The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit are excited to announce the date for the 13th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference. The conference will be taking place between Tuesday 8 and Thursday 10 July 2025.
Look out for Calls for Proposals and the announcement of the conference theme. As usual, we will be updating our Learning and Teaching Conference Webpages and also our blog to keep you up-to-date with how things are progressing.
Happy New Year!
On Wednesday 18 December, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit hosted an online mini conference taking a look at Blackboard Exemplary Practice. With over 40 attendees, and 5 sessions, it was one of our biggest mini conferences.
The materials from the event are now available on our webpages.
We were delighted to welcome Carol Chatten from Edge Hill University and Robert Farmer from Northampton University to showcase their award-winning courses.
Carol’s course is designed for medical professionals completing their placements. Robert’s course introduced undergraduates to critical thinking skills. Both courses have been awarded Blackboard’s Exemplary Course Programme Award.
We were then joined by Dom Gore and Richard Gibbons from Anthology (Blackboard). They gave an overview of the new developments that are coming in Blackboard, as well as introducing attendees to the new AI Conversations tool. We have enabled AI Conversations and have updated our Blackboard AI Design Assistant training. Take a look at our blogpost for further information.
Finally, Law and Criminology’s Lauren Harvey, and School of Education’s Panna Karlinger gave tours of their exemplary courses. Both submitted applications to last year’s Exemplary Course Award. The deadline for 2025 is Friday 31 January 2025. Further information is available on our blogpost.
Turnitin will be unavailable between 16:00 and 20:00 on Saturday 18 January 2025 for scheduled maintenance.
During this time, you will be unable to submit or grade any assessments. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
The latest AI Design Assistant feature has been enabled in Blackboard.
AI Conversations provides a chat bot for students to interact with as part of a learning activity.
There are two AI Conversation options:
Once set up, students can engage in these activities to further their knowledge and understanding of the topic.
Students type a response to the questions posed by the AI chat bot. At the end of the activity, students respond to a reflective question to outline how the conversation helped with their understanding of the topic.
We will be showcasing AI Conversations at our online Mini Conference on Wednesday 18 December. Further information is available on our blogpost.
Our E-learning Enhanced: Introduction to the AI Design Assistant training has also been updated to include AI Conversations. You can book your place on the course on the Events and Training booking system.
For further information, see Blackboard’s AI Conversation guidance.
Blackboard Original Practice Organisations will be removed on Thursday 9 January 2025.
These Practice Organisations are in Original, the old version of Blackboard.
All staff have an Ultra practice organisations with the naming convention First Name, Last Name Ymarfer Ultra / Ultra Practice Course (Ultra_username) which can be accessed from the Organisation tab on the lefthand menu.
Content from the Original Practice Organisation can be copied over to the Ultra Practice Organisation. See our FAQ for further information.
Further information on the move of Organisations from Original to Ultra is available on this blogpost.
Please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk if you have got any questions regarding this process.
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to announce its final event of the year.
On Wednesday 18 December (10:00-14:30), we will be hosting an online Mini Conference looking at Exemplary Blackboard Presence.
We’re delighted to be joined by two external presenters.
Also joining us to share their winning courses are School of Education’s Panna Karlinger and Law and Criminology’s Lauren Harvey. Both entered our internal Exemplary Course Award last year.
We’re hoping that this event will inspire attendees and give colleagues ideas as to how they can develop their courses ahead of Semester 2.
We’re also using this event as a springboard to start thinking about an enhanced Blackboard presence.
And finally, we’ll be sharing the latest AI Design Assistant tool that we’re looking to enable in January: AI Conversations. This builds on the other AI Design Assistant tools that we already have enabled in Blackboard.
Colleagues can book for this half day event via the online booking system and a Teams invitation will be sent out.
We hope that you can join us.
Do let us know if you have any questions (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
Blackboard will be unavailable between 10:00 and 16:00 on Saturday 14 December 2024 for scheduled maintenance.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
We are delighted to announce that the Exemplary Course Award for 2024-25 is now open.
The ECA is judged across 4 categories:
Applicants are asked to introduce 3 standout practices for their Course to help frame their application before self-assessing their course – this can be a 1,000 word narrative or an 8-minute Panopto recording.
Following the self-assessment, the courses are assessed by a panel of experts.
The changes to this year’s form include:
To help prepare for applications, two workshops are being run by the Digital Education Group on:
Places can be booked via the online booking page.
Application forms can be downloaded from the Digital Education Group’s webpages.
Completed applications need to be emailed to elearning@aber.ac.uk before 12 noon on Friday 31 January 2025.
If you have any questions about this process, please contact the Digital Education Group (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
The IS User Survey gives you an opportunity to tell us what you think about our services and how we can improve them. It is also a chance to win one of two £50 vouchers for 10 minutes of your time!
Have your say today: https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/aber/is24
Aberystwyth University uses Vevox, a Polling Tool, that allows you to get real time information from people in your teaching sessions or those in your meeting.
We’ve been using Vevox for over 3 years now and were pleased to see it being used in Welcome Talks offering students the opportunity to ask anonymous questions.
We are running some training sessions on using E-learning Essentials: Introduction to Vevox for Learning and Teaching:
These sessions will be taking place online via Teams.
In addition to our in house training sessions, Vevox are also running webinars sharing best practice and case studies from their other clients.
If you’re unable to join our sessions, Vevox host their own and you can register for those here: Getting started with Vevox I Your guide to Unmissable Classes
For further help using Vevox, take a look at our Support Materials.