Today celebrates the achievements of Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first computer programme for Charles Babbage’s analytical engine.

To mark the day, bloggers around the world have pledged to write a post about a female heroine of science and technology. Though Ada’s programme never ran (the engine was never built) she remains an important figure in the development of computer programming. Perhaps just as importantly she is seen today as a role model for women working in science and technology.

Cambridge University has a tendency to change slower than other Universities and undoubtedly those outside may see us as antiquated or at best quaint, but inside we see things differently. While there are undoubtedly some areas of research which are still male dominated, women increasingly hold positions of importance and power in the University. We have a female vice chancellor and more recently, with the appointment of Anne Jarvis, a female head of the library.

In our office we are lucky to have a number of bright intelligent women working in programming and IT support. Sultan, Anne, Chris and Verity have very different roles but all have broken into what are unfortunately still male dominated areas of work. These talented women are central to so many of CARET’s projects and they inspire us all with their creativity and determination. Thank you ladies!

If you want to join in celebrating the day it’s not too late – you can pledge your support at findingada.com/.

Users of Facebook, iGoogle or CamTools can now add a Cambridge Libraries Widget to their pages. The Widget, which takes only seconds to install, allows you to search, view your library profile, view and renew loans, and view and cancel requests within the above three web applications.

This Widget is a product of the Arcadia Programme, and was developed by the University Library in collaboration with CARET. The Arcadia Project blog is worth reading if you are interested in web application projects and the creative ideas in this direction being developed for the University. (You can also get the latest updates on Harriet’s research here too)

Some of these people may be eating a cheese scone

CARET’s famous cappuccino machine, or cheese scones amongst the iconic architecture of the University Library? The catering andthe architecture of the two institutions may be like chalk and cheese, but both CARET and the Library share a preoccupation with the ways in which new technologies can support the work of the University.

That’s why CARET was delighted when Harriet Truscott, who’s been working as Lead Researcher on the CourseTools project for the last year, was awarded an Arcadia Fellowship. She’s now leaving behind the cappuccino machine for a while, to take up residence amongst rare books and high-tech IT projects at the University Library.

The Arcadia Programme is a three-year programme exploring the role of academic libraries in a digital age, and creating new programmes and services, in particular

for our undergraduates. Talented people from across the UK were invited to apply for Fellowships at the University Library, with past Fellows researching topics from, the role of reading lists to the scholarly opportunities offered by digital ‘mash-ups’. Harriet will be researching the potential impact of storing past exam papers in an entirely digital format. This would allow college libraries to do away with the need to bind and store large numbers of exam papers each year, and allow students to access past exam papers easily for revision during vacations.

“It sounds like a ridiculously simple problem, but when you look into it, there’s been surprisingly little research into how students can best use past papers to revise,” Harriet explained. “I’m hoping to have a couple of prototypes of alternativesready by the Lent vacation, so that students can try them out and have their say on what’s most useful to them.”

However, thinking back to her student days, Harriet does have one concernover her new home: “I’m sure the cheese scones used to be twice the size.”

Following the success of the reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost last year, the English Faculty celebrated the bicentenary of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s birth with readings of his poems. CARET’s Pete Cook was on hand all day to record the performances of members of the English Faculty, which was streamed live on the 23rd of October.

If you missed the live event, or you’d like to listen again to your favourite poems you can find podcasts of all the performances at www.english.cam.ac.uk/tennyson/index.htm

During the redevelopment of the CARET website we had time to take stock and look back at past projects. Remembering successful projects and happy clients made us feel proud of our department and our colleagues. We found ourselves thinking that there must be some way to share this feeling with the rest of our colleagues. Too often, pressure of work prevents us from pausing to celebrate our triumphs, and instead we can only stop to fix problems that have come up, missing out on the wonderful things we’ve achieved.

We decided on a simple solution, naming one of the cupboards in our kitchen ‘The Cupboard of Success’. We encourage people to stick up post it notes detailing their successes large or small, or praising one of their colleagues. This little corner of CARET is devoted to blowing out own trumpet and it fills up quickly. It encourages us to focus on the positive aspects of our work from Ian and Nicolaas both being awarded Sakai Fellowships, to the growing popularity of CamTools across the University. Smaller achievements are also welcomed, Dan survived a day talking about metadata this month and Rhiannon shared her Maltesers in August.

When project deadlines loom and inboxes are overflowing, a few moments to reflect on our successes can really spur us on.

Nicolaas Matthijs and Ian Boston have been awarded Sakai Fellowhips at this year’s Sakai Conference in Boston.
The Fellowship recognises the time, expertise and leadership they have shown in the development of Sakai. Nicolaas has been leading the design and development of the Sakai 3 user interface and user experience and Ian has been leading the development of K2 – a new ‘back-end’ engine for Sakai.

The Sakai project is a collaborative open source project, providing a management system for courses that is used by over 160 educational institutions worldwide, used to manage research collaborations as well as day to day teaching. Sakai forms the basis of CamTools.

Only six fellowships are awarded each year and so it is a particular honour to be singled out by the community for such praise. CARET of course is incredibly proud that our colleagues have received this distinction.

Here are some short videos of Nicolaas and Ian, recorded after they were awarded their fellowships.

Two new case studies about the educational value of web 2.0 applications written by CARET staff have been published by the Higher Education Academy. Authors Katy Jordan, Fran Tracy and Keith Johnstone (Plant Sciences)  drew upon their experiences working to enhance e-learning provision within the Department of Plant Sciences as part of the Teaching for Learning Network.

The articles,‘ Web 2.0: Creating a customised online library using Connotea’ and ‘Web 2.0: Bringing lecture notes to life using a wiki tool’ are part of a series of case studies published by the HEA Centre for Bioscience. The Centre provides resources written by bioscience practioners to help support teaching and learning in higher education in the UK.

Caret was delighted to host Dr Isabel Solano Fernandez and Maria del Mar Sanchez Vera from GITE, the Grupo de Investigación de  Tecnología Educativa, at the Universidad de Murcia . They spent time working with members of the Ensemble team and other CARET projects, discussing current activities and research. We’d like to thank Isobel and Malle for their visit and we look forward to future collaborations.

CARET has 3 job openings at the moment. You can find out more on our Opportunities page, which has links to the full job ads and details of how to apply. CARET is a lively and innovative place to work, with a beautiful office in the city centre of Cambridge. The jobs come with all the benefits of working for the University of Cambridge too!

CARET is recruiting graduate students (MPhils, PhDs, MSCs, people who have just finished PhDs and are looking for a first post – any kind of graduate study) to take part in a research study. The results of the study will – we hope! – be used to improve life for students and early-career researchers at Cambridge and other Universities.

We’re looking for people to join in a 90-minute group workshop and a 90-minute individual interview. You’ll also keep a diary about your life for five days. (The study is taking place between Tues 13th Jan and Thurs 22nd Jan) In exchange for this, we’re offering £30 of book vouchers. We hope you’ll find the research fun and thought-provoking, but we don’t want to tell you too much about it in advance in case we bias your thinking.

We’re trying to get a representative group of people, so we’re asking lots of people to express interest, and we’ll then select a group for the study who we think reflect a good range of the type of people doing graduate study and research at Cambridge.

To express an interest, please follow this link and fill in the brief questionnaire about yourself: research study survey.

How can we support our Faculty teaching committees as they bring innovation into their curricula? The launch of the JISC-funded Curriculum Design project marks the start of a 4-year attempt tto look at what helps the University innovate in its teaching, and what barriers can prevent great ideas making thier way into the student experience. Working with the Education Section, MISD and Faculties across the University, CARET will be investigating whether new software can lift some of the administrative burden from the curriculum design process. You can get regular updates at the team’s blog.