial
media platforms
The theory

8. #citizenrelay used a hybrid media
environment, including blogs and
social media, to mobilise, organise
and discuss issues pertaining the
Olympic Torch Relay in real time

9. Integrated media

10. Partnership

11. Alternative
Learning Spaces

12. Open data

13. Connectedness

14. Locality

15. Curriculum lag

17. Curriculum lag
Knowledge gaps
Industry
standard
Flexible
curriculum

18. Outcomes:
- Generated public engagement
- Generated conversations (digital
media/literacy/policy, research
impact)
- Generated reputational capital
(inside/outside)

19. Case study 2:
Digital
Commonwealth
(@DigCW2014)
Building on strong
foundations

20. Creative response to the Commonwealth
(Games) from across Scotland, involving
diverse range of individuals/communities
Community media clusters
-community media cafes and digital storytelling
workshops
Schools programme
- in-school digital storytelling workshops with primary and
secondary learners in Scotland’s 32 local authorities
Creative voices
- documentary film, creative writing and
community songwriting around
UWS campuses

21. Digital
Common
Wealth
Digital
Common
Wealth
Themes
Place
- local, national, international, virtual
People
- diversity, migration, participation
Culture
- language, art, music, film, literature, sport
-
Exchange
- common-weal, values, learning

22. Project principles
‘common-weal’
Common (s) purpose
Ownership
Collaboration
Sharing
Accessibility Archiving

23. Embedding Faculty
Employing
students/graduates
Informing curriculum

24. Piloting OER & Open Badges

25. Research ‘impacts’

26. Practice impacts

27. Concluding thoughts
- If strategic, opportunity to bring University closer to
its constituencies
- Curriculum needs to be flexible enough to permit
student involvement
- Knowledge exchange/transfer can be more than a
third leg venture BUT requires detailed planning
- Sustainability of collaborations/partnerships vital but
resource intensive
- Institutional rhetoric needs to be backed up with
appropriate systems and support

28. Thank you
& questions
david.mcgillivray@uws.ac.uk
http://www.citizenrelay.net
http://www.digitalcommonwealth.co.uk