Project Lead
Mary Immaculate College

Project Partners
University of Limerick
National University of Ireland, Galway

Primary Contact
Prof. Teresa O’Doherty
Mary Immaculate College
teresa.odoherty@mic.ul.ie

The ‘REX’ project brought together three higher education institutions involved in initial teacher education to build a digital bridge between academic and professional practice through the creation of a web-based portal, the Research Expertise Exchange (REX), to nurture digital skills for research and meet a real-world demand for expertise. The REX project offered training for teaching staff in all institutions to enhance their digital skills and encourage them to engage in technology-enhanced learning using the REX platform. Members who have joined the platform include those from higher education institutions, primary and secondary schools, as well as professional bodies. This project crossed both the higher-education-second level divide and the teaching-research divide. It impacted on student teachers’ conceptions of what a teaching career involved and also transformed the identities of practicing teachers, allowing them to bring real-life research into their teaching and participate in action research in their classrooms. REX has now been included within the Teaching Council’s newly-established Research Support Framework.