We are excited to announce that we have been successful in our application to become a Challenge Holder for the Creative Informatics Challenge. We are now seeking a Challenge Respondent to help us harness data and develop a digital evaluation tool for our primary school’s tour.
The Creative Informatics Challenge, run by the University of Edinburgh, offers an opportunity for creative and cultural organisations to bring forward challenges that require innovative, data-driven solutions.
With 2021 marking the 50th Anniversary of our Primary Schools Tour, our proposal is to develop a new approach for evaluating the project. Each year we engage with 9,000 pupils from over 130 schools across Scotland. Traditionally we capture written and numerical feedback from teachers through surveys. However, this universal approach doesn’t measure the full spectrum of benefits that the diverse range of pupils and teachers gain from taking part.
Scottish Opera’s challenge is to create an interactive experience to capture and evaluate data from pupils and teachers on our Primary Schools Tour. We want to use technology to make the evaluation process more fun, engaging, and accessible for pupils and teachers, but that remains data-driven. It is hoped the solution to our challenge will enable us to acquire more detailed information on what participants in each school learn and how they learn, as well as supporting pupils to consolidate their learning from the project. This in turn will allow us to better adapt our project to the blended learning model of how children are increasingly being taught through technology. A solution would also be relevant to the wider performing arts sector working in schools or educational settings.
Our project is now open for Challenge Respondents to apply and can include teams or individuals that have the skills to answer our challenge using data-driven approaches and technologies. Funding support of up to £20,000 will be made available by Creative Informatics and applications must be submitted by Friday 16 April. Find out more about how to apply here.
Director of Outreach and Education, Jane Davidson said: ‘I am delighted that Scottish Opera has been selected to participate as a Creative Informatics Challenge Holder. Finding a solution to our challenge will enable us to improve the project experience and learning outcomes for thousands of pupils each year and expand the reach of the project so we can benefit more young people across Edinburgh, South East Scotland and all of Scotland. Collaborating with specialists in other sectors will support us to evolve our longest-running education project, the Primary Schools Tour, so it can adapt and thrive in the increasingly digital age.’