 I'd like to warmly welcome you all here this morning to Dublin City University to the next generation digital learning research symposium. And I particularly like to welcome those who have traveled from various corners and far fields and to just get a sense. I'd like to ask if there is anybody here from Munster? OK, a few, Mooney. Anybody from the West? More vocal there. And anyone from Ulster? One or two quiet people. Any proud men and women from the ancient province of Lenster? And anybody, I believe we have some people, are keynotes and other speakers who have traveled from outside of Ireland. So you're particularly welcome to these shores today to be with us. And the first thing we might ask is why a research symposium? And we're going to have an official welcome address from the president of the ECU in a second. But I'd just like to take a brief moment in advance of that just to briefly reflect on the background today and our purpose here. There's a lot of people following online as well on the livestream of the proceedings, the video livestreamed, and also on our Twitter back channel. And everyone is here today not just to follow the proceedings, but to take part. And one of the main objectives of today is to provide a participatory platform for you, the digital learning research community, to help you to build your network and in that way build research capacity in the sector. So this symposium is about you as a researcher, about new and emerging researchers to help kindle the passion and the drive that's helping you to investigate the critical issues. We're facing the same challenges and issues in digital learning research. And it's better, the wisdom of the few is the wisdom of the few is dwarfed by that of the many. And we have methodological commonalities and contrasts that we need to learn about from each other. And we need not just followers, but leaders. We need succession planning that we invest in the future while simultaneously not forgetting the lessons of the past. The symposium aims to build capacity in digital learning research by establishing connections and fashioning stronger bridges across and between different generations of educators and researchers. And one of those digital bridges, if you will, that we're trying to forge is between different communities and link and build networks together. The power is really in the network. And we're delighted to have representatives here from the sponsoring bodies. And I'd just like to especially thank members of the Irish Learned Technology Association, Educational Studies Association of Ireland, and of course the NIDL here as well in DCU. The symposium is framed around a number of guiding questions that we hope to be able to interrogate during the day. What do we know currently from the research literature? What research is being conducted in the Irish context? So hopefully that's a takeaway you get from today. You get to get a sense of what's happening on the ground. Who else is conducting research in my area? And how does it relate to me and my own work? Where are the gaps and methodological weaknesses in the current research literature? And what are likely to be the future questions? What's on the horizon for us? Those challenges and possibilities in digital learning research. As a bit of housekeeping, you have in your conference pack a schedule of proceedings. And we're going to try and, as best we can, keep to time and for presenters and delegates, please make your way to the parallel sessions in particular in good time for those. And have a look at the pack there. And I'll talk a little bit more about that later. Please tweet and make connections, both online and offline, but particularly offline here today. You're here to meet people and to contribute to the conversation. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome the president of Dr. City University, Professor Brea McRach, who's going to give our welcome address.