Some current staff research projects
Digital Action Research Collaboration (DARC)
John McClenaghen is currently developing a virtual learning environment (DARC) which has the potential to transform the way we link research and scholarship to curriculum delivery.
DARC is a collaboration between John McClenaghen in Fine Art and Rich Hebblewhite in Computing (Centre for Applied Internet Research) at Glyndŵr University.
Although is still in its early stages of development, it has received enthusiastic encouragement from colleagues involved in research, learning and teaching within Glyndŵr University and in the wider academic community.
It aims to address concerns related not only to research and scholarship but also learning & teaching and recruitment & retention.
The initial impetus and much of the initial content for the collaboration sprang from the work recently completed by John McClenaghen, funded through the Academic Development Fund, into the digital recording of Fine Art studio practice framed as “action research”.
DARC aims to form a bridge between staff research and curriculum delivery by providing a digital template for practice-led research which allows both practitioners and students to structure and reflect upon their research activity while comparing it to that of others.
The categories within which practitioners record and reflect upon their activities can be related directly to the student’s Personal Development Portfolio (contextualised within subject study). This allows students to relate staff and other invited practitioners' activity to their own learning context.
