Welcome to new staff joining Aberystwyth University

We’re the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit. Based in Information Services, we work with staff across the university to support and develop learning and teaching. We run a wide range of activities to do this.

All the information that you need is on the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit webpages. Our Supporting your Teaching webpages will help you with various teaching solutions.

We write a blog full of the latest updates, details on events and training sessions, and resources.

If you need to get in touch with us, you can do so using one of two email addresses:

lteu@aber.ac.uk (for pedagogical and design questions, or to arrange a consultation) or

elearning@aber.ac.uk (for technical queries regarding our e-learning tools listed below).

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Weekly Resource Roundup – 20/9/2023

As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery. 

Online events and webinars

September

October

November

Resources and publications

Resources on Artificial Intelligence

Other resources

Other

  • Monthly series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinars free open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
  • Subscribe to SEDA’s mailing list for email discussions about educational development and emerging teaching practices. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
  • Follow University of Birmingham’s Higher Education Futures institute HEFi on Twitter for daily posts with links to pedagogical literature and more. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
  • Join the #LTHEchat on Twitter Wednesday nights for one hour of lively discussion about learning and teaching in HE. I often find out about good resources for the Roundup from the chat.

Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.

Panopto Update for Staff: September 2023

As part of the wider Blackboard Ultra project, our Panopto integration has been upgraded to work with Blackboard Ultra. This has provided us with an opportunity to make some changes and improvements.

Accessing Panopto

You can now access the Panopto server via Panopto.aber.ac.uk

Panopto Folders

Panopto folders are now organised by academic year.

Staff have frequently requested that the Panopto folders for their Blackboard Courses are organised by academic year rather than as a long list. The Panopto upgrade work gave us an opportunity to restructure our folders as requested.

Top level year folders will appear greyed out, but you still have access to your Panopto folders within.

When you open the Panopto Recorder in a teaching room:

You can either find the Panopto folder you want to record into via the folders or search for the Panopto folder you want to record into.

To find the Panopto folder you want to record into via the folders:

  • Click the dropdown button in the Folder field.
  • Double-click an academic year folder to expand it.
    or
  • Click the dropdown arrow to the left of the academic year folder to expand it.
  • Select the Panopto folder you want to record into.
An animated gif of accessing a Panopto folder in the Panopto Recorder.

To search for the Panopto folder you want to record into:

  • In the Folder field start typing the module code or name of the Panopto folder you want to Record into
  • Select the folder you want to record into.
An animated gif of accessing a Panopto folder using the search function in the Panopto Recorder.

Sharing Panopto recordings from Previous years.

To share Panopto recordings from previous years Panopto folders, copy the recordings into the current years’ folder of the course. This can be done via Panopto.aber.ac.uk. This grants all students enrolled on the current years’ course in Blackboard access to view the recordings. See this FAQ.

My Folder

Everyone now has a folder in Panopto called My Folder that they can record into. In the Panopto Recorder it can be found under Quick Access.

My Folder is useful for recordings that staff or students do not want to share with others immediately or when they cannot find a suitable folder to record into.

Recordings can be moved from My Folder into another Panopto Folder later. To copy or move a Panopto recording to another folder See this FAQ.

Blackboard Learn Ultra Gradebook

In this blogpost we’ll be taking a specific look at the Gradebook feature in Blackboard Learn Ultra. The Gradebook is the new name for Grade Centre.

It is used to hold all student marks on a Blackboard Course.

The Gradebook is located on every course from the top menu.

Ultra Course with Gradebook highlighted

Students enrolled on the module automatically appear in the Gradebook.

When you get into the gradebook, you can toggle your view.

Default is a list of markable items on one tab and students on another:

List view of the Gradebook

You can toggle your view so that you can see the markable items and the students in one view.

Grid view of Gradebook]

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Is your content visible to students?

Now is a good time to check whether the content in this year’s Blackboard courses is visible to students. With our move to Blackboard Learn Ultra, any materials copied from previous years’ courses are hidden from students by default.

Screenshot of hidden content

You can change the visibility of individual items (see Blackboard help site for making items available). You can make them visible immediately or use the Release Conditions (date/time, specific students / groups, student performance – see Blackboard help site for Release Content guidance for further information).

If you have a lot of hidden material, don’t forget that you can use the Batch Edit tool to make multiple items of content visible all at once (see Blackboard help site for using Batch Edit). Be careful not to make the External Examiners folder available.

When you use Batch Edit to make a folder visible it will also make all the content items in the folder visible.

Remember that you can use the Student Preview tool (see Blackboard help site for using Student Preview) to see how your course and content looks to students.

See our Ultra webpage for further support materials or contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk).

Blackboard Learn Ultra Student Guidance Available

Support materials to assist students with Blackboard Learn Ultra are now available on our webpages.

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit have produced a Student Guide specifically for Ultra which can be downloaded.

Students were notified of the change to Blackboard before the end of last academic year.

As part of the move to Ultra our FAQs are in the process of being updated.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 8/9/2023

As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery. 

Online events and webinars

September

October

November

  • 15-17/11/2023 Architecture, Media, Politics, Society (AMPS), Teaching Beyond the Curriculum: Focus on Pedagogy 2023 Virtual: UK, USA, China, Call for proposals deadline 5/10/2023

Resources and publications

Resources on Artificial Intelligence

Other resources

Other

  • Monthly series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinars free open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
  • Subscribe to SEDA’s mailing list for email discussions about educational development and emerging teaching practices. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
  • Follow University of Birmingham’s Higher Education Futures institute HEFi on Twitter for daily posts with links to pedagogical literature and more. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
  • Join the #LTHEchat on Twitter Wednesday nights for one hour of lively discussion about learning and teaching in HE. I often find out about good resources for the Roundup from the chat.

Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.

Blackboard Ally

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to announce that Information Services has procured Blackboard Ally as part of our move to Blackboard Learn Ultra.

Blackboard Ally integrates into our Blackboard Learn Ultra environment and focuses on making digital content more accessible.

For colleagues creating content you will be able to amend the accessibility of your content. This means that your content will be more accessible to assistive technologies, such as screen readers.

Another benefit of Blackboard Ally is that content can be downloaded in multiple formats. This means that your lecture notes, PowerPoints, and other documents can be converted into many different formats, including:

  • Immersive readers
  • Audio files
  • Electronic braille

There’s nothing that you need to do to enable Ally on your course. It will automatically be enabled on Monday 11 September on 2023-24 Courses onwards and Organisations.

For more information on using Blackboard Ally, take a look at our staff or student FAQ.

If you want to know further information about creating accessible learning materials, take a look at our resources.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 31/8/2023

As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery. 

Online events and webinars

September

October

November

  • 15-17/11/2023 Architecture, Media, Politics, Society (AMPS), Teaching Beyond the Curriculum: Focus on Pedagogy 2023 Virtual: UK, USA, China, Call for proposals deadline 5/10/2023

Resources and publications

Resources on Artificial Intelligence

Other resources

Other

  • Monthly series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinars free open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
  • Subscribe to SEDA’s mailing list for email discussions about educational development and emerging teaching practices. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
  • Follow University of Birmingham’s Higher Education Futures institute HEFi on Twitter for daily posts with links to pedagogical literature and more. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
  • Join the #LTHEchat on Twitter Wednesday nights for one hour of lively discussion about learning and teaching in HE. I often find out about good resources for the Roundup from the chat.

Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.

Changes to the Vevox PowerPoint Add-in

Vevox, the University’s supported polling tool, has updated its PowerPoint Add-in.

From September 2023, colleagues making use of the Add-in should use the updated version.

Please see our FAQ for how to use the new PowerPoint Add-in.

In our recent blogpost, we wrote about the new AI question generator.

If Vevox is new to you then take a look at our support materials and our previous blogposts.

We’ve also got a training session taking place on Monday 18 September, 14:00-15:00. This session is run by colleagues from Vevox. Book your place online.

Vevox is a great way to make your teaching interactive and further student’s learning.