Digital Skills Festival Monday 30th May to 3rd June

The Digital Skills Festival is run annually and with over 60 events scheduled covers a broad range of topics across all core areas of activity in the University.

You’ll find sessions on

Please circulate the information about the festival to colleagues and staff.

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The Digital Skills and Training team in Information Services are pleased to announce that the Digital Skills Festival is returning for its second year. The Festival is running between Monday 30th May and Friday 3rd June 2022, and it is free to attend to all University of Edinburgh students and staff.

Last year’s Festival was a great success with 54 events running throughout the week, attracting over 1000 attendees. The Festival won the Staff Development Forum Developing Excellent Practice Award for its collaborative approach, relevance and inclusivity.

This year, the Digital Skills Festival is larger and running in a hybrid format. Over 60 events are taking place throughout the week, some online and some in-person in our training rooms in Argyle House and the Main Library. Presenters from within and outside of the University will cover topics ranging from social media engagement to learning technology. The programme is sure to include something for everyone.

Take a look at the Digital Skills Festival website to browse the programme and book your place.

Informatics Teaching Festival 2022: Design of Teaching and Learning

The Informatics Teaching Festival is back for a third consecutive year and will run Monday May 9th to Wednesday May 11th 2022.

The 2022 Informatics Teaching Festival will focus on the design of teaching and learning and consist of the following sub-themes:

overview of course design (Day 1, May 9th 2022)
design to develop student skills, including for the industry (Day 2, May 10th 2022)
design of assessment (Day 3, May 11th 2022).

Each day will include both presentations on school and university processes, tools and support, as well as the sharing of experience and good practice around different approaches to the design of teaching and learning, and internal (Informatics or university-based) as well as invited external speakers.

If you’d like to attend any of the following sessions, and are not a member of the School of Informatics, please register your interest here, and a Collaborate link will be emailed to you in advance of the session(s).

Schedule* –

Day 1: Overview of Course Design. Monday, May 9th 2022

Topic (and links to recordings after event)	Date/Time	Speaker, with linked Resources
Opening / Welcome Session	9-9.10am	Björn Franke
Morning Session – Designing a new course:	Morning Session: 9.10-12.30pm
Process and experience of designing new courses: Designing a new Informatics Course – Sharon Goldwater; Design Decisions and Dilemnas in a new data science course – David Sterratt; Designing INF2-IADS – John Longley	9.10-10.40am	Sharon Goldwater David Sterratt John Longley
Coffee break	10.40-11am	Meet in Gathertown
Support for course design (ELDeRs)	11-11.30am	Fiona Hale Cristina Alexandru
Sharing positive experiences on improved courses	11.30am-12.15pm	Heather Yorston on DMP Pavlos Andreadis
Discussion	12.15-12.30pm
Lunch break	12.30pm-2pm
Afternoon Session – Improving an existing course:	Afternoon Session: 2-5pm
Course proposal / improvement (involving Board of Studies approval)	2-3.20pm	Aurora Constantin Felipe Costa Sperb Heather Yorston RS for CAM
Coffee break	3.20-3.40pm	Meet in Gathertown
Course improvement (not involving Board of Studies approval)	3.40-4.30pm	Cristina Alexandru on SEPP Pavlos Andreadis
Discussion	4.30-5pm
Day end	5pm

Day 2: Design to develop student skills. Tuesday, May 10th 2022

Topic (and links to recordings after event)	Date/Time	Speaker / Resources
Morning Session – Developing core Informatics skills:	Morning Session: 9-12.30pm
Cristina Alexandru, Heather Yorston, and Brian Mitchell: Teaching students with varied profiles in UG1 Judy Robertston: Teaching First year students with varied backgrounds	9-10am	Cristina Alexandru on Varied Profiles UG1 Heather Yorston on FAC and MC Brian Mitchell – Prize and Prejudice Judy Robertson – prerecorded video
Teaching programming	10-11am	Pawel Orzechowski Charlotte Desvages – Day 2 Judy Robertson – prerecorded video Michael Glienecke
Discussion	11-11.15am
Coffee break	11.15-11.30am	Meet in Gathertown
Teaching Modelling: Reflection on including the industry perspective in our teaching	11.30am-12.30pm	Pavlos Andreadis Sanjay Rakshit
Lunch break	12.30pm-2pm
Afternoon Session – Developing transferrable skills:	Afternoon Session: 2-5pm
Guest Presentation: Back to the future: shaping software engineering education with lessons from the past (abstract)	2-2.45pm	Joseph McGuire
Coffee break	2.45-3pm	Meet in Gathertown
Developing research skills	3-4pm	Felipe Costa Sperb Stefano Albrecht – pre-recorded video
Skills for the industry: Rebecca Clacy-Jones on “Employment for Informatics Students” and Pavlos Andreadis on “View of Informatics Students”	4-4.35pm	Rebecca Clacy-Jones Pavlos Andreadis
Skills for the industry: Large companies and what they require	4.35-4.55pm	Michael Glienecke
Day end	5pm

Day 3: Assessment. Wednesday, May 11th 2022

Topic (and links to recordings after event)	Date/Time	Speaker / Resources
Morning Session – Philosophy of Assessment	Morning Session: 9-12.30pm
Assessment in Informatics	9-9.45am	Björn Franke
Guest Speaker: Vertically integrated assessment in Physics (abstract)	9.45-10.30am	Ross Galloway, School of Physics and Astronomy
Coffee break	10.30-110am	Meet in Gathertown
Asssessment Approaches: “Let’s talk about Groupwork”: David Sterratt “A brief introduction to WebPA”: Meredith Corey “Why and how to assess and give feedback on code (using standard tools)”: Charlotte Desvages	11am-12.15pm	David Sterratt Meredith Corey Charlotte Desvages – Day 3
Update on Asssessment Plans (from ILTS and ITO)	12.15-12.30pm	Toni Noble Meredith Corey David Sterratt
Lunch break	12.30pm-2pm
Afternoon Session – Marking Approaches	Afternoon Session: 2-4pm
Rubrics Cube: Puzzles in designing rubric-based marking schemes		Aurora Constantin
How do we set challenging assignments without encouraging students to throw arbitrary amounts of time at them?		Iain Murray
Marking to the Common Marking Scheme with Criteria & Decision Rules		Paul Anderson
Closing Ceremony	3.30-4pm	Jane Hillston
Day end	5pm

* The schedule is still subject to change. As best we can we will not make big adjustments to speakers and timings.

Informatics Teaching Festival 2021: Sharing experience and planning for online and hybrid teaching

The Informatics Teaching Festival is back for a second consecutive year.

Join us for the opportunity to:

hear interesting presentations around lessons learned in the past year and good practice in online/hybrid teaching from colleagues and inspiring speakers from other schools
listen to the feedback provided by student representatives regarding their experience with studying in an online/hybrid context
listen to the feedback provided by teaching support and administrative staff as to their experience with teaching and administration this past year
learn about new approaches to teaching and educational software
share your own experience with teaching delivery, student support and course administration during workshops and informal GatherTown meetings
reflect and come up with ideas together for improving our delivery of online and hybrid teaching, both as a school and in our different courses.

Schedule

Topic and links to recordings	Date/Time	Resources
Opening/Welcome	Monday 7 June, 10-10.30am	Björn Franke
Keynote: Experience with online/hybrid teaching in 2 other schools	Monday 7 June, 10.30-11.30am	Charlotte Desvages Brian Rabern
Coffee break & GatherTown meet and greet	Monday 7 June, 11.30am-12pm	n/a
Student experience with online/hybrid teaching in 2020-21; Suggestions for the future	Monday 7 June, 12-1pm	n/a
Personal Tutoring and Student Support: Sharing best practice and providing views on upcoming changes	Monday 7 June, 2-3pm	n/a
Lectures in an online/hybrid context	Tuesday 8 June, 10-11.15am	Iain Murray Mary Cryan Fiona McNeill
Coffee break & GatherTown meet and greet	Tuesday 8 June, 11.15-11.45am	n/a
Teaching support staff experience with online/hybrid teaching in 2020-21; Suggestions for the future	Tuesday 8 June, 11.45am-12.45pm	n/a
Practical sessions (tutorials, labs, workshops, etc.) in an online/hybrid context	Wednesday 9 June, 10-11.15am	Fiona McNeill Pawel Orzechowski Tim Drysdale Sharon Goldwater
Coffee break & GatherTown meet and greet	Wednesday 9 June, 11.15-11.45am	n/a
Case study: practical sessions in IRR and IPP	Wednesday 9 June, 11.45am-12.45pm	IRR/IPP
Case study: Teaching Ethics in Computing	Wednesday 9 June, 3-4pm	David Sterratt email James for Shannon’s paper
Assignments in an online/hybrid context	Thursday 10 June, 10-11.15am	Padlet
Coffee break & GatherTown meet and greet	Thursday 10 June, 11.15-11.45am	n/a
Exams in an online/hybrid teaching context	Thursday 10 June, 11.45am-12.45pm	Padlet
Learn Foundations: UX (Emma Horrell)	Thursday 10 June, 2-3pm	Emma Horrell
Equality and Inclusion (Decolonizing the curriculum and Congressive Teaching methods)	Friday 11 June, 10-11.15am	Decolonizing the curriculum
Coffee break & GatherTown meet and greet	Friday 11 June, 11.15-11.45am	n/a
Final reflection, Informatics Awards Ceremony	Friday 11 June, 12-1pm	will be uploaded after the session

Informatics Teaching Festival 2020

The Informatics Teaching Festival is a series of events aimed at addressing some of the issues raised by moving much of our learning and teaching online in September 2020.

The sessions will run in Collaborate and the link is the same – no matter which event(s) you wish to attend. An email will be sent to all Informatics staff nearer the time with the Guest link.

Sessions will be recorded and links to the recordings will be posted here.

Schedule

Topic and links to recordings	Speaker	Moderator	Date/Time	Slides
Opening/Welcome	Stuart Anderson	Judy Robertson	Monday 1 June. 10am.	Slides
Perspectives on online teaching from the Open University	Derek Jones	Judy Robertson	Tuesday 2 June. 10am.	Slides
Learning Design – The ABC toolkit	Fiona Hale	Paul Patras	Tuesday 2 June. 4pm.	Slides
Teaching for inclusion – what can we all do to support women students?	Judy Robertson and Fiona McNeill	Judy Robertson	Wednesday 3 June. 10am.	Slides
Tools showcase – colleagues demonstrate their favourite teaching tools Part II	Aurora Constantin	Alex Burford	Wednesday 3 June. 4pm.
“Teaching Hour: How do I encourage community / peer interaction online?”	Judy Robertson and Michael Gallagher	Judy Robertson	Thursday 4 June. 11am.	Graphic
Ethics and social responsibility in Informatics teaching	Shannon Valor, James Garforth	Stuart Anderson	Friday 5 June. 10am.	Slides
Creating Accessible Materials Top Five Tips	Elizabeth McCann on visual impairments. Audrey Cameron on hearing impairments.	Pre-recorded	Pre-recorded
Setting up library resources online	Academic Librarian	Pre-recorded	Pre-recorded