Impact case study database

We have achieved the impacts described below through national and international dissemination events (01/08/13-31/07/20), including 7 participatory events, 15 conferences, and 18 workshops across 4 continents, where, for the first time, a range of interdisciplinary educators were exposed to the concept of using mobile technologies to enhance their fieldwork practice. This has resulted in impact for the following beneficiary groups:

National and international impact on teaching staff in HE/FE

• Our research findings outlined the need to support educators to effectively embed technology into fieldwork. The team therefore ran 7 participatory events, where 222 educators from 66 UK and 18 international HE/FE providers, 14 non-academic organisations, and 3 schools were able to gain practical experience of applying mobile technology in a fieldwork environment. This has led to 222 upskilled and more digitally literate educators, many of whom have embedded skills learned at the events into their own fieldwork practice: “The video compilation exercises [from the event] have given me the confidence to produce my own videos to explain troublesome concepts.” [S1a], “I gained confidence in the use of technology and have no fears about using iPads and mobile phones in fieldwork.” [S1b].

• Where practitioners have embedded mobile devices, fieldwork has been more efficient, saving students time and reducing departmental costs “The iPads have been embedded into the Conservation Biology activities to help address staff-student ratios, so the ~60 students feel adequately supported and have confidence to complete the task in a timely fashion.” [S2a]; “The EFL project has had a significant impact on MSc teaching in SBS…at the end of the field practical session the results from individual student groups were then realised on screen as an annotated campus map and a discussion of strengths, weaknesses and lessons-learned” [S2b].

• Educator attitudes towards technology have been transformed. The EFL team won an Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) in 2018 with an additional ‘spotlight’ recognition received at the awards ceremony for “multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary collaboration which demonstrated a transformational impact on attitudes towards the use of technology to enhance fieldwork learning” [S3a].

Impact on national and international students in HE/FE

Our research and events have led to educator upskilling, therefore students nationally and internationally have:

• Benefitted from enhanced learning as they are more engaged during their time in the field “Bringing digital stories into my fieldwork teaching practice has actively engaged my students” [S4a]; “[it] enhanced the way in which students engage with qualitative data in the field…this developed both student and tutor confidence in their applicability to everyday teaching” [S4b];” [it has]… made group work more engaging” [S4c]. Students also recognised how the technology had engaged them “it helped me think and expand upon ideas and problems” [S4d].

• Improved their digital literacy and enhanced inclusion “Having made a video [at the EFL event] ... my 1st year students now produce a 4 min video on a research topic.” [S5a]; “I've been told that the ways in which I've been able to help people use technology to support fieldwork has been transformational…The EFL community really champion education and are open to adopting inclusive approaches to education, the work I'm able to do has been inspired and informed by the collaborations and conversations I've had with EFL attendees” [S5b].

• Enhanced their employability skills “I attended the workshop ... we learned how to use technology in the field ... I took iPads/minis on an ERASMUS-funded trip to Iceland in 2014… Students make videos from their photos and videos and these are uploaded onto a WordPress site …I use the blog/video when writing student references. My fieldtrip partners with UMass Dartmouth (USA), EAFIT and Universidad de Antioquia (Colombia) and University of Akureyri (Iceland). The UMass colleague also now incorporates a blog and video website within their teaching. The pan-European nature of the trip ensured a wide dissemination of good practice...” [S6a]; “Students are able to learn new skills as well as the traditional learning from a field course... We have uploaded all their films to the department’s YouTube channel, providing them each with a web presence which is useful for their employability” [S6b].

• Transformed their perceptions of using mobile devices for fieldwork. Our research [R3] showed that 72% of students (n= 173) stated that their perceptions of using devices had improved during the course of the fieldwork. Some students described a complete change in their perceptions of using the device “from feeling sceptical to feeling dependent on its use.” [S3b]

Impact on teaching staff and students in secondary schools and further education

• Digital literacy has also improved in 3 schools as a result of engagement with our research and events, “I've taught hundreds of students in the time since [the event], and they have been exposed to new ideas, technology, Google Forms, VR and other exciting opportunities” [S7].

Impact on non-academic organisations

As a result of attending an EFL, new collaborations between organisations occurred and further impact within those organisations took place.

• Collaboration between the Field Studies Council and The Open University to develop the Field Network System which “enables the FSC to extend the time students spend in the field and facilitates student discussion of their results by enabling them to contextualise their findings at the fieldwork site,” thereby engaging the students and enabling deeper learning [S8a].

• Collaboration between EFL, EDINA and ESRI led to better technological solutions to field-based problems being developed: “[Event] participants gave invaluable feedback on our Fieldwork GB app… through our involvement with the project we feel more confident that we are building useful tools and understand the needs of potential users” [S8b].

• Through attending the EFL event, further good practice has been applied and shared by colleagues at the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) both nationally and internationally: “The events that Katharine [EFL] facilitated were designed to foster and share innovation and I took away numerous ideas…I was able to take this new knowledge skillset back into my practice and it influenced workshops that I ran for the HE and FE sectors on technology enhanced learning, particularly digital storytelling that I was also able to incorporate into presentations at an international and UK conference” [S8c].

Impact on learned societies

As a result of our research, events and collaboration, there has been an expansion of the British Ecological Society with the formation of a Teaching and Learning Special Interest Group: “Our relationship with the EFL has helped the BES demonstrate and build support for.... teaching-focussed members ... a special interest group.... supporting early career researchers and lecturers in developing their teaching practice” [S9].

Commercial Impact

• There have been 4,657 chapter downloads of the book written by the project team, which totals a commercial impact for Springer (publisher) of £93,093.43 in sales [S10a].

• As a result of direct engagement with our research and dissemination events, 6 UK institutions [S2a, S4c, S10d, S10e, S10f, S10g, S10h] are known to have purchased their own field-based mobile technologies, leading to commercial impacts for 8 companies [S10]: Apple, Samsung, Panasonic, Griffin, GoPro, Oculus, Raspberry Pi and Proscope. The Field Studies Council [S10b] has also estimated that they have purchased at least 250 tablet devices (Apple and Android). The total commercial impact for technology companies is estimated to be £199,978.74 [S10c].

This project contributes to address wider global concerns surrounding rural disadvantage in relation to digital connectivity. Direct beneficiary groups of the underpinning research and associated dissemination activities include: a) project participants – connected households and businesses (attitudinal change and capacity-building, leading to social and economic wellbeing); b) the wider rural resident and business community in Shropshire who benefitted from market stimulus (for improved connectivity); and c) the policy community in receipt of evidence-based contributions to the policy process.

1. Direct impact on project participants

The study had direct and significant social and economic impacts on the eight households / six micro-businesses (17 permanent users and four occasional users) who were provided with broadband access and the facilitation of its use.

• The positive economic benefits of internet connectivity to the micro-businesses are illustrated by a couple who said that “…access to a paid broadband service that meets our requirements […] it’s revolutionised the way we do things. ” Specific efficiency and cost-saving examples include those relating to internet banking and ‘digital by default’ administrative functions, saving approximately £300 p.a. on birth notifications (of pedigree sheep) alone. Specific productivity gains attributable to online marketing and promotion in 2020 are reported to include new customer purchases totalling £3,200 [S1i]. The financial impact reported by this participating micro-business exceeds that estimated in an independent Department for Digital, Culture, Media & and Sport (DCMS) Evaluation of the Economic Impact and Public Value of Superfast Broadband (2018), which said “that subsidised coverage raised the turnover per worker of firms by 0.38 percent […], equivalent to £1,390 in GVA per firm per annum (p.6) [S1ii].

• Behaviour change is evident. The project facilitated upskilling in the digital literacy of participants through broadband access and device use. All participants, including older generation households, remained online, transitioning to a paid alternative internet service. Broadband use has become part of the household norm, increasing (subjective) personal wellbeing through browsing, internet shopping, and staying in touch [S2i]. An older generation beneficiary provides examples of how internet access and use can overcome feelings of isolation, particularly through video-calling family members: “We speak every day and it makes such a difference to ‘see’ each other – it lifts both of us” [S2ii]. Some evaluations quantify the wellbeing uplift associated with a subsidised upgrade. For instance, an Ipsos Mori report for DCMS (2018) equates this as “… equivalent to £222.25 per year for the average premise” (Subjective wellbeing analysis of the Superfast Broadband programme, Annex C p.4) [S2iii].

1. Local-scale impact on the wider resident and business community in rural Shropshire

The provision of free, rate-limited broadband to local households enabled participants to overcome barriers of access and literacy that had previously excluded them from digital engagement. Through demonstrating opportunity, and potential to overcome barriers, the study created an appetite for better broadband, and stimulated the market. During the initial project phase, the study area in south-west Shropshire (SY7 8 postcode area) was not part of a Broadband Development UK (BDUK) phased ‘intervention area’ to improve access to fixed-line broadband. However, at the end of the study, residents and businesses in this location were eligible for the Better Broadband Scheme (2015-19), which subsidised the installation and access costs of alternative broadband provision. Williams stimulated uptake of the voucher scheme in this area, with the commercial provider Secure Web Services (SWS) being the main beneficiary, as evidenced by Connecting Shropshire and SWS data [S3]. The free Rural PAWS provision ceased in July 2016 (nine months after the dot.rural PAWS project end) and supported by Williams, project participants then secured alternative broadband provision [S1, S2]. Wider awareness of the Better Broadband Scheme support subsidy, and the services offered by SWS, was generated through word-of-mouth recommendation [S3iii].

• 156 voucher applications were processed by Connecting Shropshire for the SY7 postcode area in the 12-month period August 2016-July 2017, 44 of which were coded to the SY7 8 postcode (study) area [S3i].

• Of the SY7 8 postcode applications, three-quarters (n=33) of the subsidised broadband connections were installed by the commercial provider SWS in the post-PAWS 12-month period August 2016-July 2017 [S3ii].

1. Evidence-based contributions to national policy

Since 2016, Williams has disseminated the work via nine international conference / research meeting presentations and two invited Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) seminars [R3, R4]. Dissemination, and corresponding publishing activity, has underpinned a number of evidence-based policy contributions, the recommendations of which have recognised the barriers to digital inclusion, and called for the improvement of digital services to remote rural areas. The contribution and corresponding impact of Williams’s research can be evidenced as follows:

• At an international scale, Williams provided evidence for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, which comprises 35 countries worldwide) in their Policy Brief for Home Based Business [R3]. The research was used as a case study (referenced at p30), with the OECD report identifying ‘digital connectivity’, the provision of fast, affordable broadband, as ‘crucial’ if the diverse home-based business sector is to participate and thrive.

• Williams provided an expert interview for the Public Health Wales NHS Trust and Mental Health Foundation (2019) report, ‘Supporting farming communities at times of uncertainty – An action framework’, with a notable contribution to Key challenge 3: Regulation, administration and digitalisation. Recommended actions identified for prevention and protection, include “…the provision of fast internet connectivity, especially in rural areas, alongside addressing gaps in digital skills and literacy” (p14) [S4].

• The research contributed to the House of Commons Select Committee (2019) update to the Broadband and digital-only services inquiry (2015), via written evidence provided by Williams’s co-author Dr Lorna Philip [S5i] and referenced at paragraphs 22 and 25 in the House of Commons report (published 18 September 2019) [S5ii]. The 2019 update recommends that “the Government honour its commitment to its ‘outside-in’ approach to ensure hard to reach rural areas are prioritised” (paragraph 67); “Any new digital public service platforms should be trialled and assessed by rural stakeholders prior to roll out to ensure they are user friendly” (paragraph 31); and that “the Government commit to an immediate review of the USO [Universal Service Obligation of 10 Mbps] as soon as possible to ensure it is suitably ambitious for rural areas” (paragraph 47) so the USO is not obsolete soon after introduction.

• Expert witness Professor Claire Wallace (University of Aberdeen) provided oral evidence [S6i] to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Rural Economy (2018). Drawing on Williams’s research findings [R1, R2], the evidence was referenced in the Select Committee report (published 27 April 2019) ‘Time for a strategy for the rural economy’ (chapter 4 of Digital connectivity, paragraphs 242 and 243) [S6ii]. Related conclusions contributed to the House of Commons Select Committee 2019 update and recommendations (above, [S5ii]) including: upload and download speeds were too modest in the USO commitment; and local and national governments must do more to realise the potential of improving digital skills in rural areas.