Introducing Karen Shackleford-Cesare of Digital Education Services

Karen is a member the Digital Education Services team. She joined UCL in December 2016 from the University of Roehampton. She, along with other members of her current team, supports and advises on the use of a range of technologies including the University’s core learning and teaching applications namely, Moodle, Turnitin and MyPortfolio. From February 2017 she will act as service lead for the latter two.

Her professional interests include student motivation and engagement, e-assessment, (including peer and ipsative assessment and feedback data analysis). Also, improving the usability of, and productivity gains from learning technologies.

Karen is a Fellow of the HEA and also has experience of being an academic having been a lecturer in Management Information Systems at the University of the West Indies, teaching undergraduates in both face-to-face and distance modes. Although, she acknowledges that learning technologies may not be able to compete with the “pulling power” of an academics’ infectious enthusiasm for their subject to motivate students, she is confident that used strategically they can disrupt and transform both learning and teaching in HE. Hence, Karen is keen to work with UCL academics and colleagues to prove it.