I’ve been using ELM at work and finding it really helps speed up anything I have to write.  ELM is ‘Edinburgh access to Language Models’ and it provides secure access to a number of different LLMs. It’s available to all staff and students at the University so if you haven’t …

Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Spring Canvas UK User Group was hosted at ARU Peterborough — a brand‑new institution, opened in 2022, set up to boost local skills and employability through career‑focused education. The university was created to tackle a long‑standing skills shortage in the area, with Peterborough sitting in the bottom 10% nationally for degree‑level qualifications. Their aim […]

I moved to Argyle House when I changed job and moved to IS in 2018.   I remember being nervous about the open plan office space and wondering if I’d be able to concentrate given the general hubbub of industry.  When I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find I actually …

Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Short Course Platform project team were nominated for 2 awards at the 2026 IS Staff Recognition Awards. The team of the year award and contribution to the community award and unfortunately we didn’t win! Firstly, congratulations to all the winners. It’s nice to see teams and individuals get recognition for the work they do […]

As 2025 comes to an end (and yes, I can barely believe it’s nearly 2026) it’s worthwhile to reflect on the past year. It’s been a quite a whirlwind. Not only has news and politics been pretty shocking and horrible this year (again!!!) but news about finances in UK HE …

Reading Time: 3 minutesThat time of year again when I need to pause, breathe and look back at 2025 and remind myself to reflect but this year feels a bit different. First thing, launching the new short course platform, which includes 5 services (not 6 or 7……that one is for all the parents), numerous integrations (one being online […]

A lot of the time IT services are supporting users – that is, students and teaching staff – or work quietly in the background to assure systems and infrastructure are in good shape and fit for purpose. In my own role I rarely have an opportunity to see what happens “on the ground”, in the […]

This is a blog post containing an appeal for pretty much every supplier who provides HE with IT services of some sort, teaching & learning, finance, email, communication tools, etc etc. That big long list of features we’ve requested and the bug fixes we are desperate for…..  we’d very much …

I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about AI agents/agentic AI.  If you don’t know already, AI agents are AI systems which can collect data, make decisions and take autonomous actions to achieve goals (see this helpful description by Amazon).  They can do this on your behalf without your intervention.  …

Nelly and I were invited to speak at Kaltura Connect in London today (at the fantastic Science Gallery @KCL).  Kaltura is the service we use to provide our own Media Hopper Create service for media storage and streaming.  It was a fun day, we got a chance to catch up …