Teaching Fellow in Distance Learning with Technologies and SCORE Fellow

Gabi is currently working on the TOUCANS project (Testing the OER University Concept and Aspirations: a National Study), a SCORE fellowship in which she is investigating the possible implementation of the OER university concept in the UK Higher Education sector.  

From Sept 2010 to Aug 2011, Gabi was responsible for supporting project teams at the Universities of Bath and Derby in the development and release of open educational resources as part of the OSTRICH project. Before that, as coordinator of the OTTER project, she facilitated the publication of a number of the University of Leicester’s teaching materials as open educational resources (www.le.ac.uk/oer). Gabi also worked as a Teaching Fellow on the online MA in TESOL and Applied Linguistics for the DUCKLING project during 2009 and 2010. In this role she was responsible for spearheading the use of specific innovative technologies – podcasting, e-book readers, voice boards and virtual worlds – in distance learning. Gabi is still a tutor on this programme for distance students.

Gabi started her career in the NGO sector in South Africa in the eighties, and later established a training consultancy that worked with a wide range of clients, including South African Airways, the national electricity supplier ESKOM, and several large mines. Gabi facilitated the South African Qualifications Authority’s standards generation body which created qualifications for adult basic education practitioners in the late nineties, and participated in developing the Independent Examinations Board’s adult basic education exams. She has worked in Spain as an EFL teacher and in Oman as an author of EFL materials, and spent five years leading a curriculum development team that produced multimedia EFL training materials for Qatar's energy industry.

Contact details

Direct line: +44 (0) 116 252 5745
Fax: + 44 (0) 116 252 5725
Gabi.Witthaus@le.ac.uk  

Qualifications

• MA in English Education, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa (1999) 
• Masters in Training and Development, University of Southern Queensland, Australia (2009)

Publications

Peer-reviewed journal articles

• Nikoi, S., Rowlett, T., Armellini, A. & Witthaus, G. (forthcoming). CORRE: A framework for evaluating and transforming teaching materials into Open Educational Resources. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, accepted for publication on 9/11/2010.
• Nie, M., Armellini, A., Witthaus, G. & Barklamb, K. (2011). How do e-book readers enhance learning opportunities for distance work-based learners?  ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, 19(1), 19-38.
• Hawkridge, D., Armellini, A., Nikoi, S., Rowlett, T. & Witthaus, G. (2010). Curriculum, intellectual property rights and open educational resources in British universities-and beyond. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 22(3), 162-176.

Book chapters

• Hawkridge, D.,  Armellini, A., Nie, M. & Witthaus, G. Digital audio for asynchronous interactive learning in curriculum design at an English university. In Jia, J. (ed) (forthcoming) Educational stages and interactive learning: from kindergarten to workplace training. IGI Global.

Selection of recent conference papers

2011

• Armellini, A., Witthaus, G., Prior, J. and O’Neill, S. (2011) Developing workflow models for the creation of sustainable Open Educational Resources. OER11 Annual Conference, Manchester, UK.

2010

• Armellini, A., Davies, E., Mobbs, R., Nikoi, S., Rowlett, T. & Witthaus, G. (2010) CORRE: A framework for transforming teaching materials into OERs. ALT-C 2010: Into something rich and strange - making sense of the sea-change, Nottingham, UK. Association for Learning Technology, available from http://repository.alt.ac.uk/798/2/Abstracts_Handbook_web.pdf  pp.16-17 (accessed 2 February 2011).
• Nie, M., Witthaus, G., Barklamb, K. & Armellini, A. (2010) Does the e-book reader make distance learners’ lives easier? ALT-C 2010: Into something rich and strange - making sense of the sea-change, Nottingham, UK. Association for Learning Technology, available from http://repository.alt.ac.uk/798/2/Abstracts_Handbook_web.pdf  p.18 (accessed 2 February 2011).
• Witthaus, G., Armellini, A. & Barklamb, K. (2010) A Second Life pilot in two online M-level programmes ALT-C 2010: Into something rich and strange - making sense of the sea-change, Nottingham, UK. Association for Learning Technology, available from http://repository.alt.ac.uk/798/2/Abstracts_Handbook_web.pdf   p.123 (accessed 2 February 2011).

2009

• Armellini, A., Witthaus, G., Mobbs, R., Rowlett, T. and Nikoi, S. 2009. Out in the Open: Beyond Distance and Open Educational Resources - an online workshop. Learning Futures Festival Online, Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicester, 9 Jan 2009.

OERs

• Witthaus, G. with South African Institute for Distance Education, 2009. Supporting Distance Learners. Available at www.oerafrica.org/supportinglearners