Now that some of the dust from the VLE transition to Learn Ultra is starting to settle, many of us in EDE have caught our collective breath and have a few minutes to look more deeply into other aspects of our VLE and its associated learning tools and platforms.    The transition to Learn Ultra […]

In early June Abertay University in Dundee hosted a pre-conference workshop of the EUNIS (European University Information Systems Organisation) E-Learning Task force, on the current “hot topic” of Electronic Management of Assessment (EMA) and Assessment Analytics. The event was delivered in partnership with JISC because of its current work on Electronic Management of Assessment (EMA) […]

On 8th May the University of Edinburgh welcomed around 40 people from across the UK for this meeting. As with previous JISC networking days, there was lots of time for interaction and discussion, and the variety of morning’s speakers provided plenty to discuss. The notes here are my personal take-away points from the day. Niall […]

With so many graphics software applications now available, it’s never been easier to turn complex data sets into interactive charts, maps, and infographics. However, using contemporary visuals to represent and understand big data often raises the question, “That looks nice… but, what exactly is it meant to show?”Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Social_Network_Analysis_Visualization.png?uselang=en-gb Performing an internet search on ‘data […]

In March this year, I began a secondment to Information Services (one day-a-week) in which I shall be evaluating the impact of learning analytics data on students’ academic performance. The courses I am involved with are all online, part-time Masters programmes, delivered via bespoke virtual learning environments (http://www.essqchm.rcsed.ac.uk/). We enrol around 400 students annually which allows […]

CETIS (The Centre for Educational Technology, Interoperability and Standards) gathers together learning technologists with an interest in the innovations and underpinning work (standards, metadata) needed to ensure our technology serves us, and not the other way around. Colleagues on CETIS staff have long been recognised as leading the field in this area, and providing strategic […]

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 […]

I’m currently working on plans for a new service within Learning Services which will offer Advice on Social Media use in Learning and Teaching. Because of this I jumped at the chance to attend an event hosted by the Edinburgh Entrepreneurship Club which offered a whole afternoon of presentations about Social Media in a broad […]