Physical Sciences Library
Take our short survey and let us know what you need from the space and resources in the Physical Sciences Library.
Take the survey now: https://forms.office.com/e/LqJcUjvNss
Closing date 10 April 2026. Please email feedback@aber.ac.uk with any questions.
We are delighted to announce the winner of this year’s annual Exemplary Course Award.
Congratulations to our joint winners:
The panel noted exemplary practices in the following areas:
Many congratulations to our highly commended and commended recipients:
Department of Geography and Earth Sciences’ Dr Tristram Irvine-Fynn and Dr Hywel Griffiths for the course GS25520: Glacial and Fluvial Processes and Theatre Film and Television Studies’ Dr Lara Kipp for the course FM22120: Production Design Skills.
These 2 courses demonstrated some excellent practices, including innovative virtual field trip activities, anonymous student feedback mechanisms, authentic assessment design, and clarity on generative AI usage. The award is assessed based on a rubric across four areas:
The courses were of such a high standard, and we look forward to sharing their practices with you in due course.
Many congratulations to this year’s well-deserved recipients.
We are now inviting proposals for the 14th Annual Education and Student Experience Conference, Tuesday 8-Thursday 10 September 2026.
Submit and view the call for proposals online.
Please complete this form no later than 22 May 2026.
The theme for this year’s conference is:
The main strands of this year’s conference are:
Building inclusive, decolonised curricula that reflect diverse identities and experiences, advancing the Race Equality Charter.
Hybrid, blended, and accessible learning designs that support varied learner needs through thoughtful pacing, structure, and technology.
Clear, meaningful integration of skills, graduate attributes, and real‑world application of competencies.
Authentic student–staff collaboration in curriculum design, assessment, research, and decision‑making.
Staff and students are welcome to propose sessions on any topic relating to learning and teaching, especially those that focus on the incorporation and use of technology. Even if your suggestion doesn’t fit into a particular strand, other topics are welcome.
We seek to encourage presenters to consider using alternative formats that reflect and suit the content of their sessions. As such, we are not specifying a standardised presentation format.
Colleagues can already book their place at this year’s Education and Student Experience. Please complete this booking form.
If you have any questions, please contact the Digital Education Team: elearning@aber.ac.uk.
In the March update, we want to draw your attention to the following Blackboard enhancements:
Instructors can now grade anonymous by question in addition to grading anonymously by student.
When grading anonymous test submissions in Question View, the interface replaces the student’s name, avatar, and ID with an anonymous identifier and a blank avatar. All functionality available when grading non‑anonymous submissions by question is also available when grading anonymously. When anonymous grading is enabled, related APIs no longer return identifying information. This applies to the Essay Question.
We moved the Question Title field from the beginning of the question authoring workflow to the bottom, underneath the Question metadata field. Moving this field ensures that titles remain an optional metadata element and reduces cognitive load during question creation.
Image 1: Before this enhancement, the Question Title field was at the top of the question authoring workflow.
Image 2: Now, the Question Title field is at the bottom of the question authoring workflow, underneath the Question Metadata field.
We updated the partial credit system for Multiple Choice and Multiple Answer questions to allow instructors to assign credit values without the requirement that all designated values sum to 100%. This change supports more flexible grading strategies and enables instructors to represent varying levels of conceptual understanding without adjusting values to meet a fixed total.
The system now allows instructors to enter any partial credit value for each option within a range of –100% to +100%. Validation continues to warn instructors if total values exceed 100%, but it no longer blocks question setup. Instructors may now also enter positive credit values for options that are not marked as the correct answer The total partial credit value for correct answers should be at least 100%, and it may exceed 100%. Negative marking continues to operate when enabled. Instructors can adjust credit values during regrading as well.
Image 1: Instructors can have answer options that do not sum to 100%.
We expanded AI‑assisted authoring to support generating multiple choice Knowledge Checks within Documents. This enhancement allows instructors to create just‑in‑time formative assessments using AI‑generated questions based on the content of their Document and any selected course materials.
When inserting a Knowledge Check, instructors are now presented with two options: Enter my question or Auto generate question. Selecting Auto-generate question opens the Auto-Generate Question panel, which adapts the existing Question panel used in tests and question banks.
When using the Auto generate question option, instructors can define generation inputs with the following fields:
The system generates four multiple choice questions at a time. Each generated question displays with a radio button so that the instructor can select one question to add to the Document. The instructor can then modify the question, answer options, and feedback after insertion. If the instructor opens the Knowledge Check option but does not add a question, the placeholder block remains empty and behaves as other empty content blocks do.
All questions are generated using only text content from the Document. Consideration of additional media or files will be handled as part of a future release.
Image 1: Instructors can select Enter my question or Auto-generate question when creating a knowledge check.
Image 2: After the system generates questions, the instructor selects which question to add to the Document. After adding a question, instructors can edit the question, question options, and question settings.
If you’re looking for ways in which you can make your Blackboard Documents more visually appealing, then use the AI Design Assistant to suggest Document layouts.
Go to your Document and click to edit the content. Then select the AI Design Assistant icon:
Image 1: AI Design Assistant icon highlighted.
You can provide further information to define the layout:
Image 2: Options available in the layout.
Select Apply layout to save the suggested layout.
Instructors can now add a second due date with participation requirements for Discussions. This update builds on recent enhancements for discussion participation requirements and gives instructors clearer ways to set expectations for discussion activity. Students get transparent guidance for discussion expectations and progress indicators for their participation.
Instructors can set how many posts and replies that students must complete across two due dates.
The option Grade discussion must be selected to add a due dates and participation requirements. Enter a time and date under Due Date and specify participation requirements. Selecting Second Due Date adds another due date with its own requirements.
Instructors can disallow student posts or replies after the final due date by selecting Stop discussion activity after last due date.
Image 1: Instructors can now add a second due date for Discussions. They can also specify the number and type of posts or replies that a student is required to make.
When students open a discussion, they find two clear participation requirements with separate due dates. As they post and reply, progress indicators update in real time.
Students can complete requirements in any order, but contributions after a due date won’t count toward that requirement. Once all requirements are met, the discussion is marked complete and Progress Tracking updates.
Image 2: In a Discussion, a student can find due dates in the Details & Information section in the discussion assignment.
We increased the maximum supported SafeAssign file size from 10 MB to 25 MB. This enhancement supports modern academic workflows in which students frequently submit large documents. The increased file size applies to assignments and tests. Direct Submit will be included in a later release.
If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via bbbstaff@aber.ac.uk.
Turnitin will be unavailable between 16:00 and 20:00 on Saturday 7 March 2026 for scheduled maintenance.
During this time, you will be unable to submit or grade any assessments.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Panopto will be unavailable between 22:00, Saturday 21 March 2026 and 01:00 Sunday 22 March 2026 for scheduled maintenance.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
We recently ran our E-learning Enhanced: Using Turnitin for Peer Assessment training session and wanted to highlight the different tools that are available for Peer Assessment across our Digital Education Platform.
Peer Assessment activities have several benefits to students:
For Liu & Carless (2006), “peer assessment and peer feedback … enables students to take an active role in the management of their own learning” (280).
If you are interested in exploring this topic further, we recommend:
Liu, N.-F. & Carless, D. (2006) Peer feedback: the learning element of peer assessment. Teaching in higher education. [Online] 11 (3), 279–290.
Lynch, R., Mannix McNamara, P. & Seery, N. (2012) Promoting deep learning in a teacher education programme through self- and peer-assessment and feedback, European Journal of Teacher Education, 35:2, 179-197, DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2011.643396
Zhu, Q. & Carless, D. (2018) Dialogue within peer feedback processes: clarification and negotiation of meaning. Higher education research and development. [Online] 37 (4), 883–897.
We have several peer assessment tools that are available:
You can add a Rubric to the assignment – student will see this as part of their submission.
Note that:
Overview of PeerMark: https://help.turnitin.com/feedback-studio/turnitin-website/instructor/peermark/about-peermark-assignments.htm
Creating a PeerMark Assignment: https://help.turnitin.com/feedback-studio/turnitin-website/instructor/peermark/creating-a-peermark-assignment.htm
Student guidance on Using PeerMark: https://help.turnitin.com/feedback-studio/turnitin-website/student/student-category.htm#peermark
Discussions are available in every course in Blackboard – these are a great way for students to engage asynchronously with their peers; they can post comments and respond to each others’ posts.
For further advice on creating discussions, please see below for Blackboard guidance:
Create Journals: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Interact/Journals
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1469787416654794 – contains guidance for students. Suggests providing a session for students on how to write feedback.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02602938.2019.1697424
“For peer review in the classroom to be effective, there is clear evidence that the process needs structure, clear and accessible assessment criteria and appropriate scaffolding sessions for students (Mangelsdorf Citation1992).”
https://www.ctl.ox.ac.uk/peer-feedback – includes some useful questions and prompts that could be used to structure feedback.
Peer feedback has been used widely within group assessment work, for example, when it comes to ascertaining student participation, and factoring in group contributions. For an example of a group peer marksheet, see this sample template from Carnegie Mellon University.
Our Academy Forum handout on Peer Assessment provides further information and Aberystwyth University Case Studies.