Stewart Lamb Cromar (@stubot)

About

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Stewart Lamb Cromar (MSc, BSc (Hons))

Introduction

Stewart was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (T1D) in childhood and is now partially sighted. He regularly blogs about his disabilities and fundraises for several charities including Sight Scotland.

He is an Adult Fan of Lego (AFOL) and Lego artist. Using the online moniker @stubot, he is a Lego Ideas 10k club member (Ada Lovelace
& Charles Babbage tribute set), active member of two leading UK Lego clubs (Tartan LUG and Northern Brickworks), hardcore Fabuland fan (Fabufan) and has exhibited at the Lego House, Denmark.

His current professional role is Interactive Content Manager at the University of Edinburgh. Leading a small team of e-learning creatives, Stewart loves to design and build websites, videos and quizzes for academics. In 2024 he proudly celebrated 25 years at this historic institution.

Blogs posts grouped by category:

Interactive Content Manager at the University of Edinburgh

Stewart Lamb Cromar with trademark glasses and hoodie

Based within the Learning, Teaching and Web (LTW) services division, the Interactive Content Service provide a professional web design and e-learning development service to all staff and students within the University as well as external clients.

Interactive Content Service

Project activity

Stewart is involved in a range of web design and e-learning development projects for staff and students within the University of Edinburgh as well as external clients. Main areas covered are:

  • Content development:
    • HTML5/JavaScript/CSS3, H5P, Tumult Hype, Adobe Animate and Adobe Flash (legacy conversions).
    • Illustrations, animations, quizzes, infographics and virtual patients.
  • Website design:
    • Drupal (inc. EdWeb), WordPress and bespoke solutions.
  • Audio and video media production:
    • Recording, editing and publishing.
  • Workshop facilitation.
  • Design for print.

Recent projects

  • Mapping the Scottish Reformation
    • Mapping the Scottish Reformation (MSR) is a digital prosopography of the Scottish clergy between 1560 and 1689 that allows users to explore and visualize clerical careers during this essential period in Scottish history.
  • Art and the Playfair Library
    • In early 2020, fifteen Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) students visited the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research Collections (CRC) to explore the Playfair Library’s historic books and catalogues.
    • ‘Art and the Playfair Library: Speaking to Absent Volumes’ showcases their unique responses to the collection.
  • Carlyle Circle 30th anniversary digital exhibition
    • The Carlyle Circle was formed in 1990 to bring together and thank everyone who pledges to leave a legacy to the University of Edinburgh.
    • Over the years, gifts, including those from legacies, have provided the University with some very special objects, books and artwork. To celebrate their 30th anniversary I worked with Exhibitions Officer Bianca Packham from the Centre of Research Collections to design and publish a new digital exhibition.
    • Featuring beautiful high-resolution photography, and audio files, this website tells the stories of some of these objects and the people who kindly gave them.
  • ‘We Have Great Stuff’ colouring books
    • The University of Edinburgh as well as having great students and staff, has great stuff. Since its very beginnings, the University has collected books, art, archives, manuscripts, musical instruments and objects to inspire its community in learning, teaching and research.
    • One of the world’s great collections has been built up over hundreds of years and constantly surprises those who come to view and enjoy the items.
    • The illustrations in this book are inspired by items and images within the collections and were collated by students during the Festival of Creative Learning Week 2019, and by staff in the Information Services Group.
  • Euan MacDonald Centre – Motor Neurone Disease research website (Drupal 7).
  • Life After Cardiac Arrest – Healthcare website providing advice and support for people affected by out of hospital cardiac arrests (WordPress).
  • Supercytes – Inflammation and immunology schools resource (EdWeb).
  • Ada Lovelace Day – Annual event celebrating of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

Publications

Academic publications

  1. Ellaway, R., Dewhurst, D. and Cromar, S. (2004). “Challenging the Mortality of Computer Assisted Learning Materials in the Life Sciences: The RECAL Project.” Bioscience Education E-journal 3.
  2. D. G. Dewhurst, M. J. Lew, J. Ziogas, and S. Cromar (2003) A Computer Simulation of Experiments on The Human Eye to Teach Autonomic Pharmacology. Brit. J. Pharmac. Proc. suppl. (GKT BPS, December 03) in press.
  3. D. G. Dewhurst, J. Overfield and S. Cromar (2003) An interactive cal program to teach the principles of the laboratory determination of red blood cell indices and their use in the diagnosis of anaemias. Brit. J. Pharmac. Proc. suppl. (Brighton BPS, January 03)
  4. Dewhurst, DG, Collins, G.G.S. and Cromar, S. (2002) A computer simulation of the sciatic nerve-tibialis anterior muscle preparation of the cat in vivo to teach neuromuscular pharmacology to undergraduate students. Brit. J. Pharmac. Proc. suppl. (Hertfordshire BPS, April 02)
  5. D. G. Dewhurst, H. Jones, C. Page and S. Cromar (2002) A computer simulation of experiments to demonstrate pharmacological control of guinea pig airways. Brit. J. Pharmac. Proc. suppl. (Imperial College BPS, December 01)

Conference proceedings

  1. Cromar, S. (2019). “Adult Colouring Book Inspired by the University of Edinburgh Collections”. ALT Conference, The University of Edinburgh, UK.
  2. Blaney,M., Crolla, M. and Cromar, S. (2019). “Build a Chatbot Workshop”. ALT Conference, The University of Edinburgh, UK.
  3. Campbell, L.M., Cromar, S. and Farley, S. (2019). “Supporting Creative Engagement and Open Education at the University of Edinburgh”. ALT Conference, The University of Edinburgh, UK.
  4. Guthrie, C., Cromar, S. and Reid, L. (2017). “D1St9S4: Arresting Tales: A co-production by Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Survivors and Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland”. 28th International Networking for Healthcare Education Conference, Cambridge, UK.
  5. Cromar, S. (2017). “LEGO Lovelace: building a modern icon”. Ada Lovelace Symposium, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, UK.
  6. Begg, M., Wood, L., Cromar, S., Quentin-Baxter, M., and Dewhurst, D. (2012). “Labyrinth extensions for OOER – a toolkit for managing workflow in organising open educational resources.”. AMEE Conference Proceedings, Lyon, France.
  7. Cromar, S., Dewhurst, D., and Begg, M. (2011). “RECAL: a sustainable strategy for developing multilingual medical learning objects.”. AMEE Conference Proceedings, Vienna, Austria.
  8. Begg, M., Hardy, S., Outterside, J., Wood, L., Cromar, S., Quentin-Baxter, M., and Dewhurst, D. (2011) “Game-Informed Risk Assessment? A Labyrinth based toolkit for managing a good practice risk assessment workflow and guidance for open educational resources”. Presentation, eLearning in Health, Birmingham, UK, June 2011 (accepted).
  9. Dewhurst, D., Cromar, S. & Ellaway, R. (2008) A new model for developing computer-based alternatives to using animals in tertiary education. Alternatives to Animal Testing and Experimentation (AATEX) Vol 14: Special Issue, 239-242 Proc. 6th World Congress on Alternatives & Animal Use in the Life Sciences August 21-25, 2007, Tokyo, Japan.
  10. Cromar, S., Ellaway, R., and Dewhurst, D. (2005). “RECAL: a sustainable learning objects approach to stimulating the use of alternatives in higher education”. ALT-C Conference Proceedings, Manchester, UK.
  11. Ellaway, R., Dewhurst, D. and Cromar, S. (2005). “RECAL: Architecting Teaching Materials for the Future”. ED-MEDIA Conference Proceedings, Montreal, Canada.
  12. Ellaway, R., Dewhurst, D. and Cromar, S. (2004). “Do not go gently: using standards-driven component technologies to save CAL materials from a lingering death”. Slice of Life Conference Proceedings, Leiden, NL.