STEM Faculty

Professional biography

Dr Mark Hall joined the Open University in January 2020 and is a Senior Lecturer in Computing & Communications as well as being the Head of the OpenComputing Lab. He completed his undergraduate studies in Computer Science at the Alps-Adriatic University Klagenfurt, Austria and his PhD in Computer Science at Cardiff University, UK. He also holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education from Edge Hill University, UK and is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

He has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Sheffield University, UK, as a Senior Lecturer in Web Development at Edge Hill University, UK, as the Junior Professor for eHumanities at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, and as a Lecturer in Human Computer Interaction at Cardiff University, UK.

Research interests

Mark's research interests focus on the intersection between computation and the human user. He is particularly interested in helping users explore large data-sets that they are unfamiliar with or where the users lack the expertise to know what they could find and how to find it. As part of this he is also undertaking research into how to evaluate interfaces that support such open-ended exploration. Recently he has also developed an interest in improving methodological clarity and biases in the Digital Humanities.

Current research projects include:

• Under the Surface - The Digital Humanities suffer from a strong focus on the canon in their research. The Under the Surface project aims to highlight past authors who for various reasons (gender, religion, culture, ...) have dropped under the surface and enable Digital Humanities research into a wider range of authors.
• Gutzkow Digital Edition - A digital edition of the works of the 19th century German writer Karl Gutzkow. The project focuses on providing both the academic data and tools for creating digital editions, but also on interface elements that enable interested readers in consuming the digital edition's content.
• User Study Exchange Format - Aims to provide a data-exchange format that can represent the majority of online user studies (surveys, questionnaires, ...). By providing a common exchange format, the project aims to increase the amount of research re-use in this area and also improve replicability of such studies.
• Museum Map - An online museum containing approximately 2000 objects from the Liverpool Museum - World Museum's Egyptology collection. The system allows free exploration of the collection using a fully-automatically curated museum structure

Teaching interests

Mark's teaching interests focus on the area of Web Development, covering the complete spectrum from design to implementation and evaluation. At the Open University he is charing and contributing to the teaching of

• TM113 - Computing fundamentals 2
• TM352 - Web, mobile and cloud technologies

He also has a strong interest in effective uses of technology in teaching. In the past he has developed his own web-based teaching platform for web-development and tools to automate the assessment and feedback process. From this he has developed approaches for integrating modern software development techniques and tools into the teaching and assessment process. He currently heads the OpenComputing Lab, which provides remote computing environments for students across the STEM faculty.

External collaborations

Mark maintains collaborative links with a number of Digital Cultural Heritage institutions including Europeana, the V&A London, and Liverpool Museums.

International links

Mark is part of the Building towards Interactive Information Retrieval Research Reuse project, which aims to improve the amount of research in Interactive Information Retrieval and involves collaborators from Denmark, Germany, the UK, Norway, and Canada.

He is also involved in the Gutzkow Digital Edition project with colleagues in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the UK, and the Republic of Ireland.