Something I am sure all LTs and IS peeps will have noticed this year is that due to the pandemic adoption of centrally supported IS tools have grown. In some cases, tool growth has been larger than ever expected (causing a slight cost headache) and some tools less so but we have seen staff and […]

It’s been a hard year and to be honest and personal it’s been a mixed year of anxiety and pride. I think my early pandemic optimism (or naivety) has been eroded over time via 5pm briefings, attention grabbing headline, confusion, politicisation of everything and anything. On sunday 8th March 2020 I sat in a packed […]

Myself and Karen Howie have been working on a paper regarding online proctoring and whether the technical solutions currently in the market are fit for purpose. When I say fit I mean do they meet the huge amount of variation in exam practise used at the institution, can they cater for varying numbers of students, […]

Recently I find myself wondering with colleagues about when we will be back to the office. Reminiscing on the smell of shared toilets that have balsa wood walls and a unique fragrance that reminds me of a music festivals loo. Or when we will be able to visit hipster coffee shops and try not to […]

Day (I have lost count) in the big brother house and I am starting to struggle. It’s been a slightly odd 33 days! I started working from home on the 16th March and my daily routine is in the bin. Before I would be getting home at 1700 and running after children, getting ready to […]

These are unique days in which we are trying to evolve and adapt to a situation that is unpredictable and unrelenting to everyone. The current pandemic is generating stresses in both professessional and domestic lives with the only certainty being that in the short term are lives will be flipped and we all be affected […]

Usually when I blog I try to think of a funky title to depict me brian dump however today I am feeling less imaginative so the title reflects the blog. It’s about the OnTask pilot 2020 @ the University of Edinburgh. If you want to hear someone rant about big data and prediction please flick […]

Prediction is a word that I am starting to see and hear a lot more recently. It not new, my fitness tracker predicts my steps each day and my expected sleep patterns, my smart lights predict when I will be home and my smart thermostat also likes to know when I am home ensuring I […]

The second episode of the Michael and Myles (M&M) podcast explores the expansion of the teacher function via bots. The podcast speculates on the role of bots, current bot deployments, bot myths and the research currently being undertaken at the university to identify possible use cases for bots. Now thats the official bit of the […]

M&M Podcast Episode 1: Setting the Scene, Terms, Topics Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it – Ferris Bueller This time last year I wrote my first blog, today I publish my first podcast, what is happening to me! I work with some […]