Biography

Current projects:

• Digital Visitors and Residents (paper, blog posts, project, draft course)
• Academic lead on 'The challenges of Residency' project with the Higher Education Academy 
• Developing 'Oxford Connect' - an online public engagement format
• Helping to run Technology-Assisted Lifelong Learning

David works in the overlapping space between education, academia and technology. He co-manages Technology-Assisted Lifelong Learning (TALL), an online research and development group in the University of Oxford.

In 2007 he released some of the first data on what was then called ‘web 2.0’ which included diagrams with ‘social’, ‘studying’ and ‘professional’ nestling alongside each other to highlight out how traditional boundaries are blurring. He has also researched the wild frontiers of Virtual Worlds and Massively Multiplayer Online games in the context of teaching and learning.

He led a study of UK online learning for the HEFCE Online Learning Task Force and continues to research what motivates learners to engage with the web based around his Visitors & Residents principle.

Alongside overseeing the creation and delivery of over 60 online distance courses David was the Creative Director of the ‘Maths in the City’ project working with Professor Marcus du Sautoy. He has also recently completed a study of the use/reuse of Open Educational Resources.

David has spoken as a Social Media expert on BBC Radio 4 and delivered his fair share of keynotes and invited talks. He is keen to see beyond the technology to the larger underlying trends that are emerging as society moves online. Visit the TALL blog for some of his recent thoughts, or follow his thinking as ideas occur to him: @daveowhite.

Teaching

• Senior lecturer in Communications Media and Film Studies. (1997-2003)
• Contributing to the MSc in Technology and Learning at the University of Oxford.

Research interests

• Exploring the motivations of individuals and groups when engaging with the web.
• The influence of the web on scholarship and pedagogy.
• The relationship between credibility, social capital and openness in academia.

Publications

Reports etc.

• HEFCE Study of UK Online Learning
• OER: The value of reuse in higher education

• Blog postings on education and social media.
• Editor of the ‘Open Habitat Magazine’ an output fro the Open Habitat project which was exploring the use of virtual worlds for teaching and learning in higher education.
• Contribution to the JISC ‘Getting Started in Second Life’ guide./li>
• ‘Headlines’ report from the Isthmus project which attempted to bridge the divide between institutional elearning provision and the culture of the withed web.
• Report on the use of ‘Web2.0’ for the SPIRE project.

Papers, chapters.

• Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement
  by David S. White and Alison Le Cornu.
  First Monday, Volume 16, Number 9 - 5 September 2011
  http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/3171/3049
• Connaway, L.S., White, D., & Lanclos, D.  (2011). Proceedings of the 74th ASIS&T Annual Meeting, 48. “Visitors and residents: What motivates engagement with the digital environment?” Silver Spring, MD: Richard B. Hill.
• Connaway, L. S., Lanclos, D., White, D. S., Le Cornu, A., & Hood, E. M. (2012). User-centered decision making: A new model for developing academic library services and systems. IFLA 2012 Conference Proceedings, August 11-17, Helsinki, Finland.
• White, D., and LeCornu, A. 2010. Eventedness and Disjuncture in Virtual Worlds. Journal of Educational Research, London: Routledge.
• Residency Relationships, and Responsibility, Chapter 10 of: Social Computing and Virtual Communities. Ed, Panayiotis Zaphiris, Chee Siang Ang. London: Chapman and Hall.
• Case study within: Whitton, N,. 2009. Learning with Digital Games. London: Routledge.

Presentations

2013

Academic credibility online: what does it look like and what does it have to do with learning? - Keynote

Bath University Teaching and Learning conference, May 2013

Visitors & Residents: What do students really get up to online and why should we care? - Workshop

'Talking about Teaching' series, Leeds University, Apr 2013

Credibility vs convenience: VLEs, information and academia. - Invited speaker

Oxford University Press editorial away-day, Mar 2013

How do students behave when in our learning environment? How do we need to react? - Invited speaker

Changing the Learning Landscape workshop, Bristol, Feb 2013

Social media: Evaluating the strategic value of students’ favourite technology in the university setting.

Bett annual conference, London, Jan 2013

2012

Visitors and Residents: Exploring what motivates students to engage with digital services.

Educause annual conference, Denver, Oct 2012

Online Presence and Digital Residency - Invited speaker

'OxEngage' series for the Univeristy of Oxford, Oct 2012

What Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment?

ISIC annual conference, Tokyo, Sept 2012

Creativity vs credibility? Opportunities for learning and teaching online. - Keynote Speaker

Oxford Brookes Faculty of Technology, Design & Environment conference, June 2012

2 episodes of 'The Digital Human' documentary for BBC Radio 4

May 1st - Episode 1 'Capture'

May 7th - Episode 2 'Control''

I knew the internet wouldn't give me a wrong answer'- Invited Speaker

NetworkED: Technology in Education seminar series, London School of Economics, May 2012, (Video)

'Some people visit the web, some people live there' - Invited Speaker

HEA event on Flexible Learning and Online Residency, Oxford, April 2012, (Blog post)

Using the 'Visitors and Residents' typology to understand learner's engagement with the digital information environment

OCLC EMEA regional council meeting, Birmingham, February 2012

2011

Digital Visitors and Residents: Project Feedback

Online Seminar for the JISC Developing Digital Literacies strand, December 2011, (recording + blog reactions)

Member of the Digital Literacy panel

JISC online conference, November 2011

Visitors and Residents: An Update on Current Findings

Filmed at OCLC headquarters in Columbus Ohio, October 2011, (Video)

'Visitors and Residents: What Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment?' - Panel member

ASIS&T annual meeting, New Orleans, October 2011.

'The learning black market': How students really use social media - Invited speaker

Guardian Higher Education network seminar series, London, September 2011.

'Are we in Open Country yet?' - Panel member

OER symposium, ALT-C, Leeds, September 2011.

'Digital Literacies in a Post Geek World' - Invited speaker

JISC Teaching and Learning Experts Group, Bristol, July 2011.

'The Rhetoric of Openness' - Invited speaker

NetSkill online seminar series, June 2011.

'Digital Literacies?: I Just Type it into Google' - Keynote

Brookes University Teaching and Learning Conference, Oxford, June 2011.

'Open Content and Open Practice - Who Benefits?' - Keynote Speaker (Video)

Oxford University Press 'Get Digital' seminar series, Oxford, May 2011.

Invited speaker

OER Impact study, Open Nottingham Seminar, Nottingham, April 2011. (Video)

'Content or Contact?' - Keynote speaker

Africa Higher-Ed ICT Conference, Johannesburg, March 2011.

OER strand facilitator/speaker

JISC annual conference, Liverpool, March 2011.

'Big understanding: The value of typologies of engagement?' - Invited speaker

Open University eLearning Community/Teaching and Learning Research Group event, February 2011.

OER use/reuse workshop facilitation

JISC OER programme meeting, Birmingham, January 2011.

eSafety strand chair

'Learning Without Frontiers', London, January 2011.

2010

'Online distance learning: New expectations?'

University of Leicester technology enhanced learning seminar series, December 2010.

HEFCE Study of online learning.

Educational Studies Department seminar series, Oxford, November 2010.

Interview.

JISC eLearning radio, November 2010.

Invited speaker.

ALT-C conference, Nottingham, September 2010. video of this talk

Charing discussion focused on the Study of UK Online Distance Learning.

HEFCE Online Learning Task Force, London, June 2010.

Invited expert.

St. Mary’s University College TeL Study Day, Twickenham, June 2010.

Keynote speaker.

DeMontfort University TeL Symposium, Leicester, May 2010. slides from this talk

Keynote speaker.

Plymouth e-Learning Conference, Plymouth, April 2010. video of this talk

Invited expert.

Strategy Cascade, Llandudno, March 2010.

Presenting our Study of UK Online Distance Learning.

HEFCE Online Learning Task Force, London, March 2010.

Running workshop on Green ICT and Social Media

JISC Green ICT conference, Birmingham, February 2010.

Presenting initial findings of our Study of UK Online Distance Learning.

HEFCE Online Learning Task Force, London, January 2010.

2009

Chair of education panel.

140 Characters Conference, London, November 2009.

Facilitation of Virtual Worlds strand.

JISC online conference, November 2009.

Eventedness and Belonging in Virtual Worlds.

Learning in Virtual Worlds Workshop, Coventry, November 2009.

What Massively Mutliplayer Games can teach us about Social Media.

TEDx, Birmingham, October 2009.

It’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there: using the ‘Visitor-Resident’ principle to guide approaches to the participatory web.

ALT-C conference, Manchester, September 2009.

What is Post-Digital?

ALT-C fringe session, September 2009.

Does Technology Encourage or Stifle Creativity?

Debate panel member, City University Learning and Teaching conference, London, June 2009.

Not killing the creative: Balancing the aspirations of a multidisciplinary team at a distance.

SEDA conference, Brighton, May 2009.

Open Habitat project presentation.

Orange Island, Second Life, April 2009.

The Visitors-Residents Principle.

'Thoughtfest', Salford University, March 2009.

Multi-User Virtual Enviroments Workshop.

Next Generation Environments conference, Loughborough & 'Learn, Teach and Play in Virtual Worlds' event, City University, March 2009.

Presentation at the Eduserv/JISC/Cetis event: 'Virtual Worlds for Teaching and Learning'

Glasgow, January 2009. slidecast of this talk

2008

Open Habitat project demo.

Online Educa conference, Berlin, December 2008.

The Importance of Being Earnest: Exploring the implications of virtual worlds' capacity to foreground students' identity, role and attitude.

Workshop in Digital Identity at the JISC/HEA Teaching and Learning Research Programme conference, London, November 2008.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (an avatar): Three principles to guide teaching in MUVEs.

JISC online conference, November 2008.

Swords and hairstyles: Bridging the divide between massively multiplayer game design and second life.

ALT-C, Leeds, September 2008. write-up of the talk

Using virtual worlds for teaching and learning

TALL Research Seminar, Oxford, August 2008. watch a video of this talk

Symposium on second life

David White, Steven Warburton, Helen Keegan, Steven Wheeler, Graham Atwell, Distance Learning conference, Malaysia (given onlne), July 2008.

Learning from the games designers

Next Generations Environments Conference, Birmingham, May 2008. View a PowerPoint of the talk or a write-up of the talk

Blurring boundaries: Taking advantage of society online

Shock of the Old conference, Oxford, April 2008. slides from presentation

Cultural capital and community development in the pursuit of dragon slaying (Massively Multiplayer guild culture as a model for sociable elearning)

ESRC festival of social science, City University, March 2008.

2007

Symposium on second life.

David White, Steven Warburton, Helen Keegan, Steven Wheeler, Graham Atwell, Online Educa conference, Berlin, November 2007

Cultural capital and community development in the pursuit of dragon slaying (Massively Multiplayer guild culture as a model for sociable elearning).

David White and Deborah Goodbody, ALT-C, Nottingham, September 2007. watch a video of this talk

Cultural Capital and Community Development in the Pursuit of Dragon Slaying.

Games Learning and Society Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, July 2007.

Rhizomes vs Scaffolds: Online Community and Structure, JISC/Emerge, Manchester.

JISC/Emerge, Manchester, July 2007.

Web 2.0, Implications for Students.

Bristol University Education Department Seminar, Bristol, June 2007.

SPIRE project, Informal collaboration and Web 2.0

JISC Digital Repositories Conference, June 2007.

Immersive Environments and Higher Education

JISC/Becta/Dti, Coventry, May 2007.

Web 2.0, Institutional Policy

JISC Online Seminar, March 2007.