QR codes at Bath

I recently ran an Ideas Factory Workshop at Gloucesterhsire College – thanks to James Clay for organising it all.

It was a small group, plus many of their thoughts had been captured in previous groups sessions so I didn’t work through the mind maps as I have with other groups. However, a couple of interesting points came through. Firstly, they had some quite well established ideas about how they might use them within the Library space. In particular, to link the physical collection to the electronic, providing contact numbers and opening hours as a text based QR Code, and quick linking to the online contact forms.

It was really interesting the way the discussion shifted to thinking about how they might be used with webcam based technologies. In other words, how they might be used with slightly larger screen technologies, such as the ASUS EEE PC. This struck a cord with me, as the University of Bath is thinking about this type of technology for its first year students. So if a QR Code Reader was available on linux then this would open up a number of possibilities within just in time delivery of information in teaching sessions, or connecting to elearning tools to complete activities.

So plenty to come away with …

I presented a parallel session at the JISC Emerge Users and Innovation Programme Meeting in York (29th Jan). I took advantage of having a captive audience to run a slimmed down QR Codes Ideas Factory.

The outcomes of the session are available in two mind maps;

How might you use QR Codes? (png file)
What are the barriers to the use of QR Codes? (png file)

I ran the QR Codes Ideas Factory at the University of Gloucestershire on the 27th January . A thank you to Phil Gravestock for organising it. There was a nice QR Code on the door of the room which included text of the about the event.

The outcomes of the session are available in two mind maps;

How might you use QR Codes? (png file)
What are the barriers to the use of QR Codes? (png file)

A couple of things that I took from this session that hadn’t been raised or discussed in as much detail at other Ideas Factory Workshops was the idea of using QR codes to link to additional information for student posters and student art exhibits. The slight twist was not only would they link to more information, but in particular, information about on the lessons that the student learnt from the activity, and what they were trying to achieve. This slightly morphed into the idea that there should also be a mechanism where the audience could leave their comments for both the student and for each other. In other words, simply linking to a blog post. There was further discussion about the practicalities of this, for instance, providing devices for people to walk around the exhibit, poster session. These could be low spec PDAs, with a camera and wi-fi access. So people could quickly access the information, and leave comments thoughts. The discussion quickly spun into the idea of why not leave audio messages.

The other point which had been raised at any other institution (to date) was how QR Code technology might / should be woven into the course content of modules / units that focussed on communication, marketing, advertising and graphics. Some thoughts about a “heads up” for the people running those modules.

I ran the QR Codes Ideas Factory at Leicester on the 26th January . The attendance was really good from across the institution. Thanks to Jo Badge for organising it. There were QR codes all over the building. The one on the meeting room enabled a link to the supporting documentation on a Blog. I quite liked this idea. It meant as I entered the room I could scan the link, get a handle of the workshop aims, leave comments etc., (link to image).

The outcomes of the session are available in two mind maps;

How might you use QR Codes? (png file)
What are the barriers to the use of QR Codes? (png file)

A couple of things struck me from the session. I was particularly interested the underlying theme … “using QR codes to enable people to access the required information as efficiently and effectively as possible. However, this quickly becomes a pointless activity because on many occasions we might direct them to resources and activities that are not appropriate for small screen devices. Such as web sites that do not render, or documents / pdfs which can not be read. Therefore, if the implementation of QR Codes is to be effective then we need to ensure that our material is accessible and usable on small screen devices”.

There was some discussion about student generation of QR codes and sharing these with each other. An interesting thing to observe was the sharing of QR codes in the session. Quite a few people had iPhones, and one individual captured as a photo a QR code included in my presentation. The person they where sitting next to then read the QR code from the iPhone and not my slide. This made me re-visit the scenario of collecting and managing QR codes from presentations. If I can’t scan the image (for what ever reason) then perhaps I should photo the slide (this is something that I regularly undertake during presentations) then upload them to Flickr, and later read them on my computer screen.

In terms of improving the support material, there were a number of questions raised. Firstly, the issue of size and the need to accommodate error handling, and secondly, the use of different colour QR codes.

I ran the QR Codes Ideas Factory at UEA on the 16th January . The attendance was really good (15 people) from across the institution. Thanks to Andy Mee for organising it. I was particularly impressed with the QR Code behind the reception desk (link to image).

The outcomes of the session are available in two mind maps;

How might you use QR Codes? (png file)
What are the barriers to the use of QR Codes? (png file)

Overall I thought the session went very well. People seemed to be very engaged with the topic. A lot of the use focussed on the potential with administration and marketing. There was a lot of similar thoughts to the session at Manchester Met. For instance, induction, sending feedback, and sign up sheets.

We also spent some time discussing the barriers to the use of QR codes. There was considerable discussion around the issue of equitable access, costs for the end user, concerns about standardisation in terms of readers being able to access the information, and the thought that campuses will be covered in QR codes. Some of these points should fall out as the case studies continue. For instance, people should be very confident about access to QR codes using any reader if they focus on using the four key functions (text, url link, SMS message and phone number). The initial investigation (URL to my blog) indicates these are accessible on a number of different browsers. While, other issues should be addressed as part of the evaluation. I’d be particularly interested to address the issue of costs on student participation.

In this session I included an activity where people created a QR Code, and then included the code within either a powerpoint or a document. This supported my view about how easy it was to generate and use them. A very positive response from one lecturer was that they’d use them that afternoon – given they were so easy to create and include in their lecture material. He planned to use a QR Code which transferred a web link.

The discussion continued over lunch and there was an interesting idea emerging around the topic of patients using them to transfer information back to their doctors. For instance, a person at home might have to take a number of data recordings (blood sugar levels etc.,) and submit these for monitoring. It appears that there are a number of issues with the current method, including it being quite a complicated process which is prone to human error when collating the information. So could a person take their readings and transfer this to their doctor. The idea was to complete the process on a mobile device, create a QR Code (text) which contains the information, and then send it as an MMS message to phone number. We weren’t sure whether this was possible (although the QuickMark QR Code Creator offered an encrypted option, which could be created using a web browser on a mobile) or the best solution. However, it did start to the discussion about encrypted information within a bar code, and user generated content. Food for thought

7 people attended, mostly from the CeLT group.

There were a number of positives to take from the session. We worked up a number of potential uses. We then developed two in more detail. One of these focused on the use of QR Codes in a Library Induction. There was a number of aims, I particularly liked the idea of using this not only to introduce them to the library, but also to act as a learning opportunityw.r.t qr codes. The learning activity involved them using a number of the key QR code functionality, including linking to the web, accessing text and sending a SMS message. Some perceived positives of this approach included it could be made available for a long time, so extending the initial induction period. Students complete it whenever they like, and re-visit it in the future. The designers also included the idea of having multiple entry points, so it wasn’t a rigid linear design.

The second worked up use focussed on the use of QR codes to allow people to quickly book appointments with learning support and student support services. This would work as a SMS message. The QR codes could be placed in appropriate locations. In a sense it would act as an equivalent to the “tear of strip” on a notice. People were very positive about the idea of immediacy and anonymity. However, there were concerns with respect to costs for students.

Other interesting points from the session was, what is the killer app? An emerging theme was that QR codes would save you writing stuff down (efficiency and effectiveness gain). Also, the killer app would need to weave in the idea of mobility. So mobility interms of accessing information or facilitating communication.

There was significant time spent mulling over the use of QR codes to store RSS information, and enable subscribers to use their mobile devices. Also, looking at the Quickmark generator, the idea of creating and transferring GPS coordinates in a QR code gained a lot of interest. We discussed the idea of transferring these coordinates to Google Maps on your mobile, and then doing something with it. For instance, the next clue in an activity, or compare / contrast with point x. This sounded quite exciting but we then thought about this would require students to have significantly greater mobile device skills then they currently have. So support might go through the roof …

So you ask, what else came out of the session? Discussed the idea of student having their own unique QR code to attach to their work as part of more efficient work hand-ins, anonymous marking (if encrypted). Also, in idea of the person marking the assignment having QR codes that point to certain resources, such as generic feedback (perhaps an audio file), or online support material (how to reference). Then they could attach these at the appropriate part of the assignment. This would improve the speed and accuracy of feedback, especially when marking a large number of scripts.

Another potential use that I particularly liked (and thought would work at the University of Bath) was a QR Code outside each room. This QR Code would re-direct people to the room within the online booking system to see, if the room was free, when it was free and how to book it. There would also be a second QR Code (text) that contained the details of the room (name, size, equipment). This would allow people to scan and save the room details to book later.