There is a long tradition in education of examination of the hidden curriculum, those elements which are implicit or tacit to the formal goals of education. This article draws upon that tradition to open up for investigation the hidden curriculum and assumptions about students and knowledge that are embedded in the coding undertaken to facilitate learning through information technologies, and emerging ‘semantic technologies’ in particular. Drawing upon an empirical study of case-based pedagogy in higher education, we examine the ways in which code becomes an actor in both enabling and constraining knowledge, reasoning, representation and students. The article argues that how this occurs, and to what effect, is largely left unexamined and becomes part of the hidden curriculum of electronically mediated learning that can be more explicitly examined by positioning technologies in general, and code in particular, as actors rather than tools. This points to a significant research agenda in technology enhanced learning.

‘Excellence' is a word that appears regularly in government documentation on teaching, for example when reviewing the curriculum review in England (DFE, 2011) or teacher education (DFE, 2010) but it is not defined. It appears that conceptions of excellence may be different in England and Finland,arising out of philosophical, historical, socio-economic and political differences, in other words, from cultural backgrounds. This assumption was tested by means of a small international research project that investigated student teacher conceptions of excellence in teaching at Education Departments at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland and the University of Bedfordshire in England.

International organisations such as the OECD and Unesco now publish comparative data on educational performance and the consequent challenge for any country is to ensure that changes in the education system actually result in improved outcomes. Increasingly the research base for educational practice is scrutinised. However, for educational policy and practice to be evidence based, educational researchers need to provide timely relevant research. This article proposes a model of research using concept mapping with policy makers and practitioners working as co-researchers. The model meets the challenge rapid research for selected topics. It was developed initially for pragmatic reasons in response to a requirement from a UK government agency for rapid research on digital technologies. The acronym PIMS indicates key features of the model: P –policy makers and practitioners are involved as co-researchers I – Intensive data collection takes place with simultaneous debate and analysis in a community of practice context M – multidimensional concept maps (MDCMs) are used to gather and shape ideas created through debate S – standard research methods and tests are used to complement the above. This article reports on the research approach developed and tested out on two research projects funded by a national agency.