On Tuesday 2 June, colleagues from LTW teams came together for a Learn Resilience Exercise. The purpose was to test how we would respond if one of the University’s key teaching and learning systems became unavailable, and to think practically about what that would mean in a live incident.

With cyber security and large-scale IT disruptions regularly making the news, resilience and continuity planning are becoming increasingly important across all sectors. While a lot of work goes into keeping services stable and reliable day to day, it’s equally important to take time to test assumptions and make sure we’re genuinely prepared for disruption.

The session was run as a facilitated scenario that evolved over the course of the afternoon. Participants worked in two groups, each looking at the situation from their team’s perspective, and recorded their thoughts, questions, and decisions as the scenario progressed.

Several common themes came out of the discussion. One of the most significant was the complexity of the systems, processes, and relationships that sit behind Learn. That naturally led to conversations about dependencies, ownership, and decision-making during the pretend scenario. It reinforced the importance of having clear governance and escalation routes already in place, so there’s no ambiguity when time matters.

Communication was another key focus. In the case of a real incident it’s not just about sharing information, but making sure it is accurate, consistent, and appropriately targeted across different audiences, including staff, students, technical teams, senior leaders, and external partners. The exercise helped surface useful thinking around how communication would be coordinated and maintained as a situation develops.

We also discussed continuity of teaching and learning in the event of an extended disruption. This included practical considerations around alternative delivery approaches, existing workarounds, and the types of support staff and students would need to maintain learning activities if a core platform were unavailable for a sustained period.

Overall, the exercise provided a valuable opportunity to step through a realistic scenario in a structured way and reflect on how well current arrangements would hold up under pressure. It highlighted areas of strength as well as opportunities to further improve clarity, coordination, and preparedness.

Thank you to everyone who took part and contributed to the discussions. The feedback gathered during the session will feed into ongoing resilience planning and help strengthen our approach to supporting digital learning services across the University.

Cassie Lefebvre

Testing Our Readiness: Learn Resilience Exercise / Educational Design and Engagement by v1clefeb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0

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