At the University of Leicester, research and teaching are truly synergistic. Research into innovative new techniques is shaping the future of learning in the 21st century, not just in Leicester but across the education sector.

Professor Gilly Salmon is Professor of E-Learning and Learning Technologies in the University's dedicated unit, the Beyond Distance Research Alliance. She has pioneered an experimental research island on the internet-based virtual world of Second Life, which allows users to interact using ‘avatars’ that travel around a vast electronic landscape. The island provides a space in which students, researchers and teachers can experiment with learning in a virtual world.

One practical example features a programme created for Leicester’s archaeology students that enables them to explore a virtual representation of a tent in which the Sámi people (the indigenous people of Northern Europe) would have worshipped. Instead of merely studying a diagram in a conventional classroom, they can actively experience the environment and take part as if they were members of Sámi society.

This exciting research is already being integrated into the way we teach our students at Leicester. Professor John Fothergill from the Department of Engineering has been using e-lectures as part of his teaching delivery, which is already proving hugely beneficial to his students. Professor Fothergill says: “E-lectures provide students with the flexibility to learn at their own speed, whenever and wherever they want ... Results imply they do keep up - rather better, in fact, than they do in the non-virtual world.”

So in a fast-changing world where learning never stands still, initiatives like these are ensuring the University of Leicester stays one step ahead.

• Beyond Distance Research Alliance
• Department of Engineering

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