EDUCAUSE 2013 was again held in the Anaheim Conference Centre in southern California, which is an ideal location. In order to get the most out of the conference I had deliberately chosen to target events that focused on these specific topics: MOOCs Adaptive Learning Multi Media in Learning and Teaching Learning Analytics Learning space design […]

On 14th November Imperial College London hosted a “Video, lecture capture and the student experience” event focusing on the use of Panopto for lecture capture. The talks took place in Imperial’s impressive great hall, and the historic rooms of 170 Queens Gate, with presenters including Tom Davy (CEO of Panopto), Professors Debra Humphries and Omar […]

Staff from different parts of the University of Edinburgh, with different areas of interest and responsibility were able to attend a “roadmap” consultation event organised by Blackboard in October 2013, as part of their series of consultations with HE customers in the UK. This is an attempt to draw together the observations and “highlights” from […]

The University’s IT Futures conference returns this year with the theme of Disruption. It will take place on Thursday, 12th December 2013, 0930-1630, in The Informatics Forum. New technologies disrupt our ways of working, they disrupt our lifestyles and our settled habits. Sometimes this is good, sometimes not. Sometimes tiny factors turn out to be […]

Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool and it is marketed as such to its customers (educators). As a detector of plagiarism, Turnitin’s accuracy is quite high and has proven to be a popular choice amongst educators. Especially in the field of online learning where Turnitin’s submission tools come in very handy. However, as with many […]

The fifth eAssessment Scotland conference was held this year on 23rd August at the University of Dundee. Billed as “the UK’s largest conference dedicated to exploring the best examples of eAssessment in the world today”, this year’s theme focused on the potential role of social and participatory technologies in teaching and assessment. Page contents: Keynote […]

Learning Analytics has rapidly become a “hot topic” in Higher Education. Our teaching and  learning activities online now generate “big data” and there is a need to manage and understand that data, to make best use of it at national, local, institutional and school level.  All sorts of work is being done on developing this […]

Susie Greig and I recently attended a workshop called Cheap & Cheerful: Approaches to Multimedia organised by the Institute for Academic Development (IAD). This workshop was full of great ideas to use free and easy multi-media applications to create learning and informational multi-media assets for your course and/or website. The first presentation ‘Podcasting for free […]

How can you fault an event that starts with hot bacon rolls and ends with wine and chocolate? As ever the JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland know how to create an interesting, enjoyable and engaging event. Learning Services were well represented as David Findlay, Wilma Alexander and I all took the chance to attend this event […]

On 4th June the University hosted a meeting for the ceLTIc Project  to share experiences of, and work on, the Peer Assessment tool WebPA.  Speakers from Queen Margaret University, Hull, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Imperial College outlined projects using WebPA, some over a number of years, some still pilots. That experience included suggestions for others thinking […]