Professor Josie Taylor
Professor of Learning Technologies
Institute of Educational Technology, OU
(http://iet.open.ac.uk/pp/j.taylor/)
Josie Taylor is Professor of Learning Technologies, and Acting Director of the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University.
Josie has a bachelor’s degree in Dance, Drama and Psychology (University College, Worcester) and a D.Phil in Cognitive Sciences (University of Sussex). Her research focuses on understanding the ways in which people learn from complex media (traditional and digital) and how best to design those media to support learning. This spans system design, interface design, interaction design, user requirements, and evaluation, and entails understanding user psychology, the nature of learning and the contexts of learning.
Josie has been deeply involved in the field of e-learning since 1988. In 2005 she achieved national impact through the development of a UK e-learning research agenda to advise the research councils on priorities for funding in this area, an activity leading to the ESRC/EPSRC Technology Enhanced Learning funding initiative. She was Acting Associate Director for e-Learning in the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) administering this funding of approximately £12m in two rounds. She is also convenor of the UKCRC/BPS Grand Challenges in Computing No. 8: Learning for Life, and has been involved in large European funding projects in this area (e.g. MOBIlearn, GUARDIANS). She is a member of the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing in UK Universities, and member of the Association for Learning Technology Research Committee.
