Abstract
The area of professional practice and my original contribution to the body of knowledge is a
portfolio of evidence which covers three distinct elements. Firstly, how I led the development
of Ada, a conversational service which supports students, teachers and campus support
teams in different contexts across the student life cycle; and FirstPass, which supports
students and teachers with the formative assessment of open-ended questions. Secondly,
how the introduction of these services changed practices at Bolton College. And thirdly, how
my work led to changing practices in other further education colleges. The literature review
and my portfolio of evidence are structured in a manner that supports a narrative which
describes how change management strategies were used to bring about the advent of a new
and emerging EdTech category; namely, the campus digital assistant which can support
students across the student life cycle. And further still, how AIED services such as Ada and
FirstPass were developed and nurtured through a collaborative and participatory model.
This work is underpinned by two case studies which describe the change management
programme that I led. This manifested in the development of the Ada and FirstPass services.
The case studies explore the steps that I led to invite organisations to collaborate and partner
with the College; and how these steps influenced and shaped practice at the College and
further afield. These case studies are supported by a portfolio of evidence which covers the
lifespan of both services. At the time of writing, the Ada and FirstPass services continue to
shape practice across the further education sector and evidence is presented to demonstrate
these developments; notably through the use of larger scale pilots of both services.