The e-Robot Project: a longitudinal on-line researchcollaboration to investigate ERA principles

Abstract

The Educational Robotic Application (ERA) Principles provides a framework for evaluating Educational Robots and their activities. This paper presents the rationale behind the proposed e-Robot Project, an online community based research resource aimed at gathering data on the use of educational robotics. Collating the data against ERA is an iterative process that will simultaneously verify and improve ERA, which in turn will inform the design and application of educational robotics. e-Robot involves all aspects of the research process from research design to meta-analysis. The project can run indefinitely and will encourage participation from student teachers, teachers, researchers, developers, administrators, politicians and other interested parties.