Author: WordPress User [jbw]

Support for Teaching In Person

WordPress User [jbw] Teaching Continuity, Teaching Rooms Leave a comment

As we look towards teaching in person again, we want to remind staff that they are not alone in re-adjusting to in-person delivery, which may yet face some changes with regards to group sizes, delivery modes, distancing, and masks.  

This blog post will address standard teaching room equipment and managing student expectations, and point staff in the direction of relevant resources for those topics. 

Standard Teaching Room Equipment 

Information Services has developed a guide to using the standard teaching equipment in the central teaching rooms. You can watch a playlist of teaching room equipment demonstrations. 

Enhanced hygiene and Health & Safety protocols may still be in place in September, so please keep up to date with them, including one-way systems in buildings, staggered arrival/ departure times for staff and students, sanitation stations, and seating plans. 

We also want to remind staff of the university’s lecture capture policy – returning to in-person teaching may require a return to live lecture recordings. Making lecture recordings will have a number of benefits as we return to face-to-face provision. Students unable to attend lectures because of illness will be able to catch-up with their work more easily. And if students know that lecture recordings are available, they can avoid in-person situations if they are feeling unwell. All this helps with work across the university to protect everyone’s health and wellbeing. 

If in doubt, revisit our playlist on Panopto. 

It may be that your teaching is not in a central teaching room, and other equipment than the central standard is available. Please make sure you are aware of the relevant risk assessments for your teaching spaces and check how to best implement them with the appropriate person in your department. 

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Vevox update – new question types available

WordPress User [jbw] Polling Software Leave a comment

Vevox will have an update on 13th September which will introduce a couple of new question types involving images.

Pin on Image Poll

You can upload an image as the question type and ask your students to mark on the image the solution. This will be great for diagrams, maps, or graphs:

Screen grab showing Pin on Image Poll type.

Multichoice on Image poll

Another image type question, but this time give your students the opportunity to select the correct answer from a number of distractors:

Screengrab showing Multichoice on Image poll

A reminder that we’ve got Vevox running training sessions on:

  • 09.09.2021, 11:00-12:00
  • 28.09.2021, 14:00-15:00
  • 06.10.2021, 10:00-11:00

These sessions will cover:

  • How to gain access to an account
  • How to create a session
  • Create and Run polls 
  • Vevox Q&A – display, moderation 
  • Surveys 
  • Data & settings 
  • MS Team Integration Setup
  • Q&A – any questions from participants  

Book your place online.

For a list of all updates coming on 13th September, check out Vevox’s blogpost.

All of our guidance for Vevox is available on our polling webpages.

Vevox Training Sessions

WordPress User [jbw] Training and Support, Vevox Leave a comment
Vevox logo

Last year, the University procured Vevox as its Polling Tool solution. Since then, we’ve seen lots of fantastic in-class polling activities taking place across the University.

For those of you who haven’t used Vevox before or would like some guidance, Vevox will be running some training sessions in September and October:

  • 9th September 11:00-12:00
  • 28th September 14:00-15:00
  • 6th October 10:00-11:00

Book your place on our Courses Booking site.

This training session will be taking place online via Teams. A link will be sent to you prior to the start of the session.

For more information on Vevox, take a look at our Vevox Polling Tool webpage.

Resources from the Annual Learning and Teaching Conference

WordPress User [jbw] Annual Learning and Teaching Conference 2021, Conference, Uncategorised Leave a comment

Hector, our AberForward who has been working with us to support the Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, has pulled together a list of resources inspired by the talks at the conference. If you want to watch any of the sessions again, then you can do so on our webpages.

Conference Keynote: Dr Chrissi Nerantzi

Our conference keynote was definitely a highlight. Chrissi asked conference attendees the following questions. Below are the results from our conference delegates:

Mentimeter poll result outlining how much colleagues agree with the following statements: I am feeling more creative since the pandemic broke out (3.8) My students react more positively to create tasks since the pandemic broke out (3.2) I find it easier to be creative in my teaching practice during the pandemic (3.3) Being creative means risk lowering my evaluation scores linked to my teaching (3)
Mentimeter word cloud results answering the following question: What is your main driver to innovate in your practice? Most common answers: Engagement Student engagmeent Fun Curiosity Inclusivity Learning

If you’re interested in reading more about Chrissi’s work, then take a look at the following webpages:

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Reflections on running the Student Learning Ambassadors Pilot Project

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Students as Partners Leave a comment

By Anna Udalowska

Pedagogical literature emphasises the importance of students’ active involvement in all initiatives which impact their learning experience. As we, the LTEU, work so closely with teaching staff advising them on best practices in learning and teaching, we felt that our provision would benefit from students’ direct involvement. We decided to partner with a group of students, acting as Student Learning Ambassadors, to focus on one of the most frequently raised issues in student feedback – Blackboard modules’ design.

A lot has been done already to improve navigation and consistency of Blackboard modules, e.g., we introduced departmental Blackboard menus and Blackboard Required Minimum Presence. There are some excellent examples of Blackboard modules out there, some of which are showcased in our Exemplary Course Awards. Nevertheless, comments on difficulties in navigation and lack of consistency of the Blackboard module still appear in student feedback (e.g., Digital Insights Survey).

Before starting the project, our Unit had an opportunity to attend a workshop on student-staff partnership delivered by Ruth and Mick Healey who are the leading consultants in this aspect of student engagement. The session as well as follow-up consultation focusing specifically on the Student Learning Ambassadors project was invaluable. Although our project was focused mainly on consulting students, we did our best to implement underlying values of student-staff partnerships, empowering students to take ownership of the project, helping them to realise the impact of their work and reflect on how it benefited their growth.

The Student Learning Ambassadors project was advertised through the AberWorks scheme and the AberCareers platform as well as among current Peer Guides and Student Representatives. In the week before the project started students completed their induction which included familiarising themselves with health and safety working procedures, information security and data protection guidelines, and introduction to the LTEU.

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Parent-child modules

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard Leave a comment
Image of Blackboard logo and parent-child

Now that the 2021-22 modules are available to staff, we can link them together at the module co-ordinator’s request. This process is known as parent-childing. Linking modules together is an effective way of dealing with separate modules with the same content so you don’t have to upload materials to two or more different modules.

This process makes one module the parent, whilst the other module(s) become a child. There’s no limit on how many modules you make a child but there can only be one parent.

If you’d like to parent-child your modules, and you’re the module co-coordinator, contact elearning@aber.ac.uk with the module codes for the parent and child modules.

Examples from Aberystwyth

Many members of staff are currently using parent-child modules across the institution. Some examples are:

  1. Modules are taught the same content but there’s a module available for different years
  2. Modules with the same content delivered in English and Welsh
  3. Modules that bring together different degree schemes and have different module IDs, for example dissertation modules

Essentially, any module that shares the same content is ideal for parent-childing.

What do students see?

Students will see the name of the module that they are enrolled on (even if it’s the child module) when they log into Blackboard but they will see all the content placed in the parent module. Instructors will not be able to place content in the child module.

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Panopto – available in Welsh

WordPress User [jbw] Panopto Leave a comment

If you use Welsh as your default language in your web browser, or use the Welsh version of Windows, you’ll notice that Panopto is now available in Welsh.

  • To view Panopto in Welsh on the web, in Blackboard, and if you use Panopto Capture – change your browser language (How do I do this?)
  • To view the Panopto recording in Welsh – change your operating system language (How do I do this?)

To find out more about the partnership between Welsh universities and Panopto which made this happen, take a look at Panopto’s press release. We are pleased to say that in February 2021 Aberystwyth University was part of the initiative organised by Swansea and Cardiff University to lobby Panopto for this important change.

Update to Blackboard Required Minimum Presence

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard Leave a comment
Distance Learner Banner

Academic Enhancement Committee has approved the updated Blackboard Required Minimum Presence for the forthcoming academic year.

The RMP was changed last year in response to increased online teaching. As the University prepares for September, the RMP has been updated to reflect any changes.

You can view the RMP on our webpages.  

The RMP also includes a checklist so you can quickly check that your module adheres to the RMP.

If you have any questions about creating content in Blackboard, take a look at our Blackboard FAQs, Blackboard Guides, or contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk).

Interactive Blackboard Tools Case Studies – Wikis

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Blackboard Wikis, Blackboard Wikis, Interactive Tools, Uncategorised Leave a comment
Distance Learner Banner

This case study is based on and includes extracts from the Student-led Planning of Tourism and Hospitality Education: The Use of Wikis to Enhance Student Learning book chapter written by Dr Mandy Talbot (Aberystwyth Business School) and published in the Routledge Handbook of Tourism and Hospitality Education.

What tool do you use and how? 

Dr Mandy Talbot used Blackboard wikis to facilitate ‘a student led, collaborative learning project (…) on the second year, bachelor degree module: international tourism development. (…) The module course work required students to work in small groups to identify and evaluate the tourism development strategies that were being followed in given tourist destinations and to compare these with approaches being taken elsewhere. Due to the collaborative and interactive nature of the assignment the most suitable web tool was the wiki.’

Why did you choose this tool? 

Before implementation of wikis ‘students undertook the exercise by creating and delivering a group PowerPoint presentation of 15 minutes to the class, with a further 10 minutes for questions.’ Dr Mandy Talbot changed the format of this assessment in order to:

  1. ‘Improve the cohesiveness of student group work: The wiki format provides a collaborative work space for students to develop their work’
  • ‘Provide students with more opportunity to interact with the work of other groups: The wiki format enables students to visit each other’s’ presentations over an extended time period. Wiki pages also have comment boxes which enable students to pose questions and engage in discussion on the other sites.’
  • ‘Develop student IT skills: Students will learn how to create and structure web pages’.

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Updates to E-submission and E-feedback Policy

WordPress User [jbw] E-submission, Feedback, Feedback, Marking, Turnitin Leave a comment
Banner for Audio Feedback

The updated E-submission Policy has been approved by Academic Enhancement Committee. You can read the updated policy on our E-submission Pages.

The aim of the updated policy was to bring it in line with our Lecture Capture Policy and provide greater clarity over its scope and requirements from staff and students.

One big change that will affect the creation of Turnitin submission points is the introduction of a policy that gives student the option to submit multiple times before the deadline and also to view their Turnitin originality report. In the creation of the Turnitin submission point, choose the following settings:

  • Generate Similarity Reports for Students – Immediately (can overwrite until Due Date)
  • Allow Students to See Similarity Reports – Yes

The updated policy outlines:

  • The scope of E-submission and E-feedback
  • How our E-submission technologies makes use of yours and your students’ data
  • Tips for the submission of electronic work, including deadlines, giving students the opportunity to practice submitting
  • Grading and feedback expectations
  • Electronic submission for dissertations
  • Retention periods
  • Copyright
  • How IT failures are handled
  • Accessibility guidance for staff and students
  • The support available

Our E-submission page outlines all the support and training available for staff on e-submission. If you’ve got any questions about how to use these tools or drop us an email for assistance (elearning@aber.ac.uk).