Education and Student Experience Awards Mid Check-in Event

Last month we had the pleasure of welcoming our Education and Student Experience Award recipients to an event.

The Education and Student Experience Award fund was launched last year at our Education and Student Experience Conference.

The event aimed to give colleagues undertaking these projects and their supporters, as well as the panel, an update on progress – to share successes, as well as identify any challenges that colleagues might have come across.

Each of the four projects gave a presentation.

Please read below for an overview of each project and the PDF files associated with each presentation.

Project 1: The Aber Medieval Physic Garden

Led by Elizabeth New (History & Welsh History), alongside Sian Nicholas, Eleri Phillips, and a student steering committee. The aim of this project is to create an outdoor amenity for staff and students that support education and recreation on campus. The project seeks to enhance students’ learning through collaborative mentored historical research, gardening, and public engagement.

Eleri Phillips presented at the event.

Please see below for Eleri’s slides.

Project 2: Developing a Sustainable Student Gear Hub

This project is led by Emma Sheppard (DGES), alongside Toni Beardmore, Eleri Phillips, Morgan Jones, Emma Butler-Wray, Hywel Griffiths, and Tom Holt.

The aim of the project is to promote accessibility, inclusivity, and sustainability in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences by developing a ‘library of things’ for student borrowing and use.

The library will make use of second-hand useable resources and students will be able to participate in repair cafes, making the library sustainable.

Toni Beardmore and Eleri Phillips presented at the event. Please see their slideshow below:

Project 3: Inclusivity and Accessibility in Assessment Design and Feedback Practices

This project is led by Theatre, Film, and Television Studies’ Kate Woodward.

The aim of the project is to ascertain student understanding of the role of feedback and to maximise student engagement with feedback.

The department is also looking to ensure staff familiarity with inclusive and compassionate feedback design and assessment criteria.

They are changing current practices by adapting and standardising rubrics, feedback and assessment criteria.

See below for Kate’s presentation from the event.

Project 4: Pulling together – supporting teamwork assessment more effectively

Department of Life Science’s Scott Tompsett is collaborating with Cal Walters-Davies and Caroline White from Student Journey to identify common issues for students in relation to group work.

They are investigating how to make groupwork more accessible to neurodivergent students.

They aim to develop a suite of resources for students and teaching staff to better facilitate group work and will test these in several modules.

Scott presented at the event and the slides from the presentation are below.

Next steps

We’re sure that you will agree that these are such worthwhile projects.

You can hear more about these projects at the 14th Education and Student Experience Conference between 08 and 10 September.

Bookings for the conference, as well as the call for proposals is now open. You can find further information on our blog.

We are delighted to announce that we will be running the Education and Student Experience Awards again next year. The awards will be tied to the conference theme and will be open to conference attendees.

Further information on the Education and Student Experience Awards is on our webpage.

Mini Conference: Neurodiversity, Tuesday 14 April: Programme Announcement

On 14 April, Student Journey with the Department of Psychology will be hosting their next Mini Conference, this time focusing on Neurodiversity.

This event will take place in person.

We’re excited to announce our programme.

The programme is available on our webpages.

We’ve got topics on neurodiversity and ai, neurodiversity and employability, and improving teaching for neurodiverse students amongst many other topics.

In the afternoon, we are running a series of workshops which delegates can sign up to attend.

There is still time for colleagues to sign up.

Please sign up via the training booking site.

If you have any further questions, please contact the conference organisers on elearning@aber.ac.uk.

Call for Proposals: Mini Conference: Neurodiversity Network Conference

Inclusivity and Accessibility banner

We are pleased to announce our next Mini Conference taking place on Tuesday 14 April 2026.

In collaboration with the Department of Psychology, Student Accessibility and Wellbeing, and the Digital Education Team (Student Journey), we are looking for 15-minute presentations on the following topics:

  • Navigating university life as a neurodivergent student
  • Inclusive teaching and learning practices
  • The role of support services in fostering neurodivergent success
  • Neurodiversity in the workplace

Please fill out this form to submit your proposal.

Please indicate in the proposal if you are comfortable taking questions for 5 minutes at the end of your presentation. Please submit your proposal before Friday 6 March.

Booking for this in-person event is already open. You can book your place via the staff booking system.

We will be providing light refreshments. Please include any dietary requirements in the additional requirements field of the booking form.

Generative AI Mini Conference: Materials Available

Happy New Year!

Just before the Christmas vacation period, we hosted our final event of the year: a mini conference on Generative AI.

The materials from this Mini Conference are now available on our webpages.

Thank you very much to our presenters from the Departments of Computer Science, Geography and Earth Sciences, and the School of Literature and Languages.  

And a special thank you to our external speakers: James Fern and Richard Mason from Bath University who gave us a brilliant overview of the two-lane approach to assessment design that Bath is currently working through.

We look forward to welcoming you to one of our upcoming events.

Season’s Greetings and a Happy New Year from the Digital Education Team

Nadolig Llawen / Merry Christmas

We’ve had some fantastic experiences and milestones this year.

Back in March, we announced our 2025 Exemplary Course Award and highly commended recipients.

In April, we hosted a Mini Conference on Employability and the Inclusive Curriculum in collaboration with colleagues in Careers and Employability.

In July, we had our 13th Annual Education and Student Experience Conference with over 200 attendees across 3 days.

At this event, a new Education and Student Experience Award Fund was announced, and we confirmed the recipients of these in November.

In November, we took part in Blackboard Ally Fix your Content Day, making the content of our Virtual Learning Environment even more accessible. We placed 3rd in the UK and 60th on the international leaderboard. 

From a technical perspective, we’re really pleased with the introduction of automatic captions on lecture recordings, Blackboard’s Learning Object Repository, badges and achievements, and the e-submission review.

And we’re rounding the year off with a Mini Conference on Generative AI on Thursday 18 December. We’ve got a fantastic programme and there is still time to book your place.

We’re excited about what 2026 will bring in the Digital Education arena.

Some initial things that we’ll be working on and want to draw your attention to.

Applications for the Exemplary Course Award 2026 will close on Friday 30 January.

On January 8 there will be a minor update to the Blackboard interface.

We’re planning our next Mini Conference in collaboration with colleagues in Student Journey for April 2026. Further information will be made available soon.

And our 14th Education and Student Experience Conference will take place between 8-10 September 2026. Keep an eye out for updates, call for proposals, and external speaker announcements.

We’ve got our training programme available on the booking system for Semester 2 for colleagues to book onto.

We’re looking forward to working further with you in 2026.

We hope you have a restful break.

Kate, Keziah, & Jim

Mini Conference: Generative AI, Thursday 18 December: Programme Announcement

We are delighted to confirm our programme for our final event of the year on Thursday 18 December.

Our Mini Conference on Generative AI is taking place between 09:30 and 15:30. We are running this as a hybrid event. For those wanting to join in person, it will take place in the Visualisation Centre building, VC, 0.06.

We are delighted to confirm our external speakers:

James Fern and Richard Mason will be joining us to share the 2-lane approach to Generative AI Assessment Design that has been adopted at Bath University.

You can read more about this on their webpages: The Two-Lane Approach to GenAI Assessment Categorisation – Learning and Teaching Hub

In addition to James and Richard, we have an exciting line up:

  • Hannah Dee, Amanda Clare and Clive King from the Department of Computer Science will be presenting.
  • Emma Butler-Way, Tom Holt, Rhys Dafydd Jones, Jayesh Mukherjee, and Stephen Tooth will be joining us from the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences.
  • Jennifer Wood and Alex Mangold from Modern Languages will also be presenting.
  • Joy Cadwallader and colleagues from Academic Engagement will also be joining.

To see the full programme and abstracts, see our webpage. You can book your place clicking on this link.

Education and Student Experience Award Fund Recipients

Earlier this year, Professor Anwen Jones announced the Education and Student Experience Award Fund at the 13th Annual Education and Student Experience Conference.

We are delighted to confirm this year’s winners and the 4 enhancement projects that they will be leading over the coming year:

  • Dr Elizabeth New, History and Welsh History: The Aber Medieval Physic Garden
  • Dr Emma Sheppard, Geography and Earth Sciences: Developing a Sustainable Student Gear Hub
  • Dr Kate Woodward, Theatre, Film and Television Studies: Inclusivity and Accessibility in Assessment Design and Feedback Practices
  • Dr Scott Tompsett, Department of Life Sciences: Pulling together – supporting teamwork assessment more effectively

Thank you to all applicants for submitting a proposal and to the awards panel.

There will be opportunities to hear more about these projects at next year’s annual Education and Student Experience Conference.

Save the Date: 14th Annual Education and Student Experience Conference

We’re pleased to announce the dates for Aberystwyth University’s 14th annual Education and Student Experience Conference.

We will be hosting the conference between Tuesday 8 – Thursday 10 September 2026.

We will start work on planning and establishing themes and guest speakers for the conference.

Conference themes, calls for proposals, and external speakers will be announced in the new year. Keep an eye on our webpages and our blog for further information.

If there is a particular topic that you would like the conference to address, do get in touch via elearning@aber.ac.uk.

Call for Proposals: Mini Conference: Generative AI

On Thursday 18 December, the Digital Education Team will be hosting their final event of the year, a mini conference on Generative AI.

We are looking for calls for proposals from staff and students for this event.

If you are interested in contributing, please complete this form by Friday 7 November.

We are interested in sessions around the following themes:

  • Embedding generative AI skills in the curriculum 
  • Generative AI as an employability skill
  • Generative AI use in assessment
  • Generative AI and maintaining academic integrity
  • Generative AI for learning activities

Booking for the event is already open. Please book your place online.

If you have any questions, please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk.

Education and Student Experience Conference Award Fund

At the 13th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, Professor Anwen Jones announced a fund of £10,000 for colleagues to bid against to a maximum of £2,000 for projects related to the conference theme:

  • Compassionate engagement and assessment
  • Health and wellbeing in a learning and teaching context 
  • Accessibility and inclusion (inclusive learning and teaching design) 

The University is providing half of the total funding, with the remainder coming from Medr, the Welsh universities regulator. 

We are looking for a wide range of projects across all areas of our community which would make a difference to our education and student experience. 

To submit an application:

Please see this webpage for further information, which includes a series of FAQs. 

If you have any questions, please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk