Weekly Resource Roundup – 18/9/2024

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

  • 21/11/2024 Compassionate Assessment Event 6 Dr. Juuso Henrik Nieminen, “Dr Nieminen has particularly focused on understanding the social effects of assessment on students’ inclusion, belonging and identities.”

December

Resources and publications

Resources on Generative AI

Other resources

Other

  • Call for proposals (open dates) Unfiltered by EmpowerED: A Podcast Series where educators share unedited stories of inspiration and challenge
  • Call for proposals 27/9/2024 RAISE Network Student Engagement in HE Journal special issue on Engaging with Student Voice
  • Call for proposals (open dates) Future Teacher Webinars
  • 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.
  • 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.

12th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference Materials Available

Between the 10 and 12 September, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit hosted the 12th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference.

The materials from the conference are now available on our webpages.

We would like to thank all of our contributors and attendees. The sessions were of such high quality.

We’re already heading into planning our 13th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference which is scheduled to take place in July 2025 (date TBC).

We hope to see you at a forthcoming event.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 9/9/2024

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

  • 21/11/2024 Compassionate Assessment Event 6 Dr. Juuso Henrik Nieminen, “Dr Nieminen has particularly focused on understanding the social effects of assessment on students’ inclusion, belonging and identities.”

December

Resources and publications

Resources on Generative AI

Other resources

Other

  • Call for proposals (open dates) Unfiltered by EmpowerED: A Podcast Series where educators share unedited stories of inspiration and challenge
  • Call for proposals 18/9/2024 Active Learning Network New ALN Co-created Book
  • Call for proposals 27/9/2024 RAISE Network Student Engagement in HE Journal special issue on Engaging with Student Voice
  • 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.
  • 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 Assignment with SafeAssign Pilot

A big thank you to all the staff who have signed up to the Blackboard Assignment with SafeAssign pilot. There’s still time to volunteer if you are interested (email elearning@aber.ac.uk).

Since the last blog post, we have made SafeAssign available for use in Blackboard Assignments. We have also held the first two training sessions. More training sessions will be organised for semester one – visit the Events and Training page to book a place.

We’ve been exploring some of the options for marking in Blackboard Assignment that staff might find useful:

  1. Delegated marking allows staff to mark essays by group. If you divide up marking in your modules between several members of staff, then delegated marking will help you.
  2. Parallel marking allows two staff to mark a piece of work independently without seeing each other’s comments or marks.
  3. Anonymous comments. By default, marking comments in Blackboard Assignment contain the name of the staff member marking. If this is not appropriate for your marking, you can make them anonymous (see below).

Please note that deleted Blackboard assignments can be recovered for up to 30 days after deletion. If you need deleted assignments restored, please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk as soon as possible, providing details of module and the assignment name.

Anonymous Comments

When you create a comment, click on the anonymous marking icon

Screenshot of a Blackboard Assignment comment box with the anonymous marking icon highlighted

You can edit existing comments to make them anonymous by clicking on the comment.  Click on the three dots in the top right-hand corner of the comment and then click on Anonymous.

Screenshot of a Blackboard Assignment comment box with the three dots and Anonymous option highlighted

For further information on the marking tools available in Blackboard Assignments, see Blackboard Annotate Guidance.

Supporting your students

To help your students use Blackboard Assignment to submit their work and find their feedback, we strongly recommend that you include the following FAQs in Assessment and Feedback Learning Module in your Blackboard course:

What’s New in Blackboard September 2024

The September Blackboard update includes enhancements to the Course Content Page, introduces Knowledge Checks in Documents, changes to assessments, feedback & grades hidden using Release Conditions, and an Overview tab in the Grade book to aid grading.

Course Content Page enhancements

The September update to Blackboard sees enhancements to the course content page.

The enhancements include:

  • Greater visual depth
  • Changed Content Page layout
  • Differentiation among course elements

Greater visual depth

The new design incorporates:

  • Subtle gradients and softer edges
  • A more cohesive colour palette with inviting, warmer tones
  • More intuitive navigation, which reduces cognitive load and increases focus on the content

Image 1. Instructor view: Course Content page visual depth improvements

A screenshot of the Instructor view: Course Content page visual depth improvements

Image 2. Student view: Course Content page visual depth improvements

A screenshot of the Student view: Course Content page visual depth improvements

Read More

Welcome to new staff joining Aberystwyth University

Distance Learner Banner

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).

Introduction to E-learning Tools

Virtual Learning Environment: Blackboard

Each module has its own dedicated course in Blackboard. These courses contain online content, such as reading lists, and teaching staff details. This is the main point of information for your students for any given module, including access to lecture recordings and assignment submission. The University has a Blackboard Required Minimum Presence policy for all modules. Please see our staff guide for further information.

Lecture Capture: Panopto

When teaching in person, be aware that all lectures (that is, teaching where the focus is on information being transmitted from staff to students) should be recorded using Panopto, our Lecture Capture software. See details of our Lecture Capture Policy.

E-submission: Turnitin and Blackboard Assignment

At Aberystwyth University, students must submit all text-based and word-processed work electronically as outlined in the University’s E-submission policy. For this, we use our e-submission tools: Turnitin and Blackboard Assignment. Turnitin provides an automatic text matching functionality.

Polling tool: Vevox

Vevox is Aberystwyth University’s polling tool. Polling can be used in learning and teaching activities as well as meetings to make the session interactive and collaborative with many different possibilities for use.

Resources and further help

We have a number of Guides and FAQs to help you use our software.

Training Provision

To support all staff with their teaching, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit runs a series of training sessions. These include:

  • practical sessions to familiarise staff with the different elements of the VLE,
  • the Active Learning agenda,
  • assessment and feedback,
  • accessibility,
  • presentation skills, and more.
  • artificial intelligence

We also offer a range of events and training programmes. You can find details of our annual CPD programme and book your place to attend via our Book a Course page. We deliver some sessions ourselves, while others are delivered by university staff whose teaching features good practice in those areas. Look for (L&T) in the session title.

Events

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit runs a range of events, including the Annual Learning and Teaching ConferenceMini-Conferences, Mini-Fests, and Academy Forums. All of these are great opportunities to meet people from across the university and discuss Learning and Teaching issues and developments.

Programmes

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit also runs programmes to support your continued professional development. This includes the Teaching for Postgraduates at Aberystwyth University (TPAU) programme, and the Master’s level Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education (PGCTHE), and a Fellowship (ARCHE) Scheme.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 27/8/2024

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

August

September

Resources and publications

Resources on Generative AI

Other resources

Other

  • Call for proposals (open dates) Unfiltered by EmpowerED: A Podcast Series where educators share unedited stories of inspiration and challenge
  • Call for proposals 18/9/2024 Active Learning Network New ALN Co-created Book
  • Call for proposals 27/9/2024 RAISE Network Student Engagement in HE Journal special issue on Engaging with Student Voice
  • 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.
  • 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.

Welcome to the Academic Year 2024-25: Updates to Blackboard for students

A warm welcome to new students joining us and those who are returning to study at Aberystwyth University.

In this blogpost, we will outline the changes that have been made to your digital learning environment, Blackboard, ready for the start of the academic year 2024-25.

If you need help using Blackboard, see our Student Guide which contains all kinds of useful information.

We’ve also got FAQs available for the other tools that we support, including Turnitin for e-submission and Panopto for lecture capture.

Updated Template

All courses have been created this year using a slightly different template.

Module Information and Assessment and Feedback have been replaced with Learning Modules. Learning Modules are a more visual way to organise and arrange content.

In Module Information you can expect to find items relating to the administration of the course.

In Assessment and Feedback you can expect to find your submission points, assignment briefs, and marking criteria.

You might find that your lecturers have also used Learning Modules for your Learning Materials.

Progress Tracker

Another change is that Progress Tracker has been turned on by default on all content on your course. This allows you to track your progress through the course by marking tasks as complete. Blackboard’s guidance provides further information.

Blackboard Ally

A reminder that we have Blackboard Ally enabled on all your courses. Blackboard Ally allows you to download content into different formats. This includes .mp3 files, immersive readers, and electronic Braille. For help, look at Ally guidance.  

Blackboard Assignment

We will be running a series of pilots with some courses across the University using Blackboard Assignment. For those of you used to submitting via Turnitin, Blackboard Assignment offers similar functionality. We have a dedicated student FAQ on how to submit using Blackboard Assignment.If you have any difficulties submitting please contact Information Services (is@aber.ac.uk) and your academic department.

Departmental Organisation

Lastly, the final stage of our Ultra project was to move Departmental Organisations onto Ultra. Organisations are similar to Courses but they are not modules that you can take. Organisations are used to provide you with useful information about your Department. They are also used for training and test purposes, such as the Referencing and Plagiarism quiz. You can access your Organisations from the left-hand menu in Blackboard.

If you have any questions about using Blackboard, please contact Information Services (is@aber.ac.uk).

Weekly Resource Roundup – 8/8/2024

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

August

September

Resources and publications

Resources on Generative AI

Other resources

Other

  • Call for proposals (open dates) Unfiltered by EmpowerED: A Podcast Series where educators share unedited stories of inspiration and challenge
  • Call for proposals 18/9/2024 Active Learning Network New ALN Co-created Book
  • Call for proposals 27/9/2024 RAISE Network Student Engagement in HE Journal special issue on Engaging with Student Voice
  • 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.
  • 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.

What’s New in Blackboard Learn Ultra – August 2024  

The August Blackboard Learn Ultra update includes enhancements to Ultra Documents, Forms, Release Conditions and Discussions. 

Enhancements to Blackboard Learn Ultra Documents 

The Blackboard Learn Ultra August update included enhancements to the creating and editing functionality of Blackboard Learn Ultra Documents.   

For those unfamiliar with Documents, they are an easy way to create content in Ultra, ensuring compatibility with mobile devices and Blackboard Ally. As this update to Documents is a significant change to content organisation, we have written a separate blog post which can be found here. 

Anonymous student responses for Forms 

Anonymous responses in forms encourage honest and candid feedback from students and help participants feel safe and secure knowing their identities are protected. Anonymity leads to more genuine responses that convey the respondents’ true opinions and experiences. Additionally, it increases participation rates and the overall quality of the results.  

Instructors can now collect anonymous submissions in Forms. The new Anonymous submissions option appears in the Grading & Submissions section of Form Settings

Image 1. Anonymous submissions option 

The Grading and Submission settings with Anonymous submissions selected

When you select Anonymous submissions, these settings are enabled by default:  

  • Due date 
  • Prohibit late submissions  
  • Prohibit new attempts after due date  
  • Complete/incomplete is selected as the grading schema for non-graded forms  
  • When grading, the submission earns the points assigned; you can’t edit or override the points earned 

Additional important details to note:  

  • Anonymous forms cannot be administered to groups.  
  • Class conversations are not supported when Anonymous submissions is selected.  
  • To ensure anonymity, student activity, exceptions, exemptions and accommodations are not supported.  
  • To ensure anonymity, student progress/statistics are not captured.  
  • Modifications to form questions and settings are not permitted if the form has submissions and the due date has passed.  

From the Submissions tab for a form, you can view an anonymized list of students participants along with this information and options:  

  • Student submission status 
  • Grading status and grade – At submission, the grading status is set to Complete and the grade is marked (for example., 5/5)  
  • Post — Graded forms post automatically  
  • Download all – You can download all form submissions 

To view responses, select an anonymous student from the list. You can enter overall feedback for their submission.  

  • For ungraded forms, the text “Submitted” or “Not submitted”  
  • For graded forms, the grade  

From the Gradebook, before the due date for an anonymous form, “Anonymous” appears in the cell for each student. After the due date, the cells display:  

From the Grades tab, you can select Download Gradebook to download responses to forms with anonymous submissions. 

Blackboard has taken care to ensure students know when their submission to a form is anonymous. The Anonymous icon and label appears on:  

  • the Content Page  
  • the Form panel where they start the attempt and view their submission  
  • the Details & Information section that appears while responding to the form 

Image 2. The Student view of the Anonymous label and icon for a form 

Student view of the Details and Information settings with the Anonymous label and icon for a form 

Improvements to creating assignments (not Turnitin) 

Instructors need robust, easy to use tools when creating their assessments.  

To create a better experience, the new Assignment page includes these improvements:  

  • A new Instructions box where instructors can use the full content editor to craft assignment instructions. 
  • There are no options to add questions to an assignment.  
  • The Settings panel now includes only options relevant to assignments.  
  • Blank attempts are no longer created when students view assignment instructions. The system only creates an attempt when students add content to the file drop zone / content editor. Note: Group or timed and proctored assignments continue to create attempts when students view the instructions. 

Image 1. Instructor view of the New Assignment page with the new Instructions box 

Instructor view of the New Assignment page with the new Instructions box 

Image 2. Instructor view of adding instructions to an assignment 

Instructor view of adding instructions to an assignment 

Image 3. Students view of the new Assignment Information panel and the View Instructions option 

Students view of the new Assignment Details and Information panel and the View Instructions option 

Image 4. Student view of the assignment instructions 

Student view of the assignment instructions 

Multiple rules for release conditions 

Instructors need to release course content based on performance criteria to sequence students on learning paths correctly. Sometimes they also need to release content to different groups using different criteria. To support this needed flexibility, instructors can now create multiple rules for release conditions.  

You can create rules for release conditions based on these criteria: date, time, and grade range performance criteria. You can also create rules for specific individual learners, groups, or for all members. 

Image 1. The new Release Conditions page 

The new Release Conditions page 

Ability to ‘Follow’ Discussions for Enhanced Engagement 

Discussions are an important part of the course experience, allowing for easy collaboration between all course members. The ability to engage and re-engage with discussions ensures that collaboration is active and lively. Users can re-engage when they know there are new posts by following the discussion.  

Key Enhancements:  

  • Follow Discussions: Users can follow select discussions and receive notifications for new contributions from peers or instructors.  
  • User Notification Settings: New notification options for the Activity Stream settings allow users to manage notification types for discussions:  
    • Activity on my responses  
    • Activity on responses I have replied to  
    • Responses from instructors  
    • Responses for followed discussions  
    • Replies for followed discussions  

Image 1. New ‘Follow’ option inside a discussion 

the new ‘Follow’ option inside a discussion 

Image 2. New user notification options for the Activity Stream 

New user notification options for the Activity Stream 

Image 3. Notifications being delivered to the Activity Stream 

Notifications being delivered to the Activity Stream