Virtual fieldwork, real-world communities - interview and survey data

This project addressed three research questions: 1. To what extent can an alternative fieldtrip be a shared experience? 2. What is the role of fieldwork in building learning communities? 3. What is the role of different technologies in shaping analogues of traditional fieldwork? <br> To explore the research questions from the perspective of lecturers, students and other stakeholders, we conducted three strands of research: 1. evaluation of two fieldwork experiences selected to represent different learning community experiences: i. an environmental science ‘fieldcast’, as experienced in a dispersed community of OU students: a. observation of the fieldcast b. online survey of randomly-selected student participants c. semi-structured interviews with staff involved in the fieldcasts ii. observation of a Fieldwork Live course run by the Field Studies Council as experienced by a home-based participant 2. semi-structured interviews with eight stakeholders 3. a literature review relating to fieldwork and analogous fieldwork experiences <br> This dataset includes the results of the online survey (MS Excel) and transcripts of the interviews with stakeholders (MS Word).