Dr Frances E Slack BA (Hons)
Senior Lecturer, Information Systems; Postgraduate Research Tutor, Computing
Summary
My research area is that of public access systems and self-service technologies, with a focus on HCI evaluation. In the last 10 years I have investigated self-service kiosks, public attitudes to smart cards, e-learning systems, and multi-channel customer service interactions.
I have supervised successful PhD programmes in organisational values, e-government in Egypt, open source e-learning, IS/IT sourcing, and academic staff use of e-learning systems. My current PhD students are pursuing projects on usability test design for VLEs, voice to text in the Tamil language, and a comparative study of e-learning.
Research Methods is my main teaching area and I have supervised many Masters dissertations over 20 years. I have also taught Interaction Design, Law, the Internet and Society, and Advanced Learning and Study Skills.
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About
I have been involved in human-centred, public access based research in information and communication technologies for some 25 years. As Post-graduate Research Tutor for Computing in C3RI. I not only do research but also supervise, mentor, advise, teach, evaluate, and examine research across the subject area, including 6 research theses.
My list of publications reflects the development of my research interests from the area of my PhD in the late 1980s, to the recent publications worked on with my MSc and PhD students in areas that interest me. I also recognise the importance of peer review for the continuing quality assurance and development of research outputs. I am a regular reviewer for the Journal of Further and Higher Education, specialising in articles that cover aspects of research methods, research training and supervision, and for Internet Research, focusing on aspects of public access to Internet services and systems. I also review for the American publication Journal of Information Technology Education. For a number of years I have reviewed full conference papers and short papers for the BCS HCI conference and for the ‘minitrack’ Advances in Teaching and Learning Technologies at the Hawai'i International Conference on Systems Sciences.
A large part of my research and scholarly activity is related to PhD students and I have been Director of Studies or second supervisor on a number of supervision teams.
I use Blackboard extensively in my teaching, not least because I teach 2 distance learning modules each year. In addition, I give students access to my Twitter account and a number of them follow me. I tweet and retweet about research issues (but sometimes about public transport!). For current awareness I use ResearchGate and LinkedIn and for my interest in public access to information I use Facebook.
Public access to information; Human-computer Interaction
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Teaching
Department of Computing
Science, Technology and Arts
Information Systems
Research Skills and Principles
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Research
- Communication and Computing Research Centre
- Cultural Communication and Computing Research Institute
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Publications
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Postgraduate supervision
Challenges of Usability Test Design for a VLE in a Developing Country
A Comparative Study of E-Learning for programming in the UK and Iran
'Mobile Learning for English Language Support'
'An Investigation into approaches to voice to text in Tamil language based on Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence'
Information Systems Development and Organisational Values. 2004
E-Government Provision in Egypt: from Citizen Perception to Business Readiness, 2011
E-learning evolution in higher education in Egypt, 2011
'Stay, switch or back - Evaluating IS/IT Sourcing Cycle', 2012
The Pedagogy and Practice of Real Estate Management in Nigeria: Entrepreneurial Perspectives, 2013
'Strategic Customer Relationship Marketing and Re-Intermediation Models in the Insurance Industry, 2014
Managing online presence in the E-Learning environment, 2015