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Rachel Brooks

Lecturer In Creative Technologies

My specialist area is visualisation for the creation of serious games, gamification, and emerging technologies, which all contribute to my teaching and research.

Biography

I have gained industry experience working for an eLearning and mLearning company CM Group, as an Associate Media Developer Post University, where I undertook the re-purposing, testing, and publishing of 900+ courses, in 13 different languages. During my time at CM, I learnt many new skills, took part in various aspects of courseware development, inclusive of Quality Assurance and Functional Testing prior to publishing out as SCORM compliant packages for clients. Had the chance to work with the UK + US office.

Post CM, I worked on a range of contracted National Lottery and Earth Heritage Funded projects to create Educational Mobile apps to teach young adults about the world around them using visualisations showing how it changed through the ages. This gave opportunities for collaboration and enabled me to utilise and develop my skills in UI design, audio creation, recording, editing and photography.

Having done contract-based projects I was looking for a new challenge that would offer a permanent job and enable me to give something back, with led me into teaching. I lead and teach on an array of modules in Games Technologies, where I can share my knowledge of UI Design, VR, Audio and Visualisation. In addition, I supervise on Foundation, Undergraduate and Master’s degree courses.

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Gloucestershire,  Ongoing
  • MPhil, University of Gloucestershire, 2017-2020
  • PGCAP, University of Gloucestershire, 2017
  • BSc (Hons): Multimedia Web Design, University of Gloucestershire, 2012

Awards

  • UOG WOW Award Excellent Delivery and Service, Summer 2020
  • COMX12 Community Engagement Award

Membership of professional bodies

  • Registered Apple + Android Mobile App Developer
  • Adobe Accredited
  • BCS – British Computing Society

Teaching & Research

Teaching

  • Games Production (CT4005)
  • Creative Skills for Design (CT4011)
  • Virtual and Augmented Reality (CT5104)
  • User Testing (CT5109)
  • User Interaction Design (CT5110)
  • Individual Research Project (CT6007)
  • Advanced Group Project (CT6008)
  • Advanced Concepts in Web Production (CT6014)
  • Creative Visualisation and Animation (CT6015)

 

Research

My research interests lie in interface design, data visualisation and virtual reality to contribute to the creation of enhanced learning UX, focusing on the delivery of educational and edutainment content. I also have a keen interest in serious games and how the inclusion of visualisation techniques helps in the case of rehabilitation within both natural and virtual environments.

My current PhD Research is exploring development of a virtual reality interface to enhance user dexterity in the case of arthritis and stroke rehabilitation.

 

Publications

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Heritage Lottery Funded Apps – available on the App Store + Google Play

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Established Mobile App Developer for Brooks Designs – https://brooksdesigns.co.uk/