About Me
Brief Biography
Hugh Davis is currently part-time as Professor of Computer
Science at the University of Southampton Malaysia.
Previously Hugh was Professor of Computer Science and
Learning Technologies in Electronics and Computer Science
(ECS) at University of Southampton UK, where he worked from
1987, retiring in November 2021.
Hugh has a long history of research in Hypertext and in
Learning Technologies, with over 250 publications in these
areas (h=43, i10 = 141) and more than 35 grants. He also has
significant experience as an educational change-agent in HE at
both a local and national level, and, until stepping down in
2016, was Director of the Institute of Learning Innovation and
Development (ILIaD) at the University of Southampton. A focus
of Hugh’s research has been how technology changes Higher
Education, He has given a number of recent keynote talks about
on-line learning and MOOCs, and the so called “disruptions”
they cause.
In his retirement Hugh hopes to spend increasing time touring the world by bike and by campervan with his wife and partner, Dr Su White.
Hugh is no longer accepting new PhD students and has retired
from most other other extrernal academic activities including
conference commitees and editorial teams. However, he
occasionally accepts suitably renumerated consultancy and
examining tasks.
(CC: Please feel free to publish the above, or appropraite
parts, as a Bio where needed)
The Longer Version
I joined Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton in 1987 following four years of social work, a year of running a sailing school, a Bachelors in Ship Science (Southampton) and seven years of school teaching (including a part-time teaching qualification and a Masters in CS (City University)). Early work with (now Dame Professor) Wendy Hall in the area of video disc for educational purposes and archives led to ideas about Hypertext, and the early versions of the Microcosm open hypermedia system in 1989. I was a founder member of the Multimedia Research Group (MMRG) which became the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group (IAM).
For a period of 10 years or so I worked at the leading edge
of Hypertext research, with interests in both open system
architectures and also the educational applications of
hypertext. I was one of the inventors and patent holders of
the Microcosm open hypermedia system and a founding director
of Multicosm Ltd in 1994 - which later became Active Navigation
Ltd.
In 1999, following a period of secondment to Multicosm
working much of the time in the USA, I returned to the
University and to my first research area of learning
technologies. I was interested in the ways in which technology
can improve the learning experience, particularly in a
research-led learning and teaching environment. My research
focus was on personal learning environments, learning
analytics, web and grid service architectures for distributed
eLearning, informal learning, assessment and social
applications in e-learning.
In 2003, ECS created the Learning Societies Lab (LSL), with me as group
leader. This group consisted of around 50 academic staff,
research assistants and PhD students, and was successful in
attracting significant grant funding. I have supervised
18 students to completion of their PhD’s and in addition have
examined 18 external and international PhDs. In 2011 LSL was
merged to create the Web and Internet Science group (WAIS).
Web Science looks at the technical, social, legal, economic,
medical, scientific and educational changes caused by the
disruption of the web and internet. Research in technology
enhanced learning is a central part of web science, looking at
changes in how students learn, and what they learn.
I have taught on many courses, particularly Programming
Principles, Multimedia Systems, Advanced Hypertext and Web
Technologies, eLearning and Learning Technologies, Personal
and Professional Development, and Computational Thinking (for
the Web Science MSc). I have always believed innovation
in teaching to be one of the most important features of a
research-led University, and have had many responsibilities in
this area. I was the University Director of Education and I
chaired the University's Technology Enhanced Learning and
Living Board (TELL). Between 1999 and 2003 I was
Director of Learning and Teaching for the Faculty of
Engineering and Applied Science. I had the unique honour of
having been promoted to professorial level twice, once for my
contributions to education, and later gaining a personal chair
for research.
In 2011, following a sabbatical in LIRMM in the wonderful city
of Montpellier, I returned to take responsibility for creating
the Centre for Innovation in Technologies in Education (CITE), a cross university
collaboration to assist the University in improving its
on-line and blended learning and to generally facilitate the
digital literacy agenda. Two of the major outputs from
CITE were the Southampton MOOCs that were delivered via FutureLearn, and the
Digital Champions programme which used students as partners in
a bottom up effort to improve digital literacy of staff and
students.
In 2012 I was also asked to also take responsibility for the Professional Development Unit (PDU), which was responsible for staff development and academic practice.
In 2014 the University created The Institute for Learning Innovation and Development (ILIaD) with the responsibility to lead on transforming education under my direction. This Institute subsumed CITE and the PDU but also has a research and strategy leadership remit, under my Directorship. From this date I became personally less involved in Reseach due to my significant administrative responsibilities.
In Oct 2015 I was hit by a car while cycling and sustained
injuries to my head and brain. These injuries took
longer to mend than I had hoped, so in April 2016 I stepped
down as Director of ILIaD. and returned to my Academic post in
Web and Internet Science within ECS.
I live in Southampton with my partner and wife, Su White, and my
other interests are camper-vanning, sailing, walking, cycle
touring, wine tasting, and music festivals. In 2012 we
bicycled from Lands End to John O'Groats covering a total
distance of 1013 miles in 17 days. (See incomplete LEJOG Gently Blog)
and in 2015 we took our bikes to Spain and cycled back home
through France to Caen (See Atlantic Coast
Expedition Blog). I believe passionately in the
importance of cycling as the primary method of local
transport, and the importance of making towns and cities into
human scale areas owned by people, including children, rather
than cars and HGVs. I am a European.