The Digital Artefacts for Learner Engagement Framework (DiAL-e): optimizing media for engagement at a distance Kevin Burden Director of Postgraduate Professional Development Centre for Educational Studies, The University of Hull, UK, Simon Atkinson, Title London School of Economics, UK Abstract: This paper describes the origins, development and applicability of a new framework tool for the use of digital video and other media resources in tertiary education. It was developed originally to promote the use of a video archive collection in the UK but wider user-testing and project development indicate it is a valuable framework in many other contexts and can be used to support he active use of many media types. The framework is illustrated with a selection of video exemplars housed in a bespoke YouTube channel which forms the basis for an ongoing community presence. Introduction Considerable interest and excitement has been generated in recent years by the digitisation and subsequent availability of rich media resources previously inaccessible to the wider public or academic community. But the paradigm of learning and teaching which underpin their use by academics has remained essentially unchanged, fixed to a delivery or transmission model of education which values the content resource as an objectified external entity. The Digital Artefacts for Learner Engagement framework (DiAL-e) starts from a radically different premise which is predicated upon a conceptualisation of learning as a process of ‘meaning-making’ in which the individual makes sense of the world in which they live through the creation of user-generated contexts (Luckin, 2010). User- generated contexts combine notions of physical space and location, with cultural practices, habitus and individual agency to create unique and personal opportunities for learning (Pachler, Bachmair, & Cook, 2009).The DiAL-e framework adopts this conceptualisation of learning as the starting point for the creation of rich and engaging learning opportunities which utlise many cultural resources including video archives digital images, sound files, textual productions, technological devices and so on. It outlines the physical spaces or locations in which the learning opportunity might occur (e.g. an online or face-to-face location) and the activities or practices which might be used by learners in order to customise their own ‘user-generated contexts’. The rest of the paper outlines and explains in more detail how this works. Background The DiAL-e framework was originally developed in the United Kingdom for the Joint Information Services Committee (JISC) to support lecturers and researchers working in tertiary education in their use of digitised resources. It was initiated to facilitate the wider adoption and use of newly available video archives such as the NewsFilm Online ITN archive which was digitised in 2008. Like a number of other similar archives it was considered unlikely that academics would automatically identify this kind of archive as a central resource for teaching and learning at tertiary level, particularly outside of disciplines such as history and media studies which have some previous engagements with this type of material. But beyond this very practical and immediate objective to encourage academics to adopt a specific video resource there were broader macro forces which shaped the direction we adopted. These include: ● the impetus to develop a digitally literate student population with a clear understanding of the power and influence of digital resources in contemporary communication (Martin, 2005)