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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Liam Duffy]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2023 12:11:21 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[2023 has been the year of chatting with robots.  Not in a fun-and-hijinks ‘Short Circuit’ way, but in a less...]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>2023 has been the year of chatting with robots.  Not in a fun-and-hijinks ‘Short Circuit’ way, but in a less hilarity-inducing ‘lets spend 20 minutes phrasing this perfectly so I actually get something useful’ way.  A lot of companies have been working on growing ‘large language models’ for use in AI for a while, but the one that really captured people’s attention in 2023 has been OpenAI’s ChatGPT.</p>
<p>There are many other flavours of AI chatty-Cathy’s out there with colourful names such as Bard, Claude, Grok, LLaMA, Bothan, and Ernie Bot (one of those I made up*), but ChatGPT has become the go-to chatbot for a lot of people, with over 100 million users registered on the service.  In the past 12 months, the top 2 fastest-rising search terms on Google from the UK are ‘ChatGPT’ and ‘Chat GPT’.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-121" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-13-at-09.38.55-300x253.png" alt="" width="300" height="253" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-13-at-09.38.55-300x253.png 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-13-at-09.38.55.png 585w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
<p>While there are a lot of uses for ChatGPT and similar AI services, one that has some people worried about its potential impact is its use for creative purposes.  The use of AI-generated images and music has raised questions about whether human artists will get shut out of the process if it’s quicker and cheaper to ask a bot to create art, and the recent SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes that took Hollywood to a grinding halt earlier this year was at least in part because of the actors and writer’s unions wanting to ensure there were protections in updated contracts to limit AI’s impact on filmmaking.</p>
<p>While we’re likely at least a few years away from the best original screenplay Academy Award going to ChatBot_182.432.1REV3, ChatGPT can be used as a tool in a lot of ways for narrative storytelling.  It certainly can write a full story for you, but it can go off in pretty wild places with some… <em>interesting </em>narrative choices.</p>
<p>With the simple prompt ‘Hey ChatGPT, write me a story’, I got a 450 word tale of a character named Luna who lived in a ‘Blade Runner’-esque neon city worked as a librarian by day, and by night used her supernatural powers to turn the books on her shelves in to magical realms.  She proceeds to find a kingdom in peril, talk to a wise old owl and a mischievous sprite, solve puzzles, go through enchanted forests, and save the day using the power of imagination.  That’s a lot to cram in to 450 words.  <em>You can read the full story here with the password LunasMidnightOdyssey – <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/lunas-midnight-odyssey/">full story</a></em></p>
<p>This is one of the problems with just giving ChatGPT free reign to do what it ‘wants’ when being creative, it doesn’t really understand scale or that just throwing every plot point it can generate in to a list doesn’t really make a story.</p>
<figure id="attachment_130" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-130" style="width: 700px" class="wp-caption aligncenter center"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-130" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-1024x684.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="468" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-768x513.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-1140x761.jpg 1140w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-130" class="wp-caption-text">Old College by Playfair, William, University of Edinburgh is available under a CC BY 3.0 Unported licence. https://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/m671gu</figcaption></figure>
<p>ChatGPT’s really power for creating narrative, at least in its current state, is in using it to refine a story, or to help work through ideas.  Let’s say I’m trying create a new video for Media Hopper Create about the history of Old College, and want to write a voice over.  Here’s a quick draft:</p>
<blockquote><p>Old College its part of The University of Edinburgh and was mostly built from the late 18th to early 19th century.  Originally named ‘New College’, it is a Category A listed building located on South Bridge.  The original design was by Robert Adam, with the modern design being completed by William Henry Playfair.  The dome was added to the building in 1887, with a gilded statue of Youth by John Hutchinson.</p>
<ul>
<li>Original version</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I wrote this in about 5 minutes with information culled from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_College,_University_of_Edinburgh">Wikipedia</a>, and while perfectly serviceable, it’s possibly a little perfunctory.  I asked ChatGPT what it thought of my script, and it decided (unprompted) to re-write it for me to make it more ‘engaging’:</p>
<blockquote><p>Welcome to Old College, a majestic structure nestled within the heart of The University of Edinburgh. Originally named ‘New College,’ this architectural gem traces its roots back to the late 18th century. Designed by the renowned Robert Adam, its timeless elegance was later completed by William Henry Playfair in the 19th century.</p>
<p>Situated on South Bridge, Old College stands as a Category A listed building, a testament to its historical and architectural significance. In 1887, a crowning touch was added to the structure in the form of a magnificent dome. Adorning the pinnacle is a gilded statue of Youth, a creation by the skilled hands of John Hutchinson.</p>
<p>As you stand in awe of Old College, it’s not just a building; it’s a living testament to the evolution of academia and architecture. The melding of the past and present, with each stone whispering stories of the scholars who once walked its halls. Today, Old College continues to be a symbol of academic excellence and a revered landmark in the vibrant tapestry of The University of Edinburgh.</p>
<ul>
<li>Revision from ChatGPT</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>This new version does feel more like a narrative than just a list of facts, and the language use is definitely more descriptive, it goes a bit overboard with the use of evocative metaphors.  To try and rein it in a bit, I added this prompt: “That’s a little bit over the top with descriptive language, can you scale it back a little?”.  This is the new version:</p>
<blockquote><p>Old College, part of The University of Edinburgh, has a rich history dating back to the late 18th century. Originally called ‘New College,’ its design, led by Robert Adam and later completed by William Henry Playfair, stands as a testament to architectural craftsmanship.</p>
<p>Situated on South Bridge, this Category A listed building gained its distinctive dome in 1887, crowned with a gilded statue of Youth by John Hutchinson. Today, Old College preserves the charm of its past, serving as a key landmark in the University’s legacy.</p>
<p>Explore the echoes of academia within Old College’s walls, where each brick tells a story of the scholars who once roamed its corridors. This historic structure, with its timeless design, remains an enduring symbol of The University of Edinburgh’s journey through time.</p>
<ul>
<li>Revision 2 by ChatGPT</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>This time it removed some of the descriptive language of the building itself, but it replaced a metaphor of it being ‘a revered landmark in the vibrant tapestry’ of the university with one about ‘each brick telling a story’.  Let’s try refining it one more time – here’s the latest version with my prompt “How about you remove some of the metaphors, but give more descriptive language?”:</p>
<blockquote><p>Old College, integral to The University of Edinburgh, has a fascinating history rooted in the late 18th century. Originally christened ‘New College,’ it boasts an architectural legacy shaped by Robert Adam and later refined by William Henry Playfair.</p>
<p>Nestled on South Bridge, this distinguished Category A listed building acquired its iconic dome in 1887, adorned with a gilded statue of Youth crafted by John Hutchinson. Old College serves as both witness and custodian to the University’s journey through time.</p>
<p>Step into its storied corridors and be transported to an era when scholars traversed its halls. Each brick and beam narrates tales of academic pursuits and intellectual growth. Old College stands today, not just as a historic landmark, but as a living tribute to The University of Edinburgh’s enduring academic tradition.</p></blockquote>
<p>At this point it feels like ChatGPT is stuck just reiterating on a specific style of writing.  This is one of the issues I hit when looking to use a chatbot for anything creative – the model it’s using to generate text has a specific style and there isn’t an easy way to break out of that.  While ChatGPT is great for helping point you in the right direction, most of the time things will still need to be edited and refined manually to fit the exact purpose you need it for.</p>
<p>How about we experiment with this further, and see how well it handles a change in tone.  I added the a new prompt to change the genre, but not the content: “What if this was the Voice Over for a horror film?”</p>
<blockquote><p>“Deep within the shadows of The University of Edinburgh lies Old College, a structure steeped in a history that echoes with whispers of the supernatural. Once named ‘New College,’ its unsettling evolution began in the late 18th century under the design of Robert Adam, later twisted by the hands of William Henry Playfair.</p>
<p>Perched ominously on South Bridge, this foreboding Category A listed building acquired an eerie dome in 1887, crowned by a gilded statue of Youth, a macabre creation by the twisted artist John Hutchinson. Old College, now a haunting relic, conceals not only the secrets of academia but a darker, malevolent force.</p>
<p>As you traverse its desolate corridors, the air thickens with the chilling tales of scholars who met untimely fates within its haunted walls. Every brick, every step resonates with an otherworldly presence. Old College stands not as a symbol of knowledge, but as a portal to the supernatural, where the past lingers, and the spirits of the damned find no rest.”</p>
<ul>
<li>ChatGPT’s voice over for a horror film</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Ok, a lot to unpack… not only is this now borderline defamatory calling famed sculptor John Hutchinson a ‘twisted artist’ who created ‘macabre creations’, claims that Old College is where ‘the spirits of the damned find no rest’ and is literally a ‘portal to the supernatural’, but it is <em>still</em> using that metaphor of ‘every brick tells a story’.</p>
<p>While overly flowery language can be a bit of a handful to prune back, this last revision shows where the creative ‘choices’ ChatGPT uses can start to turn truth in to pure fabrication.  The original core of the facts from my initial script are still there (the dates, the people involved, the legacy), it uses those to create completely a fictitious narrative.</p>
<p>The creative uses for ChatGPT are vast, but as an AI it has no concept of how it <strong>should</strong> use the information in your prompts, only what it <strong>can</strong> do.  Chat bots can be a useful tool, but just remember to keep it on a short leash.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*’Bothan’ is actually a lesser-known species from Star Wars: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_species_(A–E)#Bothan">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_species_(A–E)#Bothan</a></p>

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				<time datetime="2023-12-13" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 13, 2023</time>
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		<title>What is 360º Video? – The Early Days…</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2019/02/18/what-is-360o-video-the-early-days/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2019/02/18/what-is-360o-video-the-early-days/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Liam Duffy]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2019 16:24:53 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[DIY Film School]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[360º]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/?p=56</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[This is part of a series of posts exploring 360º videos, going from its roots in expositions and theme parks,...]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i>This is part of a series of posts exploring 360º videos, going from its roots in expositions and theme parks, to how it can be recorded using your mobile phone and used in education.</i></p>
<h2>Cinéorama</h2>
<p>The Exposition Universelle, or better known as the 1900 Paris Exposition in English, was part of France’s drive to enter the 20th century with a reignited sense of cultural and national pride after devastation of the Great War. For nearly a decade before the exhibition grounds were due to open, countries around the world were invited to bring their greatest achievements and display their cultures on an international stage, part of the event’s bigger themes of unifying people.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 4195px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/La_porte_monumentale%2C_Exposition_Universelle_1900.jpg" alt="" width="4195" height="2678" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Brown University Library [Public domain]</figcaption></figure>Some of the highlights of the Exposition included a giant refracting telescope (60 meters long with a diameter of 1.5 meters), a display of photographs showing African American’s contributions to American society organised by sociologists and activists Booker Washington and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.E.B._Du_Bois">W.E.B. Du Bois</a> , and in a fit of what I can only imagine was either reckless abandonment or an over-eagerness to please the visiting crowds, a Russian sparkling wine won the “Grand Prix de Champagne” beating several French vintners. The first Olympic Games outside of Greece took place during the Exposition, with the winners receiving 100 francs, a tie pin, and a commemorative pencil.</p>
<p>One of the biggest draws of the Exposition was the introduction of two of the great innovations in the world of cinema: the first wide-scale demonstration of recorded sound synced with moving image, and 360º panoramic projections. Obviously the latter of the two had the greater impact in the history of entertainment. I mean, come on, how many people actually watch films with audio?</p>
<p>Oh, what’s that? Most people do? Pretty much every piece of commercial film created in the last 80 years has had synchronised sound? Nobody uses 360º panoramic video projections beyond some very limited applications? Hmm.</p>
<p>The French Cinéorama was designed and constructed specifically for the Exposition by <a href="Raoul Grimoin-Sanson">Raoul Grimoin-Sanson</a>, with the intention being to replicate a ride on a hot air balloon over Paris using ten synchronised projectors housed under the ‘basket’ of the stationary balloon model.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 1199px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Cineorama.jpg" alt="" width="1199" height="850" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Louis Poyet [Public domain]</figcaption></figure>Built on the technology that English inventor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Paul">Robert Paul</a> had been working on in the late 1890’s to project moving image on a screen (which was in turn based on designs stolen from Thomas Edison’s single-viewer Kinetoscope machine), the Cinéorama would project moving images onto 10 screens, each 9×9 meters, arranged in a circle around the viewer. The film was shot using 10 cameras pointing outwards from a central point which housed the cranking mechanism that wound all of the cameras at the same time – early cinema cameras were usually hand-cranked, so this made sure that the image was captured at the same speed on each camera. This rig was then attached to a real hot air balloon as it flew 400 meters about the Tuileries Gardens, filming the ascent.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Cineorama_camera.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="1019" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Louis Poyet [Public domain]</figcaption></figure>People would board a giant hot air balloon model in the middle of the screens, the basket of which was big enough to hold 200 people, complete with rigging and the bottom half of a balloon suspended from the ceiling. Once ‘boarded’ the spectators would look out at the screens as the projectors showed the balloon take off. Once the experience had finished, they used some cinema magic to show the balloon landing again (they played the film backwards).</p>
<p>The Cinéorama lasted a glorious whole 3 days before the police shut it down due to safety concerns – one of the workmen had fainted from the immense heat of the arc lamps used in the projectors, and as these were housed directly beneath the viewing platform, it was considered an extreme fire hazard to the spectators. After the show was shut down in the middle of day 4, it has never been shown again.</p>
<p>Things didn’t faire much better for the Exposition Universelle – due the unexpectedly high running costs of the Exposition as a whole, it ended costing the organisers about 600 francs (around £2,000 in 2018) <i>more</i> per person than the cost of admission. This was the end of this streak of Parisian international fairs.</p>
<h2>Circle-Vision 360º</h2>
<p>The rebirth of commercial 360º panoramic films came with the opening of 1955’s ‘CIRCARAMA’ cinema in Disneyland, California, showing the short film A Tour of the West, soon followed by America The Beautiful.</p>
<iframe loading="lazy" src="about:blank" data-bs-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rmv_P_wcZG4?start=801" width="660" height="544" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>The system used in Disneyland, named ‘Circle-Vision 360°’, improved on Grimoin-Sanson’s Cinéorama system in a number of ways, with the biggest difference being that instead of having the film projectors mounted under the audience’s feet (and causing a lot of fire-risks at the same time) an odd number of screens and projectors are used – this means that each projector is placed between the screens on the opposite wall of the purpose-built circular auditorium:</p>
<figure style="width: 2320px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3e/df/f2/ef5b770a26468d/US2942516-drawings-page-2.png" alt="" width="2320" height="3408" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Walter E Disney, Iwerks Ub (1956). US Patent No. US2942516A. Retrieved from https://patents.google.com/patent/US2942516</figcaption></figure>
<p>This clever bit of mathematics allows the bulky projector systems to be hidden behind the ring of screens, providing more a more immersive experience to the audience.</p>
<p>The camera system used to record the footage, however, is remarkably similar Cinéorama’s – nine cameras are arranged around a central point facing outwards, with an internal mechanism keeping the cameras in sync.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 2364px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Circle-Vision_360_camera_%2829638534777%29_%28cropped%29.jpg" alt="" width="2364" height="1965" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">elisfkc from Orlando, FL, United States [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons</figcaption></figure>The camera rig can be attached to the roof of a car or the underside of a helicopter. Given there was an intentional gap between each screen for the projectors to fit, later films used these to split-up the action between sections of the room. For example, they could show a full 360º film to start with, then fade the screens on one half of the room to show standard film footage on each screen, while maintaining the panorama on the other. This allowed for greater creative freedom, and removed the reliance of using the expensive Circle-Vision 360º cameras to capture all the footage.</p>
<p>Over the years, 5 different Disney theme parks have used Circle-Vision 360º for their attractions, and while the original has now closed at Disneyland in California, and it’s international variants at Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris closing in the early 21st century, there are 2 theatres still operating at Epcot – ‘Reflections of China’ and ‘Oh Canada!’ At each of their respective country’s pavilions in the World Showcase.</p>
<iframe loading="lazy" src="about:blank" data-bs-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SdUKRTeyKfU" width="660" height="544" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <em>Interestingly, you can actually watch this version in 360º using Google Cardboard or by clicking and dragging your mouse around the frame</em></pre>
<p> </p>
<p>Both of these act as quasi-tourism videos showing off the landscapes and cultural landmarks of each country …and the Canadian one also serves as a showcase for Martin Short’s comedic talents, so there’s that.</p>
<p>This idea of pure spectacle makes sense as a use for this pretty unique form of film-making, but it does highlight two of the biggest drawbacks of 360º cinema in an auditorium setting:</p>
<p>The first being the cost involved would make it prohibitive to film more than a few minutes worth of footage, both in terms of capturing using 9 high-quality cameras and running the multiple necessary projectors all day.</p>
<p>The second, and possibly most difficult to overcome: trying to craft a story where the viewer needs to constantly be turning their heads. Both of the 360º cinema formats mentioned here rely on the viewer being free to stand and turn all the way around to find and follow points of interest. Indicating where a person should be looking at all times is tricky when it might be behind them. Constantly having your characters announce themselves and give time for people to move around and look in their direction could kill the tension in your drama.</p>
<p><em>Thank you for coming along on our first journey in to 360º video. In our next article we’ll be diving in to the world of modern film and content creation for 360º and VR, and how this can be used in education.</em></p>

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				<time datetime="2019-02-18" itemprop="dateModified">Feb 18, 2019</time>
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		<title>Using Chat GPT to refine narratives</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2023/12/13/using-chat-gpt-to-refine-narratives/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2023/12/13/using-chat-gpt-to-refine-narratives/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Liam Duffy]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2023 12:11:21 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/?p=120</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[2023 has been the year of chatting with robots.  Not in a fun-and-hijinks ‘Short Circuit’ way, but in a less...]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>2023 has been the year of chatting with robots.  Not in a fun-and-hijinks ‘Short Circuit’ way, but in a less hilarity-inducing ‘lets spend 20 minutes phrasing this perfectly so I actually get something useful’ way.  A lot of companies have been working on growing ‘large language models’ for use in AI for a while, but the one that really captured people’s attention in 2023 has been OpenAI’s ChatGPT.</p>
<p>There are many other flavours of AI chatty-Cathy’s out there with colourful names such as Bard, Claude, Grok, LLaMA, Bothan, and Ernie Bot (one of those I made up*), but ChatGPT has become the go-to chatbot for a lot of people, with over 100 million users registered on the service.  In the past 12 months, the top 2 fastest-rising search terms on Google from the UK are ‘ChatGPT’ and ‘Chat GPT’.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-121" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-13-at-09.38.55-300x253.png" alt="" width="300" height="253" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-13-at-09.38.55-300x253.png 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-13-at-09.38.55.png 585w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
<p>While there are a lot of uses for ChatGPT and similar AI services, one that has some people worried about its potential impact is its use for creative purposes.  The use of AI-generated images and music has raised questions about whether human artists will get shut out of the process if it’s quicker and cheaper to ask a bot to create art, and the recent SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes that took Hollywood to a grinding halt earlier this year was at least in part because of the actors and writer’s unions wanting to ensure there were protections in updated contracts to limit AI’s impact on filmmaking.</p>
<p>While we’re likely at least a few years away from the best original screenplay Academy Award going to ChatBot_182.432.1REV3, ChatGPT can be used as a tool in a lot of ways for narrative storytelling.  It certainly can write a full story for you, but it can go off in pretty wild places with some… <em>interesting </em>narrative choices.</p>
<p>With the simple prompt ‘Hey ChatGPT, write me a story’, I got a 450 word tale of a character named Luna who lived in a ‘Blade Runner’-esque neon city worked as a librarian by day, and by night used her supernatural powers to turn the books on her shelves in to magical realms.  She proceeds to find a kingdom in peril, talk to a wise old owl and a mischievous sprite, solve puzzles, go through enchanted forests, and save the day using the power of imagination.  That’s a lot to cram in to 450 words.  <em>You can read the full story here with the password LunasMidnightOdyssey – <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/lunas-midnight-odyssey/">full story</a></em></p>
<p>This is one of the problems with just giving ChatGPT free reign to do what it ‘wants’ when being creative, it doesn’t really understand scale or that just throwing every plot point it can generate in to a list doesn’t really make a story.</p>
<figure id="attachment_130" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-130" style="width: 700px" class="wp-caption aligncenter center"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-130" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-1024x684.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="468" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-768x513.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-1140x761.jpg 1140w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-130" class="wp-caption-text">Old College by Playfair, William, University of Edinburgh is available under a CC BY 3.0 Unported licence. https://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/m671gu</figcaption></figure>
<p>ChatGPT’s really power for creating narrative, at least in its current state, is in using it to refine a story, or to help work through ideas.  Let’s say I’m trying create a new video for Media Hopper Create about the history of Old College, and want to write a voice over.  Here’s a quick draft:</p>
<blockquote><p>Old College its part of The University of Edinburgh and was mostly built from the late 18th to early 19th century.  Originally named ‘New College’, it is a Category A listed building located on South Bridge.  The original design was by Robert Adam, with the modern design being completed by William Henry Playfair.  The dome was added to the building in 1887, with a gilded statue of Youth by John Hutchinson.</p>
<ul>
<li>Original version</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I wrote this in about 5 minutes with information culled from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_College,_University_of_Edinburgh">Wikipedia</a>, and while perfectly serviceable, it’s possibly a little perfunctory.  I asked ChatGPT what it thought of my script, and it decided (unprompted) to re-write it for me to make it more ‘engaging’:</p>
<blockquote><p>Welcome to Old College, a majestic structure nestled within the heart of The University of Edinburgh. Originally named ‘New College,’ this architectural gem traces its roots back to the late 18th century. Designed by the renowned Robert Adam, its timeless elegance was later completed by William Henry Playfair in the 19th century.</p>
<p>Situated on South Bridge, Old College stands as a Category A listed building, a testament to its historical and architectural significance. In 1887, a crowning touch was added to the structure in the form of a magnificent dome. Adorning the pinnacle is a gilded statue of Youth, a creation by the skilled hands of John Hutchinson.</p>
<p>As you stand in awe of Old College, it’s not just a building; it’s a living testament to the evolution of academia and architecture. The melding of the past and present, with each stone whispering stories of the scholars who once walked its halls. Today, Old College continues to be a symbol of academic excellence and a revered landmark in the vibrant tapestry of The University of Edinburgh.</p>
<ul>
<li>Revision from ChatGPT</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>This new version does feel more like a narrative than just a list of facts, and the language use is definitely more descriptive, it goes a bit overboard with the use of evocative metaphors.  To try and rein it in a bit, I added this prompt: “That’s a little bit over the top with descriptive language, can you scale it back a little?”.  This is the new version:</p>
<blockquote><p>Old College, part of The University of Edinburgh, has a rich history dating back to the late 18th century. Originally called ‘New College,’ its design, led by Robert Adam and later completed by William Henry Playfair, stands as a testament to architectural craftsmanship.</p>
<p>Situated on South Bridge, this Category A listed building gained its distinctive dome in 1887, crowned with a gilded statue of Youth by John Hutchinson. Today, Old College preserves the charm of its past, serving as a key landmark in the University’s legacy.</p>
<p>Explore the echoes of academia within Old College’s walls, where each brick tells a story of the scholars who once roamed its corridors. This historic structure, with its timeless design, remains an enduring symbol of The University of Edinburgh’s journey through time.</p>
<ul>
<li>Revision 2 by ChatGPT</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>This time it removed some of the descriptive language of the building itself, but it replaced a metaphor of it being ‘a revered landmark in the vibrant tapestry’ of the university with one about ‘each brick telling a story’.  Let’s try refining it one more time – here’s the latest version with my prompt “How about you remove some of the metaphors, but give more descriptive language?”:</p>
<blockquote><p>Old College, integral to The University of Edinburgh, has a fascinating history rooted in the late 18th century. Originally christened ‘New College,’ it boasts an architectural legacy shaped by Robert Adam and later refined by William Henry Playfair.</p>
<p>Nestled on South Bridge, this distinguished Category A listed building acquired its iconic dome in 1887, adorned with a gilded statue of Youth crafted by John Hutchinson. Old College serves as both witness and custodian to the University’s journey through time.</p>
<p>Step into its storied corridors and be transported to an era when scholars traversed its halls. Each brick and beam narrates tales of academic pursuits and intellectual growth. Old College stands today, not just as a historic landmark, but as a living tribute to The University of Edinburgh’s enduring academic tradition.</p></blockquote>
<p>At this point it feels like ChatGPT is stuck just reiterating on a specific style of writing.  This is one of the issues I hit when looking to use a chatbot for anything creative – the model it’s using to generate text has a specific style and there isn’t an easy way to break out of that.  While ChatGPT is great for helping point you in the right direction, most of the time things will still need to be edited and refined manually to fit the exact purpose you need it for.</p>
<p>How about we experiment with this further, and see how well it handles a change in tone.  I added the a new prompt to change the genre, but not the content: “What if this was the Voice Over for a horror film?”</p>
<blockquote><p>“Deep within the shadows of The University of Edinburgh lies Old College, a structure steeped in a history that echoes with whispers of the supernatural. Once named ‘New College,’ its unsettling evolution began in the late 18th century under the design of Robert Adam, later twisted by the hands of William Henry Playfair.</p>
<p>Perched ominously on South Bridge, this foreboding Category A listed building acquired an eerie dome in 1887, crowned by a gilded statue of Youth, a macabre creation by the twisted artist John Hutchinson. Old College, now a haunting relic, conceals not only the secrets of academia but a darker, malevolent force.</p>
<p>As you traverse its desolate corridors, the air thickens with the chilling tales of scholars who met untimely fates within its haunted walls. Every brick, every step resonates with an otherworldly presence. Old College stands not as a symbol of knowledge, but as a portal to the supernatural, where the past lingers, and the spirits of the damned find no rest.”</p>
<ul>
<li>ChatGPT’s voice over for a horror film</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Ok, a lot to unpack… not only is this now borderline defamatory calling famed sculptor John Hutchinson a ‘twisted artist’ who created ‘macabre creations’, claims that Old College is where ‘the spirits of the damned find no rest’ and is literally a ‘portal to the supernatural’, but it is <em>still</em> using that metaphor of ‘every brick tells a story’.</p>
<p>While overly flowery language can be a bit of a handful to prune back, this last revision shows where the creative ‘choices’ ChatGPT uses can start to turn truth in to pure fabrication.  The original core of the facts from my initial script are still there (the dates, the people involved, the legacy), it uses those to create completely a fictitious narrative.</p>
<p>The creative uses for ChatGPT are vast, but as an AI it has no concept of how it <strong>should</strong> use the information in your prompts, only what it <strong>can</strong> do.  Chat bots can be a useful tool, but just remember to keep it on a short leash.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*’Bothan’ is actually a lesser-known species from Star Wars: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_species_(A–E)#Bothan">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_species_(A–E)#Bothan</a></p>

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				<time datetime="2023-12-13" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 13, 2023</time>
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		<title>What is 360º Video? – The Early Days…</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2019/02/18/what-is-360o-video-the-early-days/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2019/02/18/what-is-360o-video-the-early-days/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Liam Duffy]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2019 16:24:53 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[DIY Film School]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[360º]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/?p=56</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[This is part of a series of posts exploring 360º videos, going from its roots in expositions and theme parks,...]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i>This is part of a series of posts exploring 360º videos, going from its roots in expositions and theme parks, to how it can be recorded using your mobile phone and used in education.</i></p>
<h2>Cinéorama</h2>
<p>The Exposition Universelle, or better known as the 1900 Paris Exposition in English, was part of France’s drive to enter the 20th century with a reignited sense of cultural and national pride after devastation of the Great War. For nearly a decade before the exhibition grounds were due to open, countries around the world were invited to bring their greatest achievements and display their cultures on an international stage, part of the event’s bigger themes of unifying people.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 4195px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/La_porte_monumentale%2C_Exposition_Universelle_1900.jpg" alt="" width="4195" height="2678" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Brown University Library [Public domain]</figcaption></figure>Some of the highlights of the Exposition included a giant refracting telescope (60 meters long with a diameter of 1.5 meters), a display of photographs showing African American’s contributions to American society organised by sociologists and activists Booker Washington and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.E.B._Du_Bois">W.E.B. Du Bois</a> , and in a fit of what I can only imagine was either reckless abandonment or an over-eagerness to please the visiting crowds, a Russian sparkling wine won the “Grand Prix de Champagne” beating several French vintners. The first Olympic Games outside of Greece took place during the Exposition, with the winners receiving 100 francs, a tie pin, and a commemorative pencil.</p>
<p>One of the biggest draws of the Exposition was the introduction of two of the great innovations in the world of cinema: the first wide-scale demonstration of recorded sound synced with moving image, and 360º panoramic projections. Obviously the latter of the two had the greater impact in the history of entertainment. I mean, come on, how many people actually watch films with audio?</p>
<p>Oh, what’s that? Most people do? Pretty much every piece of commercial film created in the last 80 years has had synchronised sound? Nobody uses 360º panoramic video projections beyond some very limited applications? Hmm.</p>
<p>The French Cinéorama was designed and constructed specifically for the Exposition by <a href="Raoul Grimoin-Sanson">Raoul Grimoin-Sanson</a>, with the intention being to replicate a ride on a hot air balloon over Paris using ten synchronised projectors housed under the ‘basket’ of the stationary balloon model.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 1199px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Cineorama.jpg" alt="" width="1199" height="850" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Louis Poyet [Public domain]</figcaption></figure>Built on the technology that English inventor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Paul">Robert Paul</a> had been working on in the late 1890’s to project moving image on a screen (which was in turn based on designs stolen from Thomas Edison’s single-viewer Kinetoscope machine), the Cinéorama would project moving images onto 10 screens, each 9×9 meters, arranged in a circle around the viewer. The film was shot using 10 cameras pointing outwards from a central point which housed the cranking mechanism that wound all of the cameras at the same time – early cinema cameras were usually hand-cranked, so this made sure that the image was captured at the same speed on each camera. This rig was then attached to a real hot air balloon as it flew 400 meters about the Tuileries Gardens, filming the ascent.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Cineorama_camera.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="1019" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Louis Poyet [Public domain]</figcaption></figure>People would board a giant hot air balloon model in the middle of the screens, the basket of which was big enough to hold 200 people, complete with rigging and the bottom half of a balloon suspended from the ceiling. Once ‘boarded’ the spectators would look out at the screens as the projectors showed the balloon take off. Once the experience had finished, they used some cinema magic to show the balloon landing again (they played the film backwards).</p>
<p>The Cinéorama lasted a glorious whole 3 days before the police shut it down due to safety concerns – one of the workmen had fainted from the immense heat of the arc lamps used in the projectors, and as these were housed directly beneath the viewing platform, it was considered an extreme fire hazard to the spectators. After the show was shut down in the middle of day 4, it has never been shown again.</p>
<p>Things didn’t faire much better for the Exposition Universelle – due the unexpectedly high running costs of the Exposition as a whole, it ended costing the organisers about 600 francs (around £2,000 in 2018) <i>more</i> per person than the cost of admission. This was the end of this streak of Parisian international fairs.</p>
<h2>Circle-Vision 360º</h2>
<p>The rebirth of commercial 360º panoramic films came with the opening of 1955’s ‘CIRCARAMA’ cinema in Disneyland, California, showing the short film A Tour of the West, soon followed by America The Beautiful.</p>
<iframe loading="lazy" src="about:blank" data-bs-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rmv_P_wcZG4?start=801" width="660" height="544" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>The system used in Disneyland, named ‘Circle-Vision 360°’, improved on Grimoin-Sanson’s Cinéorama system in a number of ways, with the biggest difference being that instead of having the film projectors mounted under the audience’s feet (and causing a lot of fire-risks at the same time) an odd number of screens and projectors are used – this means that each projector is placed between the screens on the opposite wall of the purpose-built circular auditorium:</p>
<figure style="width: 2320px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3e/df/f2/ef5b770a26468d/US2942516-drawings-page-2.png" alt="" width="2320" height="3408" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Walter E Disney, Iwerks Ub (1956). US Patent No. US2942516A. Retrieved from https://patents.google.com/patent/US2942516</figcaption></figure>
<p>This clever bit of mathematics allows the bulky projector systems to be hidden behind the ring of screens, providing more a more immersive experience to the audience.</p>
<p>The camera system used to record the footage, however, is remarkably similar Cinéorama’s – nine cameras are arranged around a central point facing outwards, with an internal mechanism keeping the cameras in sync.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 2364px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Circle-Vision_360_camera_%2829638534777%29_%28cropped%29.jpg" alt="" width="2364" height="1965" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">elisfkc from Orlando, FL, United States [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons</figcaption></figure>The camera rig can be attached to the roof of a car or the underside of a helicopter. Given there was an intentional gap between each screen for the projectors to fit, later films used these to split-up the action between sections of the room. For example, they could show a full 360º film to start with, then fade the screens on one half of the room to show standard film footage on each screen, while maintaining the panorama on the other. This allowed for greater creative freedom, and removed the reliance of using the expensive Circle-Vision 360º cameras to capture all the footage.</p>
<p>Over the years, 5 different Disney theme parks have used Circle-Vision 360º for their attractions, and while the original has now closed at Disneyland in California, and it’s international variants at Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris closing in the early 21st century, there are 2 theatres still operating at Epcot – ‘Reflections of China’ and ‘Oh Canada!’ At each of their respective country’s pavilions in the World Showcase.</p>
<iframe loading="lazy" src="about:blank" data-bs-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SdUKRTeyKfU" width="660" height="544" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <em>Interestingly, you can actually watch this version in 360º using Google Cardboard or by clicking and dragging your mouse around the frame</em></pre>
<p> </p>
<p>Both of these act as quasi-tourism videos showing off the landscapes and cultural landmarks of each country …and the Canadian one also serves as a showcase for Martin Short’s comedic talents, so there’s that.</p>
<p>This idea of pure spectacle makes sense as a use for this pretty unique form of film-making, but it does highlight two of the biggest drawbacks of 360º cinema in an auditorium setting:</p>
<p>The first being the cost involved would make it prohibitive to film more than a few minutes worth of footage, both in terms of capturing using 9 high-quality cameras and running the multiple necessary projectors all day.</p>
<p>The second, and possibly most difficult to overcome: trying to craft a story where the viewer needs to constantly be turning their heads. Both of the 360º cinema formats mentioned here rely on the viewer being free to stand and turn all the way around to find and follow points of interest. Indicating where a person should be looking at all times is tricky when it might be behind them. Constantly having your characters announce themselves and give time for people to move around and look in their direction could kill the tension in your drama.</p>
<p><em>Thank you for coming along on our first journey in to 360º video. In our next article we’ll be diving in to the world of modern film and content creation for 360º and VR, and how this can be used in education.</em></p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2019-02-18" itemprop="dateModified">Feb 18, 2019</time>
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		<title>Using Chat GPT to refine narratives</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2023/12/13/using-chat-gpt-to-refine-narratives/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2023/12/13/using-chat-gpt-to-refine-narratives/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Liam Duffy]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2023 12:11:21 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/?p=120</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[2023 has been the year of chatting with robots.  Not in a fun-and-hijinks ‘Short Circuit’ way, but in a less...]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>2023 has been the year of chatting with robots.  Not in a fun-and-hijinks ‘Short Circuit’ way, but in a less hilarity-inducing ‘lets spend 20 minutes phrasing this perfectly so I actually get something useful’ way.  A lot of companies have been working on growing ‘large language models’ for use in AI for a while, but the one that really captured people’s attention in 2023 has been OpenAI’s ChatGPT.</p>
<p>There are many other flavours of AI chatty-Cathy’s out there with colourful names such as Bard, Claude, Grok, LLaMA, Bothan, and Ernie Bot (one of those I made up*), but ChatGPT has become the go-to chatbot for a lot of people, with over 100 million users registered on the service.  In the past 12 months, the top 2 fastest-rising search terms on Google from the UK are ‘ChatGPT’ and ‘Chat GPT’.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-121" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-13-at-09.38.55-300x253.png" alt="" width="300" height="253" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-13-at-09.38.55-300x253.png 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-13-at-09.38.55.png 585w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
<p>While there are a lot of uses for ChatGPT and similar AI services, one that has some people worried about its potential impact is its use for creative purposes.  The use of AI-generated images and music has raised questions about whether human artists will get shut out of the process if it’s quicker and cheaper to ask a bot to create art, and the recent SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes that took Hollywood to a grinding halt earlier this year was at least in part because of the actors and writer’s unions wanting to ensure there were protections in updated contracts to limit AI’s impact on filmmaking.</p>
<p>While we’re likely at least a few years away from the best original screenplay Academy Award going to ChatBot_182.432.1REV3, ChatGPT can be used as a tool in a lot of ways for narrative storytelling.  It certainly can write a full story for you, but it can go off in pretty wild places with some… <em>interesting </em>narrative choices.</p>
<p>With the simple prompt ‘Hey ChatGPT, write me a story’, I got a 450 word tale of a character named Luna who lived in a ‘Blade Runner’-esque neon city worked as a librarian by day, and by night used her supernatural powers to turn the books on her shelves in to magical realms.  She proceeds to find a kingdom in peril, talk to a wise old owl and a mischievous sprite, solve puzzles, go through enchanted forests, and save the day using the power of imagination.  That’s a lot to cram in to 450 words.  <em>You can read the full story here with the password LunasMidnightOdyssey – <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/lunas-midnight-odyssey/">full story</a></em></p>
<p>This is one of the problems with just giving ChatGPT free reign to do what it ‘wants’ when being creative, it doesn’t really understand scale or that just throwing every plot point it can generate in to a list doesn’t really make a story.</p>
<figure id="attachment_130" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-130" style="width: 700px" class="wp-caption aligncenter center"><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-130" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-1024x684.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="468" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-768x513.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c-1140x761.jpg 1140w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/wp-content/uploads/sites/201/2023/12/0078862c.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-130" class="wp-caption-text">Old College by Playfair, William, University of Edinburgh is available under a CC BY 3.0 Unported licence. https://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/m671gu</figcaption></figure>
<p>ChatGPT’s really power for creating narrative, at least in its current state, is in using it to refine a story, or to help work through ideas.  Let’s say I’m trying create a new video for Media Hopper Create about the history of Old College, and want to write a voice over.  Here’s a quick draft:</p>
<blockquote><p>Old College its part of The University of Edinburgh and was mostly built from the late 18th to early 19th century.  Originally named ‘New College’, it is a Category A listed building located on South Bridge.  The original design was by Robert Adam, with the modern design being completed by William Henry Playfair.  The dome was added to the building in 1887, with a gilded statue of Youth by John Hutchinson.</p>
<ul>
<li>Original version</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I wrote this in about 5 minutes with information culled from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_College,_University_of_Edinburgh">Wikipedia</a>, and while perfectly serviceable, it’s possibly a little perfunctory.  I asked ChatGPT what it thought of my script, and it decided (unprompted) to re-write it for me to make it more ‘engaging’:</p>
<blockquote><p>Welcome to Old College, a majestic structure nestled within the heart of The University of Edinburgh. Originally named ‘New College,’ this architectural gem traces its roots back to the late 18th century. Designed by the renowned Robert Adam, its timeless elegance was later completed by William Henry Playfair in the 19th century.</p>
<p>Situated on South Bridge, Old College stands as a Category A listed building, a testament to its historical and architectural significance. In 1887, a crowning touch was added to the structure in the form of a magnificent dome. Adorning the pinnacle is a gilded statue of Youth, a creation by the skilled hands of John Hutchinson.</p>
<p>As you stand in awe of Old College, it’s not just a building; it’s a living testament to the evolution of academia and architecture. The melding of the past and present, with each stone whispering stories of the scholars who once walked its halls. Today, Old College continues to be a symbol of academic excellence and a revered landmark in the vibrant tapestry of The University of Edinburgh.</p>
<ul>
<li>Revision from ChatGPT</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>This new version does feel more like a narrative than just a list of facts, and the language use is definitely more descriptive, it goes a bit overboard with the use of evocative metaphors.  To try and rein it in a bit, I added this prompt: “That’s a little bit over the top with descriptive language, can you scale it back a little?”.  This is the new version:</p>
<blockquote><p>Old College, part of The University of Edinburgh, has a rich history dating back to the late 18th century. Originally called ‘New College,’ its design, led by Robert Adam and later completed by William Henry Playfair, stands as a testament to architectural craftsmanship.</p>
<p>Situated on South Bridge, this Category A listed building gained its distinctive dome in 1887, crowned with a gilded statue of Youth by John Hutchinson. Today, Old College preserves the charm of its past, serving as a key landmark in the University’s legacy.</p>
<p>Explore the echoes of academia within Old College’s walls, where each brick tells a story of the scholars who once roamed its corridors. This historic structure, with its timeless design, remains an enduring symbol of The University of Edinburgh’s journey through time.</p>
<ul>
<li>Revision 2 by ChatGPT</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>This time it removed some of the descriptive language of the building itself, but it replaced a metaphor of it being ‘a revered landmark in the vibrant tapestry’ of the university with one about ‘each brick telling a story’.  Let’s try refining it one more time – here’s the latest version with my prompt “How about you remove some of the metaphors, but give more descriptive language?”:</p>
<blockquote><p>Old College, integral to The University of Edinburgh, has a fascinating history rooted in the late 18th century. Originally christened ‘New College,’ it boasts an architectural legacy shaped by Robert Adam and later refined by William Henry Playfair.</p>
<p>Nestled on South Bridge, this distinguished Category A listed building acquired its iconic dome in 1887, adorned with a gilded statue of Youth crafted by John Hutchinson. Old College serves as both witness and custodian to the University’s journey through time.</p>
<p>Step into its storied corridors and be transported to an era when scholars traversed its halls. Each brick and beam narrates tales of academic pursuits and intellectual growth. Old College stands today, not just as a historic landmark, but as a living tribute to The University of Edinburgh’s enduring academic tradition.</p></blockquote>
<p>At this point it feels like ChatGPT is stuck just reiterating on a specific style of writing.  This is one of the issues I hit when looking to use a chatbot for anything creative – the model it’s using to generate text has a specific style and there isn’t an easy way to break out of that.  While ChatGPT is great for helping point you in the right direction, most of the time things will still need to be edited and refined manually to fit the exact purpose you need it for.</p>
<p>How about we experiment with this further, and see how well it handles a change in tone.  I added the a new prompt to change the genre, but not the content: “What if this was the Voice Over for a horror film?”</p>
<blockquote><p>“Deep within the shadows of The University of Edinburgh lies Old College, a structure steeped in a history that echoes with whispers of the supernatural. Once named ‘New College,’ its unsettling evolution began in the late 18th century under the design of Robert Adam, later twisted by the hands of William Henry Playfair.</p>
<p>Perched ominously on South Bridge, this foreboding Category A listed building acquired an eerie dome in 1887, crowned by a gilded statue of Youth, a macabre creation by the twisted artist John Hutchinson. Old College, now a haunting relic, conceals not only the secrets of academia but a darker, malevolent force.</p>
<p>As you traverse its desolate corridors, the air thickens with the chilling tales of scholars who met untimely fates within its haunted walls. Every brick, every step resonates with an otherworldly presence. Old College stands not as a symbol of knowledge, but as a portal to the supernatural, where the past lingers, and the spirits of the damned find no rest.”</p>
<ul>
<li>ChatGPT’s voice over for a horror film</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Ok, a lot to unpack… not only is this now borderline defamatory calling famed sculptor John Hutchinson a ‘twisted artist’ who created ‘macabre creations’, claims that Old College is where ‘the spirits of the damned find no rest’ and is literally a ‘portal to the supernatural’, but it is <em>still</em> using that metaphor of ‘every brick tells a story’.</p>
<p>While overly flowery language can be a bit of a handful to prune back, this last revision shows where the creative ‘choices’ ChatGPT uses can start to turn truth in to pure fabrication.  The original core of the facts from my initial script are still there (the dates, the people involved, the legacy), it uses those to create completely a fictitious narrative.</p>
<p>The creative uses for ChatGPT are vast, but as an AI it has no concept of how it <strong>should</strong> use the information in your prompts, only what it <strong>can</strong> do.  Chat bots can be a useful tool, but just remember to keep it on a short leash.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*’Bothan’ is actually a lesser-known species from Star Wars: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_species_(A–E)#Bothan">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_species_(A–E)#Bothan</a></p>

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				<time datetime="2023-12-13" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 13, 2023</time>
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		<title>What is 360º Video? – The Early Days…</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2019/02/18/what-is-360o-video-the-early-days/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/2019/02/18/what-is-360o-video-the-early-days/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Liam Duffy]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2019 16:24:53 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[DIY Film School]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[360º]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mediahopper/?p=56</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[This is part of a series of posts exploring 360º videos, going from its roots in expositions and theme parks,...]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i>This is part of a series of posts exploring 360º videos, going from its roots in expositions and theme parks, to how it can be recorded using your mobile phone and used in education.</i></p>
<h2>Cinéorama</h2>
<p>The Exposition Universelle, or better known as the 1900 Paris Exposition in English, was part of France’s drive to enter the 20th century with a reignited sense of cultural and national pride after devastation of the Great War. For nearly a decade before the exhibition grounds were due to open, countries around the world were invited to bring their greatest achievements and display their cultures on an international stage, part of the event’s bigger themes of unifying people.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 4195px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/La_porte_monumentale%2C_Exposition_Universelle_1900.jpg" alt="" width="4195" height="2678" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Brown University Library [Public domain]</figcaption></figure>Some of the highlights of the Exposition included a giant refracting telescope (60 meters long with a diameter of 1.5 meters), a display of photographs showing African American’s contributions to American society organised by sociologists and activists Booker Washington and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.E.B._Du_Bois">W.E.B. Du Bois</a> , and in a fit of what I can only imagine was either reckless abandonment or an over-eagerness to please the visiting crowds, a Russian sparkling wine won the “Grand Prix de Champagne” beating several French vintners. The first Olympic Games outside of Greece took place during the Exposition, with the winners receiving 100 francs, a tie pin, and a commemorative pencil.</p>
<p>One of the biggest draws of the Exposition was the introduction of two of the great innovations in the world of cinema: the first wide-scale demonstration of recorded sound synced with moving image, and 360º panoramic projections. Obviously the latter of the two had the greater impact in the history of entertainment. I mean, come on, how many people actually watch films with audio?</p>
<p>Oh, what’s that? Most people do? Pretty much every piece of commercial film created in the last 80 years has had synchronised sound? Nobody uses 360º panoramic video projections beyond some very limited applications? Hmm.</p>
<p>The French Cinéorama was designed and constructed specifically for the Exposition by <a href="Raoul Grimoin-Sanson">Raoul Grimoin-Sanson</a>, with the intention being to replicate a ride on a hot air balloon over Paris using ten synchronised projectors housed under the ‘basket’ of the stationary balloon model.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 1199px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Cineorama.jpg" alt="" width="1199" height="850" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Louis Poyet [Public domain]</figcaption></figure>Built on the technology that English inventor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Paul">Robert Paul</a> had been working on in the late 1890’s to project moving image on a screen (which was in turn based on designs stolen from Thomas Edison’s single-viewer Kinetoscope machine), the Cinéorama would project moving images onto 10 screens, each 9×9 meters, arranged in a circle around the viewer. The film was shot using 10 cameras pointing outwards from a central point which housed the cranking mechanism that wound all of the cameras at the same time – early cinema cameras were usually hand-cranked, so this made sure that the image was captured at the same speed on each camera. This rig was then attached to a real hot air balloon as it flew 400 meters about the Tuileries Gardens, filming the ascent.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Cineorama_camera.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="1019" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Louis Poyet [Public domain]</figcaption></figure>People would board a giant hot air balloon model in the middle of the screens, the basket of which was big enough to hold 200 people, complete with rigging and the bottom half of a balloon suspended from the ceiling. Once ‘boarded’ the spectators would look out at the screens as the projectors showed the balloon take off. Once the experience had finished, they used some cinema magic to show the balloon landing again (they played the film backwards).</p>
<p>The Cinéorama lasted a glorious whole 3 days before the police shut it down due to safety concerns – one of the workmen had fainted from the immense heat of the arc lamps used in the projectors, and as these were housed directly beneath the viewing platform, it was considered an extreme fire hazard to the spectators. After the show was shut down in the middle of day 4, it has never been shown again.</p>
<p>Things didn’t faire much better for the Exposition Universelle – due the unexpectedly high running costs of the Exposition as a whole, it ended costing the organisers about 600 francs (around £2,000 in 2018) <i>more</i> per person than the cost of admission. This was the end of this streak of Parisian international fairs.</p>
<h2>Circle-Vision 360º</h2>
<p>The rebirth of commercial 360º panoramic films came with the opening of 1955’s ‘CIRCARAMA’ cinema in Disneyland, California, showing the short film A Tour of the West, soon followed by America The Beautiful.</p>
<iframe loading="lazy" src="about:blank" data-bs-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rmv_P_wcZG4?start=801" width="660" height="544" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>The system used in Disneyland, named ‘Circle-Vision 360°’, improved on Grimoin-Sanson’s Cinéorama system in a number of ways, with the biggest difference being that instead of having the film projectors mounted under the audience’s feet (and causing a lot of fire-risks at the same time) an odd number of screens and projectors are used – this means that each projector is placed between the screens on the opposite wall of the purpose-built circular auditorium:</p>
<figure style="width: 2320px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3e/df/f2/ef5b770a26468d/US2942516-drawings-page-2.png" alt="" width="2320" height="3408" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Walter E Disney, Iwerks Ub (1956). US Patent No. US2942516A. Retrieved from https://patents.google.com/patent/US2942516</figcaption></figure>
<p>This clever bit of mathematics allows the bulky projector systems to be hidden behind the ring of screens, providing more a more immersive experience to the audience.</p>
<p>The camera system used to record the footage, however, is remarkably similar Cinéorama’s – nine cameras are arranged around a central point facing outwards, with an internal mechanism keeping the cameras in sync.</p>
<p><figure style="width: 2364px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Circle-Vision_360_camera_%2829638534777%29_%28cropped%29.jpg" alt="" width="2364" height="1965" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">elisfkc from Orlando, FL, United States [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons</figcaption></figure>The camera rig can be attached to the roof of a car or the underside of a helicopter. Given there was an intentional gap between each screen for the projectors to fit, later films used these to split-up the action between sections of the room. For example, they could show a full 360º film to start with, then fade the screens on one half of the room to show standard film footage on each screen, while maintaining the panorama on the other. This allowed for greater creative freedom, and removed the reliance of using the expensive Circle-Vision 360º cameras to capture all the footage.</p>
<p>Over the years, 5 different Disney theme parks have used Circle-Vision 360º for their attractions, and while the original has now closed at Disneyland in California, and it’s international variants at Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris closing in the early 21st century, there are 2 theatres still operating at Epcot – ‘Reflections of China’ and ‘Oh Canada!’ At each of their respective country’s pavilions in the World Showcase.</p>
<iframe loading="lazy" src="about:blank" data-bs-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SdUKRTeyKfU" width="660" height="544" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <em>Interestingly, you can actually watch this version in 360º using Google Cardboard or by clicking and dragging your mouse around the frame</em></pre>
<p> </p>
<p>Both of these act as quasi-tourism videos showing off the landscapes and cultural landmarks of each country …and the Canadian one also serves as a showcase for Martin Short’s comedic talents, so there’s that.</p>
<p>This idea of pure spectacle makes sense as a use for this pretty unique form of film-making, but it does highlight two of the biggest drawbacks of 360º cinema in an auditorium setting:</p>
<p>The first being the cost involved would make it prohibitive to film more than a few minutes worth of footage, both in terms of capturing using 9 high-quality cameras and running the multiple necessary projectors all day.</p>
<p>The second, and possibly most difficult to overcome: trying to craft a story where the viewer needs to constantly be turning their heads. Both of the 360º cinema formats mentioned here rely on the viewer being free to stand and turn all the way around to find and follow points of interest. Indicating where a person should be looking at all times is tricky when it might be behind them. Constantly having your characters announce themselves and give time for people to move around and look in their direction could kill the tension in your drama.</p>
<p><em>Thank you for coming along on our first journey in to 360º video. In our next article we’ll be diving in to the world of modern film and content creation for 360º and VR, and how this can be used in education.</em></p>

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				<time datetime="2019-02-18" itemprop="dateModified">Feb 18, 2019</time>
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		<title>Who needs awards anyway!</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/who-needs-awards-anyway/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/who-needs-awards-anyway/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 08:59:32 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=663</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The 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 […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>
<p>The 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 above and beyond to accomplish some amazing tasks. Secondly. we were robbed<br /><br />We had drafted a speech (after all the wild celebrations, kissing the badge, knee slides and general mocking and aggressive finger pointing at the opposition) and whilst we didn’t get the opportunity to read it out I still think it’s worth sharing as a last thank you for those involved in delivering the short course platform. It’s the end of a programme but the beginning of a new service.<br /><br /><br />The Speech:<br /><br />The short course platform was a programme that started just under 4 years ago. It was after the closure of the distance learning at scale programme which may not have been the burning success we wanted however it had taught us valuable lessons which ultimately led us to the successful launch of the short course platform.<br /><br />I think what I want to flag, is that sometimes things don’t work out the way you wanted or expected , but that’s ok, learning and evolving is part of our roles and the sweet doesn’t taste as sweet without the sour.<br /><br />We would like to acknowledge all the support and time provided by stakeholders across the institution who attended numerous, steering groups, boards, demo sessions and various meetings. Their patience and time have ultimately steered and supported us to deliver a successful programme and sets of services used by over 7k learners accessing over 1k courses so far.<br /><br />We would not be accepting this award without the hard work and down right determination of some key folk who have worked collaboratively across LTW and Apps. On behalf of the team we need to thank section heads Stuart and Karen for their invaluable support. Andrews team for delivering a snazzy shopfront, Lauren and Fiona’s team for all their hard work in designing course, websites, an amazing spoint hub and training just to name a few things. Legal for doing legal stuff and Neil for helping us understand it. Viki Galts team for everything accessibility. All the PMs that have organised us over the last few years and Ellen who got us over the line. Cassie for organising groups, boards, papers and making sense of are wittering’s in meetings. Adam Scott and Gordon Forbes for guiding us through the madness of finance. My team for delivering 5 technical services and all the related compliance and process fun that all involve. Lastly, I want to thank Nikki Stuart for the drive and support for the delivery of the platform. <br /><br />The short course programme felt like a family, dysfunctional at times but aren’t all families/projects.</p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2026-02-17" itemprop="dateModified">Feb 17, 2026</time>
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			</item>
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		<title>2025: The year SCP took off</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2025-the-year-scp-took-off/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2025-the-year-scp-took-off/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:15:55 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Short Courses Platform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=573</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 3</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>That 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 […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 3</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>That 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.</p>
<p>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 payment platform so everyone panics about financial transactions), compliance (privacy policies, terms and conditions for a new service), processes (we have the tech but how do we use it, support it, manage it, update it, access it, review it, communicate it, approve it etc) has been challenging.</p>
<p>I love a challenge but 2025 has been a tough one hence my reflection feeling different if not slightly weird. The pressure and expectation to have all the answers to various elements of a new platform (technical and non-technical) at stages throughout this year has been difficult to manage.</p>
<p>Part of this is my own expectation to have the answers or simply know everything. Part of this was my own disappointment and frustration when I didn’t. Part of this is the pressure cooker of delivering a new platform across the institution during a period of financial instability. It’s a lot of parts (some I haven’t included) but in reality, the only part I can fully control is me. Turning off a bit more sounds like an easy solution but it felt impossible. I honestly look back and am thankful for my colleagues who have supported me in 2025. SCP took a chunk of me and getting it out the door nearly broke me.</p>
<p>Friday emails (I don’t work Fridays) and teams conversations kept me in cycle of checking in when I should have been checking out. Don’t get me wrong, my role is to deliver and support services so it’s part of the JD and its with great joy the teams have delivered but the paranoid version of me questions “what did I do”. I know the answer but when things start to go wrong it leads to darker place. Am I mansplaining, are the right people included, what did that person mean, we agreed this but its changed, why?, why am I not invited to that meeting? Constant thoughts swirling through my head when in reality as the project grew you need to let go as it’s impossible to do it all. Placing trust in others but more importantly practising what you preach, sharing the load (like Samwise Gangee wanted to help Frodo by carrying the one ring into the fires of mount doom……), be transparent and listen.</p>
<p>I enjoy the challenge, I love pushing myself but I don’t have all the answers, I get stuff wrong and I am only 1 person. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable has been a big mentality change. It helps when your surrounded by supportive people.<br />
Practically, I also installed an app blocker on my phone which makes accessing Teams and checking emails on a Friday a living nightmare as my phone makes me jump through multiple hurdles to even login to Teams (which is a kinda great!).</p>
<p>Learning and playing more with APIs, agile methodologies, Power BI, headless CMS, resource planning, release planning, power apps, power flow, Canvas, virtual meetings, communications, working groups, BAU are things that have all of a sudden merged into my vocabulary over the past 12 months. Lessons learnt is a term I am looking forward to using less over 2026…..although it’s part of however they are key to the of reflecting and being honest (as much as you can be).</p>
<p>SCP launched in June and so far we have over 450 courses which have ran just under 1000 times, 7k learners and over 11,500 enrolments which have either been via online card transactions or backend fun orders. The platform was a massive task with contributions from various teams in IS and across the institution. Listening and adapting the platform or the requirements has been pivotal to launching a platform that is starting to gain traction amongst schools.</p>
<p>Sadly, it will be the last year in Argyle House or as some may recognise the building as the police station in Dept Q (Netflix). Looking at a castle every day, having easy access to meeting rooms, seemingly always being on or close to a film set (T2, Frankenstein, Avengers) will be things I will miss. Listening to the jazz folk jam under the bridge at castle terrace will definitely not be something I will miss. We move in March and I wil miss the eye sore.</p>
<p>Overall, 2025 will always be the year we launched and I am proud of what we achieved. 2026 already has private courses, programmes, website enhancements and more on the agenda with less access to Teams and a bit more confidence in myself to get things wrong and the odd time right. Anyway, this is for me not you but if you feel the same sometimes, talk to someone. It does help.</p>
<p> <br />
			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area"><br />
				<time datetime="2025-12-22" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 22, 2025</time><br />
			</span></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Short Courses Platform Implementation and Me</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/short-courseplatform-implementation-and-me/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/short-courseplatform-implementation-and-me/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2025 14:07:26 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Short Courses Platform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=555</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The new short course platform is alive! First thing you might ask is ‘What is a short course?’. Well, these are courses that enable learners around the world to gain a new skills, expand their interests in a topic, or fulfil professional development needs. Secondly, go have a look at the shiny new UoE developed […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The new short course platform is alive!</p>
<p>First thing you might ask is ‘What is a short course?’. Well, these are courses that enable learners around the world to gain a new skills, expand their interests in a topic, or fulfil professional development needs.</p>
<p>Secondly, go have a look at the shiny new <a href="https://shortcourses.ed.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UoE developed short courses website</a> that allows you to browse, view details on a course, register, pay (if costed), sign up to mailing lists, receive automated comms on the course and access course material via a dedicated VLE/LMS or whatever letters you like to call an online learning platform (it can do more but I don’t want to spoil the fun).</p>
<p>3 years of my life have been dedicated to launching this set of services and its been a roller coaster. but for today lets briefly talk about the set of service that make up the short course platform. This blog won’t cover all the amazing work done by colleagues for course design, branding, marketing etc but will discuss the services (platforms) that make up the short course platform.</p>
<p><strong>The background (always important to tell the back story)</strong></p>
<p>Short courses are offered by various schools across the institution and have been managed and taught via numerous platforms and usually involved a lot of disjointed workflows for learners, teacher and administrators. Short courses didn’t have a dedicated service, we had a gap in the digital eco-system and learners were managed in silo via over complicated workflows and taught on platforms that maybe shouldn’t have been used or weren’t the best for delivering or supporting learning.</p>
<p>Quite a conundrum but not a new one to many of us. Start the business analysis, market analysis, funding applications, procurement and contract sign off (I skipped a lot of steps but that’s another blog) and we get to the fun stuff, implementation.</p>
<p><strong><br />
The services (get ready for learning technology bingo)</strong></p>
<p>The obvious ones are a <strong>Virtual learning environment</strong> so we can facilitate online, hybrid, and in person teaching and learning. The university loves collecting VLEs and at one point I think we had completed the sticker album and had a few swaps available (mostly Moodles). An early decision was to consider a standalone VLE that would separate learners and students and for an institution that has spent years consolidating VLEs this was the first big decision.</p>
<p>It was clear looking at the options this would be more beneficial technically and practically. Technically VLEs all share very similar elements and for short courses we would being use a subset of the tools available but we needed a reliable and stable platform that could support us as the service grew.</p>
<p>Practically we wanted learners to create and manage their own accounts which also reduces the admin burden on courses who may have been managing users manually. Splitting the audience allowed us more flexibility to offer a tailored learning experience to learners but (and its a biggie) we were very wary that we would be introducing a new platform which teachers and administrators would need to learn. This comes back to my initial point VLEs under the hood do have similarities and we understood the risk.  We implemented Canvas by Instructure.</p>
<p>We also needed a shopfront which would be a multifaceted tool (the swiz army knife of the overall service) that included (deep breathe):</p>
<ul>
<li>an online tool to advertise the courses</li>
<li>a payment integration</li>
<li>course management tool</li>
<li>order management</li>
<li>user management</li>
<li>access to all the data</li>
<li>all had to be accessible and compliant</li>
</ul>
<p>I won’t list anymore but you hopefully get the gist and understand it was an very important part of the jigsaw. Internally we have referred to this platform as the <strong>user, course, order content management system</strong> (it rolls of the tongue).  Looking around we didn’t have anything in house that could do the above so we again did the business analysis, market analysis, spoke to some great institutions to understand products available. We implemented a Eduframe by Drieam which is used by a few other UK Universities.</p>
<p>Eduframe did come with a WordPress based website however my development colleagues flagged concerns (they have been burned by WordPress a few times). We then looked at Drupal (which is used for the University website) however again it didn’t meet are long list of requirements. So we plonked for developing a<strong> bespoke website using the next,js framework</strong>. That will be its own blog like all the other services discussed in this post but a big thank you to Andrew Millington for all his support and advise to get the website off the ground.</p>
<p><strong>What about data!</strong> We love data so needed to ensure we could access all the data to allow for pretty visuals to be created and large numbers to be shared on professional media channels.  Eduframe has as set of APIs that have allowed us to a Power BI App (they have their own app but we love developing stuff), Canvas has in product analytics and Canvas Data 2 and we use GA4 for web analytics. Its alot of data.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><figure id="attachment_560" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-560" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-560" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-300x226.jpg" alt="whiteboard with my brain" width="300" height="226" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-300x226.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-1024x771.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-768x578.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-1536x1157.jpg 1536w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-2048x1542.jpg 2048w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-1275x960.jpg 1275w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-560" class="wp-caption-text">Data Data Data brain dump on a whiteboard</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>So how do staff access the platform without needing a separate login or going through a long and convoluted process to get access to the platform? We created a <strong>teacher admin app</strong> using the Eduframe APIs that syncs with the central user management system. This allows admins to enable access to the short course platform with the assurance that when staff leave accounts are updated. Staff login using their UoE account so don’t need to find that bit of paper with a password (I am joking…).</p>
<p>So, to summarise the below are the key services that make up the short course platform.</p>
<ul>
<li>Virtual learning environment</li>
<li>User, course, order content management system</li>
<li>Bespoke website using the next,js framework</li>
<li>Data reporting tools</li>
<li>Teacher admin app</li>
</ul>
<p>This list does not cover the payment integrations, the numerous integrations we have with tools in canvas and the numerous workflows required to support courses (book, apply, private, waiting lists etc) but hopefully it provides an overview of the services we have implemented that allow us to successfully support and manage the short course platform at scale.</p>
<p>So on reflection 3 years ago I was blissfully paddle boarding on Loch Ness not knowing what was lurking beneath, bit like the implementation of any new service.<br />
			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area"><br />
				<time datetime="2025-08-07" itemprop="dateModified">Aug 7, 2025</time><br />
			</span></p>
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		<title>Failure and me</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/failure-and-me/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Mar 2025 08:43:30 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[service]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=544</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The past few weeks have reminded me that failure is a part of everything we do. Whether it’s in our professional lives or personal pursuits, from breaking an application to playing a game incorrectly and not winning, failure happens. The term ‘failure’ sounds harsh, but for me, it is about becoming comfortable with it and […]]]></description>
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<p>The past few weeks have reminded me that failure is a part of everything we do. Whether it’s in our professional lives or personal pursuits, from breaking an application to playing a game incorrectly and not winning, failure happens. The term ‘failure’ sounds harsh, but for me, it is about becoming comfortable with it and ensuring we mitigate its effects.</p>
<p>As we approach the launch of a new platform at the university, it is difficult not to reflect on missed opportunities or things we could have done differently. I need to remind myself that when we started, we didn’t have the wealth of knowledge that we have now, gained over the last 18 months. It’s challenging for me not to get caught up in a “failure spiral,” which can have negative consequences both professionally and personally.</p>
<p>I listen to a few sports podcasts, and a quote by Samuel Beckett came up:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better – Samuel Beckett</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I love this quote! Failure, when rolling out not just one, but five new applications, along with brand new processes, creating a new service, introducing new technology, new workflows, training, understanding the present, planning for the future, onboarding, involvement in boards and steering groups, and dealing with compliance—how can we not fail? Therefore, we need to get comfortable with failure, but try to “fail better” by:</p>
<ol>
<li>Accepting that it has happened, and for me, it’s part of the job. Get comfortable.</li>
<li>Reviewing what happened by getting the facts.</li>
<li>Understanding why it happened, which sometimes involves digging deeper than the facts.</li>
<li>Developing new strategies so we do not fail in the same way again or so we can fail better.</li>
<li>Implementing a process or workflow to help us, which is documented.</li>
<li>Communicating consistently in all the above steps. It’s not easy, but it’s key.</li>
</ol>
<p>Obviously, we want to deliver a service that is perfect, but in my 20 years of working in the tech center, I have yet to find an application that hasn’t changed, that hasn’t been rebranded, or that hasn’t required UI changes, that still is exactly the same as it was when it launched. Look at Apple; they love to tell us it’s perfect, but what they define as “flawed perfection” means it’s constantly changing.</p>
<p>Accepting failure doesn’t mean we sit back with popcorn and watch the “wheels fall off.” Failing better, for me, involves a lot of work to ensure we minimize failure (if possible) and are prepared when it happens (again, sometimes we aren’t, as it could be a new workflow, patch, cyber attack, user requirement, or edge case scenario).</p>

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		<title>2024: the year of short courses & the edge!</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2024-the-year-of-short-courses-the-edge/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:18:56 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=529</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>This is my reflection on my 2024. It’s for me but you can come along for a few minutes. First reflection, why have I not blogged more this year!  Simple answer its been hectic but I feel like I could have reflected on a more regular basis the 12 month journey. Second reflection, what a […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>This is my reflection on my 2024. It’s for me but you can come along for a few minutes.</p>
<p>First reflection, why have I not blogged more this year!  Simple answer its been hectic but I feel like I could have reflected on a more regular basis the 12 month journey.</p>
<p>Second reflection, what a year!</p>
<p>By the end of 2023 we signed the contract with Drieam (who support the learner, course and order management platform called <a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Feduframe.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cc57c79c049f74fc4222608dd3536802c%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C638725230381480477%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=qiL39YC%2B0JyNdVLoKhQQo%2FHuTFRPszgLbUrHKTbRDpQ%3D&reserved=0">eduframe.com</a>) and Instructure (who host the learning platform called Canvas <a href="https://www.instructure.com">https://www.instructure.com</a>) to help us deliver the new Short Course Platform. It had taken 6 months of procurement and legal wrangling to get the contract sorted but in December 2023 it was finally signed. The short course platform will allow the public to browse courses via a web site, create an account, pay (if costed), enrol, learn, maybe get a digital badge and hopefully come back and repeat the process.</p>
<p>The platform aims to emulate a lot of the learnings from the core VLE projects including a consistent user experience, replacing laborious and admin heavy workarounds and having a clear purpose/strategy/vision. It has been a gap in the learning eco-system for a while and we have seen schools/depts bend tools and policies to meet their needs.</p>
<p>Interestingly with the current issues in HE we are starting to see a few other institutions spin up similar platforms. When we started this journey 2 years ago only a few examples existed but with institutions keen to explore additional revenue tracks we have seen similar platforms come online but that’s a different blog.</p>
<p>Like any new service we are starting fresh, which is great! But as soon as we started to update stakeholders and share the news more widely that we had signed a contract then comes the big questions…..when will it be available? Can we use it? How do I use it? Is it compliant? Will the learners like it? What is a learner? Can I show it to my friends? What is a short course?</p>
<p>It can feel like a landslide but I am lucky to work with people who are very supportive, open to ideas and like me love a plan(ner).The service isn’t just one new service, its 4 new platforms, training, guidance, marketing, communication, stakeholder engagement (one off and ongoing), terms of use, legal, compliant handling, data protection, accessibility, reporting (another new service so make that 5), terminology and the list goes on and on.</p>
<p>Spinning up a new service involves working with colleagues inside the department and making sure we are all confident or if not approachable to ask questions. Sounds easy but it’s probably the toughest part, the people who are the face of change need to speak the same language or stakeholders will lose confidence pretty quickly and that can cause tension in teams (who said what, why, when, did they not read the 1000 page memo).</p>
<p>Change agents also need to change. The ability to listen and change what we have thought about, developed or delivered is also key but with the caveat it must be based on facts. I listen to sports podcasts and was really intrigued by a football manager saying the team needed to focus on the team’s core goals (playing good football) and not be driven by the edge (bad passes and mistakes). That edge in service delivery can sometimes be a blocker to progress especially when creating a new service. Evaluating the use case and categorising it is key to understanding impact and priority especially when deadline is involved.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong use cases generated by stakeholders need to be listened to and evaluated but it’s the teams requirement to review and categories. Sometimes its not popular with stakeholders however I am a firm believer that services are never perfect. They evolve as does the requirements, the users (all of them) and the underlying technology. Services deliver to the masses and aim to meet all requirements however I have struggled to work on a service that doesn’t have a wish list or a product development roadmap.</p>
<p>The quicker you get comfortable with the edge the better.</p>
<p>My role in the project is technical lead but I feel more like a troubleshooter and negotiator. I have had to get to grips with 4 new bit of tech (content management system, payment portal, new VLE, a website developed on Next.js, a user provisioning tools) and help design a 5<sup>th</sup> (data reporting tool), negotiate with others use of the tools, design, onboarding for early adopter, project timelines and I am mentally knackered. Thankfully (again) a good team and me being very open about forgetting stuff and asking for reminders or checking my notes (which have merged into teams chats) has helped keep me on track. A technical lead sounds like someone who knows it all and I don’t but that’s ok. My role is offering workflows and options to a problem whilst speaking to the experts to help me map it out. Last Monday I had no clue on GA4 and now we have a plan to debug tags. Last Jan I started to play with APIs of the new platforms and now not a day goes by when I don’t have postman open and I am trying to figure out something.</p>
<p>2024 has been a blast but it’s been difficult. The projects have been challenging and that’s not just the tech. My confidence has taken a bit of a bashing along the way but its not personal. I will look back when we finally go live in May 2025 and think 2024 is the year we made a lot of decisions, I learned a little bit more about me and I am sharing some with you as it may help and remembe0 for any service its not the destination as there is never a destination, its just one big journey.<br />
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				<time datetime="2024-12-23" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 23, 2024</time><br />
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		<title>Canvas UK & Ireland User Group December 2024</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/canvas-uk-ireland-user-group-december-2024/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:01:56 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ai]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[canvas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sd]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=521</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>A user group is a great way to get the latest product gossip from the supplier and more importantly other institutions. They are great ways to network, get inspiration from peers and generally gauge where we are in the current implementation compared to others (plus free pastries).The Canvas UK & Ireland user group was hosted […]]]></description>
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<p>A user group is a great way to get the latest product gossip from the supplier and more importantly other institutions. They are great ways to network, get inspiration from peers and generally gauge where we are in the current implementation compared to others (plus free pastries).<br />The Canvas UK & Ireland user group was hosted by Manchester University. The day covered the Canvas roadmap, rubric adoption at medical schools, institutions migrating to canvas from another suppliers, break out sessions on analytics and administration of a VLE and more however there seemed to be one theme that was ever present in sessions, AI.</p>
<p>The first presenter represented FE and discussed how they had developed AI tools based on the Azure Framework (Microsoft) to create assessment feedback for students, assessment feedback summaries for staff and AI assistants to support students. The session highlighted how coding light tools can be developed using existing frameworks, APIs and a lot of engagement with users. The session generated a lot of questions including environmental impact, opt-in/out, academic integrity, quality and assurance of feedback etc. These questions aren’t new but I feel like we have moved from a space where we questioned AI and how it would be included in education to a new space where institutions themselves are developing tools.</p>
<p>With Open AI and the rapid evolution of LLMs suppliers are rushing to squeeze AI into their applications but at what risk? And why? I feel like we are partly to blame as we like new stuff but also want to improve the staff and student experience. It feels like AI might be the new thing that will solve all our problems (did someone saying Learning Analytics…). Like any new tech and especially with LLMs we also need to factor that these cohorts may have a certain level of expectation that AI is integrated into their professional, academic or learning journey. My fear is where should it be integrated and why?</p>
<p><br />New stuff is always fun for me but as someone who works with technology, I also need to consider the why? What is this bringing to the user’s experience? Do we have a gap? Does it improve the users experience? Any repercussions we need to consider? Speaking to design colleagues and stakeholders should drive the change and with AI I don’t know how much of a conversation is happening with users. Don’t get me wrong we need to start somewhere, and basic support bots being used to support users (like <a href="https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/computing/comms-and-collab/elm">ELM</a> or <a href="https://edhelp.ed.ac.uk/">EDHelp</a>) help us grow knowledge and at the same time they practically allow end-users to interact and maybe think about additional functionality they would like to see included in these tools or where they can envision these tools supporting them.</p>
<p>Instructure will be releasing more AI functionality and already have tools like Insights which utilises aspects of AI so:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘buckle your seat Dorothy, cause Kanvas is going bye-bye!’ – Cypher, The Matrix.<br /><br /></p>
</blockquote>

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		<title>2023 Reflection</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2023-reflection/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Dec 2023 09:46:14 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital badges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=497</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 3</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>It has been a while since I sat down with my thoughts. I have been talking about making time to blog and reflect and today is the day!  If you’re new here, hello! This will not be an ideological masterpiece or reference books I read related to the role but more a personal reflection for […]]]></description>
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<p>It has been a while since I sat down with my thoughts. I have been talking about making time to blog and reflect and today is the day!  If you’re new here, hello! This will not be an ideological masterpiece or reference books I read related to the role but more a personal reflection for me on me, but you can read it (just don’t tell anyone!).</p>
<p>My 2023 will be the year of procurement, digital badges, and supporting the team (bored reading about AI so omitting it until Jan 2024).<br /><br />I have previously blogged about digital badges and how they have emerged from the pit of edu-tech doom and evolved into something that has value for issuers, earners and anyone else who is interested in the recognition of skills, achievements or competencies. I have also talked about replacing standalone credit that equates to nothing in the real world and longer term how institutions will need to offer digital versions of credit as the death of paper accelerates. I get it that people will still want to frame awards etc I just think that may be a minority.<br /><br />The team has done a fantastic job completing a procurement and establishing a service to support a 3-year pilot which we hope will extend with the pending new fun aka the short course platform. In just over 6 months we have issued over 1.5k badges, created and supported a badge governance process, created numerous guides and snazzy webpages, and planned to experiment with badge pathways in 2024. If you are interested have a peek at the webpage: <a href="https://edin.ac/3Waglnj">https://edin.ac/3Waglnj</a> and yes that is a badger wearing a jacket with badges (they are called Bo the badger).</p>
<p><br />I can only see badge popularity and use cases growing however I have concerns regarding the quality of products in the market, cost (platform prices vary vastly) and openness of underlying badge frameworks and portability. With Instructure hoovering up Badgr and now Parchment a big player is making an early move and the wider impact will be interesting to watch.</p>
<p>Procurements are always interesting and when the outcome is a brand new service it’s even more ‘exciting’. At this point I am going to read your mind, are you thinking something along the lines of…</p>
<p>‘Wow Wow, Myles is that a typo!, has the eggnog gone to your head!’ </p>
<p>The answer is no, in a weird and slightly concerning way it’s been fascinating to work with the project team to collaborate, collate, refine and produce a vision with key stakeholders for a new centrally supported platform that will allow the public to view CPD, PPD and any other short courses. pay (if required) and access a dedicated learning platform or be sent any relevant course information. </p>
<p>Ok, in reality, the devil is in the details and creating clear and concise questions that suppliers need to answer is a challenge. Interpreting those answers and scoring them is a bigger challenge especially then the question set is over 100 questions! Then agreeing to scores and feedback is a bigger challenge! It’s like Mortal Combat but without the combat as that would involve HR (however sometimes I think it would have been quicker to just have the combat).</p>
<p>So why did we need to go into the combat ring of procurement? Currently, these types of courses are delivered via numerous platforms, can be an admin burden to support staff, provide an inconsistent and sometimes poor learner experience and may be breaching software licenses (moving on swiftly). To summarise it’s very Edinburgh. everyone is doing something different.  So, we proposed a change as we saw a clear gap and after lots of conversations, papers, presentations, and acronym searching we secured support from senior management and a budget from the institution. Instructure and Drieam won the procurement, and I look forward to working with them in 2024.</p>
<p>I manage a small team and also deputize for the section head. I enjoy both and am fortunate to be surrounded by people I respect and enjoy working with each day but this year has taught me to be a human first and a manager second. Work-life balance has always been important to me, especially with a family and growing up in a family where that balance did not exist and witnessing the impact on people’s mental and physical health has always been a valuable lesson to me.</p>
<p>I work hard as Myles Blaney team manager, technical lead, senior service manager, internal consultant, HR rep for the team, information security rep for the section, procurement mediator, badge specialist, and everything else in between. So, I need time to be Myles Blaney gym enthusiast, bike rider, Newcastle United fan, MMA fan, gamer, husband, dad, son, brother, dad taxi, family event planner, and spectator to name a few. I am lucky to have control of my balance due to my supportive manager but I also need to take control of it when I have it and not to quickly check or reply to a ping in teams.</p>
<p>Lastly, AI! It’s here to stay and we are only at the base of the hype curve. I have dabbled this year with Karen into what other institutions are doing and it’s another blog I will post in Jan 2024. Exciting and terrifying at the same time but not new just quicker, faster and better.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>

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		<title>Canvas Credentials: the new open digital badge platform</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/canvas-credentials-the-new-open-digital-badge-platform/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:32:31 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital badges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[instructure]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=482</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>Finally after months of scoring procurement questions, analysing costs and negotiation I am pleased to announce that we will be providing open digital badges via Canvas Credentials (formally called Badgr).This is the start of a 3 year pilot to understand the value of digital badges for all stakeholders. Obviously for the earners aka the people […]]]></description>
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<p>Finally after months of scoring procurement questions, analysing costs and negotiation I am pleased to announce that we will be providing open digital badges via Canvas Credentials (formally called Badgr).<br /><br />This is the start of a 3 year pilot to understand the value of digital badges for all stakeholders. Obviously for the earners aka the people awarded a badge(s), will it help motivate them? will they share it on digital CVs or social media? will they even click on the email and accept the badge? what about employability? how do they value a digital badge?<br /><br />How about issuers aka the schools that award the badge, is the platform easy to use? does it allow them the flexibility to develop and deliver standalone and badges which are interlinked (like a pathway)? what about resource for managing all things badges? and why bother with badges?<br /><br />Hang on, what about IS (we are people too), how does it affect us as issuer, earners and support? So all of the above plus is the platform robust? does it provide what the issuers and earners need? how will the service grow? will be see a badge bonanza or the butchering of badges?<br /><br />Whatever will happen the next few years will allow us to pilot and review the premium version of canvas credentials. For clarification when I say premium I mean paid for aka we get extra bits and bobs like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Lots of Analytics: data, data, data</li>
<li>Organisation Management: aka one admin to rule them all! </li>
<li>Ability to add skills to a badge: I got skills their multiplying!</li>
<li>Ability to add custom fields to a badge: starting to panic about how this could be used!</li>
<li>Pathways: interlinked badges journeys</li>
</ul>
<p>Sounds pretty cool! Pathways are probably the ‘funnest’ (not a word but you know what I mean) premium tool which will allow schools or departments to create open stackable badges or paths (basic, intermediate, high ) to a higher level of achievement (Expert). These can include internal or external open badges so in theory could involve external bodies (e.g. companies, other institutions) and users can track their own progress! (take a breathe!).</p>
<p>And what have we decided to call the new open digital badge pilot/service……(drum roll)……BadgEd! (we got the word badge, we are the University of Edinburgh and we love incorporating Ed into stuff). </p>
<p>Sounds like a busy few years? You interested in finding out some more information? Ain’t you lucky we created this website where you can find out some more information on the <a href="https://edin.ac/40QRuX3">BadgEd webpages.</a></p>
<p><br />Finally this wouldn’t be possible without all the hard work of colleagues who have been exceptional (as usual) to help get from an idea to a live pilot (so thanks goes to Delia, Tracey, Nikki, Karen, Fiona and Ellen). Let the hard (fun) work begin….<br /><br /></p>

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		<title>Digital Badges, not just a pretty picture</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/digital-badges-not-just-a-pretty-picture/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/digital-badges-not-just-a-pretty-picture/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2022 15:48:03 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital badges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=455</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>Digital badges are back! They never went away I hear you say and yes? Of course not but we did enter an odd phase were badges were being issued for anything or everything (I like to refer to this era as the ‘Oprah Winfrey’ era). So we all got badges and the value of a […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>Digital badges are back! They never went away I hear you say and yes? Of course not but we did enter an odd phase were badges were being issued for anything or everything (I like to refer to this era as the ‘Oprah Winfrey’ era).</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium aligncenter" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7ZeQBhbVGnELP4bK/giphy.gif" alt="you get a gif" width="480" height="326" /></p>
<p>So we all got badges and the value of a badge declined plus how could we validate the badge, where do we put the badges to promote ourselves? So the badge hype slowly dwindled to some hardcore fans who issued badges sporadically. Badge strategies were forgotten and images of badges were added to email signatures with no ability to validate someones claim to be an Google Cloud wizard.  I should also state that the frustration with badges also may be related to lack of platforms to develop and issue plus the limited options for styling, metadata and a space for an earner to host (yes Mozilla backpack was available however if you used it then you would understand it had issues).</p>
<p>I personally worked with badges via Blackboard learn a few years ago and we had some great use cases but the value of badges was not recognized by external institutions or private companies.</p>
<p>Fast forward a few years and the digital badge ecosystem has evolved. IMS open badge standards have been widely adopted by numerous suppliers, the options for badge creation & management is also diverse with open, free and paid for services available and most importantly the understanding that to maintain value for digital badges institution needs to have a strategy for badge creation.</p>
<p>The value aspect is key, speaking to other institutions in the UK and US they have stressed how value can only be maintained by guidance and governance. Guidance ensures standardization of the visual, the metadata and criteria for awarding. The visual is key and in most cases badge consumers (someone who sees a badge on a host platform aka linkedin, personal web page, email signature) will only see a small thumbnail of the image so keeping it clean and not going full Picasso is key. To get around the visual issue the creation of a style guide and a badge template helps subdue any hidden artistic desires.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium aligncenter" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/l4tV5VQbNScIikY4o/giphy.gif" alt="picasso art" width="480" height="480" /></p>
<p>Metadata is key, its the data/information that provides the context for the badge and includes fields like description, competencies, achievements, award criteria, expiration and the ability for consumers to check validation! Yes, if you have shared a badge I can check if your a world of war craft level 6 orc from the dune sea by clicking on the validate button.</p>
<p>Governance allows users to request a badge and for it to be reviewed by badge champions to ensure we do not create 100 badges for the same thing, ensure badge value is maintained (aka we don’t hurtle back to the Oprah era, PS you get a badge for reading this far!) and badge visuals are maintained (we want the University of Edinburgh badge experience to follow established design guidelines and best practices) . I would stress that governance is a mix of academic and service staff all with a vested interest in the success of digital badges.</p>
<p>So we have a process and some standards so what do we issue badges for? As highlighted earlier they have been issued for everything and we are keen to avoid those dark days. Badges have a place for recognition of extra curricula or non-curricula skills, competencies or achievements that may not be recognized via other awards or even at all. Badges can be used to level up the softer skills that are core to user development or simply recognize the skills, competencies or achievements a user has gained. Badges spans the digital ecosystem and user base and could be issued on a MOOC platform to a user completing the book MOOC or to a member of staff for competing the Information security training.</p>
<p>So I gained a badge what next? How about recommendations for associated badges which can build upon your skills, achievements or competencies gained via a previous badge. Or the ability to share on a host platform (go on be that LinkedIn boaster who announces everything they are doing to the world) or it can be kept private. Even better imagine having a space that is yours for life and doesn’t need you to be registered at the university, your account, your personal email address your in control. Or don’t claim the badge its all up to the earner (They have the power!)</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-medium" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/yhK4PWI9WJ0c/giphy.gif" alt="i have the power" width="320" height="240" /></p>
<p>The good news is that this service will be launching in the academic year 2022-23 and the team will share more thoughts once we pick a platform. The last thing I wanted to share is that whilst we are focusing on non-credit extra/non-curricula skills, achievements and competencies we are starting to hear institution considering issuing badges for UG and PG degree awards which kinda makes sense. Question if you have a degree what do you have to show your awesome achievement? and more importantly where is it? Personally I got a paper certificate and it sits in a cupboard with all my life admin things. Its not visible, its not verifiable and its on a bit of paper which isn’t great for the environment. A digital badge is verifiable and can be shared on numerous professional and/or personal platforms plus no trees were cut down to produce it. Sure the award ceremony might be slightly different however I have a feeling that the digital badge will be more useful to graduates.</p>
<p> <br />
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				<time datetime="2022-08-09" itemprop="dateModified">Aug 9, 2022</time><br />
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		<title>My Hybrid Reflections (not yours!)</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/my-hybrid-reflections-not-yours/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/my-hybrid-reflections-not-yours/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Nov 2021 09:52:18 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hybrid]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=421</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>19 months ago the thought of me staying at home for 23hrs for months would have terrified me, however we got out routine sorted which helped a lot, this included Joe Wicks 0900, BoJo presser at 1700 (do this but don’t do this), becoming at P2 teacher 1330-1600 (elbow pads in the post), family walk […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>
<p>19 months ago the thought of me staying at home for 23hrs for months would have terrified me, however we got out routine sorted which helped a lot, this included Joe Wicks 0900, BoJo presser at 1700 (do this but don’t do this), becoming at P2 teacher 1330-1600 (elbow pads in the post), family walk on the golf course 1600-1700. Throughout that period my working arrangements shifted from room to room as my setup evolved into a desk in my spare bedroom with a large screen and laptop. I have also blogged about the transitions if your interested in the detail but now I am now a hybrid worker.</p>
<p>Hybrid, what’s that? Well it’s kinda like a bit of office working and a bit of home working and for my working situation it makes a lot of common sense. Why does it work for me? The flexibility is something I have craved for years. I worked at home 1 day a week for 13 years, it allowed me to focus on documentation (if you have had the pleasure of working with me you know I love a good process document and making things transparent for anyone involved, who wouldn’t, share the fun), building servers remotely and other individual tasks with maybe the odd phone call to ask people to press a button on campus. Over the 13 years technology has evolved from email, messenger, skype for business (once you got it working) and now teams or Zoom. </p>
<p>Technology evolves and whilst we adapt it seamlessly into our non-working lives, with some of us actively promoting it for work, are 9-5 environment has stagnated due to numerous factors that include open spaces and noise, users unfamiliarity with the technology (e.g. can you hear me, I have poor Wi-Fi. Cat face – to name a few common issues), the technology being regarded as secondary, peoples personal or meeting room hardware setups (some people have vanity lights some people have 3 laptops perched on encyclopaedias).  With the tech evolving we can now do remote tasks which now include group work (ability to host or join online meetings), group text chat, drop-ins to chat, share a screen and work through shared documents or issues. </p>
<p>So the technology has evolved (braw!) however the office space hasn’t however what is the office meant to be? I have blogged that people are the campus and they! This has been clearly shown over the numerous lockdowns but as a red brick university the campus is the shop floor for the bulk of roles. IS touch numerous points of campus life (on and remote) and we have shown we can work in extreme circumstances however personally for me I prefer a hybrid work space, which is ultimately a flexible work space.</p>
<p>Home working is great, no trains, no flesh market close steps, no expensive sandwich or coffee shops, work in leisure clothes (bought my first pair of tracksuit bottoms 6 months ago….), no running to meetings basically a lot of good points,. I love my house however I like coming back to it (bit like when you walk in the door post-holiday after sharing a confined space with the hobbits) and I am a strong believer in work life balance. Now for me what work life balance means is ‘give and take’ aka flexibility, managing time/resource, honestly. It may sound preachy but having a young family has taught me to enjoy the time and separate work (like the LTW no comms after 6 policy).  I know   people who find this impossible and to be honest it freaks me out but it’s their decision. </p>
<p>Working in the office 2 days gives me a bit of separation and allows me to plan 2 different days however I don’t plan them any different and for the foreseeable wont. I come in and work, catch up with folks, meet online or in-person and go home. Currently 2 days is enough and not due to COVID concerns but due to the change in routine (which I am over) and the office feeling different. The space feels subdued and when I come in it’s like a Saturday.  It’s quiet for a time however co-ordinating days when others (usually Karen or Nikki) are in helps prioritise tasks for those days, allows us to bounce ideas around (scheduling collaboration and spontaneity on Teams is difficult) and lets me see other people J which I miss. Some of the people I get to work with or share an office with are worth the train fare alone to cheer me up. The human side of work and the office has been something I have blogged about before and it’s one of the reasons why I enjoy my job.</p>
<p>So let’s be honest about the office, desk layout isn’t the best for online meetings and mics pick up other conversations pretty quickly. Meeting rooms are quiet but rely heavily on tech working and the building not being full (booking a room prior to COVID was like a playing a game in Squid Games – somebody would die!). If we are to adopt hybrid shared desk arrangements, thinning of the space would help. The creation of more social sitting and printer booth breakout spaces would help the space however my big thing is the noise. We probably need to admit that for a truly hybrid space the open spaces will need to be a bit more nosier due to online meetings held at desk, more collaboration spaces in teams local environments (again noisy) and the acceptance that the office should be a collaboration space and not just a undefined space with a desk with your stuff on it. Making it a collaboration friendly space helps hybrid workers however like we have all gone through over the past months it would require a change and physical office space changes are probably the most difficult to accept.</p>
<p>So hybrid for me works, the tech now allows us the flexibility, management now understand having being entrenched in it during lockdowns but (always a but) the office isn’t configured to support it…yet. My experience of coming into the office isn’t negative however it could be better which I will be feeding back.</p>

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				<time datetime="2021-11-16" itemprop="dateModified">Nov 16, 2021</time>
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		<title>Who needs awards anyway!</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/who-needs-awards-anyway/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/who-needs-awards-anyway/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 08:59:32 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=663</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The 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 […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>
<p>The 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 above and beyond to accomplish some amazing tasks. Secondly. we were robbed<br /><br />We had drafted a speech (after all the wild celebrations, kissing the badge, knee slides and general mocking and aggressive finger pointing at the opposition) and whilst we didn’t get the opportunity to read it out I still think it’s worth sharing as a last thank you for those involved in delivering the short course platform. It’s the end of a programme but the beginning of a new service.<br /><br /><br />The Speech:<br /><br />The short course platform was a programme that started just under 4 years ago. It was after the closure of the distance learning at scale programme which may not have been the burning success we wanted however it had taught us valuable lessons which ultimately led us to the successful launch of the short course platform.<br /><br />I think what I want to flag, is that sometimes things don’t work out the way you wanted or expected , but that’s ok, learning and evolving is part of our roles and the sweet doesn’t taste as sweet without the sour.<br /><br />We would like to acknowledge all the support and time provided by stakeholders across the institution who attended numerous, steering groups, boards, demo sessions and various meetings. Their patience and time have ultimately steered and supported us to deliver a successful programme and sets of services used by over 7k learners accessing over 1k courses so far.<br /><br />We would not be accepting this award without the hard work and down right determination of some key folk who have worked collaboratively across LTW and Apps. On behalf of the team we need to thank section heads Stuart and Karen for their invaluable support. Andrews team for delivering a snazzy shopfront, Lauren and Fiona’s team for all their hard work in designing course, websites, an amazing spoint hub and training just to name a few things. Legal for doing legal stuff and Neil for helping us understand it. Viki Galts team for everything accessibility. All the PMs that have organised us over the last few years and Ellen who got us over the line. Cassie for organising groups, boards, papers and making sense of are wittering’s in meetings. Adam Scott and Gordon Forbes for guiding us through the madness of finance. My team for delivering 5 technical services and all the related compliance and process fun that all involve. Lastly, I want to thank Nikki Stuart for the drive and support for the delivery of the platform. <br /><br />The short course programme felt like a family, dysfunctional at times but aren’t all families/projects.</p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2026-02-17" itemprop="dateModified">Feb 17, 2026</time>
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		<title>2025: The year SCP took off</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2025-the-year-scp-took-off/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2025-the-year-scp-took-off/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:15:55 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Short Courses Platform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=573</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 3</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>That 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 […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 3</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>That 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.</p>
<p>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 payment platform so everyone panics about financial transactions), compliance (privacy policies, terms and conditions for a new service), processes (we have the tech but how do we use it, support it, manage it, update it, access it, review it, communicate it, approve it etc) has been challenging.</p>
<p>I love a challenge but 2025 has been a tough one hence my reflection feeling different if not slightly weird. The pressure and expectation to have all the answers to various elements of a new platform (technical and non-technical) at stages throughout this year has been difficult to manage.</p>
<p>Part of this is my own expectation to have the answers or simply know everything. Part of this was my own disappointment and frustration when I didn’t. Part of this is the pressure cooker of delivering a new platform across the institution during a period of financial instability. It’s a lot of parts (some I haven’t included) but in reality, the only part I can fully control is me. Turning off a bit more sounds like an easy solution but it felt impossible. I honestly look back and am thankful for my colleagues who have supported me in 2025. SCP took a chunk of me and getting it out the door nearly broke me.</p>
<p>Friday emails (I don’t work Fridays) and teams conversations kept me in cycle of checking in when I should have been checking out. Don’t get me wrong, my role is to deliver and support services so it’s part of the JD and its with great joy the teams have delivered but the paranoid version of me questions “what did I do”. I know the answer but when things start to go wrong it leads to darker place. Am I mansplaining, are the right people included, what did that person mean, we agreed this but its changed, why?, why am I not invited to that meeting? Constant thoughts swirling through my head when in reality as the project grew you need to let go as it’s impossible to do it all. Placing trust in others but more importantly practising what you preach, sharing the load (like Samwise Gangee wanted to help Frodo by carrying the one ring into the fires of mount doom……), be transparent and listen.</p>
<p>I enjoy the challenge, I love pushing myself but I don’t have all the answers, I get stuff wrong and I am only 1 person. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable has been a big mentality change. It helps when your surrounded by supportive people.<br />
Practically, I also installed an app blocker on my phone which makes accessing Teams and checking emails on a Friday a living nightmare as my phone makes me jump through multiple hurdles to even login to Teams (which is a kinda great!).</p>
<p>Learning and playing more with APIs, agile methodologies, Power BI, headless CMS, resource planning, release planning, power apps, power flow, Canvas, virtual meetings, communications, working groups, BAU are things that have all of a sudden merged into my vocabulary over the past 12 months. Lessons learnt is a term I am looking forward to using less over 2026…..although it’s part of however they are key to the of reflecting and being honest (as much as you can be).</p>
<p>SCP launched in June and so far we have over 450 courses which have ran just under 1000 times, 7k learners and over 11,500 enrolments which have either been via online card transactions or backend fun orders. The platform was a massive task with contributions from various teams in IS and across the institution. Listening and adapting the platform or the requirements has been pivotal to launching a platform that is starting to gain traction amongst schools.</p>
<p>Sadly, it will be the last year in Argyle House or as some may recognise the building as the police station in Dept Q (Netflix). Looking at a castle every day, having easy access to meeting rooms, seemingly always being on or close to a film set (T2, Frankenstein, Avengers) will be things I will miss. Listening to the jazz folk jam under the bridge at castle terrace will definitely not be something I will miss. We move in March and I wil miss the eye sore.</p>
<p>Overall, 2025 will always be the year we launched and I am proud of what we achieved. 2026 already has private courses, programmes, website enhancements and more on the agenda with less access to Teams and a bit more confidence in myself to get things wrong and the odd time right. Anyway, this is for me not you but if you feel the same sometimes, talk to someone. It does help.</p>
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			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area"><br />
				<time datetime="2025-12-22" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 22, 2025</time><br />
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		<title>Short Courses Platform Implementation and Me</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/short-courseplatform-implementation-and-me/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/short-courseplatform-implementation-and-me/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2025 14:07:26 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Short Courses Platform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=555</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The new short course platform is alive! First thing you might ask is ‘What is a short course?’. Well, these are courses that enable learners around the world to gain a new skills, expand their interests in a topic, or fulfil professional development needs. Secondly, go have a look at the shiny new UoE developed […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The new short course platform is alive!</p>
<p>First thing you might ask is ‘What is a short course?’. Well, these are courses that enable learners around the world to gain a new skills, expand their interests in a topic, or fulfil professional development needs.</p>
<p>Secondly, go have a look at the shiny new <a href="https://shortcourses.ed.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UoE developed short courses website</a> that allows you to browse, view details on a course, register, pay (if costed), sign up to mailing lists, receive automated comms on the course and access course material via a dedicated VLE/LMS or whatever letters you like to call an online learning platform (it can do more but I don’t want to spoil the fun).</p>
<p>3 years of my life have been dedicated to launching this set of services and its been a roller coaster. but for today lets briefly talk about the set of service that make up the short course platform. This blog won’t cover all the amazing work done by colleagues for course design, branding, marketing etc but will discuss the services (platforms) that make up the short course platform.</p>
<p><strong>The background (always important to tell the back story)</strong></p>
<p>Short courses are offered by various schools across the institution and have been managed and taught via numerous platforms and usually involved a lot of disjointed workflows for learners, teacher and administrators. Short courses didn’t have a dedicated service, we had a gap in the digital eco-system and learners were managed in silo via over complicated workflows and taught on platforms that maybe shouldn’t have been used or weren’t the best for delivering or supporting learning.</p>
<p>Quite a conundrum but not a new one to many of us. Start the business analysis, market analysis, funding applications, procurement and contract sign off (I skipped a lot of steps but that’s another blog) and we get to the fun stuff, implementation.</p>
<p><strong><br />
The services (get ready for learning technology bingo)</strong></p>
<p>The obvious ones are a <strong>Virtual learning environment</strong> so we can facilitate online, hybrid, and in person teaching and learning. The university loves collecting VLEs and at one point I think we had completed the sticker album and had a few swaps available (mostly Moodles). An early decision was to consider a standalone VLE that would separate learners and students and for an institution that has spent years consolidating VLEs this was the first big decision.</p>
<p>It was clear looking at the options this would be more beneficial technically and practically. Technically VLEs all share very similar elements and for short courses we would being use a subset of the tools available but we needed a reliable and stable platform that could support us as the service grew.</p>
<p>Practically we wanted learners to create and manage their own accounts which also reduces the admin burden on courses who may have been managing users manually. Splitting the audience allowed us more flexibility to offer a tailored learning experience to learners but (and its a biggie) we were very wary that we would be introducing a new platform which teachers and administrators would need to learn. This comes back to my initial point VLEs under the hood do have similarities and we understood the risk.  We implemented Canvas by Instructure.</p>
<p>We also needed a shopfront which would be a multifaceted tool (the swiz army knife of the overall service) that included (deep breathe):</p>
<ul>
<li>an online tool to advertise the courses</li>
<li>a payment integration</li>
<li>course management tool</li>
<li>order management</li>
<li>user management</li>
<li>access to all the data</li>
<li>all had to be accessible and compliant</li>
</ul>
<p>I won’t list anymore but you hopefully get the gist and understand it was an very important part of the jigsaw. Internally we have referred to this platform as the <strong>user, course, order content management system</strong> (it rolls of the tongue).  Looking around we didn’t have anything in house that could do the above so we again did the business analysis, market analysis, spoke to some great institutions to understand products available. We implemented a Eduframe by Drieam which is used by a few other UK Universities.</p>
<p>Eduframe did come with a WordPress based website however my development colleagues flagged concerns (they have been burned by WordPress a few times). We then looked at Drupal (which is used for the University website) however again it didn’t meet are long list of requirements. So we plonked for developing a<strong> bespoke website using the next,js framework</strong>. That will be its own blog like all the other services discussed in this post but a big thank you to Andrew Millington for all his support and advise to get the website off the ground.</p>
<p><strong>What about data!</strong> We love data so needed to ensure we could access all the data to allow for pretty visuals to be created and large numbers to be shared on professional media channels.  Eduframe has as set of APIs that have allowed us to a Power BI App (they have their own app but we love developing stuff), Canvas has in product analytics and Canvas Data 2 and we use GA4 for web analytics. Its alot of data.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><figure id="attachment_560" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-560" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-560" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-300x226.jpg" alt="whiteboard with my brain" width="300" height="226" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-300x226.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-1024x771.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-768x578.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-1536x1157.jpg 1536w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-2048x1542.jpg 2048w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-1275x960.jpg 1275w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-560" class="wp-caption-text">Data Data Data brain dump on a whiteboard</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>So how do staff access the platform without needing a separate login or going through a long and convoluted process to get access to the platform? We created a <strong>teacher admin app</strong> using the Eduframe APIs that syncs with the central user management system. This allows admins to enable access to the short course platform with the assurance that when staff leave accounts are updated. Staff login using their UoE account so don’t need to find that bit of paper with a password (I am joking…).</p>
<p>So, to summarise the below are the key services that make up the short course platform.</p>
<ul>
<li>Virtual learning environment</li>
<li>User, course, order content management system</li>
<li>Bespoke website using the next,js framework</li>
<li>Data reporting tools</li>
<li>Teacher admin app</li>
</ul>
<p>This list does not cover the payment integrations, the numerous integrations we have with tools in canvas and the numerous workflows required to support courses (book, apply, private, waiting lists etc) but hopefully it provides an overview of the services we have implemented that allow us to successfully support and manage the short course platform at scale.</p>
<p>So on reflection 3 years ago I was blissfully paddle boarding on Loch Ness not knowing what was lurking beneath, bit like the implementation of any new service.<br />
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				<time datetime="2025-08-07" itemprop="dateModified">Aug 7, 2025</time><br />
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		<title>Failure and me</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/failure-and-me/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Mar 2025 08:43:30 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[service]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=544</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The past few weeks have reminded me that failure is a part of everything we do. Whether it’s in our professional lives or personal pursuits, from breaking an application to playing a game incorrectly and not winning, failure happens. The term ‘failure’ sounds harsh, but for me, it is about becoming comfortable with it and […]]]></description>
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<p>The past few weeks have reminded me that failure is a part of everything we do. Whether it’s in our professional lives or personal pursuits, from breaking an application to playing a game incorrectly and not winning, failure happens. The term ‘failure’ sounds harsh, but for me, it is about becoming comfortable with it and ensuring we mitigate its effects.</p>
<p>As we approach the launch of a new platform at the university, it is difficult not to reflect on missed opportunities or things we could have done differently. I need to remind myself that when we started, we didn’t have the wealth of knowledge that we have now, gained over the last 18 months. It’s challenging for me not to get caught up in a “failure spiral,” which can have negative consequences both professionally and personally.</p>
<p>I listen to a few sports podcasts, and a quote by Samuel Beckett came up:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better – Samuel Beckett</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I love this quote! Failure, when rolling out not just one, but five new applications, along with brand new processes, creating a new service, introducing new technology, new workflows, training, understanding the present, planning for the future, onboarding, involvement in boards and steering groups, and dealing with compliance—how can we not fail? Therefore, we need to get comfortable with failure, but try to “fail better” by:</p>
<ol>
<li>Accepting that it has happened, and for me, it’s part of the job. Get comfortable.</li>
<li>Reviewing what happened by getting the facts.</li>
<li>Understanding why it happened, which sometimes involves digging deeper than the facts.</li>
<li>Developing new strategies so we do not fail in the same way again or so we can fail better.</li>
<li>Implementing a process or workflow to help us, which is documented.</li>
<li>Communicating consistently in all the above steps. It’s not easy, but it’s key.</li>
</ol>
<p>Obviously, we want to deliver a service that is perfect, but in my 20 years of working in the tech center, I have yet to find an application that hasn’t changed, that hasn’t been rebranded, or that hasn’t required UI changes, that still is exactly the same as it was when it launched. Look at Apple; they love to tell us it’s perfect, but what they define as “flawed perfection” means it’s constantly changing.</p>
<p>Accepting failure doesn’t mean we sit back with popcorn and watch the “wheels fall off.” Failing better, for me, involves a lot of work to ensure we minimize failure (if possible) and are prepared when it happens (again, sometimes we aren’t, as it could be a new workflow, patch, cyber attack, user requirement, or edge case scenario).</p>

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				<time datetime="2025-03-13" itemprop="dateModified">Mar 13, 2025</time>
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		<title>2024: the year of short courses & the edge!</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2024-the-year-of-short-courses-the-edge/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:18:56 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=529</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>This is my reflection on my 2024. It’s for me but you can come along for a few minutes. First reflection, why have I not blogged more this year!  Simple answer its been hectic but I feel like I could have reflected on a more regular basis the 12 month journey. Second reflection, what a […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>This is my reflection on my 2024. It’s for me but you can come along for a few minutes.</p>
<p>First reflection, why have I not blogged more this year!  Simple answer its been hectic but I feel like I could have reflected on a more regular basis the 12 month journey.</p>
<p>Second reflection, what a year!</p>
<p>By the end of 2023 we signed the contract with Drieam (who support the learner, course and order management platform called <a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Feduframe.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cc57c79c049f74fc4222608dd3536802c%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C638725230381480477%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=qiL39YC%2B0JyNdVLoKhQQo%2FHuTFRPszgLbUrHKTbRDpQ%3D&reserved=0">eduframe.com</a>) and Instructure (who host the learning platform called Canvas <a href="https://www.instructure.com">https://www.instructure.com</a>) to help us deliver the new Short Course Platform. It had taken 6 months of procurement and legal wrangling to get the contract sorted but in December 2023 it was finally signed. The short course platform will allow the public to browse courses via a web site, create an account, pay (if costed), enrol, learn, maybe get a digital badge and hopefully come back and repeat the process.</p>
<p>The platform aims to emulate a lot of the learnings from the core VLE projects including a consistent user experience, replacing laborious and admin heavy workarounds and having a clear purpose/strategy/vision. It has been a gap in the learning eco-system for a while and we have seen schools/depts bend tools and policies to meet their needs.</p>
<p>Interestingly with the current issues in HE we are starting to see a few other institutions spin up similar platforms. When we started this journey 2 years ago only a few examples existed but with institutions keen to explore additional revenue tracks we have seen similar platforms come online but that’s a different blog.</p>
<p>Like any new service we are starting fresh, which is great! But as soon as we started to update stakeholders and share the news more widely that we had signed a contract then comes the big questions…..when will it be available? Can we use it? How do I use it? Is it compliant? Will the learners like it? What is a learner? Can I show it to my friends? What is a short course?</p>
<p>It can feel like a landslide but I am lucky to work with people who are very supportive, open to ideas and like me love a plan(ner).The service isn’t just one new service, its 4 new platforms, training, guidance, marketing, communication, stakeholder engagement (one off and ongoing), terms of use, legal, compliant handling, data protection, accessibility, reporting (another new service so make that 5), terminology and the list goes on and on.</p>
<p>Spinning up a new service involves working with colleagues inside the department and making sure we are all confident or if not approachable to ask questions. Sounds easy but it’s probably the toughest part, the people who are the face of change need to speak the same language or stakeholders will lose confidence pretty quickly and that can cause tension in teams (who said what, why, when, did they not read the 1000 page memo).</p>
<p>Change agents also need to change. The ability to listen and change what we have thought about, developed or delivered is also key but with the caveat it must be based on facts. I listen to sports podcasts and was really intrigued by a football manager saying the team needed to focus on the team’s core goals (playing good football) and not be driven by the edge (bad passes and mistakes). That edge in service delivery can sometimes be a blocker to progress especially when creating a new service. Evaluating the use case and categorising it is key to understanding impact and priority especially when deadline is involved.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong use cases generated by stakeholders need to be listened to and evaluated but it’s the teams requirement to review and categories. Sometimes its not popular with stakeholders however I am a firm believer that services are never perfect. They evolve as does the requirements, the users (all of them) and the underlying technology. Services deliver to the masses and aim to meet all requirements however I have struggled to work on a service that doesn’t have a wish list or a product development roadmap.</p>
<p>The quicker you get comfortable with the edge the better.</p>
<p>My role in the project is technical lead but I feel more like a troubleshooter and negotiator. I have had to get to grips with 4 new bit of tech (content management system, payment portal, new VLE, a website developed on Next.js, a user provisioning tools) and help design a 5<sup>th</sup> (data reporting tool), negotiate with others use of the tools, design, onboarding for early adopter, project timelines and I am mentally knackered. Thankfully (again) a good team and me being very open about forgetting stuff and asking for reminders or checking my notes (which have merged into teams chats) has helped keep me on track. A technical lead sounds like someone who knows it all and I don’t but that’s ok. My role is offering workflows and options to a problem whilst speaking to the experts to help me map it out. Last Monday I had no clue on GA4 and now we have a plan to debug tags. Last Jan I started to play with APIs of the new platforms and now not a day goes by when I don’t have postman open and I am trying to figure out something.</p>
<p>2024 has been a blast but it’s been difficult. The projects have been challenging and that’s not just the tech. My confidence has taken a bit of a bashing along the way but its not personal. I will look back when we finally go live in May 2025 and think 2024 is the year we made a lot of decisions, I learned a little bit more about me and I am sharing some with you as it may help and remembe0 for any service its not the destination as there is never a destination, its just one big journey.<br />
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				<time datetime="2024-12-23" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 23, 2024</time><br />
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		<title>Canvas UK & Ireland User Group December 2024</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/canvas-uk-ireland-user-group-december-2024/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:01:56 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ai]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[canvas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sd]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=521</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>A user group is a great way to get the latest product gossip from the supplier and more importantly other institutions. They are great ways to network, get inspiration from peers and generally gauge where we are in the current implementation compared to others (plus free pastries).The Canvas UK & Ireland user group was hosted […]]]></description>
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<p>A user group is a great way to get the latest product gossip from the supplier and more importantly other institutions. They are great ways to network, get inspiration from peers and generally gauge where we are in the current implementation compared to others (plus free pastries).<br />The Canvas UK & Ireland user group was hosted by Manchester University. The day covered the Canvas roadmap, rubric adoption at medical schools, institutions migrating to canvas from another suppliers, break out sessions on analytics and administration of a VLE and more however there seemed to be one theme that was ever present in sessions, AI.</p>
<p>The first presenter represented FE and discussed how they had developed AI tools based on the Azure Framework (Microsoft) to create assessment feedback for students, assessment feedback summaries for staff and AI assistants to support students. The session highlighted how coding light tools can be developed using existing frameworks, APIs and a lot of engagement with users. The session generated a lot of questions including environmental impact, opt-in/out, academic integrity, quality and assurance of feedback etc. These questions aren’t new but I feel like we have moved from a space where we questioned AI and how it would be included in education to a new space where institutions themselves are developing tools.</p>
<p>With Open AI and the rapid evolution of LLMs suppliers are rushing to squeeze AI into their applications but at what risk? And why? I feel like we are partly to blame as we like new stuff but also want to improve the staff and student experience. It feels like AI might be the new thing that will solve all our problems (did someone saying Learning Analytics…). Like any new tech and especially with LLMs we also need to factor that these cohorts may have a certain level of expectation that AI is integrated into their professional, academic or learning journey. My fear is where should it be integrated and why?</p>
<p><br />New stuff is always fun for me but as someone who works with technology, I also need to consider the why? What is this bringing to the user’s experience? Do we have a gap? Does it improve the users experience? Any repercussions we need to consider? Speaking to design colleagues and stakeholders should drive the change and with AI I don’t know how much of a conversation is happening with users. Don’t get me wrong we need to start somewhere, and basic support bots being used to support users (like <a href="https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/computing/comms-and-collab/elm">ELM</a> or <a href="https://edhelp.ed.ac.uk/">EDHelp</a>) help us grow knowledge and at the same time they practically allow end-users to interact and maybe think about additional functionality they would like to see included in these tools or where they can envision these tools supporting them.</p>
<p>Instructure will be releasing more AI functionality and already have tools like Insights which utilises aspects of AI so:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘buckle your seat Dorothy, cause Kanvas is going bye-bye!’ – Cypher, The Matrix.<br /><br /></p>
</blockquote>

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		<title>2023 Reflection</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2023-reflection/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Dec 2023 09:46:14 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital badges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=497</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 3</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>It has been a while since I sat down with my thoughts. I have been talking about making time to blog and reflect and today is the day!  If you’re new here, hello! This will not be an ideological masterpiece or reference books I read related to the role but more a personal reflection for […]]]></description>
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<p>It has been a while since I sat down with my thoughts. I have been talking about making time to blog and reflect and today is the day!  If you’re new here, hello! This will not be an ideological masterpiece or reference books I read related to the role but more a personal reflection for me on me, but you can read it (just don’t tell anyone!).</p>
<p>My 2023 will be the year of procurement, digital badges, and supporting the team (bored reading about AI so omitting it until Jan 2024).<br /><br />I have previously blogged about digital badges and how they have emerged from the pit of edu-tech doom and evolved into something that has value for issuers, earners and anyone else who is interested in the recognition of skills, achievements or competencies. I have also talked about replacing standalone credit that equates to nothing in the real world and longer term how institutions will need to offer digital versions of credit as the death of paper accelerates. I get it that people will still want to frame awards etc I just think that may be a minority.<br /><br />The team has done a fantastic job completing a procurement and establishing a service to support a 3-year pilot which we hope will extend with the pending new fun aka the short course platform. In just over 6 months we have issued over 1.5k badges, created and supported a badge governance process, created numerous guides and snazzy webpages, and planned to experiment with badge pathways in 2024. If you are interested have a peek at the webpage: <a href="https://edin.ac/3Waglnj">https://edin.ac/3Waglnj</a> and yes that is a badger wearing a jacket with badges (they are called Bo the badger).</p>
<p><br />I can only see badge popularity and use cases growing however I have concerns regarding the quality of products in the market, cost (platform prices vary vastly) and openness of underlying badge frameworks and portability. With Instructure hoovering up Badgr and now Parchment a big player is making an early move and the wider impact will be interesting to watch.</p>
<p>Procurements are always interesting and when the outcome is a brand new service it’s even more ‘exciting’. At this point I am going to read your mind, are you thinking something along the lines of…</p>
<p>‘Wow Wow, Myles is that a typo!, has the eggnog gone to your head!’ </p>
<p>The answer is no, in a weird and slightly concerning way it’s been fascinating to work with the project team to collaborate, collate, refine and produce a vision with key stakeholders for a new centrally supported platform that will allow the public to view CPD, PPD and any other short courses. pay (if required) and access a dedicated learning platform or be sent any relevant course information. </p>
<p>Ok, in reality, the devil is in the details and creating clear and concise questions that suppliers need to answer is a challenge. Interpreting those answers and scoring them is a bigger challenge especially then the question set is over 100 questions! Then agreeing to scores and feedback is a bigger challenge! It’s like Mortal Combat but without the combat as that would involve HR (however sometimes I think it would have been quicker to just have the combat).</p>
<p>So why did we need to go into the combat ring of procurement? Currently, these types of courses are delivered via numerous platforms, can be an admin burden to support staff, provide an inconsistent and sometimes poor learner experience and may be breaching software licenses (moving on swiftly). To summarise it’s very Edinburgh. everyone is doing something different.  So, we proposed a change as we saw a clear gap and after lots of conversations, papers, presentations, and acronym searching we secured support from senior management and a budget from the institution. Instructure and Drieam won the procurement, and I look forward to working with them in 2024.</p>
<p>I manage a small team and also deputize for the section head. I enjoy both and am fortunate to be surrounded by people I respect and enjoy working with each day but this year has taught me to be a human first and a manager second. Work-life balance has always been important to me, especially with a family and growing up in a family where that balance did not exist and witnessing the impact on people’s mental and physical health has always been a valuable lesson to me.</p>
<p>I work hard as Myles Blaney team manager, technical lead, senior service manager, internal consultant, HR rep for the team, information security rep for the section, procurement mediator, badge specialist, and everything else in between. So, I need time to be Myles Blaney gym enthusiast, bike rider, Newcastle United fan, MMA fan, gamer, husband, dad, son, brother, dad taxi, family event planner, and spectator to name a few. I am lucky to have control of my balance due to my supportive manager but I also need to take control of it when I have it and not to quickly check or reply to a ping in teams.</p>
<p>Lastly, AI! It’s here to stay and we are only at the base of the hype curve. I have dabbled this year with Karen into what other institutions are doing and it’s another blog I will post in Jan 2024. Exciting and terrifying at the same time but not new just quicker, faster and better.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>

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				<time datetime="2023-12-21" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 21, 2023</time>
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		<title>Canvas Credentials: the new open digital badge platform</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/canvas-credentials-the-new-open-digital-badge-platform/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/canvas-credentials-the-new-open-digital-badge-platform/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:32:31 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital badges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[instructure]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=482</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>Finally after months of scoring procurement questions, analysing costs and negotiation I am pleased to announce that we will be providing open digital badges via Canvas Credentials (formally called Badgr).This is the start of a 3 year pilot to understand the value of digital badges for all stakeholders. Obviously for the earners aka the people […]]]></description>
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<p>Finally after months of scoring procurement questions, analysing costs and negotiation I am pleased to announce that we will be providing open digital badges via Canvas Credentials (formally called Badgr).<br /><br />This is the start of a 3 year pilot to understand the value of digital badges for all stakeholders. Obviously for the earners aka the people awarded a badge(s), will it help motivate them? will they share it on digital CVs or social media? will they even click on the email and accept the badge? what about employability? how do they value a digital badge?<br /><br />How about issuers aka the schools that award the badge, is the platform easy to use? does it allow them the flexibility to develop and deliver standalone and badges which are interlinked (like a pathway)? what about resource for managing all things badges? and why bother with badges?<br /><br />Hang on, what about IS (we are people too), how does it affect us as issuer, earners and support? So all of the above plus is the platform robust? does it provide what the issuers and earners need? how will the service grow? will be see a badge bonanza or the butchering of badges?<br /><br />Whatever will happen the next few years will allow us to pilot and review the premium version of canvas credentials. For clarification when I say premium I mean paid for aka we get extra bits and bobs like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Lots of Analytics: data, data, data</li>
<li>Organisation Management: aka one admin to rule them all! </li>
<li>Ability to add skills to a badge: I got skills their multiplying!</li>
<li>Ability to add custom fields to a badge: starting to panic about how this could be used!</li>
<li>Pathways: interlinked badges journeys</li>
</ul>
<p>Sounds pretty cool! Pathways are probably the ‘funnest’ (not a word but you know what I mean) premium tool which will allow schools or departments to create open stackable badges or paths (basic, intermediate, high ) to a higher level of achievement (Expert). These can include internal or external open badges so in theory could involve external bodies (e.g. companies, other institutions) and users can track their own progress! (take a breathe!).</p>
<p>And what have we decided to call the new open digital badge pilot/service……(drum roll)……BadgEd! (we got the word badge, we are the University of Edinburgh and we love incorporating Ed into stuff). </p>
<p>Sounds like a busy few years? You interested in finding out some more information? Ain’t you lucky we created this website where you can find out some more information on the <a href="https://edin.ac/40QRuX3">BadgEd webpages.</a></p>
<p><br />Finally this wouldn’t be possible without all the hard work of colleagues who have been exceptional (as usual) to help get from an idea to a live pilot (so thanks goes to Delia, Tracey, Nikki, Karen, Fiona and Ellen). Let the hard (fun) work begin….<br /><br /></p>

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		<title>Digital Badges, not just a pretty picture</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/digital-badges-not-just-a-pretty-picture/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/digital-badges-not-just-a-pretty-picture/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2022 15:48:03 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital badges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=455</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>Digital badges are back! They never went away I hear you say and yes? Of course not but we did enter an odd phase were badges were being issued for anything or everything (I like to refer to this era as the ‘Oprah Winfrey’ era). So we all got badges and the value of a […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>Digital badges are back! They never went away I hear you say and yes? Of course not but we did enter an odd phase were badges were being issued for anything or everything (I like to refer to this era as the ‘Oprah Winfrey’ era).</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium aligncenter" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7ZeQBhbVGnELP4bK/giphy.gif" alt="you get a gif" width="480" height="326" /></p>
<p>So we all got badges and the value of a badge declined plus how could we validate the badge, where do we put the badges to promote ourselves? So the badge hype slowly dwindled to some hardcore fans who issued badges sporadically. Badge strategies were forgotten and images of badges were added to email signatures with no ability to validate someones claim to be an Google Cloud wizard.  I should also state that the frustration with badges also may be related to lack of platforms to develop and issue plus the limited options for styling, metadata and a space for an earner to host (yes Mozilla backpack was available however if you used it then you would understand it had issues).</p>
<p>I personally worked with badges via Blackboard learn a few years ago and we had some great use cases but the value of badges was not recognized by external institutions or private companies.</p>
<p>Fast forward a few years and the digital badge ecosystem has evolved. IMS open badge standards have been widely adopted by numerous suppliers, the options for badge creation & management is also diverse with open, free and paid for services available and most importantly the understanding that to maintain value for digital badges institution needs to have a strategy for badge creation.</p>
<p>The value aspect is key, speaking to other institutions in the UK and US they have stressed how value can only be maintained by guidance and governance. Guidance ensures standardization of the visual, the metadata and criteria for awarding. The visual is key and in most cases badge consumers (someone who sees a badge on a host platform aka linkedin, personal web page, email signature) will only see a small thumbnail of the image so keeping it clean and not going full Picasso is key. To get around the visual issue the creation of a style guide and a badge template helps subdue any hidden artistic desires.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium aligncenter" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/l4tV5VQbNScIikY4o/giphy.gif" alt="picasso art" width="480" height="480" /></p>
<p>Metadata is key, its the data/information that provides the context for the badge and includes fields like description, competencies, achievements, award criteria, expiration and the ability for consumers to check validation! Yes, if you have shared a badge I can check if your a world of war craft level 6 orc from the dune sea by clicking on the validate button.</p>
<p>Governance allows users to request a badge and for it to be reviewed by badge champions to ensure we do not create 100 badges for the same thing, ensure badge value is maintained (aka we don’t hurtle back to the Oprah era, PS you get a badge for reading this far!) and badge visuals are maintained (we want the University of Edinburgh badge experience to follow established design guidelines and best practices) . I would stress that governance is a mix of academic and service staff all with a vested interest in the success of digital badges.</p>
<p>So we have a process and some standards so what do we issue badges for? As highlighted earlier they have been issued for everything and we are keen to avoid those dark days. Badges have a place for recognition of extra curricula or non-curricula skills, competencies or achievements that may not be recognized via other awards or even at all. Badges can be used to level up the softer skills that are core to user development or simply recognize the skills, competencies or achievements a user has gained. Badges spans the digital ecosystem and user base and could be issued on a MOOC platform to a user completing the book MOOC or to a member of staff for competing the Information security training.</p>
<p>So I gained a badge what next? How about recommendations for associated badges which can build upon your skills, achievements or competencies gained via a previous badge. Or the ability to share on a host platform (go on be that LinkedIn boaster who announces everything they are doing to the world) or it can be kept private. Even better imagine having a space that is yours for life and doesn’t need you to be registered at the university, your account, your personal email address your in control. Or don’t claim the badge its all up to the earner (They have the power!)</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-medium" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/yhK4PWI9WJ0c/giphy.gif" alt="i have the power" width="320" height="240" /></p>
<p>The good news is that this service will be launching in the academic year 2022-23 and the team will share more thoughts once we pick a platform. The last thing I wanted to share is that whilst we are focusing on non-credit extra/non-curricula skills, achievements and competencies we are starting to hear institution considering issuing badges for UG and PG degree awards which kinda makes sense. Question if you have a degree what do you have to show your awesome achievement? and more importantly where is it? Personally I got a paper certificate and it sits in a cupboard with all my life admin things. Its not visible, its not verifiable and its on a bit of paper which isn’t great for the environment. A digital badge is verifiable and can be shared on numerous professional and/or personal platforms plus no trees were cut down to produce it. Sure the award ceremony might be slightly different however I have a feeling that the digital badge will be more useful to graduates.</p>
<p> <br />
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		<title>My Hybrid Reflections (not yours!)</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/my-hybrid-reflections-not-yours/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/my-hybrid-reflections-not-yours/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Nov 2021 09:52:18 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hybrid]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=421</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>19 months ago the thought of me staying at home for 23hrs for months would have terrified me, however we got out routine sorted which helped a lot, this included Joe Wicks 0900, BoJo presser at 1700 (do this but don’t do this), becoming at P2 teacher 1330-1600 (elbow pads in the post), family walk […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>
<p>19 months ago the thought of me staying at home for 23hrs for months would have terrified me, however we got out routine sorted which helped a lot, this included Joe Wicks 0900, BoJo presser at 1700 (do this but don’t do this), becoming at P2 teacher 1330-1600 (elbow pads in the post), family walk on the golf course 1600-1700. Throughout that period my working arrangements shifted from room to room as my setup evolved into a desk in my spare bedroom with a large screen and laptop. I have also blogged about the transitions if your interested in the detail but now I am now a hybrid worker.</p>
<p>Hybrid, what’s that? Well it’s kinda like a bit of office working and a bit of home working and for my working situation it makes a lot of common sense. Why does it work for me? The flexibility is something I have craved for years. I worked at home 1 day a week for 13 years, it allowed me to focus on documentation (if you have had the pleasure of working with me you know I love a good process document and making things transparent for anyone involved, who wouldn’t, share the fun), building servers remotely and other individual tasks with maybe the odd phone call to ask people to press a button on campus. Over the 13 years technology has evolved from email, messenger, skype for business (once you got it working) and now teams or Zoom. </p>
<p>Technology evolves and whilst we adapt it seamlessly into our non-working lives, with some of us actively promoting it for work, are 9-5 environment has stagnated due to numerous factors that include open spaces and noise, users unfamiliarity with the technology (e.g. can you hear me, I have poor Wi-Fi. Cat face – to name a few common issues), the technology being regarded as secondary, peoples personal or meeting room hardware setups (some people have vanity lights some people have 3 laptops perched on encyclopaedias).  With the tech evolving we can now do remote tasks which now include group work (ability to host or join online meetings), group text chat, drop-ins to chat, share a screen and work through shared documents or issues. </p>
<p>So the technology has evolved (braw!) however the office space hasn’t however what is the office meant to be? I have blogged that people are the campus and they! This has been clearly shown over the numerous lockdowns but as a red brick university the campus is the shop floor for the bulk of roles. IS touch numerous points of campus life (on and remote) and we have shown we can work in extreme circumstances however personally for me I prefer a hybrid work space, which is ultimately a flexible work space.</p>
<p>Home working is great, no trains, no flesh market close steps, no expensive sandwich or coffee shops, work in leisure clothes (bought my first pair of tracksuit bottoms 6 months ago….), no running to meetings basically a lot of good points,. I love my house however I like coming back to it (bit like when you walk in the door post-holiday after sharing a confined space with the hobbits) and I am a strong believer in work life balance. Now for me what work life balance means is ‘give and take’ aka flexibility, managing time/resource, honestly. It may sound preachy but having a young family has taught me to enjoy the time and separate work (like the LTW no comms after 6 policy).  I know   people who find this impossible and to be honest it freaks me out but it’s their decision. </p>
<p>Working in the office 2 days gives me a bit of separation and allows me to plan 2 different days however I don’t plan them any different and for the foreseeable wont. I come in and work, catch up with folks, meet online or in-person and go home. Currently 2 days is enough and not due to COVID concerns but due to the change in routine (which I am over) and the office feeling different. The space feels subdued and when I come in it’s like a Saturday.  It’s quiet for a time however co-ordinating days when others (usually Karen or Nikki) are in helps prioritise tasks for those days, allows us to bounce ideas around (scheduling collaboration and spontaneity on Teams is difficult) and lets me see other people J which I miss. Some of the people I get to work with or share an office with are worth the train fare alone to cheer me up. The human side of work and the office has been something I have blogged about before and it’s one of the reasons why I enjoy my job.</p>
<p>So let’s be honest about the office, desk layout isn’t the best for online meetings and mics pick up other conversations pretty quickly. Meeting rooms are quiet but rely heavily on tech working and the building not being full (booking a room prior to COVID was like a playing a game in Squid Games – somebody would die!). If we are to adopt hybrid shared desk arrangements, thinning of the space would help. The creation of more social sitting and printer booth breakout spaces would help the space however my big thing is the noise. We probably need to admit that for a truly hybrid space the open spaces will need to be a bit more nosier due to online meetings held at desk, more collaboration spaces in teams local environments (again noisy) and the acceptance that the office should be a collaboration space and not just a undefined space with a desk with your stuff on it. Making it a collaboration friendly space helps hybrid workers however like we have all gone through over the past months it would require a change and physical office space changes are probably the most difficult to accept.</p>
<p>So hybrid for me works, the tech now allows us the flexibility, management now understand having being entrenched in it during lockdowns but (always a but) the office isn’t configured to support it…yet. My experience of coming into the office isn’t negative however it could be better which I will be feeding back.</p>

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				<time datetime="2021-11-16" itemprop="dateModified">Nov 16, 2021</time>
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		<title>Who needs awards anyway!</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/who-needs-awards-anyway/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 08:59:32 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=663</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The 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 […]]]></description>
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<p>The 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 above and beyond to accomplish some amazing tasks. Secondly. we were robbed<br /><br />We had drafted a speech (after all the wild celebrations, kissing the badge, knee slides and general mocking and aggressive finger pointing at the opposition) and whilst we didn’t get the opportunity to read it out I still think it’s worth sharing as a last thank you for those involved in delivering the short course platform. It’s the end of a programme but the beginning of a new service.<br /><br /><br />The Speech:<br /><br />The short course platform was a programme that started just under 4 years ago. It was after the closure of the distance learning at scale programme which may not have been the burning success we wanted however it had taught us valuable lessons which ultimately led us to the successful launch of the short course platform.<br /><br />I think what I want to flag, is that sometimes things don’t work out the way you wanted or expected , but that’s ok, learning and evolving is part of our roles and the sweet doesn’t taste as sweet without the sour.<br /><br />We would like to acknowledge all the support and time provided by stakeholders across the institution who attended numerous, steering groups, boards, demo sessions and various meetings. Their patience and time have ultimately steered and supported us to deliver a successful programme and sets of services used by over 7k learners accessing over 1k courses so far.<br /><br />We would not be accepting this award without the hard work and down right determination of some key folk who have worked collaboratively across LTW and Apps. On behalf of the team we need to thank section heads Stuart and Karen for their invaluable support. Andrews team for delivering a snazzy shopfront, Lauren and Fiona’s team for all their hard work in designing course, websites, an amazing spoint hub and training just to name a few things. Legal for doing legal stuff and Neil for helping us understand it. Viki Galts team for everything accessibility. All the PMs that have organised us over the last few years and Ellen who got us over the line. Cassie for organising groups, boards, papers and making sense of are wittering’s in meetings. Adam Scott and Gordon Forbes for guiding us through the madness of finance. My team for delivering 5 technical services and all the related compliance and process fun that all involve. Lastly, I want to thank Nikki Stuart for the drive and support for the delivery of the platform. <br /><br />The short course programme felt like a family, dysfunctional at times but aren’t all families/projects.</p>

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				<time datetime="2026-02-17" itemprop="dateModified">Feb 17, 2026</time>
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		<title>2025: The year SCP took off</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2025-the-year-scp-took-off/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2025-the-year-scp-took-off/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:15:55 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Short Courses Platform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=573</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 3</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>That 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 […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 3</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>That 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.</p>
<p>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 payment platform so everyone panics about financial transactions), compliance (privacy policies, terms and conditions for a new service), processes (we have the tech but how do we use it, support it, manage it, update it, access it, review it, communicate it, approve it etc) has been challenging.</p>
<p>I love a challenge but 2025 has been a tough one hence my reflection feeling different if not slightly weird. The pressure and expectation to have all the answers to various elements of a new platform (technical and non-technical) at stages throughout this year has been difficult to manage.</p>
<p>Part of this is my own expectation to have the answers or simply know everything. Part of this was my own disappointment and frustration when I didn’t. Part of this is the pressure cooker of delivering a new platform across the institution during a period of financial instability. It’s a lot of parts (some I haven’t included) but in reality, the only part I can fully control is me. Turning off a bit more sounds like an easy solution but it felt impossible. I honestly look back and am thankful for my colleagues who have supported me in 2025. SCP took a chunk of me and getting it out the door nearly broke me.</p>
<p>Friday emails (I don’t work Fridays) and teams conversations kept me in cycle of checking in when I should have been checking out. Don’t get me wrong, my role is to deliver and support services so it’s part of the JD and its with great joy the teams have delivered but the paranoid version of me questions “what did I do”. I know the answer but when things start to go wrong it leads to darker place. Am I mansplaining, are the right people included, what did that person mean, we agreed this but its changed, why?, why am I not invited to that meeting? Constant thoughts swirling through my head when in reality as the project grew you need to let go as it’s impossible to do it all. Placing trust in others but more importantly practising what you preach, sharing the load (like Samwise Gangee wanted to help Frodo by carrying the one ring into the fires of mount doom……), be transparent and listen.</p>
<p>I enjoy the challenge, I love pushing myself but I don’t have all the answers, I get stuff wrong and I am only 1 person. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable has been a big mentality change. It helps when your surrounded by supportive people.<br />
Practically, I also installed an app blocker on my phone which makes accessing Teams and checking emails on a Friday a living nightmare as my phone makes me jump through multiple hurdles to even login to Teams (which is a kinda great!).</p>
<p>Learning and playing more with APIs, agile methodologies, Power BI, headless CMS, resource planning, release planning, power apps, power flow, Canvas, virtual meetings, communications, working groups, BAU are things that have all of a sudden merged into my vocabulary over the past 12 months. Lessons learnt is a term I am looking forward to using less over 2026…..although it’s part of however they are key to the of reflecting and being honest (as much as you can be).</p>
<p>SCP launched in June and so far we have over 450 courses which have ran just under 1000 times, 7k learners and over 11,500 enrolments which have either been via online card transactions or backend fun orders. The platform was a massive task with contributions from various teams in IS and across the institution. Listening and adapting the platform or the requirements has been pivotal to launching a platform that is starting to gain traction amongst schools.</p>
<p>Sadly, it will be the last year in Argyle House or as some may recognise the building as the police station in Dept Q (Netflix). Looking at a castle every day, having easy access to meeting rooms, seemingly always being on or close to a film set (T2, Frankenstein, Avengers) will be things I will miss. Listening to the jazz folk jam under the bridge at castle terrace will definitely not be something I will miss. We move in March and I wil miss the eye sore.</p>
<p>Overall, 2025 will always be the year we launched and I am proud of what we achieved. 2026 already has private courses, programmes, website enhancements and more on the agenda with less access to Teams and a bit more confidence in myself to get things wrong and the odd time right. Anyway, this is for me not you but if you feel the same sometimes, talk to someone. It does help.</p>
<p> <br />
			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area"><br />
				<time datetime="2025-12-22" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 22, 2025</time><br />
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		<title>Short Courses Platform Implementation and Me</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/short-courseplatform-implementation-and-me/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/short-courseplatform-implementation-and-me/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2025 14:07:26 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Short Courses Platform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=555</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The new short course platform is alive! First thing you might ask is ‘What is a short course?’. Well, these are courses that enable learners around the world to gain a new skills, expand their interests in a topic, or fulfil professional development needs. Secondly, go have a look at the shiny new UoE developed […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The new short course platform is alive!</p>
<p>First thing you might ask is ‘What is a short course?’. Well, these are courses that enable learners around the world to gain a new skills, expand their interests in a topic, or fulfil professional development needs.</p>
<p>Secondly, go have a look at the shiny new <a href="https://shortcourses.ed.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UoE developed short courses website</a> that allows you to browse, view details on a course, register, pay (if costed), sign up to mailing lists, receive automated comms on the course and access course material via a dedicated VLE/LMS or whatever letters you like to call an online learning platform (it can do more but I don’t want to spoil the fun).</p>
<p>3 years of my life have been dedicated to launching this set of services and its been a roller coaster. but for today lets briefly talk about the set of service that make up the short course platform. This blog won’t cover all the amazing work done by colleagues for course design, branding, marketing etc but will discuss the services (platforms) that make up the short course platform.</p>
<p><strong>The background (always important to tell the back story)</strong></p>
<p>Short courses are offered by various schools across the institution and have been managed and taught via numerous platforms and usually involved a lot of disjointed workflows for learners, teacher and administrators. Short courses didn’t have a dedicated service, we had a gap in the digital eco-system and learners were managed in silo via over complicated workflows and taught on platforms that maybe shouldn’t have been used or weren’t the best for delivering or supporting learning.</p>
<p>Quite a conundrum but not a new one to many of us. Start the business analysis, market analysis, funding applications, procurement and contract sign off (I skipped a lot of steps but that’s another blog) and we get to the fun stuff, implementation.</p>
<p><strong><br />
The services (get ready for learning technology bingo)</strong></p>
<p>The obvious ones are a <strong>Virtual learning environment</strong> so we can facilitate online, hybrid, and in person teaching and learning. The university loves collecting VLEs and at one point I think we had completed the sticker album and had a few swaps available (mostly Moodles). An early decision was to consider a standalone VLE that would separate learners and students and for an institution that has spent years consolidating VLEs this was the first big decision.</p>
<p>It was clear looking at the options this would be more beneficial technically and practically. Technically VLEs all share very similar elements and for short courses we would being use a subset of the tools available but we needed a reliable and stable platform that could support us as the service grew.</p>
<p>Practically we wanted learners to create and manage their own accounts which also reduces the admin burden on courses who may have been managing users manually. Splitting the audience allowed us more flexibility to offer a tailored learning experience to learners but (and its a biggie) we were very wary that we would be introducing a new platform which teachers and administrators would need to learn. This comes back to my initial point VLEs under the hood do have similarities and we understood the risk.  We implemented Canvas by Instructure.</p>
<p>We also needed a shopfront which would be a multifaceted tool (the swiz army knife of the overall service) that included (deep breathe):</p>
<ul>
<li>an online tool to advertise the courses</li>
<li>a payment integration</li>
<li>course management tool</li>
<li>order management</li>
<li>user management</li>
<li>access to all the data</li>
<li>all had to be accessible and compliant</li>
</ul>
<p>I won’t list anymore but you hopefully get the gist and understand it was an very important part of the jigsaw. Internally we have referred to this platform as the <strong>user, course, order content management system</strong> (it rolls of the tongue).  Looking around we didn’t have anything in house that could do the above so we again did the business analysis, market analysis, spoke to some great institutions to understand products available. We implemented a Eduframe by Drieam which is used by a few other UK Universities.</p>
<p>Eduframe did come with a WordPress based website however my development colleagues flagged concerns (they have been burned by WordPress a few times). We then looked at Drupal (which is used for the University website) however again it didn’t meet are long list of requirements. So we plonked for developing a<strong> bespoke website using the next,js framework</strong>. That will be its own blog like all the other services discussed in this post but a big thank you to Andrew Millington for all his support and advise to get the website off the ground.</p>
<p><strong>What about data!</strong> We love data so needed to ensure we could access all the data to allow for pretty visuals to be created and large numbers to be shared on professional media channels.  Eduframe has as set of APIs that have allowed us to a Power BI App (they have their own app but we love developing stuff), Canvas has in product analytics and Canvas Data 2 and we use GA4 for web analytics. Its alot of data.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><figure id="attachment_560" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-560" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-560" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-300x226.jpg" alt="whiteboard with my brain" width="300" height="226" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-300x226.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-1024x771.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-768x578.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-1536x1157.jpg 1536w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-2048x1542.jpg 2048w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2025/08/PXL_20250205_172952694-1275x960.jpg 1275w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-560" class="wp-caption-text">Data Data Data brain dump on a whiteboard</figcaption></figure></p>
<p>So how do staff access the platform without needing a separate login or going through a long and convoluted process to get access to the platform? We created a <strong>teacher admin app</strong> using the Eduframe APIs that syncs with the central user management system. This allows admins to enable access to the short course platform with the assurance that when staff leave accounts are updated. Staff login using their UoE account so don’t need to find that bit of paper with a password (I am joking…).</p>
<p>So, to summarise the below are the key services that make up the short course platform.</p>
<ul>
<li>Virtual learning environment</li>
<li>User, course, order content management system</li>
<li>Bespoke website using the next,js framework</li>
<li>Data reporting tools</li>
<li>Teacher admin app</li>
</ul>
<p>This list does not cover the payment integrations, the numerous integrations we have with tools in canvas and the numerous workflows required to support courses (book, apply, private, waiting lists etc) but hopefully it provides an overview of the services we have implemented that allow us to successfully support and manage the short course platform at scale.</p>
<p>So on reflection 3 years ago I was blissfully paddle boarding on Loch Ness not knowing what was lurking beneath, bit like the implementation of any new service.<br />
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				<time datetime="2025-08-07" itemprop="dateModified">Aug 7, 2025</time><br />
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		<title>Failure and me</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/failure-and-me/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Mar 2025 08:43:30 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[service]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=544</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>The past few weeks have reminded me that failure is a part of everything we do. Whether it’s in our professional lives or personal pursuits, from breaking an application to playing a game incorrectly and not winning, failure happens. The term ‘failure’ sounds harsh, but for me, it is about becoming comfortable with it and […]]]></description>
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<p>The past few weeks have reminded me that failure is a part of everything we do. Whether it’s in our professional lives or personal pursuits, from breaking an application to playing a game incorrectly and not winning, failure happens. The term ‘failure’ sounds harsh, but for me, it is about becoming comfortable with it and ensuring we mitigate its effects.</p>
<p>As we approach the launch of a new platform at the university, it is difficult not to reflect on missed opportunities or things we could have done differently. I need to remind myself that when we started, we didn’t have the wealth of knowledge that we have now, gained over the last 18 months. It’s challenging for me not to get caught up in a “failure spiral,” which can have negative consequences both professionally and personally.</p>
<p>I listen to a few sports podcasts, and a quote by Samuel Beckett came up:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better – Samuel Beckett</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I love this quote! Failure, when rolling out not just one, but five new applications, along with brand new processes, creating a new service, introducing new technology, new workflows, training, understanding the present, planning for the future, onboarding, involvement in boards and steering groups, and dealing with compliance—how can we not fail? Therefore, we need to get comfortable with failure, but try to “fail better” by:</p>
<ol>
<li>Accepting that it has happened, and for me, it’s part of the job. Get comfortable.</li>
<li>Reviewing what happened by getting the facts.</li>
<li>Understanding why it happened, which sometimes involves digging deeper than the facts.</li>
<li>Developing new strategies so we do not fail in the same way again or so we can fail better.</li>
<li>Implementing a process or workflow to help us, which is documented.</li>
<li>Communicating consistently in all the above steps. It’s not easy, but it’s key.</li>
</ol>
<p>Obviously, we want to deliver a service that is perfect, but in my 20 years of working in the tech center, I have yet to find an application that hasn’t changed, that hasn’t been rebranded, or that hasn’t required UI changes, that still is exactly the same as it was when it launched. Look at Apple; they love to tell us it’s perfect, but what they define as “flawed perfection” means it’s constantly changing.</p>
<p>Accepting failure doesn’t mean we sit back with popcorn and watch the “wheels fall off.” Failing better, for me, involves a lot of work to ensure we minimize failure (if possible) and are prepared when it happens (again, sometimes we aren’t, as it could be a new workflow, patch, cyber attack, user requirement, or edge case scenario).</p>

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		<title>2024: the year of short courses & the edge!</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2024-the-year-of-short-courses-the-edge/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:18:56 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=529</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>This is my reflection on my 2024. It’s for me but you can come along for a few minutes. First reflection, why have I not blogged more this year!  Simple answer its been hectic but I feel like I could have reflected on a more regular basis the 12 month journey. Second reflection, what a […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>This is my reflection on my 2024. It’s for me but you can come along for a few minutes.</p>
<p>First reflection, why have I not blogged more this year!  Simple answer its been hectic but I feel like I could have reflected on a more regular basis the 12 month journey.</p>
<p>Second reflection, what a year!</p>
<p>By the end of 2023 we signed the contract with Drieam (who support the learner, course and order management platform called <a href="https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Feduframe.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cc57c79c049f74fc4222608dd3536802c%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C638725230381480477%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=qiL39YC%2B0JyNdVLoKhQQo%2FHuTFRPszgLbUrHKTbRDpQ%3D&reserved=0">eduframe.com</a>) and Instructure (who host the learning platform called Canvas <a href="https://www.instructure.com">https://www.instructure.com</a>) to help us deliver the new Short Course Platform. It had taken 6 months of procurement and legal wrangling to get the contract sorted but in December 2023 it was finally signed. The short course platform will allow the public to browse courses via a web site, create an account, pay (if costed), enrol, learn, maybe get a digital badge and hopefully come back and repeat the process.</p>
<p>The platform aims to emulate a lot of the learnings from the core VLE projects including a consistent user experience, replacing laborious and admin heavy workarounds and having a clear purpose/strategy/vision. It has been a gap in the learning eco-system for a while and we have seen schools/depts bend tools and policies to meet their needs.</p>
<p>Interestingly with the current issues in HE we are starting to see a few other institutions spin up similar platforms. When we started this journey 2 years ago only a few examples existed but with institutions keen to explore additional revenue tracks we have seen similar platforms come online but that’s a different blog.</p>
<p>Like any new service we are starting fresh, which is great! But as soon as we started to update stakeholders and share the news more widely that we had signed a contract then comes the big questions…..when will it be available? Can we use it? How do I use it? Is it compliant? Will the learners like it? What is a learner? Can I show it to my friends? What is a short course?</p>
<p>It can feel like a landslide but I am lucky to work with people who are very supportive, open to ideas and like me love a plan(ner).The service isn’t just one new service, its 4 new platforms, training, guidance, marketing, communication, stakeholder engagement (one off and ongoing), terms of use, legal, compliant handling, data protection, accessibility, reporting (another new service so make that 5), terminology and the list goes on and on.</p>
<p>Spinning up a new service involves working with colleagues inside the department and making sure we are all confident or if not approachable to ask questions. Sounds easy but it’s probably the toughest part, the people who are the face of change need to speak the same language or stakeholders will lose confidence pretty quickly and that can cause tension in teams (who said what, why, when, did they not read the 1000 page memo).</p>
<p>Change agents also need to change. The ability to listen and change what we have thought about, developed or delivered is also key but with the caveat it must be based on facts. I listen to sports podcasts and was really intrigued by a football manager saying the team needed to focus on the team’s core goals (playing good football) and not be driven by the edge (bad passes and mistakes). That edge in service delivery can sometimes be a blocker to progress especially when creating a new service. Evaluating the use case and categorising it is key to understanding impact and priority especially when deadline is involved.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong use cases generated by stakeholders need to be listened to and evaluated but it’s the teams requirement to review and categories. Sometimes its not popular with stakeholders however I am a firm believer that services are never perfect. They evolve as does the requirements, the users (all of them) and the underlying technology. Services deliver to the masses and aim to meet all requirements however I have struggled to work on a service that doesn’t have a wish list or a product development roadmap.</p>
<p>The quicker you get comfortable with the edge the better.</p>
<p>My role in the project is technical lead but I feel more like a troubleshooter and negotiator. I have had to get to grips with 4 new bit of tech (content management system, payment portal, new VLE, a website developed on Next.js, a user provisioning tools) and help design a 5<sup>th</sup> (data reporting tool), negotiate with others use of the tools, design, onboarding for early adopter, project timelines and I am mentally knackered. Thankfully (again) a good team and me being very open about forgetting stuff and asking for reminders or checking my notes (which have merged into teams chats) has helped keep me on track. A technical lead sounds like someone who knows it all and I don’t but that’s ok. My role is offering workflows and options to a problem whilst speaking to the experts to help me map it out. Last Monday I had no clue on GA4 and now we have a plan to debug tags. Last Jan I started to play with APIs of the new platforms and now not a day goes by when I don’t have postman open and I am trying to figure out something.</p>
<p>2024 has been a blast but it’s been difficult. The projects have been challenging and that’s not just the tech. My confidence has taken a bit of a bashing along the way but its not personal. I will look back when we finally go live in May 2025 and think 2024 is the year we made a lot of decisions, I learned a little bit more about me and I am sharing some with you as it may help and remembe0 for any service its not the destination as there is never a destination, its just one big journey.<br />
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				<time datetime="2024-12-23" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 23, 2024</time><br />
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		<title>Canvas UK & Ireland User Group December 2024</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/canvas-uk-ireland-user-group-december-2024/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:01:56 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ai]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[canvas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sd]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=521</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>A user group is a great way to get the latest product gossip from the supplier and more importantly other institutions. They are great ways to network, get inspiration from peers and generally gauge where we are in the current implementation compared to others (plus free pastries).The Canvas UK & Ireland user group was hosted […]]]></description>
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<p>A user group is a great way to get the latest product gossip from the supplier and more importantly other institutions. They are great ways to network, get inspiration from peers and generally gauge where we are in the current implementation compared to others (plus free pastries).<br />The Canvas UK & Ireland user group was hosted by Manchester University. The day covered the Canvas roadmap, rubric adoption at medical schools, institutions migrating to canvas from another suppliers, break out sessions on analytics and administration of a VLE and more however there seemed to be one theme that was ever present in sessions, AI.</p>
<p>The first presenter represented FE and discussed how they had developed AI tools based on the Azure Framework (Microsoft) to create assessment feedback for students, assessment feedback summaries for staff and AI assistants to support students. The session highlighted how coding light tools can be developed using existing frameworks, APIs and a lot of engagement with users. The session generated a lot of questions including environmental impact, opt-in/out, academic integrity, quality and assurance of feedback etc. These questions aren’t new but I feel like we have moved from a space where we questioned AI and how it would be included in education to a new space where institutions themselves are developing tools.</p>
<p>With Open AI and the rapid evolution of LLMs suppliers are rushing to squeeze AI into their applications but at what risk? And why? I feel like we are partly to blame as we like new stuff but also want to improve the staff and student experience. It feels like AI might be the new thing that will solve all our problems (did someone saying Learning Analytics…). Like any new tech and especially with LLMs we also need to factor that these cohorts may have a certain level of expectation that AI is integrated into their professional, academic or learning journey. My fear is where should it be integrated and why?</p>
<p><br />New stuff is always fun for me but as someone who works with technology, I also need to consider the why? What is this bringing to the user’s experience? Do we have a gap? Does it improve the users experience? Any repercussions we need to consider? Speaking to design colleagues and stakeholders should drive the change and with AI I don’t know how much of a conversation is happening with users. Don’t get me wrong we need to start somewhere, and basic support bots being used to support users (like <a href="https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/computing/comms-and-collab/elm">ELM</a> or <a href="https://edhelp.ed.ac.uk/">EDHelp</a>) help us grow knowledge and at the same time they practically allow end-users to interact and maybe think about additional functionality they would like to see included in these tools or where they can envision these tools supporting them.</p>
<p>Instructure will be releasing more AI functionality and already have tools like Insights which utilises aspects of AI so:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘buckle your seat Dorothy, cause Kanvas is going bye-bye!’ – Cypher, The Matrix.<br /><br /></p>
</blockquote>

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		<title>2023 Reflection</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/2023-reflection/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Dec 2023 09:46:14 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital badges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short course platform]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=497</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 3</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>It has been a while since I sat down with my thoughts. I have been talking about making time to blog and reflect and today is the day!  If you’re new here, hello! This will not be an ideological masterpiece or reference books I read related to the role but more a personal reflection for […]]]></description>
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<p>It has been a while since I sat down with my thoughts. I have been talking about making time to blog and reflect and today is the day!  If you’re new here, hello! This will not be an ideological masterpiece or reference books I read related to the role but more a personal reflection for me on me, but you can read it (just don’t tell anyone!).</p>
<p>My 2023 will be the year of procurement, digital badges, and supporting the team (bored reading about AI so omitting it until Jan 2024).<br /><br />I have previously blogged about digital badges and how they have emerged from the pit of edu-tech doom and evolved into something that has value for issuers, earners and anyone else who is interested in the recognition of skills, achievements or competencies. I have also talked about replacing standalone credit that equates to nothing in the real world and longer term how institutions will need to offer digital versions of credit as the death of paper accelerates. I get it that people will still want to frame awards etc I just think that may be a minority.<br /><br />The team has done a fantastic job completing a procurement and establishing a service to support a 3-year pilot which we hope will extend with the pending new fun aka the short course platform. In just over 6 months we have issued over 1.5k badges, created and supported a badge governance process, created numerous guides and snazzy webpages, and planned to experiment with badge pathways in 2024. If you are interested have a peek at the webpage: <a href="https://edin.ac/3Waglnj">https://edin.ac/3Waglnj</a> and yes that is a badger wearing a jacket with badges (they are called Bo the badger).</p>
<p><br />I can only see badge popularity and use cases growing however I have concerns regarding the quality of products in the market, cost (platform prices vary vastly) and openness of underlying badge frameworks and portability. With Instructure hoovering up Badgr and now Parchment a big player is making an early move and the wider impact will be interesting to watch.</p>
<p>Procurements are always interesting and when the outcome is a brand new service it’s even more ‘exciting’. At this point I am going to read your mind, are you thinking something along the lines of…</p>
<p>‘Wow Wow, Myles is that a typo!, has the eggnog gone to your head!’ </p>
<p>The answer is no, in a weird and slightly concerning way it’s been fascinating to work with the project team to collaborate, collate, refine and produce a vision with key stakeholders for a new centrally supported platform that will allow the public to view CPD, PPD and any other short courses. pay (if required) and access a dedicated learning platform or be sent any relevant course information. </p>
<p>Ok, in reality, the devil is in the details and creating clear and concise questions that suppliers need to answer is a challenge. Interpreting those answers and scoring them is a bigger challenge especially then the question set is over 100 questions! Then agreeing to scores and feedback is a bigger challenge! It’s like Mortal Combat but without the combat as that would involve HR (however sometimes I think it would have been quicker to just have the combat).</p>
<p>So why did we need to go into the combat ring of procurement? Currently, these types of courses are delivered via numerous platforms, can be an admin burden to support staff, provide an inconsistent and sometimes poor learner experience and may be breaching software licenses (moving on swiftly). To summarise it’s very Edinburgh. everyone is doing something different.  So, we proposed a change as we saw a clear gap and after lots of conversations, papers, presentations, and acronym searching we secured support from senior management and a budget from the institution. Instructure and Drieam won the procurement, and I look forward to working with them in 2024.</p>
<p>I manage a small team and also deputize for the section head. I enjoy both and am fortunate to be surrounded by people I respect and enjoy working with each day but this year has taught me to be a human first and a manager second. Work-life balance has always been important to me, especially with a family and growing up in a family where that balance did not exist and witnessing the impact on people’s mental and physical health has always been a valuable lesson to me.</p>
<p>I work hard as Myles Blaney team manager, technical lead, senior service manager, internal consultant, HR rep for the team, information security rep for the section, procurement mediator, badge specialist, and everything else in between. So, I need time to be Myles Blaney gym enthusiast, bike rider, Newcastle United fan, MMA fan, gamer, husband, dad, son, brother, dad taxi, family event planner, and spectator to name a few. I am lucky to have control of my balance due to my supportive manager but I also need to take control of it when I have it and not to quickly check or reply to a ping in teams.</p>
<p>Lastly, AI! It’s here to stay and we are only at the base of the hype curve. I have dabbled this year with Karen into what other institutions are doing and it’s another blog I will post in Jan 2024. Exciting and terrifying at the same time but not new just quicker, faster and better.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>

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		<title>Canvas Credentials: the new open digital badge platform</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/canvas-credentials-the-new-open-digital-badge-platform/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:32:31 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital badges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[instructure]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=482</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 2</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>Finally after months of scoring procurement questions, analysing costs and negotiation I am pleased to announce that we will be providing open digital badges via Canvas Credentials (formally called Badgr).This is the start of a 3 year pilot to understand the value of digital badges for all stakeholders. Obviously for the earners aka the people […]]]></description>
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<p>Finally after months of scoring procurement questions, analysing costs and negotiation I am pleased to announce that we will be providing open digital badges via Canvas Credentials (formally called Badgr).<br /><br />This is the start of a 3 year pilot to understand the value of digital badges for all stakeholders. Obviously for the earners aka the people awarded a badge(s), will it help motivate them? will they share it on digital CVs or social media? will they even click on the email and accept the badge? what about employability? how do they value a digital badge?<br /><br />How about issuers aka the schools that award the badge, is the platform easy to use? does it allow them the flexibility to develop and deliver standalone and badges which are interlinked (like a pathway)? what about resource for managing all things badges? and why bother with badges?<br /><br />Hang on, what about IS (we are people too), how does it affect us as issuer, earners and support? So all of the above plus is the platform robust? does it provide what the issuers and earners need? how will the service grow? will be see a badge bonanza or the butchering of badges?<br /><br />Whatever will happen the next few years will allow us to pilot and review the premium version of canvas credentials. For clarification when I say premium I mean paid for aka we get extra bits and bobs like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Lots of Analytics: data, data, data</li>
<li>Organisation Management: aka one admin to rule them all! </li>
<li>Ability to add skills to a badge: I got skills their multiplying!</li>
<li>Ability to add custom fields to a badge: starting to panic about how this could be used!</li>
<li>Pathways: interlinked badges journeys</li>
</ul>
<p>Sounds pretty cool! Pathways are probably the ‘funnest’ (not a word but you know what I mean) premium tool which will allow schools or departments to create open stackable badges or paths (basic, intermediate, high ) to a higher level of achievement (Expert). These can include internal or external open badges so in theory could involve external bodies (e.g. companies, other institutions) and users can track their own progress! (take a breathe!).</p>
<p>And what have we decided to call the new open digital badge pilot/service……(drum roll)……BadgEd! (we got the word badge, we are the University of Edinburgh and we love incorporating Ed into stuff). </p>
<p>Sounds like a busy few years? You interested in finding out some more information? Ain’t you lucky we created this website where you can find out some more information on the <a href="https://edin.ac/40QRuX3">BadgEd webpages.</a></p>
<p><br />Finally this wouldn’t be possible without all the hard work of colleagues who have been exceptional (as usual) to help get from an idea to a live pilot (so thanks goes to Delia, Tracey, Nikki, Karen, Fiona and Ellen). Let the hard (fun) work begin….<br /><br /></p>

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		<title>Digital Badges, not just a pretty picture</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/digital-badges-not-just-a-pretty-picture/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2022 15:48:03 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital badges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=455</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>Digital badges are back! They never went away I hear you say and yes? Of course not but we did enter an odd phase were badges were being issued for anything or everything (I like to refer to this era as the ‘Oprah Winfrey’ era). So we all got badges and the value of a […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>Digital badges are back! They never went away I hear you say and yes? Of course not but we did enter an odd phase were badges were being issued for anything or everything (I like to refer to this era as the ‘Oprah Winfrey’ era).</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium aligncenter" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7ZeQBhbVGnELP4bK/giphy.gif" alt="you get a gif" width="480" height="326" /></p>
<p>So we all got badges and the value of a badge declined plus how could we validate the badge, where do we put the badges to promote ourselves? So the badge hype slowly dwindled to some hardcore fans who issued badges sporadically. Badge strategies were forgotten and images of badges were added to email signatures with no ability to validate someones claim to be an Google Cloud wizard.  I should also state that the frustration with badges also may be related to lack of platforms to develop and issue plus the limited options for styling, metadata and a space for an earner to host (yes Mozilla backpack was available however if you used it then you would understand it had issues).</p>
<p>I personally worked with badges via Blackboard learn a few years ago and we had some great use cases but the value of badges was not recognized by external institutions or private companies.</p>
<p>Fast forward a few years and the digital badge ecosystem has evolved. IMS open badge standards have been widely adopted by numerous suppliers, the options for badge creation & management is also diverse with open, free and paid for services available and most importantly the understanding that to maintain value for digital badges institution needs to have a strategy for badge creation.</p>
<p>The value aspect is key, speaking to other institutions in the UK and US they have stressed how value can only be maintained by guidance and governance. Guidance ensures standardization of the visual, the metadata and criteria for awarding. The visual is key and in most cases badge consumers (someone who sees a badge on a host platform aka linkedin, personal web page, email signature) will only see a small thumbnail of the image so keeping it clean and not going full Picasso is key. To get around the visual issue the creation of a style guide and a badge template helps subdue any hidden artistic desires.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium aligncenter" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/l4tV5VQbNScIikY4o/giphy.gif" alt="picasso art" width="480" height="480" /></p>
<p>Metadata is key, its the data/information that provides the context for the badge and includes fields like description, competencies, achievements, award criteria, expiration and the ability for consumers to check validation! Yes, if you have shared a badge I can check if your a world of war craft level 6 orc from the dune sea by clicking on the validate button.</p>
<p>Governance allows users to request a badge and for it to be reviewed by badge champions to ensure we do not create 100 badges for the same thing, ensure badge value is maintained (aka we don’t hurtle back to the Oprah era, PS you get a badge for reading this far!) and badge visuals are maintained (we want the University of Edinburgh badge experience to follow established design guidelines and best practices) . I would stress that governance is a mix of academic and service staff all with a vested interest in the success of digital badges.</p>
<p>So we have a process and some standards so what do we issue badges for? As highlighted earlier they have been issued for everything and we are keen to avoid those dark days. Badges have a place for recognition of extra curricula or non-curricula skills, competencies or achievements that may not be recognized via other awards or even at all. Badges can be used to level up the softer skills that are core to user development or simply recognize the skills, competencies or achievements a user has gained. Badges spans the digital ecosystem and user base and could be issued on a MOOC platform to a user completing the book MOOC or to a member of staff for competing the Information security training.</p>
<p>So I gained a badge what next? How about recommendations for associated badges which can build upon your skills, achievements or competencies gained via a previous badge. Or the ability to share on a host platform (go on be that LinkedIn boaster who announces everything they are doing to the world) or it can be kept private. Even better imagine having a space that is yours for life and doesn’t need you to be registered at the university, your account, your personal email address your in control. Or don’t claim the badge its all up to the earner (They have the power!)</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-medium" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/yhK4PWI9WJ0c/giphy.gif" alt="i have the power" width="320" height="240" /></p>
<p>The good news is that this service will be launching in the academic year 2022-23 and the team will share more thoughts once we pick a platform. The last thing I wanted to share is that whilst we are focusing on non-credit extra/non-curricula skills, achievements and competencies we are starting to hear institution considering issuing badges for UG and PG degree awards which kinda makes sense. Question if you have a degree what do you have to show your awesome achievement? and more importantly where is it? Personally I got a paper certificate and it sits in a cupboard with all my life admin things. Its not visible, its not verifiable and its on a bit of paper which isn’t great for the environment. A digital badge is verifiable and can be shared on numerous professional and/or personal platforms plus no trees were cut down to produce it. Sure the award ceremony might be slightly different however I have a feeling that the digital badge will be more useful to graduates.</p>
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		<title>My Hybrid Reflections (not yours!)</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/my-hybrid-reflections-not-yours/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[mblaney]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Nov 2021 09:52:18 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hybrid]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=421</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>19 months ago the thought of me staying at home for 23hrs for months would have terrified me, however we got out routine sorted which helped a lot, this included Joe Wicks 0900, BoJo presser at 1700 (do this but don’t do this), becoming at P2 teacher 1330-1600 (elbow pads in the post), family walk […]]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<span class="span-reading-time rt-reading-time" style="display: block;"><span class="rt-label rt-prefix">Reading Time: </span> <span class="rt-time"> 4</span> <span class="rt-label rt-postfix">minutes</span></span>
<p>19 months ago the thought of me staying at home for 23hrs for months would have terrified me, however we got out routine sorted which helped a lot, this included Joe Wicks 0900, BoJo presser at 1700 (do this but don’t do this), becoming at P2 teacher 1330-1600 (elbow pads in the post), family walk on the golf course 1600-1700. Throughout that period my working arrangements shifted from room to room as my setup evolved into a desk in my spare bedroom with a large screen and laptop. I have also blogged about the transitions if your interested in the detail but now I am now a hybrid worker.</p>
<p>Hybrid, what’s that? Well it’s kinda like a bit of office working and a bit of home working and for my working situation it makes a lot of common sense. Why does it work for me? The flexibility is something I have craved for years. I worked at home 1 day a week for 13 years, it allowed me to focus on documentation (if you have had the pleasure of working with me you know I love a good process document and making things transparent for anyone involved, who wouldn’t, share the fun), building servers remotely and other individual tasks with maybe the odd phone call to ask people to press a button on campus. Over the 13 years technology has evolved from email, messenger, skype for business (once you got it working) and now teams or Zoom. </p>
<p>Technology evolves and whilst we adapt it seamlessly into our non-working lives, with some of us actively promoting it for work, are 9-5 environment has stagnated due to numerous factors that include open spaces and noise, users unfamiliarity with the technology (e.g. can you hear me, I have poor Wi-Fi. Cat face – to name a few common issues), the technology being regarded as secondary, peoples personal or meeting room hardware setups (some people have vanity lights some people have 3 laptops perched on encyclopaedias).  With the tech evolving we can now do remote tasks which now include group work (ability to host or join online meetings), group text chat, drop-ins to chat, share a screen and work through shared documents or issues. </p>
<p>So the technology has evolved (braw!) however the office space hasn’t however what is the office meant to be? I have blogged that people are the campus and they! This has been clearly shown over the numerous lockdowns but as a red brick university the campus is the shop floor for the bulk of roles. IS touch numerous points of campus life (on and remote) and we have shown we can work in extreme circumstances however personally for me I prefer a hybrid work space, which is ultimately a flexible work space.</p>
<p>Home working is great, no trains, no flesh market close steps, no expensive sandwich or coffee shops, work in leisure clothes (bought my first pair of tracksuit bottoms 6 months ago….), no running to meetings basically a lot of good points,. I love my house however I like coming back to it (bit like when you walk in the door post-holiday after sharing a confined space with the hobbits) and I am a strong believer in work life balance. Now for me what work life balance means is ‘give and take’ aka flexibility, managing time/resource, honestly. It may sound preachy but having a young family has taught me to enjoy the time and separate work (like the LTW no comms after 6 policy).  I know   people who find this impossible and to be honest it freaks me out but it’s their decision. </p>
<p>Working in the office 2 days gives me a bit of separation and allows me to plan 2 different days however I don’t plan them any different and for the foreseeable wont. I come in and work, catch up with folks, meet online or in-person and go home. Currently 2 days is enough and not due to COVID concerns but due to the change in routine (which I am over) and the office feeling different. The space feels subdued and when I come in it’s like a Saturday.  It’s quiet for a time however co-ordinating days when others (usually Karen or Nikki) are in helps prioritise tasks for those days, allows us to bounce ideas around (scheduling collaboration and spontaneity on Teams is difficult) and lets me see other people J which I miss. Some of the people I get to work with or share an office with are worth the train fare alone to cheer me up. The human side of work and the office has been something I have blogged about before and it’s one of the reasons why I enjoy my job.</p>
<p>So let’s be honest about the office, desk layout isn’t the best for online meetings and mics pick up other conversations pretty quickly. Meeting rooms are quiet but rely heavily on tech working and the building not being full (booking a room prior to COVID was like a playing a game in Squid Games – somebody would die!). If we are to adopt hybrid shared desk arrangements, thinning of the space would help. The creation of more social sitting and printer booth breakout spaces would help the space however my big thing is the noise. We probably need to admit that for a truly hybrid space the open spaces will need to be a bit more nosier due to online meetings held at desk, more collaboration spaces in teams local environments (again noisy) and the acceptance that the office should be a collaboration space and not just a undefined space with a desk with your stuff on it. Making it a collaboration friendly space helps hybrid workers however like we have all gone through over the past months it would require a change and physical office space changes are probably the most difficult to accept.</p>
<p>So hybrid for me works, the tech now allows us the flexibility, management now understand having being entrenched in it during lockdowns but (always a but) the office isn’t configured to support it…yet. My experience of coming into the office isn’t negative however it could be better which I will be feeding back.</p>

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=663] "Who needs awards anyway!"

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=573] "2025: The year SCP took off"

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=555] "Short Courses Platform Implementation and Me"

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=544] "Failure and me"

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=529] "2024: the year of short courses & the edge!"

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=521] "Canvas UK & Ireland User Group December 2024"

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=497] "2023 Reflection"

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=482] "Canvas Credentials: the new open digital badge platform"

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=455] "Digital Badges, not just a pretty picture"

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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/mylesblaney/?p=421] "My Hybrid Reflections (not yours!)"

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		<title>More adventures with Claude</title>
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					<description><![CDATA[Claude and I have been working together to do more stuff since my first blog post about Claude. We’ve added a whole lot of new things to our prototype Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site including a chatbot to ask questions about the data (a challenge received by Lesley Greer), ‘stories’ …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Claude and I have been working together to do more stuff since my <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/03/04/my-new-pal-claude/">first blog post about Claude</a>.</p>
<p>We’ve added a whole lot of new things to our <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/laravel/witches/">prototype Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site</a> including a chatbot to ask questions about the data (a challenge received by Lesley Greer), ‘stories’ which are AI summaries of the people recorded in the database where we have the most data and a few new visualisations and bug fixes.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-435 size-large" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-1024x847.png" alt="Survey of Scottish Witchcraft 'Ask the database' screenshot." width="1024" height="847" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-1024x847.png 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-300x248.png 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-768x635.png 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-242x200.png 242w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853.png 1138w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>
<p>I tried to build an <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/oer/">OER search</a> – it was fun but I think it’s a good example of how to do things really badly. OER repositories sometimes have APIs to allow outside code to search them but not all of them do. So in the cases where there were no APIs or we couldn’t get an API key, we are scraping search results which is pretty horrible.  I think this is one I’d need a bit more time to sort out – I’d need to go and grab some API keys and honestly think I’d need to speak to repository owners because scraping search results is a really horrible way to do what’s needed and they might not like it very much.</p>
<p>Finally, as I mentioned in <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/whats-in-a-couple-of-decades/">my previous blog post</a>, I’m leaving the University and I was thinking, what could I leave Myles, the new Head of DLAM, as a present?  When I initially started the role myself, I always thought, what would <a href="https://ammienoot.com/about-2/">Anne-Marie</a> do in this situation?  Well.  I still don’t really know for certain what Anne-Marie would have done (I could take a guess) but Myles needs not to wonder what Karen would do because …..  I’m leaving him <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/karen-bot/">‘Karen-Bot’</a> to help guide him in his first few days/weeks.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-434" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758.png" alt="Karen-Bot in action. Purple AI chatbot." width="961" height="924" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758.png 961w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758-300x288.png 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758-768x738.png 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758-208x200.png 208w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 961px) 100vw, 961px" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Please use her wisely and also ask your questions now. She, like myself, will be leaving soon.</p>

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				<time datetime="2026-04-23" itemprop="dateModified">Apr 23, 2026</time>
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		<title>What’s a couple of decades between friends?</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/whats-in-a-couple-of-decades/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/whats-in-a-couple-of-decades/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:02:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=428</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[After almost 22 years working in a variety of different roles at the University, I’ve made the decision to leave. It’s been a hard decision as there is so much I love about my job but I need a chance to catch up with myself. I’d like to have a …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>After almost 22 years working in a variety of different roles at the University, I’ve made the decision to leave. It’s been a hard decision as there is so much I love about my job but I need a chance to catch up with myself. I’d like to have a bit of time to swot up on other areas I’m interested in such as sustainability and AI (or even the sustainability OF AI).  In the last few days, I thought I’d think about how much things have changed since I started in Biological Sciences in October of 2004 as an eLearning Project Officer ….</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Roles</h1>
<p>I was initially brought in funded by a Principal’s eLearning Fund project officer and I was on a fixed term contract to encourage the uptake of ‘eLearning’ in the School because the Principal believed it was something useful to be invested in.  There were quite a few of us across the Schools at the University which made it a nice environment but it was a bit ‘new’ and some parts of the University were maybe not massively enthusiastic about it.  Nowadays ‘eLearning’ is just synonymous with learning. It’s just part of what we do at the University.  The University now has a much larger number of learning technologists and related roles – both centrally and in Schools.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Hardware</h1>
<p>There have been massive changes in tech since 2004 unsurprisingly.  Everything is much smaller now and despite being smaller, can do much more.  I was very involved in a college project to roll out ‘clickers’ when I was in Biology, supporting Schools across the college and even in Biomedical Sciences.  We had to hand out these infrared devices to students, either on loan (I developed a barcode reading application to allow them to be signed out) or hand them out at the start and back in at the end of the lecture. If you want a wee blast from the past, you can <a href="http://www.stg-inc.com/prs.shtm">see how they look and an old web page with marketing information</a> about them.  I can’t believe pages this old still exist!</p>
<p>Ironically, one of the procurements my team did when I took on my Head of DLAM role was to replace our audience response system, 18 years later!  We procured <a href="https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/learning-technology/learning-and-teaching-technologies/electronic-voting-system/wooclap">Wooclap</a> which has no infrared and no separate keypad because everyone just uses their smart phones to interact with it.  To explain why we had these infrared ‘clickers’ in 2004, this is the sort of phone I had in 2004.  The only thing ‘smart’ about it was that it had a retro game called ‘Snake’ on it and the battery lasted for about 6 times as long as my new iPhone’s does.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-429" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b-225x300.jpg" alt="An old Nokia mobile phone" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b-150x200.jpg 150w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" /></p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25622716@N02/3184340500" rel="noopener noreferrer">2009 01 06 – Russett – Old Nokia 1</a>” by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25622716@N02" rel="noopener noreferrer">thisisbossi</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Platforms</h1>
<p>Our VLE used to look like this:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-430 size-full" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b.jpg" alt="WebCT, our old VLE from yesteryear." width="1023" height="345" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b.jpg 1023w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b-300x101.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b-768x259.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b-593x200.jpg 593w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px" /></p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/13518023@N03/4048343544" rel="noopener noreferrer">WebCT</a>” by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/13518023@N03" rel="noopener noreferrer">michaelseangallagher</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>.  [How clever of the University’s own <a href="https://www.de.ed.ac.uk/people/dr-michael-gallagher">Michael Gallagher</a> to make an openly licensed graphic of WebCT for future posterity, way back in 2009! ]</p>
<p>Now it looks way better (although we have higher expectations!). Platforms are generally more accessible.  So that’s all good.  But some changes have been less positive as time has passed – our websites need to be far more secure and locked up now and sometimes more recent developments have meant sites are more bloated in terms of the size and impact on the environment. I think we are more aware of this now but one of my fabulous interns, Otis, compared the size of some websites now vs the late 90s early 2000’s and found the size had massively increased.  We have more stuff now, things look better but as a result often the size has grown.  There was a time where we had to compress files we used for websites or uploading to the VLE because we’d have killed our internet or printers if we didn’t.  Now we mostly have faster internet and much more generous storage allocations, we’ve forgotten that it’s good to compress things/throw digital things away.  It’s something I, myself, need to be better at and working with Otis has shown me where small changes can make big impacts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Data</h1>
<p>In 2004, data was hard to come by and not joined up.  People ran different systems and things were pretty messy.  Data analysis was hard. Now, things aren’t perfect but they are better and improving all the time.  Tools like PowerBI make it easier for non-data-specicalists to join and visualise data in ways which tell deeper stories.  An intern in DLAM, Hera, has been doing just that with loads of our data, putting it into PowerBI so we can share it with Schools.  It’s amazing what she’s done in a small amount of time. If you are based in a School and want to look at the LTW data we have about the school, please put a call into the IS Helpline and ask for access to the LTW Dashboards.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Accessibility</h1>
<p>I’m ashamed to say that back in 2004, accessibility wasn’t a big feature of my life.  I was aware of basic website accessibility and the tools to check it (<a href="https://jimthatcher.com/bobbyeval.htm">remember Bobby</a>?) but I didn’t truly get it.  I have done a lot of work in the area now and do understand it a lot better – sometimes I wonder if we are so focused on the regulations that we forget about the people.  We have our intern David working on accessibility and his project on <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dlam/2025/07/31/educated-prompting/">making music accessible</a> for his friend, really brings a tear to my eye.  This is what our goals should be in terms of accessibility.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Digital Safety and the Truth</h1>
<p>So much is better and has moved on since 2004 but not everything is a positive.  There’s more digital crime – hacking, fraud, scams and now we have to contend with fake news, deep fakes, online bullying and harassment.  It’s a digitally dangerous place out there.  We have training and support but this was never something I really worried about very much in 2004.  We have a Digital Safety Officer here in LTW (<a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dsdt/author/rfillhar">Ricarda Fillhardt</a>) to keep us all in the know about Digital Safety. She has a huge job on her hand….</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, a lot has changed – some good, some bad. The world is a different place. The main thing is that in the 22 years I’ve worked at Edinburgh University, I’ve learned so much and have a wealth of experience to take away with me as well as some brilliant colleagues and friends, who I’ll miss very much indeed.</p>

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				<time datetime="2026-04-23" itemprop="dateModified">Apr 23, 2026</time>
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		<title>My new pal Claude…</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/03/04/my-new-pal-claude/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/03/04/my-new-pal-claude/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 18:19:22 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=406</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I’ve been using <a href="https://elm.edina.ac.uk/">ELM</a> 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 had a look at it, I’d highly recommend it.  I never copy what it says verbatim but it often gives a really helpful starter for ten for report or paper writing – the hardest bit can be just getting started.</p>
<p>However, I’ve spent a few evenings, the past couple of weeks, playing with Claude Code.  I’ve heard a few people talking about how amazing it is.  I came at it from a very sceptical place –  I mean, <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1">Claude (as Claudius) couldn’t even run a small vending machine</a> without going bankrupt… so how on earth could it do anything complicated.  I’m also worried about the impact of AI on the environment and on how it has been trained, I didn’t want to like it.  This blog post will (at least start) cover what I tried and how it went…</p>
<p>Executive summary…. I’m a bit blown away…..</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Some background information</h2>
<p>So, you know, we have some pretty ancient but really interesting data at Edinburgh University.  My favourite dataset of all time is our Survey of Scottish Witchcraft data. If you haven’t seen it, I’d strongly recommend you have a look.  It is a digitised dataset, which was collected from primary source materials more than 20 years ago, really led by <a href="https://edwebprofiles.ed.ac.uk/profile/julian-goodare">Professor Julian Goodare</a> from the School of History, Classics and Archaeology and a large number of other contributors over the more than two decades the dataset has existed.  It’s a dataset which provides information about those accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736.  There are a number of different sites where you can find out more, I’ll list them below:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://witches.hca.ed.ac.uk/">The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site</a> – this is the modernised version of the original web interface to the data and it has a great ‘about’ page which talks about the project and who’s contributed over the years.</li>
<li><a href="https://witches.is.ed.ac.uk/">The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft map site</a> – a sister/companion site which we developed here in IS with an interactive map showing all the locations talked about in the original database.</li>
</ul>
<p>The data is so so interesting and I’d really urge you to read about it but I won’t say much more in this post about it because having a 30 page long post will be unmanageable.  I’ll add a few interesting links to the bottom of this post if you want to find out more.</p>
<p>The data is Creative Commons licensed and available on <a href="https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/handle/10283/45">Edinburgh’s DataShare service</a>. The other brilliant thing about this data is that it’s a reasonable sized dataset but it’s well structured and has a corresponding database schema.  You can download the database tables as CSV files and the schema tells you how they link together. It is also available as a Microsoft Access Database too if you like Access.</p>
<p>I wanted to test out Claude Code but I wanted to use a dataset which contained no personal data and so this well structured data was ideal – there is personal data but it’s for people who existed hundreds of years ago so I think it’s safe from a data protection perspective.</p>
<h2>What I did</h2>
<p>I grabbed all the data from the dataset (CSVs) and the schema and started reading about Claude code. I signed up for a Pro license (£20 a month), installed it all on my personal laptop at home using Visual Code Studio as an editor and installing a plugin to allow Claude to work through the editor.  That was literally the trickiest part, mainly because for a few hours Claude didn’t seem to understand that I had a pro license, but once it got over itself, I was flying…..</p>
<p>I fed in all the CSV files and the schema and asked it to set me up with a website to allow me to view the data with an administrator interface which would allow me to edit the data. It needed to be in PHP and using a MariaDB – mainly because it’s what I know but also people in my team who are better developers than me (which isn’t hard) know it too.  It’s a set up that’s available on our University web servers.  It went into planning mode, reviewed the CSV and the schema and came back with some suggestions which I asked it to implement.  It (with my permission) installed a XAMPP stack on my local computer for testing out the site and then happily started beavering away.  With Pro you have a limit so that first project took a few evenings – although mainly I just got on with my life whilst Claude was doing its work.  A few nights later, it was ready and I ran it on my localhost and to say I was gobsmacked was an understatement.  Whilst I’d made my dinner, played with  my dogs and vegged out in front of the telly, Claude had been busy designing a website, writing the code and creating style sheets. I’ve done 9 different iterations of the site now – just trying things out to see how it coped.  Some of these features are not necessarily features I’d have in a live site but together Claude and I have added:</p>
<ul>
<li>an image for each of the accused. Each accused has a different image.  I wouldn’t do this on a live site, it makes the site feel less serious (and it should be serious, it’s a shameful part of our past) should have but there are nearly 4000 accused people in the database, and they all have an individual image now.  That took about 10 minutes.</li>
<li>I added an accused witch AI chatbot. I hooked it up to ELM and it’s now possible to have a conversation with an AI with a very basic prompt to respond as a Scottish Accused witch. Again, not necessarily something I’d do on a real version of the site but it was so easy to do, just plugging the ELM API key in and it worked.</li>
<li>for the admin interface, I had to wait until I had SSO installed on the web server and Claude didn’t really understand how that would work at first but once I explained it, again, I just uploaded the files it had created and it just worked.</li>
<li>I had a request to add dark mode which I asked Claude to do. This took a bit of wrangling – mainly just pointing out bits where it hadn’t quite worked right, but was quickly resolved.</li>
<li>I’ve (or should I say Claude….) changed the list pages so they can be ordered by any column on the pages.</li>
<li>We added in some more static pages (not currently populated) and a simple WYSIWYG editor for them  (About)</li>
<li>Last night, we added in some visualisations including a basic map (with only the data in the original database, not the data from the more recent map site).</li>
</ul>
<p>I have not shared any of the passwords or keys with Claude.  They are all safely stored and not accessible to Claude and I’m manually moving the files onto the server.</p>
<p>All in all, I’m pretty amazed with what Claude did. I had to provide clarity or guidance a few times – for example, I wanted the database connection file outside of the webroot on the server for security and I had to suggest things like that.  But apparently you can train it so it learns how you want to work so I need to look into doing that too.</p>
<p>Next thing I’ll be looking at is getting it set up to push code to github – I can then share it with my team – and specifically Andrew and the others in his team who are PROPER REAL DEVELOPERS who I’ve asked to do a code review and give me some feedback – so we can see what they say, and that will probably be another blog post.</p>
<p>You can see what Claude and I built together – <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/laravel/witches/">Test Survey Site</a>.</p>
<p>At some point I’ll close this site down, it’s just a prototype/experiment so after that date, I’m leaving a few screenshots so you can see how it looks. Amazingly responsive too on a mobile device.</p>
<p>Now I need to think about …. what is next?? I may be a Claude-Addict. If that’s not a thing, it soon will be.</p>
<p>Screenshots are clickable so you can see more of the detail:</p>
<p><a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180013.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-408 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180013-150x150.png" alt="AI Chat Bot" width="150" height="150" /> </a> <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180028.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-409 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180028-150x150.png" alt="Basic map" width="150" height="150" /> </a> <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180043.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-410 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180043-150x150.png" alt="Basic timeline" width="150" height="150" /> </a> <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180109.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-411 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180109-150x150.png" alt="Admin interface - edit a person" width="150" height="150" /></a>  <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-175817.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-412 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-175817-150x150.png" alt="Front page of the site" width="150" height="150" /></a></p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Other links with background info</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/witchcraft_visualisation/">The Witchfinder General blog</a></li>
<li><a href="https://curiousedinburgh.org/history-of-witchcraft-in-edinburgh/">History of Witchcraft in Edinburgh Tour</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6054672/">Julian has also been involved in a few TV shows</a> that are definitely worth watching</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>

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				<time datetime="2026-03-04" itemprop="dateModified">Mar 4, 2026</time>
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		<title>Goodbye Argyle House..</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/02/20/goodbye-argyle-house/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:27:52 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hybridworking]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=399</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_401" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-401" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-401 size-medium" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924-300x225.jpg" alt="Brutalist Argyle House from the outside" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924-267x200.jpg 267w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924.jpg 640w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-401" class="wp-caption-text">Argyle House (photo by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924.jpg">Richard Webb</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>)</figcaption></figure>
<p>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 enjoyed it – it helped me feel part of something bigger.  It’s quieter now since COVID but there’s still a lot going on and LTW does more social things on the wing now like bake sales, charity food collection (thanks to prize winner Stratos!), bring a dish type events (so it’s not all about cake… although my favourite things do always revolve around cake….) which is really nice.</p>
<p>Lots of things happened in Argyle House in the time I’ve been with IS.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>We were based on the west side for the first few years I was with IS and I remember being totally freaked out when I realised the fire escape route was out onto the roof….</li>
<li>COVID happened – I got the train home with a monitor under my arm thinking ‘this will all blow over in a week or two’ (what an idiot eh!!)</li>
<li>When we eventually did return, there was the great flood of Argyle House which caused significant damage to our space.</li>
<li>There was the incident in the lobby. If you know, you know. *shudder*</li>
<li>New staff inductions usually ended up with me stranded in the basement with our new staff member as I showed them where the bike store was. The basement is a little bit like the scene of a zombie apocalypse movie, so thanks to everyone who rescued me (and the new person) over the years.  The zombies never got us.</li>
<li>We got an impromptu concert by Suede and the Manics one afternoon, a rehearsal in advance of their evening show. It was awesome.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>My last day in Argyle House was Tuesday, it’s closing for us, forever, today.  I have a tinge of sadness – not a fan of the brutalist architecture but it looked better from the inside.</p>
<p>The meeting rooms have been amazing (thanks Lesley and team!), I’ve eaten so much good cake over the years in AH and the view….</p>
<p>… I leave you with this final photo of that glorious view, the sun shone on Tuesday – I think it knew…</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-400 size-large" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-1024x387.jpg" alt="View of Edinburgh Castle from Argyle House on a sunny day." width="1024" height="387" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-1024x387.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-300x114.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-768x291.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-529x200.jpg 529w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>

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				<time datetime="2026-02-20" itemprop="dateModified">Feb 20, 2026</time>
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		<title>A review of 2025 from a DLAM perspective</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/12/22/a-review-of-2025-from-a-dlam-perspective/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2025 17:15:33 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assessment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecture recording]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[virtual classroom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vle]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=393</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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.</p>
<p>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 institutions has been depressing and frustrating alongside balancing it all against the rise of AI and how quickly technology is changing as a result of it.</p>
<p>However, as usual, my team have achieved so much. Our Director asks us for our 6 top achievements before our LTW all staff which happens on a 6 monthly basis.  It’s a brilliant way to remind ourselves of what we’ve been up to (because it’s so easy to focus on the next thing and forget everything that’s happened).</p>
<p>So here is a little reminder or us DLAMers (Digital Learning Applications and Media) on our achievements over the last year. Give yourselves a pat on the back and a cheer.</p>
<ul>
<li>Working with other parts of LTW and units around the University, we created a web catalogue for our new <a href="https://shortcourses.ed.ac.uk/">Short Courses Platform</a> (SCP).  This has all been a huge amount of work but it’s such a fantastic service. It provides an easy workflow for those who want to be able to offer these courses. Prior to our SCP, units and Schools were pretty much on their own. There was no central place to advertise or find them, no easy way for learners to pay and no online teaching & learning platform for those who needed it.</li>
<li>Our writing up of our digital exams project (<a href="https://uoe.sharepoint.com/sites/FLORADigitalExams">FLORA</a>).  Although paused for now, we pulled a huge amount of data together, the Project Board worked really well together to develop a collection of recommendations and a business case for a follow on project. Hopefully we’ll get the ok to move on with that project at some point.  The FLORA findings are on SharePoint, so only available to users within the University but if you are interested and are from outside the University, drop me a line.</li>
<li>We had a record breaking academic year for lecture recording, when I looked at our numbers in June, we’d had the biggest number of captures in the history of the service for the 24-25 academic year.  Although I don’t have the official stats from our supplier yet for December, i can see that the calendar year numbers for 2025 are almost the same as the full 2024 numbers so I’m confident we’ll be celebrating the biggest calendar year yet for lecture recording at Edinburgh.</li>
<li>2025 has also been a great year for interns in DLAM.  They’ve just been so awesome giving us insights into caption and lecture recording quality, sustainability, accessibility and extracting new views of our services (through data) which we’ve never seen before.  I’m hoping we can continue this work going forward.</li>
<li>We also did a huge amount of work (with support from Info Sec and folk in Apps and ITI) to switch MFA on for our services.</li>
<li>Our development team rewrote a feed from our timetabling system to push groups into our Learn VLE. It had been misbehaving a bit and it wasn’t providing logging with the detail we needed.  It’s now way more efficient, sustainable (and environmentally friendly as an unexpected bonus!) and just much easier to manage.</li>
<li>We restructured our unidesk queues too – this sounds minor but it’s been in my to-do list since I started this job back in 2020.  I can’t claim the credit and need to credit Mark Findlay (with our Service Management Team) for getting it over the line.</li>
<li>And we did more work (with colleagues in Applications Directorate) on data retention and deletion. And more will follow in 2026. Trying to keep our services cost effective and sustainable.</li>
<li>And we had the best DLAM Festive Quiz ever.  Joe is an excellent quiz host and is 19 Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers tall.  Read into that what you will.</li>
<li>And of course, we did what we do every year,  managing our services, working with suppliers, helping users with issues. Keeping the show on the road.</li>
</ul>
<p>And obviously there’s loads more I haven’t mentioned, but I’ll stop there.</p>
<p>Phew.  A big round applause for everyone.  Well done!  See you in 2026.</p>
<p> </p>

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				<time datetime="2025-12-22" itemprop="dateModified">Dec 22, 2025</time>
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		<title>An appeal to HE suppliers</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/12/an-appeal-to-he-suppliers/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/12/an-appeal-to-he-suppliers/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:28:34 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=389</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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.</p>
<p>That big long list of features we’ve requested and the bug fixes we are desperate for…..  we’d very much appreciate you talking to us to consider the priority of those compared to a shiny new AI tool.  Yes, the tool might be very cool and we might agree it’s a tool we want but you might be surprised if you ask us to make an ordered list in priority order, and force us to think about which we want most.</p>
<p>One mistake I’ve seen made year after year (with some suppliers, not all) is getting us into a workshop and saying ‘blue sky thinking, whaddya want?’.  We go mad and write down every idea we’ve ever had.  The workshop finishes and we go away and get on with our life.  The supplier takes an unprioritised list and then makes a bit of a stab at prioritising themselves. We then moan about how they never fix the bugs or build the features we want.</p>
<p>A Head of School in a department I worked in before always used a beans metaphor.  I thought this was a brilliant way to work with people – it simplifies the prioritisation task a lot.  You only have 10 beans.  How many beans would you allocate to that <insert feature/change/budget spend….>?  Now you  have 7 beans left, what about this one….? The beauty of this is it shows the reality of the world. There are limits to the beans, no one has unlimited beans, and everything needs to be prioritised.</p>
<p>So suppliers….before you go away and build something… make sure you count your beans!</p>

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				<time datetime="2025-11-12" itemprop="dateModified">Nov 12, 2025</time>
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		<title>Some reflections on AI Agents</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/12/some-reflections-on-ai-agents/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Nov 2025 08:51:23 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vle]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=381</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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.  …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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 <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/ai-agents/">helpful description by Amazon</a>).  They can do this on your behalf without your intervention.  Clearly however, you need to give them access to whichever systems you’d like them to support you with and that means providing them with access to the system(s).  The agents might be built into the system you are using already but more likely an agent will sit outside and help you across different systems. In order to use the agent, you’ll need to share your login credentials for the system with it, so it can act on your behalf.</p>
<p>This is both where the strength of the agent and the problems lie.  This is what allows it to do things seamlessly on your behalf.  It’s logged in as you, the actions look like actions you are taking.  Very hard to detect by the system the agent is running in as it just looks like you logged in and are doing whatever things you usually do.</p>
<p>Part of my brain thinks of all the useful things I could ask an agent to do for me.  Things like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Set up a complicated group meeting, looking at busy diaries and finding the best time (avoid lunch time, be mindful of people who are part-time, these people are mandatory, these are optional, make it start 5 past the hour and end 5 to the hour to give everyone a comfort break) – this is always a time consuming job to do and it’d be so helpful to have an agent to give you the possibilities.</li>
<li>Log into our HR system, pull a report of my team’s leave and email all of those with more than 10 days of leave left to book before the end of the annual leave year to remind them.  That’s a pretty clunky job to do manually.</li>
<li>Log into the VLE, that assignment that’s due on Friday…  Write the essay and submit it.</li>
</ul>
<p>….Wait!! Stop!</p>
<p>The critical thing for me here is ….. you’ve given your login credentials to an agent to do stuff on your behalf! YOUR CREDENTIALS!  It’s now logging into University systems and doing things, logged in as you.  It can do anything you can do.  Is it a reputable/safe agent?  How do you know it is?  Even reputable agents can do things you wouldn’t do…. worst case you use an agent that isn’t reputable and safe and it does a whole bunch of things behind the scenes you didn’t expect.  Like a virus.  You’ve given it an entry point and now it’s hacking your servers, sending rude emails to your boss and writing blog posts selling watches.  You gave it access to our HR system, now it has all the personal data for your team.  You gave it access to the VLE and it’s submitted the essay but it is not a good essay and you fail – it’s rubbish and clearly AI generated.  Would you hand your password to a random person on the internet?</p>
<p>We need to work with staff and students to remind them of the risks of using AI like this.  Remember the inherent issues with AI – bias, confusion about copyright, and the fact it gets things wrong even if it’s genuinely built for good and not evil.  Some AI’s will be built specifically to help discover vulnerabilities in systems or steal your data – do you know which AIs are which?</p>
<p>If we are worried about students using AI to automatically write and submit assessments, isn’t this just the same as worrying about students using AI to generate submissions for assessments?  There’s just the extra step of it all being automated.  If this is a concern then maybe thinking about how we assess and whether it’s still fit for purpose is actually a big priority for HE.</p>
<p>So, to summarise:</p>
<ul>
<li>Agentic AI is not necessarily bad, but it might be, and really we need to make sure we educate students and staff to understand the risks.</li>
<li>If we are worried about students using it to cheat, there are many other ways they can cheat (and many other ways they can cheat using AI specifically).  We have to remind students of the value of the learning process and consider how and what we are assessing – is it still fit for purpose, the world has changed quite a bit in recent years.  Many of our students care deeply about the environment, we can also<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117"> remind them of the impact AI has on the world</a> – so use it carefully.</li>
<li>AI isn’t going away.  And actually may feature pretty heavily in employability of our students going forward.  We need to teach them how to use it properly.</li>
</ul>

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				<time datetime="2025-11-12" itemprop="dateModified">Nov 12, 2025</time>
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		<title>Kaltura Connect – November 2025</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/05/kaltura-connect-november-2025/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Nov 2025 18:13:10 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecture recording]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=376</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Nelly and I were invited to speak at Kaltura Connect in London today (at the fantastic Science Gallery @KCL).  <a href="https://corp.kaltura.com/video-collaboration-communication/enterprise-video-portal/">Kaltura</a> is the service we use to provide our own <a href="https://media.ed.ac.uk/">Media Hopper Create</a> service for media storage and streaming.  It was a fun day, we got a chance to catch up with a few people we hadn’t seen for a while and met some new people who were using Kaltura in innovative ways. Kaltura is our Media Hopper Create service,  providing our media streaming and management service.</p>
<figure id="attachment_377" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-377" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-377 size-full" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL.jpg" alt="The view by the Science Gallery at KCL (including the tip of the Shard in London and a nice blue sky)" width="600" height="264" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL.jpg 600w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL-300x132.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL-455x200.jpg 455w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-377" class="wp-caption-text">The view by the Science Gallery including the tip of the Shard on a glorious sunny, autumn day</figcaption></figure>
<p>The keynote first thing was very thought provoking, ‘The innovation masquerade’ – <a href="https://www.solent.ac.uk/staff/governor/sarah-jones">Sarah Jones (Southampton Solent University)</a> who was questioning whether innovation was really innovative and whether we needed to question why we were doing ‘innovation’ and make sure we are doing it for the right reasons. She was more inclined to be disruptive than innovative and her arguments were powerful.  I think I particularly agreed with her view on questioning why we are doing things more regularly – we don’t ask this question enough.</p>
<p>There were presentations from the University of Bergen on <a href="https://www.vitentv.no/">Viten TV</a> (trusted academic video) and then from Rob Pashley at International Baccalaureate about digitising assessment by 2032, including media in the assessment possibilities.  Interesting project which I hope to hear more about in the future.</p>
<p>We did a fun breakout activity in a group where we were thinking (blue sky) about the possibilities for AI in teaching & learning. We had a lot of different ideas around the room, some of which I agreed were a priority.  I’m really keen we use AI to complete the less creative aspects of our jobs like writing metadata (with a human check) or checking accessibility.  We did talk about it as being a possible way to help create more personalised content for students but there are a lot of risks and dangers with AI and I think we’d need to really think it through before we did something like that. But hey, this was blue sky thinking and we were trying to think about the positives……</p>
<p>Nelly and I presented on <a href="https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/learning-technology/accessibility/best-practice-for-making-media-accessible/captioning">our captioning service</a> – both the human captioners (our wonderful intern team, see this<a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dlam/2025/04/14/captionediting/"> blog post by Ellie in the team</a>) and also the research we’ve been doing on <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dlam/2025/05/01/correcting-academic-language-with-ai/">how to improve the accuracy of the automated captions</a> (without human intervention) and got some really good questions and comments, including someone who’d been using Google Gemini to create audio descriptions for media when it was requested (apparently it did a pretty good job). We also spoke to someone from the University of Amsterdam who were trying to solve a similar problem to us and then someone from <a href="https://www.sunet.se/en/about-sunet">SUNET</a> (who provide a national on premise version of Kaltura for HE in Sweden and are also coincidentally working on a ‘scribe’ service which creates more accurate transcripts and captions using Whisper.AI built on their own specialist infrastructure and they were interested in looking at what we’d been trying with LLMs to do some post processing to perfect the captions.  We’ll definitely keep these conversations going.</p>
<p>I think it always surprises me when I go to conferences and chat to others that work in a similar role to me how we all seem to be trying to solve the same problem at the same time but completely oblivious to each other’s struggles.  Queen Mary University have realised they have staff who forget to wear microphones and they are using posters to try and remind them.  KCL are interested in lecture recording quality monitoring, just like us, but implementing it in a different way.  I think it’s such a great opportunity at events like this to remember the world outside and hear about what other people are doing.  I really enjoyed the day but it was slightly dampened by <a href="https://x.com/LNER/status/1985910248788394438?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet">train issues</a> meaning I got home at 2.30am.</p>

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				<time datetime="2025-11-05" itemprop="dateModified">Nov 5, 2025</time>
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		<title>A Friday at ALT-C</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/10/26/a-friday-at-alt-c/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 26 Oct 2025 18:06:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assessment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecture recording]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vle]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=373</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[I attended the Friday of ALT-C today and I’m glad I did, it was a very interesting and fun day. Some brief highlights from me…. I learned a new term today which I thought was really poignant – ‘lifeload’ – sum of all pressures a student has in their life …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I attended the Friday of ALT-C today and I’m glad I did, it was a very interesting and fun day.</p>
<p>Some brief highlights from me….</p>
<p>I learned a new term today which I thought was really poignant – ‘lifeload’ – sum of all pressures a student has in their life INCLUDING university – some people have a bigger lifeload than others and lifeload needs to be considered when thinking about inclusivity.  This was in a keynote by Gabi Witthaus where she was talking about rethinking inclusion. She made some really good points highlighting injustices as well as possible solutions and reflections.</p>
<p>Steph Comley and Cat Bailey from JISC ran a great workshop on piloting edtech tools – JISC are planning a framework and the workshop will feed into that. It was a great way to reflect on what works well/doesn’t work.</p>
<p>I then really enjoyed the presentation by Ruth Clark, Leeds Conservatoire, about how they moved from Mahara to WordPress for their student competency tracking.  Mahara wasn’t popular and it went from being free (& open source) to having a charge and that was the trigger for a rethink.  They felt WordPress was a good option and felt it also provided students with transferable skills given how much of the internet uses WordPress.</p>
<p>After that, another really enjoyable presentation by Johnny Briggs at Glasgow who was building immersive experiences but using simple technology like 360 images and video.  Although low tech, was much more accessible and widely usable.  Johnny had built some really cool stuff like a virtual tour of Wallace’s monument and was doing an accessibility tour of a new building at Glasgow, aiming to show building users with mobility difficulties how to navigate the building.</p>
<p>After lunch, a workshop about reviewing a <a href="https://www.ucisa.ac.uk/groups/digital-education/vle-review-toolkit">VLE review toolkit developed by UCISA</a>.  The penultimate session of the afternoon I went to was Joseph Spink from the University of Birmingham did a presentation on their business continuity plan.  It was really interesting, and quite similar to what we’ve been doing – which is always a relief.  He talked through their priority 1 incident process and what they did to create a Business Continuity Plan and Business Impact Assessment.  He highlighted the importance of reviewing these documents regularly because things change.</p>
<p>The final session I found particularly interesting and useful. Andrew Larner from Manchester Metropolitan and his colleagues had been working to review and provide advice on assessment in the age of AI.  They’d reviewed all the assessments in a department and attempted them with AI tools and then categorised them in a way which showed how easy it was to use AI to complete them and looked at the ones which had been harder and extracted the parameters of those to help them redesign the other assessments.</p>
<p><a href="https://aiinhighered.com/assessments">Summary of the work done and findings </a>(really worth a look).</p>
<p>Then I headed home.  With thanks to Scotrail for getting me home …. Eventually…..</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2025-10-26" itemprop="dateModified">Oct 26, 2025</time>
			</span>
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		<title>Ada Lovelace Day – my reflections</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/10/16/ada-lovelace-day-my-reflections/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/10/16/ada-lovelace-day-my-reflections/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:56:36 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=364</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Ada Lovelace Day was on the 14th of October this year.  We’ve been celebrating her day here in IS for a decade now (long before I joined IS) and this year, like the last 2 years, I was on the organising team for our celebration.  This year we had an …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ada Lovelace Day was on the 14<sup>th</sup> of October this year.  We’ve been celebrating her day here in IS for a decade now (long before I joined IS) and this year, like the last 2 years, I was on the organising team for our celebration.  This year we had an even more packed schedule than usual.</p>
<p>I may be a bit biased but I had a thoroughly lovely day.</p>
<p>In a packed (standing room only) room in the Main library, we started with some lightning talks by students and staff which were amazingly interesting. Milly (PhD researcher, the Paleontology Society) talking about the challenges of being a woman while digging up dinosaurs in the Badlands of Montana. It was a really brave and honest discussion of topics rarely discussed and she came prepared with solutions!  Next was a talk by Anna (CompSoc Vice President) about fleeing her war-torn home in Ukraine and sharing a stage with President Bill Clinton.  Anna’s positive mindset made me feel quite emotional – always turning challenges into opportunities.  A truly inspiring young woman.</p>
<p>Ariadna (PhD student, Natural Language Processing NLP) gave a really informational talk where she compared her time in industry to her time in academia.  I found it particularly interesting from an NLP perspective, Ariadne worked on text to speech and in particular voice cloning which could be controversial but was also an absolute game changer for disabilities where people lost their ability to talk.  Not only could they speak but they could get their own voices back.</p>
<p>I was also pleasantly surprised that  Lucia (EFI) was doing a talk with Beccy (Society of Scottish Antiquaries). Lucia was a PhD student who I supported in my days working in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology and I remembered her love of data and databases!  She and Beccy are now working on a project to get more female Scottish antiquarians of the 19th and 20th centuries into Wikipedia, trying to navigate around complexities such as name changes after marriage, a difficulty I hadn’t considered at all prior to their talk.</p>
<p>We then had an editathon, arts and crafts (I made myself some new stickers for my computer), badges, <a href="https://html5.is.ed.ac.uk/ada-lovelace-day/">our women in STEM interactive tour</a> and Cari worked with staff in uCreate to provide women in STEM activities such getting your photo taken with a well known woman in STEM.  Here, Satu is showing exactly how it’s done, hanging out with another amazing woman in STEM, Mary Sommerville.  I feel like Satu and Mary would be firm friends if Mary was still with us.  Kudos to Cari Romans for the great photo.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-366 size-large" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-1024x576.jpg" alt="Satu in a photo with Mary Sommerville with a Spiral nebulae of 51 Messier in the background" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-300x169.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-768x432.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-356x200.jpg 356w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>
<p>And after all that excitement, as if that wasn’t enough, the evening concluded with a panel of women climate scientists.</p>
<p>Our Director, <a href="https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/melissa/">Melissa</a>, chaired the panel which featured <a href="https://www.waveenergyscotland.co.uk/about/more-on-elva-bannon/">Elva Bannon</a> Research and Engineering Manager at Wave Energy Scotland), <a href="https://www.nms.ac.uk/profile/hermione-cockburn">Hermione Cockburn</a> (Science communicator with a career spanning television, radio, teaching and writing), <a href="https://geosciences.ed.ac.uk/people/profile?person=1613">Gabi Hegerl</a> (Professor of Climate System Science) and last but not least <a href="https://eng.ed.ac.uk/about/people/dr-encarni-medina-lopez">Encarni Medina-Lopez</a> (Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering who leads the ‘Coastal and Environmental Remote Sensing Group’). The conversation explored imposter syndrome and confidence, the importance of having male allies in STEM subjects, how to balance being a leader but not losing your own femininity and personality, the impact of climate change on women and girls and even the marketing and consumerism targeting women and how to resist it. I’m sure Elva then said it was ok for me not to clean my house. I’m sure she did. Or was it a warning about harsh cleaning chemicals and their impact on the environment? Either way, I got the message. Less house cleaning, more reading, blogging and litter picking.</p>
<p>It was such a great panel and I felt we could have continued to talk for many more hours but all good things must end. We finished on a high and had some snacks and individual chats. I had a thoroughly lovely time and felt the panel really chimed with my own experiences as a woman in IT. It gave me some other food for thought with respect to our own work in the area of digital sustainability too.</p>
<figure id="attachment_367" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-367" style="width: 900px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-367 size-full" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp.jpg" alt="A photo of the particpants of the panel" width="900" height="758" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp.jpg 900w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp-300x253.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp-768x647.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp-237x200.jpg 237w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-367" class="wp-caption-text">From left to right: Hermione, Encarni, Elva, Melissa and Gabi</figcaption></figure>
<p>When I got home, I was exhausted but relieved it had all went well and so happy to have been part of the experience.  I’ve got a recording of the panel and will try to make at least bits of it available for a listen. Watch this space.</p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2025-10-16" itemprop="dateModified">Oct 16, 2025</time>
			</span>
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	<title>The witterings and musings of a learning technologist</title>
	<atom:link href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie</link>
	<description>By Karen Howie (Head of Digital Learning Applications and Media in Information Services)</description>
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		<title>More adventures with Claude</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/more-adventures-with-claude/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/more-adventures-with-claude/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:31:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=433</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Claude and I have been working together to do more stuff since my first blog post about Claude. We’ve added a whole lot of new things to our prototype Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site including a chatbot to ask questions about the data (a challenge received by Lesley Greer), ‘stories’ …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Claude and I have been working together to do more stuff since my <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/03/04/my-new-pal-claude/">first blog post about Claude</a>.</p>
<p>We’ve added a whole lot of new things to our <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/laravel/witches/">prototype Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site</a> including a chatbot to ask questions about the data (a challenge received by Lesley Greer), ‘stories’ which are AI summaries of the people recorded in the database where we have the most data and a few new visualisations and bug fixes.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-435 size-large" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-1024x847.png" alt="Survey of Scottish Witchcraft 'Ask the database' screenshot." width="1024" height="847" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-1024x847.png 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-300x248.png 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-768x635.png 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-242x200.png 242w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853.png 1138w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>
<p>I tried to build an <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/oer/">OER search</a> – it was fun but I think it’s a good example of how to do things really badly. OER repositories sometimes have APIs to allow outside code to search them but not all of them do. So in the cases where there were no APIs or we couldn’t get an API key, we are scraping search results which is pretty horrible.  I think this is one I’d need a bit more time to sort out – I’d need to go and grab some API keys and honestly think I’d need to speak to repository owners because scraping search results is a really horrible way to do what’s needed and they might not like it very much.</p>
<p>Finally, as I mentioned in <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/whats-in-a-couple-of-decades/">my previous blog post</a>, I’m leaving the University and I was thinking, what could I leave Myles, the new Head of DLAM, as a present?  When I initially started the role myself, I always thought, what would <a href="https://ammienoot.com/about-2/">Anne-Marie</a> do in this situation?  Well.  I still don’t really know for certain what Anne-Marie would have done (I could take a guess) but Myles needs not to wonder what Karen would do because …..  I’m leaving him <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/karen-bot/">‘Karen-Bot’</a> to help guide him in his first few days/weeks.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-434" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758.png" alt="Karen-Bot in action. Purple AI chatbot." width="961" height="924" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758.png 961w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758-300x288.png 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758-768x738.png 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758-208x200.png 208w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 961px) 100vw, 961px" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Please use her wisely and also ask your questions now. She, like myself, will be leaving soon.</p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2026-04-23" itemprop="dateModified">Apr 23, 2026</time>
			</span>
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		<title>What’s a couple of decades between friends?</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/whats-in-a-couple-of-decades/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/whats-in-a-couple-of-decades/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:02:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=428</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[After almost 22 years working in a variety of different roles at the University, I’ve made the decision to leave. It’s been a hard decision as there is so much I love about my job but I need a chance to catch up with myself. I’d like to have a …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>After almost 22 years working in a variety of different roles at the University, I’ve made the decision to leave. It’s been a hard decision as there is so much I love about my job but I need a chance to catch up with myself. I’d like to have a bit of time to swot up on other areas I’m interested in such as sustainability and AI (or even the sustainability OF AI).  In the last few days, I thought I’d think about how much things have changed since I started in Biological Sciences in October of 2004 as an eLearning Project Officer ….</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Roles</h1>
<p>I was initially brought in funded by a Principal’s eLearning Fund project officer and I was on a fixed term contract to encourage the uptake of ‘eLearning’ in the School because the Principal believed it was something useful to be invested in.  There were quite a few of us across the Schools at the University which made it a nice environment but it was a bit ‘new’ and some parts of the University were maybe not massively enthusiastic about it.  Nowadays ‘eLearning’ is just synonymous with learning. It’s just part of what we do at the University.  The University now has a much larger number of learning technologists and related roles – both centrally and in Schools.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Hardware</h1>
<p>There have been massive changes in tech since 2004 unsurprisingly.  Everything is much smaller now and despite being smaller, can do much more.  I was very involved in a college project to roll out ‘clickers’ when I was in Biology, supporting Schools across the college and even in Biomedical Sciences.  We had to hand out these infrared devices to students, either on loan (I developed a barcode reading application to allow them to be signed out) or hand them out at the start and back in at the end of the lecture. If you want a wee blast from the past, you can <a href="http://www.stg-inc.com/prs.shtm">see how they look and an old web page with marketing information</a> about them.  I can’t believe pages this old still exist!</p>
<p>Ironically, one of the procurements my team did when I took on my Head of DLAM role was to replace our audience response system, 18 years later!  We procured <a href="https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/learning-technology/learning-and-teaching-technologies/electronic-voting-system/wooclap">Wooclap</a> which has no infrared and no separate keypad because everyone just uses their smart phones to interact with it.  To explain why we had these infrared ‘clickers’ in 2004, this is the sort of phone I had in 2004.  The only thing ‘smart’ about it was that it had a retro game called ‘Snake’ on it and the battery lasted for about 6 times as long as my new iPhone’s does.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-429" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b-225x300.jpg" alt="An old Nokia mobile phone" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b-150x200.jpg 150w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" /></p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25622716@N02/3184340500" rel="noopener noreferrer">2009 01 06 – Russett – Old Nokia 1</a>” by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25622716@N02" rel="noopener noreferrer">thisisbossi</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Platforms</h1>
<p>Our VLE used to look like this:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-430 size-full" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b.jpg" alt="WebCT, our old VLE from yesteryear." width="1023" height="345" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b.jpg 1023w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b-300x101.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b-768x259.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b-593x200.jpg 593w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px" /></p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/13518023@N03/4048343544" rel="noopener noreferrer">WebCT</a>” by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/13518023@N03" rel="noopener noreferrer">michaelseangallagher</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>.  [How clever of the University’s own <a href="https://www.de.ed.ac.uk/people/dr-michael-gallagher">Michael Gallagher</a> to make an openly licensed graphic of WebCT for future posterity, way back in 2009! ]</p>
<p>Now it looks way better (although we have higher expectations!). Platforms are generally more accessible.  So that’s all good.  But some changes have been less positive as time has passed – our websites need to be far more secure and locked up now and sometimes more recent developments have meant sites are more bloated in terms of the size and impact on the environment. I think we are more aware of this now but one of my fabulous interns, Otis, compared the size of some websites now vs the late 90s early 2000’s and found the size had massively increased.  We have more stuff now, things look better but as a result often the size has grown.  There was a time where we had to compress files we used for websites or uploading to the VLE because we’d have killed our internet or printers if we didn’t.  Now we mostly have faster internet and much more generous storage allocations, we’ve forgotten that it’s good to compress things/throw digital things away.  It’s something I, myself, need to be better at and working with Otis has shown me where small changes can make big impacts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Data</h1>
<p>In 2004, data was hard to come by and not joined up.  People ran different systems and things were pretty messy.  Data analysis was hard. Now, things aren’t perfect but they are better and improving all the time.  Tools like PowerBI make it easier for non-data-specicalists to join and visualise data in ways which tell deeper stories.  An intern in DLAM, Hera, has been doing just that with loads of our data, putting it into PowerBI so we can share it with Schools.  It’s amazing what she’s done in a small amount of time. If you are based in a School and want to look at the LTW data we have about the school, please put a call into the IS Helpline and ask for access to the LTW Dashboards.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Accessibility</h1>
<p>I’m ashamed to say that back in 2004, accessibility wasn’t a big feature of my life.  I was aware of basic website accessibility and the tools to check it (<a href="https://jimthatcher.com/bobbyeval.htm">remember Bobby</a>?) but I didn’t truly get it.  I have done a lot of work in the area now and do understand it a lot better – sometimes I wonder if we are so focused on the regulations that we forget about the people.  We have our intern David working on accessibility and his project on <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dlam/2025/07/31/educated-prompting/">making music accessible</a> for his friend, really brings a tear to my eye.  This is what our goals should be in terms of accessibility.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Digital Safety and the Truth</h1>
<p>So much is better and has moved on since 2004 but not everything is a positive.  There’s more digital crime – hacking, fraud, scams and now we have to contend with fake news, deep fakes, online bullying and harassment.  It’s a digitally dangerous place out there.  We have training and support but this was never something I really worried about very much in 2004.  We have a Digital Safety Officer here in LTW (<a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dsdt/author/rfillhar">Ricarda Fillhardt</a>) to keep us all in the know about Digital Safety. She has a huge job on her hand….</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, a lot has changed – some good, some bad. The world is a different place. The main thing is that in the 22 years I’ve worked at Edinburgh University, I’ve learned so much and have a wealth of experience to take away with me as well as some brilliant colleagues and friends, who I’ll miss very much indeed.</p>

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				<time datetime="2026-04-23" itemprop="dateModified">Apr 23, 2026</time>
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		<title>My new pal Claude…</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/03/04/my-new-pal-claude/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/03/04/my-new-pal-claude/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 18:19:22 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=406</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I’ve been using <a href="https://elm.edina.ac.uk/">ELM</a> 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 had a look at it, I’d highly recommend it.  I never copy what it says verbatim but it often gives a really helpful starter for ten for report or paper writing – the hardest bit can be just getting started.</p>
<p>However, I’ve spent a few evenings, the past couple of weeks, playing with Claude Code.  I’ve heard a few people talking about how amazing it is.  I came at it from a very sceptical place –  I mean, <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1">Claude (as Claudius) couldn’t even run a small vending machine</a> without going bankrupt… so how on earth could it do anything complicated.  I’m also worried about the impact of AI on the environment and on how it has been trained, I didn’t want to like it.  This blog post will (at least start) cover what I tried and how it went…</p>
<p>Executive summary…. I’m a bit blown away…..</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Some background information</h2>
<p>So, you know, we have some pretty ancient but really interesting data at Edinburgh University.  My favourite dataset of all time is our Survey of Scottish Witchcraft data. If you haven’t seen it, I’d strongly recommend you have a look.  It is a digitised dataset, which was collected from primary source materials more than 20 years ago, really led by <a href="https://edwebprofiles.ed.ac.uk/profile/julian-goodare">Professor Julian Goodare</a> from the School of History, Classics and Archaeology and a large number of other contributors over the more than two decades the dataset has existed.  It’s a dataset which provides information about those accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736.  There are a number of different sites where you can find out more, I’ll list them below:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://witches.hca.ed.ac.uk/">The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site</a> – this is the modernised version of the original web interface to the data and it has a great ‘about’ page which talks about the project and who’s contributed over the years.</li>
<li><a href="https://witches.is.ed.ac.uk/">The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft map site</a> – a sister/companion site which we developed here in IS with an interactive map showing all the locations talked about in the original database.</li>
</ul>
<p>The data is so so interesting and I’d really urge you to read about it but I won’t say much more in this post about it because having a 30 page long post will be unmanageable.  I’ll add a few interesting links to the bottom of this post if you want to find out more.</p>
<p>The data is Creative Commons licensed and available on <a href="https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/handle/10283/45">Edinburgh’s DataShare service</a>. The other brilliant thing about this data is that it’s a reasonable sized dataset but it’s well structured and has a corresponding database schema.  You can download the database tables as CSV files and the schema tells you how they link together. It is also available as a Microsoft Access Database too if you like Access.</p>
<p>I wanted to test out Claude Code but I wanted to use a dataset which contained no personal data and so this well structured data was ideal – there is personal data but it’s for people who existed hundreds of years ago so I think it’s safe from a data protection perspective.</p>
<h2>What I did</h2>
<p>I grabbed all the data from the dataset (CSVs) and the schema and started reading about Claude code. I signed up for a Pro license (£20 a month), installed it all on my personal laptop at home using Visual Code Studio as an editor and installing a plugin to allow Claude to work through the editor.  That was literally the trickiest part, mainly because for a few hours Claude didn’t seem to understand that I had a pro license, but once it got over itself, I was flying…..</p>
<p>I fed in all the CSV files and the schema and asked it to set me up with a website to allow me to view the data with an administrator interface which would allow me to edit the data. It needed to be in PHP and using a MariaDB – mainly because it’s what I know but also people in my team who are better developers than me (which isn’t hard) know it too.  It’s a set up that’s available on our University web servers.  It went into planning mode, reviewed the CSV and the schema and came back with some suggestions which I asked it to implement.  It (with my permission) installed a XAMPP stack on my local computer for testing out the site and then happily started beavering away.  With Pro you have a limit so that first project took a few evenings – although mainly I just got on with my life whilst Claude was doing its work.  A few nights later, it was ready and I ran it on my localhost and to say I was gobsmacked was an understatement.  Whilst I’d made my dinner, played with  my dogs and vegged out in front of the telly, Claude had been busy designing a website, writing the code and creating style sheets. I’ve done 9 different iterations of the site now – just trying things out to see how it coped.  Some of these features are not necessarily features I’d have in a live site but together Claude and I have added:</p>
<ul>
<li>an image for each of the accused. Each accused has a different image.  I wouldn’t do this on a live site, it makes the site feel less serious (and it should be serious, it’s a shameful part of our past) should have but there are nearly 4000 accused people in the database, and they all have an individual image now.  That took about 10 minutes.</li>
<li>I added an accused witch AI chatbot. I hooked it up to ELM and it’s now possible to have a conversation with an AI with a very basic prompt to respond as a Scottish Accused witch. Again, not necessarily something I’d do on a real version of the site but it was so easy to do, just plugging the ELM API key in and it worked.</li>
<li>for the admin interface, I had to wait until I had SSO installed on the web server and Claude didn’t really understand how that would work at first but once I explained it, again, I just uploaded the files it had created and it just worked.</li>
<li>I had a request to add dark mode which I asked Claude to do. This took a bit of wrangling – mainly just pointing out bits where it hadn’t quite worked right, but was quickly resolved.</li>
<li>I’ve (or should I say Claude….) changed the list pages so they can be ordered by any column on the pages.</li>
<li>We added in some more static pages (not currently populated) and a simple WYSIWYG editor for them  (About)</li>
<li>Last night, we added in some visualisations including a basic map (with only the data in the original database, not the data from the more recent map site).</li>
</ul>
<p>I have not shared any of the passwords or keys with Claude.  They are all safely stored and not accessible to Claude and I’m manually moving the files onto the server.</p>
<p>All in all, I’m pretty amazed with what Claude did. I had to provide clarity or guidance a few times – for example, I wanted the database connection file outside of the webroot on the server for security and I had to suggest things like that.  But apparently you can train it so it learns how you want to work so I need to look into doing that too.</p>
<p>Next thing I’ll be looking at is getting it set up to push code to github – I can then share it with my team – and specifically Andrew and the others in his team who are PROPER REAL DEVELOPERS who I’ve asked to do a code review and give me some feedback – so we can see what they say, and that will probably be another blog post.</p>
<p>You can see what Claude and I built together – <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/laravel/witches/">Test Survey Site</a>.</p>
<p>At some point I’ll close this site down, it’s just a prototype/experiment so after that date, I’m leaving a few screenshots so you can see how it looks. Amazingly responsive too on a mobile device.</p>
<p>Now I need to think about …. what is next?? I may be a Claude-Addict. If that’s not a thing, it soon will be.</p>
<p>Screenshots are clickable so you can see more of the detail:</p>
<p><a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180013.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-408 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180013-150x150.png" alt="AI Chat Bot" width="150" height="150" /> </a> <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180028.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-409 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180028-150x150.png" alt="Basic map" width="150" height="150" /> </a> <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180043.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-410 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180043-150x150.png" alt="Basic timeline" width="150" height="150" /> </a> <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180109.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-411 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180109-150x150.png" alt="Admin interface - edit a person" width="150" height="150" /></a>  <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-175817.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-412 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-175817-150x150.png" alt="Front page of the site" width="150" height="150" /></a></p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Other links with background info</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/witchcraft_visualisation/">The Witchfinder General blog</a></li>
<li><a href="https://curiousedinburgh.org/history-of-witchcraft-in-edinburgh/">History of Witchcraft in Edinburgh Tour</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6054672/">Julian has also been involved in a few TV shows</a> that are definitely worth watching</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>

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				<time datetime="2026-03-04" itemprop="dateModified">Mar 4, 2026</time>
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		<title>Goodbye Argyle House..</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/02/20/goodbye-argyle-house/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/02/20/goodbye-argyle-house/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:27:52 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hybridworking]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=399</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_401" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-401" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-401 size-medium" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924-300x225.jpg" alt="Brutalist Argyle House from the outside" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924-267x200.jpg 267w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924.jpg 640w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-401" class="wp-caption-text">Argyle House (photo by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924.jpg">Richard Webb</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>)</figcaption></figure>
<p>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 enjoyed it – it helped me feel part of something bigger.  It’s quieter now since COVID but there’s still a lot going on and LTW does more social things on the wing now like bake sales, charity food collection (thanks to prize winner Stratos!), bring a dish type events (so it’s not all about cake… although my favourite things do always revolve around cake….) which is really nice.</p>
<p>Lots of things happened in Argyle House in the time I’ve been with IS.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>We were based on the west side for the first few years I was with IS and I remember being totally freaked out when I realised the fire escape route was out onto the roof….</li>
<li>COVID happened – I got the train home with a monitor under my arm thinking ‘this will all blow over in a week or two’ (what an idiot eh!!)</li>
<li>When we eventually did return, there was the great flood of Argyle House which caused significant damage to our space.</li>
<li>There was the incident in the lobby. If you know, you know. *shudder*</li>
<li>New staff inductions usually ended up with me stranded in the basement with our new staff member as I showed them where the bike store was. The basement is a little bit like the scene of a zombie apocalypse movie, so thanks to everyone who rescued me (and the new person) over the years.  The zombies never got us.</li>
<li>We got an impromptu concert by Suede and the Manics one afternoon, a rehearsal in advance of their evening show. It was awesome.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>My last day in Argyle House was Tuesday, it’s closing for us, forever, today.  I have a tinge of sadness – not a fan of the brutalist architecture but it looked better from the inside.</p>
<p>The meeting rooms have been amazing (thanks Lesley and team!), I’ve eaten so much good cake over the years in AH and the view….</p>
<p>… I leave you with this final photo of that glorious view, the sun shone on Tuesday – I think it knew…</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-400 size-large" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-1024x387.jpg" alt="View of Edinburgh Castle from Argyle House on a sunny day." width="1024" height="387" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-1024x387.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-300x114.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-768x291.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-529x200.jpg 529w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>

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				<time datetime="2026-02-20" itemprop="dateModified">Feb 20, 2026</time>
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		<title>A review of 2025 from a DLAM perspective</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/12/22/a-review-of-2025-from-a-dlam-perspective/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2025 17:15:33 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assessment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecture recording]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[virtual classroom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vle]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=393</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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.</p>
<p>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 institutions has been depressing and frustrating alongside balancing it all against the rise of AI and how quickly technology is changing as a result of it.</p>
<p>However, as usual, my team have achieved so much. Our Director asks us for our 6 top achievements before our LTW all staff which happens on a 6 monthly basis.  It’s a brilliant way to remind ourselves of what we’ve been up to (because it’s so easy to focus on the next thing and forget everything that’s happened).</p>
<p>So here is a little reminder or us DLAMers (Digital Learning Applications and Media) on our achievements over the last year. Give yourselves a pat on the back and a cheer.</p>
<ul>
<li>Working with other parts of LTW and units around the University, we created a web catalogue for our new <a href="https://shortcourses.ed.ac.uk/">Short Courses Platform</a> (SCP).  This has all been a huge amount of work but it’s such a fantastic service. It provides an easy workflow for those who want to be able to offer these courses. Prior to our SCP, units and Schools were pretty much on their own. There was no central place to advertise or find them, no easy way for learners to pay and no online teaching & learning platform for those who needed it.</li>
<li>Our writing up of our digital exams project (<a href="https://uoe.sharepoint.com/sites/FLORADigitalExams">FLORA</a>).  Although paused for now, we pulled a huge amount of data together, the Project Board worked really well together to develop a collection of recommendations and a business case for a follow on project. Hopefully we’ll get the ok to move on with that project at some point.  The FLORA findings are on SharePoint, so only available to users within the University but if you are interested and are from outside the University, drop me a line.</li>
<li>We had a record breaking academic year for lecture recording, when I looked at our numbers in June, we’d had the biggest number of captures in the history of the service for the 24-25 academic year.  Although I don’t have the official stats from our supplier yet for December, i can see that the calendar year numbers for 2025 are almost the same as the full 2024 numbers so I’m confident we’ll be celebrating the biggest calendar year yet for lecture recording at Edinburgh.</li>
<li>2025 has also been a great year for interns in DLAM.  They’ve just been so awesome giving us insights into caption and lecture recording quality, sustainability, accessibility and extracting new views of our services (through data) which we’ve never seen before.  I’m hoping we can continue this work going forward.</li>
<li>We also did a huge amount of work (with support from Info Sec and folk in Apps and ITI) to switch MFA on for our services.</li>
<li>Our development team rewrote a feed from our timetabling system to push groups into our Learn VLE. It had been misbehaving a bit and it wasn’t providing logging with the detail we needed.  It’s now way more efficient, sustainable (and environmentally friendly as an unexpected bonus!) and just much easier to manage.</li>
<li>We restructured our unidesk queues too – this sounds minor but it’s been in my to-do list since I started this job back in 2020.  I can’t claim the credit and need to credit Mark Findlay (with our Service Management Team) for getting it over the line.</li>
<li>And we did more work (with colleagues in Applications Directorate) on data retention and deletion. And more will follow in 2026. Trying to keep our services cost effective and sustainable.</li>
<li>And we had the best DLAM Festive Quiz ever.  Joe is an excellent quiz host and is 19 Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers tall.  Read into that what you will.</li>
<li>And of course, we did what we do every year,  managing our services, working with suppliers, helping users with issues. Keeping the show on the road.</li>
</ul>
<p>And obviously there’s loads more I haven’t mentioned, but I’ll stop there.</p>
<p>Phew.  A big round applause for everyone.  Well done!  See you in 2026.</p>
<p> </p>

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		<title>An appeal to HE suppliers</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/12/an-appeal-to-he-suppliers/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:28:34 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=389</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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.</p>
<p>That big long list of features we’ve requested and the bug fixes we are desperate for…..  we’d very much appreciate you talking to us to consider the priority of those compared to a shiny new AI tool.  Yes, the tool might be very cool and we might agree it’s a tool we want but you might be surprised if you ask us to make an ordered list in priority order, and force us to think about which we want most.</p>
<p>One mistake I’ve seen made year after year (with some suppliers, not all) is getting us into a workshop and saying ‘blue sky thinking, whaddya want?’.  We go mad and write down every idea we’ve ever had.  The workshop finishes and we go away and get on with our life.  The supplier takes an unprioritised list and then makes a bit of a stab at prioritising themselves. We then moan about how they never fix the bugs or build the features we want.</p>
<p>A Head of School in a department I worked in before always used a beans metaphor.  I thought this was a brilliant way to work with people – it simplifies the prioritisation task a lot.  You only have 10 beans.  How many beans would you allocate to that <insert feature/change/budget spend….>?  Now you  have 7 beans left, what about this one….? The beauty of this is it shows the reality of the world. There are limits to the beans, no one has unlimited beans, and everything needs to be prioritised.</p>
<p>So suppliers….before you go away and build something… make sure you count your beans!</p>

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		<title>Some reflections on AI Agents</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/12/some-reflections-on-ai-agents/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Nov 2025 08:51:23 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vle]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=381</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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.  …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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 <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/ai-agents/">helpful description by Amazon</a>).  They can do this on your behalf without your intervention.  Clearly however, you need to give them access to whichever systems you’d like them to support you with and that means providing them with access to the system(s).  The agents might be built into the system you are using already but more likely an agent will sit outside and help you across different systems. In order to use the agent, you’ll need to share your login credentials for the system with it, so it can act on your behalf.</p>
<p>This is both where the strength of the agent and the problems lie.  This is what allows it to do things seamlessly on your behalf.  It’s logged in as you, the actions look like actions you are taking.  Very hard to detect by the system the agent is running in as it just looks like you logged in and are doing whatever things you usually do.</p>
<p>Part of my brain thinks of all the useful things I could ask an agent to do for me.  Things like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Set up a complicated group meeting, looking at busy diaries and finding the best time (avoid lunch time, be mindful of people who are part-time, these people are mandatory, these are optional, make it start 5 past the hour and end 5 to the hour to give everyone a comfort break) – this is always a time consuming job to do and it’d be so helpful to have an agent to give you the possibilities.</li>
<li>Log into our HR system, pull a report of my team’s leave and email all of those with more than 10 days of leave left to book before the end of the annual leave year to remind them.  That’s a pretty clunky job to do manually.</li>
<li>Log into the VLE, that assignment that’s due on Friday…  Write the essay and submit it.</li>
</ul>
<p>….Wait!! Stop!</p>
<p>The critical thing for me here is ….. you’ve given your login credentials to an agent to do stuff on your behalf! YOUR CREDENTIALS!  It’s now logging into University systems and doing things, logged in as you.  It can do anything you can do.  Is it a reputable/safe agent?  How do you know it is?  Even reputable agents can do things you wouldn’t do…. worst case you use an agent that isn’t reputable and safe and it does a whole bunch of things behind the scenes you didn’t expect.  Like a virus.  You’ve given it an entry point and now it’s hacking your servers, sending rude emails to your boss and writing blog posts selling watches.  You gave it access to our HR system, now it has all the personal data for your team.  You gave it access to the VLE and it’s submitted the essay but it is not a good essay and you fail – it’s rubbish and clearly AI generated.  Would you hand your password to a random person on the internet?</p>
<p>We need to work with staff and students to remind them of the risks of using AI like this.  Remember the inherent issues with AI – bias, confusion about copyright, and the fact it gets things wrong even if it’s genuinely built for good and not evil.  Some AI’s will be built specifically to help discover vulnerabilities in systems or steal your data – do you know which AIs are which?</p>
<p>If we are worried about students using AI to automatically write and submit assessments, isn’t this just the same as worrying about students using AI to generate submissions for assessments?  There’s just the extra step of it all being automated.  If this is a concern then maybe thinking about how we assess and whether it’s still fit for purpose is actually a big priority for HE.</p>
<p>So, to summarise:</p>
<ul>
<li>Agentic AI is not necessarily bad, but it might be, and really we need to make sure we educate students and staff to understand the risks.</li>
<li>If we are worried about students using it to cheat, there are many other ways they can cheat (and many other ways they can cheat using AI specifically).  We have to remind students of the value of the learning process and consider how and what we are assessing – is it still fit for purpose, the world has changed quite a bit in recent years.  Many of our students care deeply about the environment, we can also<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117"> remind them of the impact AI has on the world</a> – so use it carefully.</li>
<li>AI isn’t going away.  And actually may feature pretty heavily in employability of our students going forward.  We need to teach them how to use it properly.</li>
</ul>

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		<title>Kaltura Connect – November 2025</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/05/kaltura-connect-november-2025/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Nov 2025 18:13:10 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecture recording]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=376</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Nelly and I were invited to speak at Kaltura Connect in London today (at the fantastic Science Gallery @KCL).  <a href="https://corp.kaltura.com/video-collaboration-communication/enterprise-video-portal/">Kaltura</a> is the service we use to provide our own <a href="https://media.ed.ac.uk/">Media Hopper Create</a> service for media storage and streaming.  It was a fun day, we got a chance to catch up with a few people we hadn’t seen for a while and met some new people who were using Kaltura in innovative ways. Kaltura is our Media Hopper Create service,  providing our media streaming and management service.</p>
<figure id="attachment_377" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-377" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-377 size-full" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL.jpg" alt="The view by the Science Gallery at KCL (including the tip of the Shard in London and a nice blue sky)" width="600" height="264" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL.jpg 600w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL-300x132.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL-455x200.jpg 455w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-377" class="wp-caption-text">The view by the Science Gallery including the tip of the Shard on a glorious sunny, autumn day</figcaption></figure>
<p>The keynote first thing was very thought provoking, ‘The innovation masquerade’ – <a href="https://www.solent.ac.uk/staff/governor/sarah-jones">Sarah Jones (Southampton Solent University)</a> who was questioning whether innovation was really innovative and whether we needed to question why we were doing ‘innovation’ and make sure we are doing it for the right reasons. She was more inclined to be disruptive than innovative and her arguments were powerful.  I think I particularly agreed with her view on questioning why we are doing things more regularly – we don’t ask this question enough.</p>
<p>There were presentations from the University of Bergen on <a href="https://www.vitentv.no/">Viten TV</a> (trusted academic video) and then from Rob Pashley at International Baccalaureate about digitising assessment by 2032, including media in the assessment possibilities.  Interesting project which I hope to hear more about in the future.</p>
<p>We did a fun breakout activity in a group where we were thinking (blue sky) about the possibilities for AI in teaching & learning. We had a lot of different ideas around the room, some of which I agreed were a priority.  I’m really keen we use AI to complete the less creative aspects of our jobs like writing metadata (with a human check) or checking accessibility.  We did talk about it as being a possible way to help create more personalised content for students but there are a lot of risks and dangers with AI and I think we’d need to really think it through before we did something like that. But hey, this was blue sky thinking and we were trying to think about the positives……</p>
<p>Nelly and I presented on <a href="https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/learning-technology/accessibility/best-practice-for-making-media-accessible/captioning">our captioning service</a> – both the human captioners (our wonderful intern team, see this<a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dlam/2025/04/14/captionediting/"> blog post by Ellie in the team</a>) and also the research we’ve been doing on <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dlam/2025/05/01/correcting-academic-language-with-ai/">how to improve the accuracy of the automated captions</a> (without human intervention) and got some really good questions and comments, including someone who’d been using Google Gemini to create audio descriptions for media when it was requested (apparently it did a pretty good job). We also spoke to someone from the University of Amsterdam who were trying to solve a similar problem to us and then someone from <a href="https://www.sunet.se/en/about-sunet">SUNET</a> (who provide a national on premise version of Kaltura for HE in Sweden and are also coincidentally working on a ‘scribe’ service which creates more accurate transcripts and captions using Whisper.AI built on their own specialist infrastructure and they were interested in looking at what we’d been trying with LLMs to do some post processing to perfect the captions.  We’ll definitely keep these conversations going.</p>
<p>I think it always surprises me when I go to conferences and chat to others that work in a similar role to me how we all seem to be trying to solve the same problem at the same time but completely oblivious to each other’s struggles.  Queen Mary University have realised they have staff who forget to wear microphones and they are using posters to try and remind them.  KCL are interested in lecture recording quality monitoring, just like us, but implementing it in a different way.  I think it’s such a great opportunity at events like this to remember the world outside and hear about what other people are doing.  I really enjoyed the day but it was slightly dampened by <a href="https://x.com/LNER/status/1985910248788394438?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet">train issues</a> meaning I got home at 2.30am.</p>

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				<time datetime="2025-11-05" itemprop="dateModified">Nov 5, 2025</time>
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		<title>A Friday at ALT-C</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/10/26/a-friday-at-alt-c/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 26 Oct 2025 18:06:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assessment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecture recording]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vle]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=373</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[I attended the Friday of ALT-C today and I’m glad I did, it was a very interesting and fun day. Some brief highlights from me…. I learned a new term today which I thought was really poignant – ‘lifeload’ – sum of all pressures a student has in their life …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I attended the Friday of ALT-C today and I’m glad I did, it was a very interesting and fun day.</p>
<p>Some brief highlights from me….</p>
<p>I learned a new term today which I thought was really poignant – ‘lifeload’ – sum of all pressures a student has in their life INCLUDING university – some people have a bigger lifeload than others and lifeload needs to be considered when thinking about inclusivity.  This was in a keynote by Gabi Witthaus where she was talking about rethinking inclusion. She made some really good points highlighting injustices as well as possible solutions and reflections.</p>
<p>Steph Comley and Cat Bailey from JISC ran a great workshop on piloting edtech tools – JISC are planning a framework and the workshop will feed into that. It was a great way to reflect on what works well/doesn’t work.</p>
<p>I then really enjoyed the presentation by Ruth Clark, Leeds Conservatoire, about how they moved from Mahara to WordPress for their student competency tracking.  Mahara wasn’t popular and it went from being free (& open source) to having a charge and that was the trigger for a rethink.  They felt WordPress was a good option and felt it also provided students with transferable skills given how much of the internet uses WordPress.</p>
<p>After that, another really enjoyable presentation by Johnny Briggs at Glasgow who was building immersive experiences but using simple technology like 360 images and video.  Although low tech, was much more accessible and widely usable.  Johnny had built some really cool stuff like a virtual tour of Wallace’s monument and was doing an accessibility tour of a new building at Glasgow, aiming to show building users with mobility difficulties how to navigate the building.</p>
<p>After lunch, a workshop about reviewing a <a href="https://www.ucisa.ac.uk/groups/digital-education/vle-review-toolkit">VLE review toolkit developed by UCISA</a>.  The penultimate session of the afternoon I went to was Joseph Spink from the University of Birmingham did a presentation on their business continuity plan.  It was really interesting, and quite similar to what we’ve been doing – which is always a relief.  He talked through their priority 1 incident process and what they did to create a Business Continuity Plan and Business Impact Assessment.  He highlighted the importance of reviewing these documents regularly because things change.</p>
<p>The final session I found particularly interesting and useful. Andrew Larner from Manchester Metropolitan and his colleagues had been working to review and provide advice on assessment in the age of AI.  They’d reviewed all the assessments in a department and attempted them with AI tools and then categorised them in a way which showed how easy it was to use AI to complete them and looked at the ones which had been harder and extracted the parameters of those to help them redesign the other assessments.</p>
<p><a href="https://aiinhighered.com/assessments">Summary of the work done and findings </a>(really worth a look).</p>
<p>Then I headed home.  With thanks to Scotrail for getting me home …. Eventually…..</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>

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		<title>Ada Lovelace Day – my reflections</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/10/16/ada-lovelace-day-my-reflections/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:56:36 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=364</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Ada Lovelace Day was on the 14th of October this year.  We’ve been celebrating her day here in IS for a decade now (long before I joined IS) and this year, like the last 2 years, I was on the organising team for our celebration.  This year we had an …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ada Lovelace Day was on the 14<sup>th</sup> of October this year.  We’ve been celebrating her day here in IS for a decade now (long before I joined IS) and this year, like the last 2 years, I was on the organising team for our celebration.  This year we had an even more packed schedule than usual.</p>
<p>I may be a bit biased but I had a thoroughly lovely day.</p>
<p>In a packed (standing room only) room in the Main library, we started with some lightning talks by students and staff which were amazingly interesting. Milly (PhD researcher, the Paleontology Society) talking about the challenges of being a woman while digging up dinosaurs in the Badlands of Montana. It was a really brave and honest discussion of topics rarely discussed and she came prepared with solutions!  Next was a talk by Anna (CompSoc Vice President) about fleeing her war-torn home in Ukraine and sharing a stage with President Bill Clinton.  Anna’s positive mindset made me feel quite emotional – always turning challenges into opportunities.  A truly inspiring young woman.</p>
<p>Ariadna (PhD student, Natural Language Processing NLP) gave a really informational talk where she compared her time in industry to her time in academia.  I found it particularly interesting from an NLP perspective, Ariadne worked on text to speech and in particular voice cloning which could be controversial but was also an absolute game changer for disabilities where people lost their ability to talk.  Not only could they speak but they could get their own voices back.</p>
<p>I was also pleasantly surprised that  Lucia (EFI) was doing a talk with Beccy (Society of Scottish Antiquaries). Lucia was a PhD student who I supported in my days working in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology and I remembered her love of data and databases!  She and Beccy are now working on a project to get more female Scottish antiquarians of the 19th and 20th centuries into Wikipedia, trying to navigate around complexities such as name changes after marriage, a difficulty I hadn’t considered at all prior to their talk.</p>
<p>We then had an editathon, arts and crafts (I made myself some new stickers for my computer), badges, <a href="https://html5.is.ed.ac.uk/ada-lovelace-day/">our women in STEM interactive tour</a> and Cari worked with staff in uCreate to provide women in STEM activities such getting your photo taken with a well known woman in STEM.  Here, Satu is showing exactly how it’s done, hanging out with another amazing woman in STEM, Mary Sommerville.  I feel like Satu and Mary would be firm friends if Mary was still with us.  Kudos to Cari Romans for the great photo.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-366 size-large" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-1024x576.jpg" alt="Satu in a photo with Mary Sommerville with a Spiral nebulae of 51 Messier in the background" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-300x169.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-768x432.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-356x200.jpg 356w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>
<p>And after all that excitement, as if that wasn’t enough, the evening concluded with a panel of women climate scientists.</p>
<p>Our Director, <a href="https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/melissa/">Melissa</a>, chaired the panel which featured <a href="https://www.waveenergyscotland.co.uk/about/more-on-elva-bannon/">Elva Bannon</a> Research and Engineering Manager at Wave Energy Scotland), <a href="https://www.nms.ac.uk/profile/hermione-cockburn">Hermione Cockburn</a> (Science communicator with a career spanning television, radio, teaching and writing), <a href="https://geosciences.ed.ac.uk/people/profile?person=1613">Gabi Hegerl</a> (Professor of Climate System Science) and last but not least <a href="https://eng.ed.ac.uk/about/people/dr-encarni-medina-lopez">Encarni Medina-Lopez</a> (Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering who leads the ‘Coastal and Environmental Remote Sensing Group’). The conversation explored imposter syndrome and confidence, the importance of having male allies in STEM subjects, how to balance being a leader but not losing your own femininity and personality, the impact of climate change on women and girls and even the marketing and consumerism targeting women and how to resist it. I’m sure Elva then said it was ok for me not to clean my house. I’m sure she did. Or was it a warning about harsh cleaning chemicals and their impact on the environment? Either way, I got the message. Less house cleaning, more reading, blogging and litter picking.</p>
<p>It was such a great panel and I felt we could have continued to talk for many more hours but all good things must end. We finished on a high and had some snacks and individual chats. I had a thoroughly lovely time and felt the panel really chimed with my own experiences as a woman in IT. It gave me some other food for thought with respect to our own work in the area of digital sustainability too.</p>
<figure id="attachment_367" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-367" style="width: 900px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-367 size-full" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp.jpg" alt="A photo of the particpants of the panel" width="900" height="758" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp.jpg 900w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp-300x253.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp-768x647.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp-237x200.jpg 237w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-367" class="wp-caption-text">From left to right: Hermione, Encarni, Elva, Melissa and Gabi</figcaption></figure>
<p>When I got home, I was exhausted but relieved it had all went well and so happy to have been part of the experience.  I’ve got a recording of the panel and will try to make at least bits of it available for a listen. Watch this space.</p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2025-10-16" itemprop="dateModified">Oct 16, 2025</time>
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	<title>The witterings and musings of a learning technologist</title>
	<atom:link href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie</link>
	<description>By Karen Howie (Head of Digital Learning Applications and Media in Information Services)</description>
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		<title>More adventures with Claude</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/more-adventures-with-claude/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/more-adventures-with-claude/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:31:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=433</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Claude and I have been working together to do more stuff since my first blog post about Claude. We’ve added a whole lot of new things to our prototype Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site including a chatbot to ask questions about the data (a challenge received by Lesley Greer), ‘stories’ …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Claude and I have been working together to do more stuff since my <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/03/04/my-new-pal-claude/">first blog post about Claude</a>.</p>
<p>We’ve added a whole lot of new things to our <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/laravel/witches/">prototype Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site</a> including a chatbot to ask questions about the data (a challenge received by Lesley Greer), ‘stories’ which are AI summaries of the people recorded in the database where we have the most data and a few new visualisations and bug fixes.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-435 size-large" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-1024x847.png" alt="Survey of Scottish Witchcraft 'Ask the database' screenshot." width="1024" height="847" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-1024x847.png 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-300x248.png 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-768x635.png 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853-242x200.png 242w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182853.png 1138w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>
<p>I tried to build an <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/oer/">OER search</a> – it was fun but I think it’s a good example of how to do things really badly. OER repositories sometimes have APIs to allow outside code to search them but not all of them do. So in the cases where there were no APIs or we couldn’t get an API key, we are scraping search results which is pretty horrible.  I think this is one I’d need a bit more time to sort out – I’d need to go and grab some API keys and honestly think I’d need to speak to repository owners because scraping search results is a really horrible way to do what’s needed and they might not like it very much.</p>
<p>Finally, as I mentioned in <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/whats-in-a-couple-of-decades/">my previous blog post</a>, I’m leaving the University and I was thinking, what could I leave Myles, the new Head of DLAM, as a present?  When I initially started the role myself, I always thought, what would <a href="https://ammienoot.com/about-2/">Anne-Marie</a> do in this situation?  Well.  I still don’t really know for certain what Anne-Marie would have done (I could take a guess) but Myles needs not to wonder what Karen would do because …..  I’m leaving him <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/karen-bot/">‘Karen-Bot’</a> to help guide him in his first few days/weeks.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-434" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758.png" alt="Karen-Bot in action. Purple AI chatbot." width="961" height="924" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758.png 961w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758-300x288.png 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758-768x738.png 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-182758-208x200.png 208w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 961px) 100vw, 961px" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Please use her wisely and also ask your questions now. She, like myself, will be leaving soon.</p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2026-04-23" itemprop="dateModified">Apr 23, 2026</time>
			</span>
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			</item>
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		<title>What’s a couple of decades between friends?</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/whats-in-a-couple-of-decades/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/04/23/whats-in-a-couple-of-decades/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:02:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=428</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[After almost 22 years working in a variety of different roles at the University, I’ve made the decision to leave. It’s been a hard decision as there is so much I love about my job but I need a chance to catch up with myself. I’d like to have a …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>After almost 22 years working in a variety of different roles at the University, I’ve made the decision to leave. It’s been a hard decision as there is so much I love about my job but I need a chance to catch up with myself. I’d like to have a bit of time to swot up on other areas I’m interested in such as sustainability and AI (or even the sustainability OF AI).  In the last few days, I thought I’d think about how much things have changed since I started in Biological Sciences in October of 2004 as an eLearning Project Officer ….</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Roles</h1>
<p>I was initially brought in funded by a Principal’s eLearning Fund project officer and I was on a fixed term contract to encourage the uptake of ‘eLearning’ in the School because the Principal believed it was something useful to be invested in.  There were quite a few of us across the Schools at the University which made it a nice environment but it was a bit ‘new’ and some parts of the University were maybe not massively enthusiastic about it.  Nowadays ‘eLearning’ is just synonymous with learning. It’s just part of what we do at the University.  The University now has a much larger number of learning technologists and related roles – both centrally and in Schools.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Hardware</h1>
<p>There have been massive changes in tech since 2004 unsurprisingly.  Everything is much smaller now and despite being smaller, can do much more.  I was very involved in a college project to roll out ‘clickers’ when I was in Biology, supporting Schools across the college and even in Biomedical Sciences.  We had to hand out these infrared devices to students, either on loan (I developed a barcode reading application to allow them to be signed out) or hand them out at the start and back in at the end of the lecture. If you want a wee blast from the past, you can <a href="http://www.stg-inc.com/prs.shtm">see how they look and an old web page with marketing information</a> about them.  I can’t believe pages this old still exist!</p>
<p>Ironically, one of the procurements my team did when I took on my Head of DLAM role was to replace our audience response system, 18 years later!  We procured <a href="https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/learning-technology/learning-and-teaching-technologies/electronic-voting-system/wooclap">Wooclap</a> which has no infrared and no separate keypad because everyone just uses their smart phones to interact with it.  To explain why we had these infrared ‘clickers’ in 2004, this is the sort of phone I had in 2004.  The only thing ‘smart’ about it was that it had a retro game called ‘Snake’ on it and the battery lasted for about 6 times as long as my new iPhone’s does.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-429" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b-225x300.jpg" alt="An old Nokia mobile phone" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b-150x200.jpg 150w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/3184340500_46a002ce78_b.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" /></p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25622716@N02/3184340500" rel="noopener noreferrer">2009 01 06 – Russett – Old Nokia 1</a>” by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25622716@N02" rel="noopener noreferrer">thisisbossi</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Platforms</h1>
<p>Our VLE used to look like this:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-430 size-full" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b.jpg" alt="WebCT, our old VLE from yesteryear." width="1023" height="345" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b.jpg 1023w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b-300x101.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b-768x259.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/04/4048343544_ecf0cd7938_b-593x200.jpg 593w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px" /></p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/13518023@N03/4048343544" rel="noopener noreferrer">WebCT</a>” by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/13518023@N03" rel="noopener noreferrer">michaelseangallagher</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>.  [How clever of the University’s own <a href="https://www.de.ed.ac.uk/people/dr-michael-gallagher">Michael Gallagher</a> to make an openly licensed graphic of WebCT for future posterity, way back in 2009! ]</p>
<p>Now it looks way better (although we have higher expectations!). Platforms are generally more accessible.  So that’s all good.  But some changes have been less positive as time has passed – our websites need to be far more secure and locked up now and sometimes more recent developments have meant sites are more bloated in terms of the size and impact on the environment. I think we are more aware of this now but one of my fabulous interns, Otis, compared the size of some websites now vs the late 90s early 2000’s and found the size had massively increased.  We have more stuff now, things look better but as a result often the size has grown.  There was a time where we had to compress files we used for websites or uploading to the VLE because we’d have killed our internet or printers if we didn’t.  Now we mostly have faster internet and much more generous storage allocations, we’ve forgotten that it’s good to compress things/throw digital things away.  It’s something I, myself, need to be better at and working with Otis has shown me where small changes can make big impacts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Data</h1>
<p>In 2004, data was hard to come by and not joined up.  People ran different systems and things were pretty messy.  Data analysis was hard. Now, things aren’t perfect but they are better and improving all the time.  Tools like PowerBI make it easier for non-data-specicalists to join and visualise data in ways which tell deeper stories.  An intern in DLAM, Hera, has been doing just that with loads of our data, putting it into PowerBI so we can share it with Schools.  It’s amazing what she’s done in a small amount of time. If you are based in a School and want to look at the LTW data we have about the school, please put a call into the IS Helpline and ask for access to the LTW Dashboards.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Accessibility</h1>
<p>I’m ashamed to say that back in 2004, accessibility wasn’t a big feature of my life.  I was aware of basic website accessibility and the tools to check it (<a href="https://jimthatcher.com/bobbyeval.htm">remember Bobby</a>?) but I didn’t truly get it.  I have done a lot of work in the area now and do understand it a lot better – sometimes I wonder if we are so focused on the regulations that we forget about the people.  We have our intern David working on accessibility and his project on <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dlam/2025/07/31/educated-prompting/">making music accessible</a> for his friend, really brings a tear to my eye.  This is what our goals should be in terms of accessibility.</p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Digital Safety and the Truth</h1>
<p>So much is better and has moved on since 2004 but not everything is a positive.  There’s more digital crime – hacking, fraud, scams and now we have to contend with fake news, deep fakes, online bullying and harassment.  It’s a digitally dangerous place out there.  We have training and support but this was never something I really worried about very much in 2004.  We have a Digital Safety Officer here in LTW (<a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dsdt/author/rfillhar">Ricarda Fillhardt</a>) to keep us all in the know about Digital Safety. She has a huge job on her hand….</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, a lot has changed – some good, some bad. The world is a different place. The main thing is that in the 22 years I’ve worked at Edinburgh University, I’ve learned so much and have a wealth of experience to take away with me as well as some brilliant colleagues and friends, who I’ll miss very much indeed.</p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2026-04-23" itemprop="dateModified">Apr 23, 2026</time>
			</span>
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		<item>
		<title>My new pal Claude…</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/03/04/my-new-pal-claude/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/03/04/my-new-pal-claude/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 18:19:22 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=406</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I’ve been using <a href="https://elm.edina.ac.uk/">ELM</a> 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 had a look at it, I’d highly recommend it.  I never copy what it says verbatim but it often gives a really helpful starter for ten for report or paper writing – the hardest bit can be just getting started.</p>
<p>However, I’ve spent a few evenings, the past couple of weeks, playing with Claude Code.  I’ve heard a few people talking about how amazing it is.  I came at it from a very sceptical place –  I mean, <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1">Claude (as Claudius) couldn’t even run a small vending machine</a> without going bankrupt… so how on earth could it do anything complicated.  I’m also worried about the impact of AI on the environment and on how it has been trained, I didn’t want to like it.  This blog post will (at least start) cover what I tried and how it went…</p>
<p>Executive summary…. I’m a bit blown away…..</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Some background information</h2>
<p>So, you know, we have some pretty ancient but really interesting data at Edinburgh University.  My favourite dataset of all time is our Survey of Scottish Witchcraft data. If you haven’t seen it, I’d strongly recommend you have a look.  It is a digitised dataset, which was collected from primary source materials more than 20 years ago, really led by <a href="https://edwebprofiles.ed.ac.uk/profile/julian-goodare">Professor Julian Goodare</a> from the School of History, Classics and Archaeology and a large number of other contributors over the more than two decades the dataset has existed.  It’s a dataset which provides information about those accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736.  There are a number of different sites where you can find out more, I’ll list them below:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://witches.hca.ed.ac.uk/">The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site</a> – this is the modernised version of the original web interface to the data and it has a great ‘about’ page which talks about the project and who’s contributed over the years.</li>
<li><a href="https://witches.is.ed.ac.uk/">The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft map site</a> – a sister/companion site which we developed here in IS with an interactive map showing all the locations talked about in the original database.</li>
</ul>
<p>The data is so so interesting and I’d really urge you to read about it but I won’t say much more in this post about it because having a 30 page long post will be unmanageable.  I’ll add a few interesting links to the bottom of this post if you want to find out more.</p>
<p>The data is Creative Commons licensed and available on <a href="https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/handle/10283/45">Edinburgh’s DataShare service</a>. The other brilliant thing about this data is that it’s a reasonable sized dataset but it’s well structured and has a corresponding database schema.  You can download the database tables as CSV files and the schema tells you how they link together. It is also available as a Microsoft Access Database too if you like Access.</p>
<p>I wanted to test out Claude Code but I wanted to use a dataset which contained no personal data and so this well structured data was ideal – there is personal data but it’s for people who existed hundreds of years ago so I think it’s safe from a data protection perspective.</p>
<h2>What I did</h2>
<p>I grabbed all the data from the dataset (CSVs) and the schema and started reading about Claude code. I signed up for a Pro license (£20 a month), installed it all on my personal laptop at home using Visual Code Studio as an editor and installing a plugin to allow Claude to work through the editor.  That was literally the trickiest part, mainly because for a few hours Claude didn’t seem to understand that I had a pro license, but once it got over itself, I was flying…..</p>
<p>I fed in all the CSV files and the schema and asked it to set me up with a website to allow me to view the data with an administrator interface which would allow me to edit the data. It needed to be in PHP and using a MariaDB – mainly because it’s what I know but also people in my team who are better developers than me (which isn’t hard) know it too.  It’s a set up that’s available on our University web servers.  It went into planning mode, reviewed the CSV and the schema and came back with some suggestions which I asked it to implement.  It (with my permission) installed a XAMPP stack on my local computer for testing out the site and then happily started beavering away.  With Pro you have a limit so that first project took a few evenings – although mainly I just got on with my life whilst Claude was doing its work.  A few nights later, it was ready and I ran it on my localhost and to say I was gobsmacked was an understatement.  Whilst I’d made my dinner, played with  my dogs and vegged out in front of the telly, Claude had been busy designing a website, writing the code and creating style sheets. I’ve done 9 different iterations of the site now – just trying things out to see how it coped.  Some of these features are not necessarily features I’d have in a live site but together Claude and I have added:</p>
<ul>
<li>an image for each of the accused. Each accused has a different image.  I wouldn’t do this on a live site, it makes the site feel less serious (and it should be serious, it’s a shameful part of our past) should have but there are nearly 4000 accused people in the database, and they all have an individual image now.  That took about 10 minutes.</li>
<li>I added an accused witch AI chatbot. I hooked it up to ELM and it’s now possible to have a conversation with an AI with a very basic prompt to respond as a Scottish Accused witch. Again, not necessarily something I’d do on a real version of the site but it was so easy to do, just plugging the ELM API key in and it worked.</li>
<li>for the admin interface, I had to wait until I had SSO installed on the web server and Claude didn’t really understand how that would work at first but once I explained it, again, I just uploaded the files it had created and it just worked.</li>
<li>I had a request to add dark mode which I asked Claude to do. This took a bit of wrangling – mainly just pointing out bits where it hadn’t quite worked right, but was quickly resolved.</li>
<li>I’ve (or should I say Claude….) changed the list pages so they can be ordered by any column on the pages.</li>
<li>We added in some more static pages (not currently populated) and a simple WYSIWYG editor for them  (About)</li>
<li>Last night, we added in some visualisations including a basic map (with only the data in the original database, not the data from the more recent map site).</li>
</ul>
<p>I have not shared any of the passwords or keys with Claude.  They are all safely stored and not accessible to Claude and I’m manually moving the files onto the server.</p>
<p>All in all, I’m pretty amazed with what Claude did. I had to provide clarity or guidance a few times – for example, I wanted the database connection file outside of the webroot on the server for security and I had to suggest things like that.  But apparently you can train it so it learns how you want to work so I need to look into doing that too.</p>
<p>Next thing I’ll be looking at is getting it set up to push code to github – I can then share it with my team – and specifically Andrew and the others in his team who are PROPER REAL DEVELOPERS who I’ve asked to do a code review and give me some feedback – so we can see what they say, and that will probably be another blog post.</p>
<p>You can see what Claude and I built together – <a href="https://www-test.karen-witches.is.ed.ac.uk/laravel/witches/">Test Survey Site</a>.</p>
<p>At some point I’ll close this site down, it’s just a prototype/experiment so after that date, I’m leaving a few screenshots so you can see how it looks. Amazingly responsive too on a mobile device.</p>
<p>Now I need to think about …. what is next?? I may be a Claude-Addict. If that’s not a thing, it soon will be.</p>
<p>Screenshots are clickable so you can see more of the detail:</p>
<p><a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180013.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-408 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180013-150x150.png" alt="AI Chat Bot" width="150" height="150" /> </a> <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180028.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-409 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180028-150x150.png" alt="Basic map" width="150" height="150" /> </a> <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180043.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-410 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180043-150x150.png" alt="Basic timeline" width="150" height="150" /> </a> <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180109.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-411 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-180109-150x150.png" alt="Admin interface - edit a person" width="150" height="150" /></a>  <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-175817.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-412 size-thumbnail" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-04-175817-150x150.png" alt="Front page of the site" width="150" height="150" /></a></p>
<p> </p>
<h1>Other links with background info</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/witchcraft_visualisation/">The Witchfinder General blog</a></li>
<li><a href="https://curiousedinburgh.org/history-of-witchcraft-in-edinburgh/">History of Witchcraft in Edinburgh Tour</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6054672/">Julian has also been involved in a few TV shows</a> that are definitely worth watching</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>

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		<title>Goodbye Argyle House..</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/02/20/goodbye-argyle-house/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2026/02/20/goodbye-argyle-house/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:27:52 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hybridworking]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=399</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_401" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-401" style="width: 300px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-401 size-medium" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924-300x225.jpg" alt="Brutalist Argyle House from the outside" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924-267x200.jpg 267w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924.jpg 640w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-401" class="wp-caption-text">Argyle House (photo by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Argyle_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3789924.jpg">Richard Webb</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>)</figcaption></figure>
<p>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 enjoyed it – it helped me feel part of something bigger.  It’s quieter now since COVID but there’s still a lot going on and LTW does more social things on the wing now like bake sales, charity food collection (thanks to prize winner Stratos!), bring a dish type events (so it’s not all about cake… although my favourite things do always revolve around cake….) which is really nice.</p>
<p>Lots of things happened in Argyle House in the time I’ve been with IS.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>We were based on the west side for the first few years I was with IS and I remember being totally freaked out when I realised the fire escape route was out onto the roof….</li>
<li>COVID happened – I got the train home with a monitor under my arm thinking ‘this will all blow over in a week or two’ (what an idiot eh!!)</li>
<li>When we eventually did return, there was the great flood of Argyle House which caused significant damage to our space.</li>
<li>There was the incident in the lobby. If you know, you know. *shudder*</li>
<li>New staff inductions usually ended up with me stranded in the basement with our new staff member as I showed them where the bike store was. The basement is a little bit like the scene of a zombie apocalypse movie, so thanks to everyone who rescued me (and the new person) over the years.  The zombies never got us.</li>
<li>We got an impromptu concert by Suede and the Manics one afternoon, a rehearsal in advance of their evening show. It was awesome.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>My last day in Argyle House was Tuesday, it’s closing for us, forever, today.  I have a tinge of sadness – not a fan of the brutalist architecture but it looked better from the inside.</p>
<p>The meeting rooms have been amazing (thanks Lesley and team!), I’ve eaten so much good cake over the years in AH and the view….</p>
<p>… I leave you with this final photo of that glorious view, the sun shone on Tuesday – I think it knew…</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-400 size-large" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-1024x387.jpg" alt="View of Edinburgh Castle from Argyle House on a sunny day." width="1024" height="387" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-1024x387.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-300x114.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-768x291.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23-529x200.jpg 529w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2026/02/Image-23.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>

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		<title>A review of 2025 from a DLAM perspective</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/12/22/a-review-of-2025-from-a-dlam-perspective/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2025 17:15:33 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assessment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecture recording]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[virtual classroom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vle]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=393</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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.</p>
<p>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 institutions has been depressing and frustrating alongside balancing it all against the rise of AI and how quickly technology is changing as a result of it.</p>
<p>However, as usual, my team have achieved so much. Our Director asks us for our 6 top achievements before our LTW all staff which happens on a 6 monthly basis.  It’s a brilliant way to remind ourselves of what we’ve been up to (because it’s so easy to focus on the next thing and forget everything that’s happened).</p>
<p>So here is a little reminder or us DLAMers (Digital Learning Applications and Media) on our achievements over the last year. Give yourselves a pat on the back and a cheer.</p>
<ul>
<li>Working with other parts of LTW and units around the University, we created a web catalogue for our new <a href="https://shortcourses.ed.ac.uk/">Short Courses Platform</a> (SCP).  This has all been a huge amount of work but it’s such a fantastic service. It provides an easy workflow for those who want to be able to offer these courses. Prior to our SCP, units and Schools were pretty much on their own. There was no central place to advertise or find them, no easy way for learners to pay and no online teaching & learning platform for those who needed it.</li>
<li>Our writing up of our digital exams project (<a href="https://uoe.sharepoint.com/sites/FLORADigitalExams">FLORA</a>).  Although paused for now, we pulled a huge amount of data together, the Project Board worked really well together to develop a collection of recommendations and a business case for a follow on project. Hopefully we’ll get the ok to move on with that project at some point.  The FLORA findings are on SharePoint, so only available to users within the University but if you are interested and are from outside the University, drop me a line.</li>
<li>We had a record breaking academic year for lecture recording, when I looked at our numbers in June, we’d had the biggest number of captures in the history of the service for the 24-25 academic year.  Although I don’t have the official stats from our supplier yet for December, i can see that the calendar year numbers for 2025 are almost the same as the full 2024 numbers so I’m confident we’ll be celebrating the biggest calendar year yet for lecture recording at Edinburgh.</li>
<li>2025 has also been a great year for interns in DLAM.  They’ve just been so awesome giving us insights into caption and lecture recording quality, sustainability, accessibility and extracting new views of our services (through data) which we’ve never seen before.  I’m hoping we can continue this work going forward.</li>
<li>We also did a huge amount of work (with support from Info Sec and folk in Apps and ITI) to switch MFA on for our services.</li>
<li>Our development team rewrote a feed from our timetabling system to push groups into our Learn VLE. It had been misbehaving a bit and it wasn’t providing logging with the detail we needed.  It’s now way more efficient, sustainable (and environmentally friendly as an unexpected bonus!) and just much easier to manage.</li>
<li>We restructured our unidesk queues too – this sounds minor but it’s been in my to-do list since I started this job back in 2020.  I can’t claim the credit and need to credit Mark Findlay (with our Service Management Team) for getting it over the line.</li>
<li>And we did more work (with colleagues in Applications Directorate) on data retention and deletion. And more will follow in 2026. Trying to keep our services cost effective and sustainable.</li>
<li>And we had the best DLAM Festive Quiz ever.  Joe is an excellent quiz host and is 19 Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers tall.  Read into that what you will.</li>
<li>And of course, we did what we do every year,  managing our services, working with suppliers, helping users with issues. Keeping the show on the road.</li>
</ul>
<p>And obviously there’s loads more I haven’t mentioned, but I’ll stop there.</p>
<p>Phew.  A big round applause for everyone.  Well done!  See you in 2026.</p>
<p> </p>

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		<title>An appeal to HE suppliers</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/12/an-appeal-to-he-suppliers/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:28:34 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=389</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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.</p>
<p>That big long list of features we’ve requested and the bug fixes we are desperate for…..  we’d very much appreciate you talking to us to consider the priority of those compared to a shiny new AI tool.  Yes, the tool might be very cool and we might agree it’s a tool we want but you might be surprised if you ask us to make an ordered list in priority order, and force us to think about which we want most.</p>
<p>One mistake I’ve seen made year after year (with some suppliers, not all) is getting us into a workshop and saying ‘blue sky thinking, whaddya want?’.  We go mad and write down every idea we’ve ever had.  The workshop finishes and we go away and get on with our life.  The supplier takes an unprioritised list and then makes a bit of a stab at prioritising themselves. We then moan about how they never fix the bugs or build the features we want.</p>
<p>A Head of School in a department I worked in before always used a beans metaphor.  I thought this was a brilliant way to work with people – it simplifies the prioritisation task a lot.  You only have 10 beans.  How many beans would you allocate to that <insert feature/change/budget spend….>?  Now you  have 7 beans left, what about this one….? The beauty of this is it shows the reality of the world. There are limits to the beans, no one has unlimited beans, and everything needs to be prioritised.</p>
<p>So suppliers….before you go away and build something… make sure you count your beans!</p>

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		<title>Some reflections on AI Agents</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/12/some-reflections-on-ai-agents/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Nov 2025 08:51:23 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vle]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=381</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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.  …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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 <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/ai-agents/">helpful description by Amazon</a>).  They can do this on your behalf without your intervention.  Clearly however, you need to give them access to whichever systems you’d like them to support you with and that means providing them with access to the system(s).  The agents might be built into the system you are using already but more likely an agent will sit outside and help you across different systems. In order to use the agent, you’ll need to share your login credentials for the system with it, so it can act on your behalf.</p>
<p>This is both where the strength of the agent and the problems lie.  This is what allows it to do things seamlessly on your behalf.  It’s logged in as you, the actions look like actions you are taking.  Very hard to detect by the system the agent is running in as it just looks like you logged in and are doing whatever things you usually do.</p>
<p>Part of my brain thinks of all the useful things I could ask an agent to do for me.  Things like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Set up a complicated group meeting, looking at busy diaries and finding the best time (avoid lunch time, be mindful of people who are part-time, these people are mandatory, these are optional, make it start 5 past the hour and end 5 to the hour to give everyone a comfort break) – this is always a time consuming job to do and it’d be so helpful to have an agent to give you the possibilities.</li>
<li>Log into our HR system, pull a report of my team’s leave and email all of those with more than 10 days of leave left to book before the end of the annual leave year to remind them.  That’s a pretty clunky job to do manually.</li>
<li>Log into the VLE, that assignment that’s due on Friday…  Write the essay and submit it.</li>
</ul>
<p>….Wait!! Stop!</p>
<p>The critical thing for me here is ….. you’ve given your login credentials to an agent to do stuff on your behalf! YOUR CREDENTIALS!  It’s now logging into University systems and doing things, logged in as you.  It can do anything you can do.  Is it a reputable/safe agent?  How do you know it is?  Even reputable agents can do things you wouldn’t do…. worst case you use an agent that isn’t reputable and safe and it does a whole bunch of things behind the scenes you didn’t expect.  Like a virus.  You’ve given it an entry point and now it’s hacking your servers, sending rude emails to your boss and writing blog posts selling watches.  You gave it access to our HR system, now it has all the personal data for your team.  You gave it access to the VLE and it’s submitted the essay but it is not a good essay and you fail – it’s rubbish and clearly AI generated.  Would you hand your password to a random person on the internet?</p>
<p>We need to work with staff and students to remind them of the risks of using AI like this.  Remember the inherent issues with AI – bias, confusion about copyright, and the fact it gets things wrong even if it’s genuinely built for good and not evil.  Some AI’s will be built specifically to help discover vulnerabilities in systems or steal your data – do you know which AIs are which?</p>
<p>If we are worried about students using AI to automatically write and submit assessments, isn’t this just the same as worrying about students using AI to generate submissions for assessments?  There’s just the extra step of it all being automated.  If this is a concern then maybe thinking about how we assess and whether it’s still fit for purpose is actually a big priority for HE.</p>
<p>So, to summarise:</p>
<ul>
<li>Agentic AI is not necessarily bad, but it might be, and really we need to make sure we educate students and staff to understand the risks.</li>
<li>If we are worried about students using it to cheat, there are many other ways they can cheat (and many other ways they can cheat using AI specifically).  We have to remind students of the value of the learning process and consider how and what we are assessing – is it still fit for purpose, the world has changed quite a bit in recent years.  Many of our students care deeply about the environment, we can also<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117"> remind them of the impact AI has on the world</a> – so use it carefully.</li>
<li>AI isn’t going away.  And actually may feature pretty heavily in employability of our students going forward.  We need to teach them how to use it properly.</li>
</ul>

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				<time datetime="2025-11-12" itemprop="dateModified">Nov 12, 2025</time>
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		<title>Kaltura Connect – November 2025</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/05/kaltura-connect-november-2025/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/11/05/kaltura-connect-november-2025/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Nov 2025 18:13:10 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecture recording]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=376</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[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 …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Nelly and I were invited to speak at Kaltura Connect in London today (at the fantastic Science Gallery @KCL).  <a href="https://corp.kaltura.com/video-collaboration-communication/enterprise-video-portal/">Kaltura</a> is the service we use to provide our own <a href="https://media.ed.ac.uk/">Media Hopper Create</a> service for media storage and streaming.  It was a fun day, we got a chance to catch up with a few people we hadn’t seen for a while and met some new people who were using Kaltura in innovative ways. Kaltura is our Media Hopper Create service,  providing our media streaming and management service.</p>
<figure id="attachment_377" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-377" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-377 size-full" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL.jpg" alt="The view by the Science Gallery at KCL (including the tip of the Shard in London and a nice blue sky)" width="600" height="264" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL.jpg 600w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL-300x132.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/11/KCL-455x200.jpg 455w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-377" class="wp-caption-text">The view by the Science Gallery including the tip of the Shard on a glorious sunny, autumn day</figcaption></figure>
<p>The keynote first thing was very thought provoking, ‘The innovation masquerade’ – <a href="https://www.solent.ac.uk/staff/governor/sarah-jones">Sarah Jones (Southampton Solent University)</a> who was questioning whether innovation was really innovative and whether we needed to question why we were doing ‘innovation’ and make sure we are doing it for the right reasons. She was more inclined to be disruptive than innovative and her arguments were powerful.  I think I particularly agreed with her view on questioning why we are doing things more regularly – we don’t ask this question enough.</p>
<p>There were presentations from the University of Bergen on <a href="https://www.vitentv.no/">Viten TV</a> (trusted academic video) and then from Rob Pashley at International Baccalaureate about digitising assessment by 2032, including media in the assessment possibilities.  Interesting project which I hope to hear more about in the future.</p>
<p>We did a fun breakout activity in a group where we were thinking (blue sky) about the possibilities for AI in teaching & learning. We had a lot of different ideas around the room, some of which I agreed were a priority.  I’m really keen we use AI to complete the less creative aspects of our jobs like writing metadata (with a human check) or checking accessibility.  We did talk about it as being a possible way to help create more personalised content for students but there are a lot of risks and dangers with AI and I think we’d need to really think it through before we did something like that. But hey, this was blue sky thinking and we were trying to think about the positives……</p>
<p>Nelly and I presented on <a href="https://information-services.ed.ac.uk/learning-technology/accessibility/best-practice-for-making-media-accessible/captioning">our captioning service</a> – both the human captioners (our wonderful intern team, see this<a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dlam/2025/04/14/captionediting/"> blog post by Ellie in the team</a>) and also the research we’ve been doing on <a href="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/dlam/2025/05/01/correcting-academic-language-with-ai/">how to improve the accuracy of the automated captions</a> (without human intervention) and got some really good questions and comments, including someone who’d been using Google Gemini to create audio descriptions for media when it was requested (apparently it did a pretty good job). We also spoke to someone from the University of Amsterdam who were trying to solve a similar problem to us and then someone from <a href="https://www.sunet.se/en/about-sunet">SUNET</a> (who provide a national on premise version of Kaltura for HE in Sweden and are also coincidentally working on a ‘scribe’ service which creates more accurate transcripts and captions using Whisper.AI built on their own specialist infrastructure and they were interested in looking at what we’d been trying with LLMs to do some post processing to perfect the captions.  We’ll definitely keep these conversations going.</p>
<p>I think it always surprises me when I go to conferences and chat to others that work in a similar role to me how we all seem to be trying to solve the same problem at the same time but completely oblivious to each other’s struggles.  Queen Mary University have realised they have staff who forget to wear microphones and they are using posters to try and remind them.  KCL are interested in lecture recording quality monitoring, just like us, but implementing it in a different way.  I think it’s such a great opportunity at events like this to remember the world outside and hear about what other people are doing.  I really enjoyed the day but it was slightly dampened by <a href="https://x.com/LNER/status/1985910248788394438?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet">train issues</a> meaning I got home at 2.30am.</p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2025-11-05" itemprop="dateModified">Nov 5, 2025</time>
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		<title>A Friday at ALT-C</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/10/26/a-friday-at-alt-c/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/10/26/a-friday-at-alt-c/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 26 Oct 2025 18:06:42 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[accessibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[AI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assessment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lecture recording]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vle]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=373</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[I attended the Friday of ALT-C today and I’m glad I did, it was a very interesting and fun day. Some brief highlights from me…. I learned a new term today which I thought was really poignant – ‘lifeload’ – sum of all pressures a student has in their life …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I attended the Friday of ALT-C today and I’m glad I did, it was a very interesting and fun day.</p>
<p>Some brief highlights from me….</p>
<p>I learned a new term today which I thought was really poignant – ‘lifeload’ – sum of all pressures a student has in their life INCLUDING university – some people have a bigger lifeload than others and lifeload needs to be considered when thinking about inclusivity.  This was in a keynote by Gabi Witthaus where she was talking about rethinking inclusion. She made some really good points highlighting injustices as well as possible solutions and reflections.</p>
<p>Steph Comley and Cat Bailey from JISC ran a great workshop on piloting edtech tools – JISC are planning a framework and the workshop will feed into that. It was a great way to reflect on what works well/doesn’t work.</p>
<p>I then really enjoyed the presentation by Ruth Clark, Leeds Conservatoire, about how they moved from Mahara to WordPress for their student competency tracking.  Mahara wasn’t popular and it went from being free (& open source) to having a charge and that was the trigger for a rethink.  They felt WordPress was a good option and felt it also provided students with transferable skills given how much of the internet uses WordPress.</p>
<p>After that, another really enjoyable presentation by Johnny Briggs at Glasgow who was building immersive experiences but using simple technology like 360 images and video.  Although low tech, was much more accessible and widely usable.  Johnny had built some really cool stuff like a virtual tour of Wallace’s monument and was doing an accessibility tour of a new building at Glasgow, aiming to show building users with mobility difficulties how to navigate the building.</p>
<p>After lunch, a workshop about reviewing a <a href="https://www.ucisa.ac.uk/groups/digital-education/vle-review-toolkit">VLE review toolkit developed by UCISA</a>.  The penultimate session of the afternoon I went to was Joseph Spink from the University of Birmingham did a presentation on their business continuity plan.  It was really interesting, and quite similar to what we’ve been doing – which is always a relief.  He talked through their priority 1 incident process and what they did to create a Business Continuity Plan and Business Impact Assessment.  He highlighted the importance of reviewing these documents regularly because things change.</p>
<p>The final session I found particularly interesting and useful. Andrew Larner from Manchester Metropolitan and his colleagues had been working to review and provide advice on assessment in the age of AI.  They’d reviewed all the assessments in a department and attempted them with AI tools and then categorised them in a way which showed how easy it was to use AI to complete them and looked at the ones which had been harder and extracted the parameters of those to help them redesign the other assessments.</p>
<p><a href="https://aiinhighered.com/assessments">Summary of the work done and findings </a>(really worth a look).</p>
<p>Then I headed home.  With thanks to Scotrail for getting me home …. Eventually…..</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2025-10-26" itemprop="dateModified">Oct 26, 2025</time>
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		<title>Ada Lovelace Day – my reflections</title>
		<link>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/10/16/ada-lovelace-day-my-reflections/</link>
					<comments>https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2025/10/16/ada-lovelace-day-my-reflections/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[khowie]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:56:36 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[dlam-feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=364</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Ada Lovelace Day was on the 14th of October this year.  We’ve been celebrating her day here in IS for a decade now (long before I joined IS) and this year, like the last 2 years, I was on the organising team for our celebration.  This year we had an …]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ada Lovelace Day was on the 14<sup>th</sup> of October this year.  We’ve been celebrating her day here in IS for a decade now (long before I joined IS) and this year, like the last 2 years, I was on the organising team for our celebration.  This year we had an even more packed schedule than usual.</p>
<p>I may be a bit biased but I had a thoroughly lovely day.</p>
<p>In a packed (standing room only) room in the Main library, we started with some lightning talks by students and staff which were amazingly interesting. Milly (PhD researcher, the Paleontology Society) talking about the challenges of being a woman while digging up dinosaurs in the Badlands of Montana. It was a really brave and honest discussion of topics rarely discussed and she came prepared with solutions!  Next was a talk by Anna (CompSoc Vice President) about fleeing her war-torn home in Ukraine and sharing a stage with President Bill Clinton.  Anna’s positive mindset made me feel quite emotional – always turning challenges into opportunities.  A truly inspiring young woman.</p>
<p>Ariadna (PhD student, Natural Language Processing NLP) gave a really informational talk where she compared her time in industry to her time in academia.  I found it particularly interesting from an NLP perspective, Ariadne worked on text to speech and in particular voice cloning which could be controversial but was also an absolute game changer for disabilities where people lost their ability to talk.  Not only could they speak but they could get their own voices back.</p>
<p>I was also pleasantly surprised that  Lucia (EFI) was doing a talk with Beccy (Society of Scottish Antiquaries). Lucia was a PhD student who I supported in my days working in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology and I remembered her love of data and databases!  She and Beccy are now working on a project to get more female Scottish antiquarians of the 19th and 20th centuries into Wikipedia, trying to navigate around complexities such as name changes after marriage, a difficulty I hadn’t considered at all prior to their talk.</p>
<p>We then had an editathon, arts and crafts (I made myself some new stickers for my computer), badges, <a href="https://html5.is.ed.ac.uk/ada-lovelace-day/">our women in STEM interactive tour</a> and Cari worked with staff in uCreate to provide women in STEM activities such getting your photo taken with a well known woman in STEM.  Here, Satu is showing exactly how it’s done, hanging out with another amazing woman in STEM, Mary Sommerville.  I feel like Satu and Mary would be firm friends if Mary was still with us.  Kudos to Cari Romans for the great photo.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-366 size-large" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-1024x576.jpg" alt="Satu in a photo with Mary Sommerville with a Spiral nebulae of 51 Messier in the background" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-300x169.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-768x432.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary-356x200.jpg 356w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/SatuMary.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></p>
<p>And after all that excitement, as if that wasn’t enough, the evening concluded with a panel of women climate scientists.</p>
<p>Our Director, <a href="https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/melissa/">Melissa</a>, chaired the panel which featured <a href="https://www.waveenergyscotland.co.uk/about/more-on-elva-bannon/">Elva Bannon</a> Research and Engineering Manager at Wave Energy Scotland), <a href="https://www.nms.ac.uk/profile/hermione-cockburn">Hermione Cockburn</a> (Science communicator with a career spanning television, radio, teaching and writing), <a href="https://geosciences.ed.ac.uk/people/profile?person=1613">Gabi Hegerl</a> (Professor of Climate System Science) and last but not least <a href="https://eng.ed.ac.uk/about/people/dr-encarni-medina-lopez">Encarni Medina-Lopez</a> (Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering who leads the ‘Coastal and Environmental Remote Sensing Group’). The conversation explored imposter syndrome and confidence, the importance of having male allies in STEM subjects, how to balance being a leader but not losing your own femininity and personality, the impact of climate change on women and girls and even the marketing and consumerism targeting women and how to resist it. I’m sure Elva then said it was ok for me not to clean my house. I’m sure she did. Or was it a warning about harsh cleaning chemicals and their impact on the environment? Either way, I got the message. Less house cleaning, more reading, blogging and litter picking.</p>
<p>It was such a great panel and I felt we could have continued to talk for many more hours but all good things must end. We finished on a high and had some snacks and individual chats. I had a thoroughly lovely time and felt the panel really chimed with my own experiences as a woman in IT. It gave me some other food for thought with respect to our own work in the area of digital sustainability too.</p>
<figure id="attachment_367" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-367" style="width: 900px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-367 size-full" src="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp.jpg" alt="A photo of the particpants of the panel" width="900" height="758" srcset="https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp.jpg 900w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp-300x253.jpg 300w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp-768x647.jpg 768w, https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/10/ada-panel-comp-237x200.jpg 237w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-367" class="wp-caption-text">From left to right: Hermione, Encarni, Elva, Melissa and Gabi</figcaption></figure>
<p>When I got home, I was exhausted but relieved it had all went well and so happy to have been part of the experience.  I’ve got a recording of the panel and will try to make at least bits of it available for a listen. Watch this space.</p>

			<span class="uoe-published-time uoe-seo-hidden-area">
				<time datetime="2025-10-16" itemprop="dateModified">Oct 16, 2025</time>
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Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=433] "More adventures with Claude"

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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=433] "More adventures with Claude" is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=428] "What’s a couple of decades between friends?"

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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=428] "What’s a couple of decades between friends?" is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=406] "My new pal Claude…"

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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=406] "My new pal Claude…" is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=399] "Goodbye Argyle House.."

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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=399] "Goodbye Argyle House.." is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=393] "A review of 2025 from a DLAM perspective"

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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=393] "A review of 2025 from a DLAM perspective" is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=389] "An appeal to HE suppliers"

Diag========| SQL: SELECT   wp_30_posts.ID, wp_30_posts.guid, wp_30_posts.post_modified_gmt, wp_30_posts.post_name
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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=389] "An appeal to HE suppliers" is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=381] "Some reflections on AI Agents"

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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=381] "Some reflections on AI Agents" is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=376] "Kaltura Connect – November 2025"

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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=376] "Kaltura Connect – November 2025" is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=373] "A Friday at ALT-C"

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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=373] "A Friday at ALT-C" is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Considering item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=364] "Ada Lovelace Day – my reflections"

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Diag====| Item [https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/?p=364] "Ada Lovelace Day – my reflections" is a duplicate of an existing post.

Diag| Memory: Current usage: 10 MB

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