Dr Kate Bradshaw

Professional biography

I have been working in interactive media production since 1995 and have significant experience in courseware, website development and video work. I began with a five year stint as a multimedia academic in the then OU Earth Sciences Department, and then moved to the Science Deanery as a project officer in 2000. Early projects included a TLTP module for Earth Sciences, and working with the OU-BBC on S103 multimedia. As part of the latter, I produced a virtual geology fieldtrip to SW England, focusing on teaching students how to describe outcrops (now part of S104).

In 2001, I switched to a project officer role and the Science Web and Interactive Multimedia Group (SWIM) was set up to broaden the brief to developing materials for the whole science (now STEM) faculty. Our production process involves working closely with academics to develop specifications, leading to generation of instructional web design, photography, video and graphics work, as well as content generation.

Between 2000 and 2011 most of my projects were large offline websites for delivery on CD/DVD (e.g. S250 BSE/vCJD timeline, SA188 Archeology, Technipedia), although latterly many moved to online delivery. After 2014, as academics have become interested in producing video material for teaching and research, I switched to assisting with production of video materials for module materials.

In 2016 I became a media manager and I now run a live broadcasting programme. These events are delivered to students from the OpenSTEM teaching labs on campus. They aim to deliver a variety of live opportunities for students to interact with Faculty lecturers. Events may be demonstrations of experiments, interviews, tutorials tackling tricky a area of study or remote fieldwork/labwork contributing to their study. These events have become a key part of a student's program of study in modules which have practical components.