The following RIPPAs are currently accepting participants. Check the project details for more information.
Escape room-inspired activities are increasingly used in education for their immersive, engaging nature. However, most implementations are linear and centrally controlled, limiting pedagogical depth. Physical escape rooms offer richer experiences but are costly and impractical at scale. This RIPPA explores a scalable alternative: non-linear, digital or hybrid escape room designs embedded within teaching materials. Addressing student disengagement in higher education, the project investigates whether playful, puzzle-based formats can improve engagement, enjoyment, and understanding. Focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) education, the activity builds on an initial implementation to bring educators together to co-develop, trial, and evaluate this approach. The group will share experiences, analyse data, and produce outputs to assess its pedagogical value. The findings may extend to wider computing education.
Despite the growing number of teaching-focused academics worldwide, a fair and consistent approach to their promotion is lacking. Research, a focus of more traditional roles, is still prioritised in many universities. Even promotion requirements written specifically for teaching-focused academics may confusingly hint at research, in particular educational/pedagogic research. As a result, teaching-focused academics may feel tempted to go into educational/pedagogic research. This poses a number of challenges at all career stages. The aim of this RIPPA is to study the specific promotion requirements of teaching-focused academics in Computer Science, the challenges that they face when going into Computer Science Education research, and the support offered by their institutions, before providing recommendations.
Research indicates that Sense of Belonging - the feeling of being accepted and valued within a community - consistently correlates with student success and well-being. This experience varies across race, ethnicity, and gender, with research showing disparities among computing students, particularly those from minoritized groups. During the COVID-19 pandemic, belongingness declined among non-minoritized students but increased for minoritized women, suggesting a potential benefit of virtual environments for some groups. Post-pandemic surveys reveal that belongingness levels have not fully rebounded, especially among minoritized men, highlighting the need for targeted interventions. Since 2017, researchers at University College Dublin have studied this phenomenon and are now expanding their work across the UK, inviting collaboration through the RIPPA initiative at UKICER 2023.