There are several examples in Informatics where a course is delivered to both an ‘on campus’ cohort and a ‘distance learning’ cohort. These terms can be nebulous, however, you will be aware of the courses being discrete within EUCLID. The on campus course will have a course code beginning INFR with the DL course beginning with INFD.

If you are a course organiser for such a course, please read on.

Each discrete course within EUCLID has a corresponding instance in Learn. If you are delivering the same course to both cohorts it makes sense to create a Shared Course Arrangement. This will feed the enrolments from one cohort (‘the child course’) to another (‘the parent’). You can then hide the child course within Learn to avoid potential confusion.

Further information on how to create this shared course arrangement can be found here:

https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/learning-technology/virtual-environments/learn/instructor/building-managing-content/shared-courses 

If you would like to discuss this in relation to your own course, please get in touch.

Below is a list of topics being covered in Teaching Hour events throughout May and early June 2020. Judy Robertson will lead, with the help of learning technologists and invited guests. An email was sent to all teaching staff on 6 May with links to the rooms in Collaborate, where they will be held.

Events will be recorded and the links to the recordings will be uploaded here. Please note: you will need to be logged in to Media Hopper Create (using your University / EASE login) to access the recording.

Mark Zarb, SISCA Director of Education has, with the following colleagues, recorded a webinar on best practices when transitioning quickly to online education: Danai Korre (Edinburgh), Areti Manataki (Edinburgh), Rachel Menzies (Dundee), Judy Robertson (Edinburgh) and Jeremy Singer (Glasgow).

In it, they deal with all manner of topics (suggested by the community), and hope that this will be a good resource in the days to come:
https://youtu.be/r2AGZHCMQ_s

The webinar roughly follows a three-point structure:

1. Migrating to Online Teaching
2. Considerations during the Module
3. Pastoral Care

Let us know what you think – in particular, whether you would like to see more of this style of content emerge from the Education community – or whether you want to be involved in its creation.

Feel free to circulate far and wide.

In my previous post, I listed some EdTech tools and services available to you in the event of disruption to campus-based activities – such as the current COVID-19 epidemic.

I would like to take this opportunity to list a few non-tech things to consider for the same scenario.

Communications

• Think about how you communicate with your students at present. How much do you rely on face-to-face communication? What are you going to use in place of this?
• Related to the above, it’s very easy for your message to be misinterpreted. Be clear, and say more than you think is necessary, to ensure students are clear about what you are asking of them. Check discussion boards regularly to get on top of mistaken beliefs early. Oh, and be friendly!
• If you don’t already have an online discussion board for your class, set one up now. There are various options – please get in touch for further guidance.

Managing online synchronous classes

• Running an online class takes longer than a face-to-face class – both in preparation and in class management. Build this in to your timetable now.
• Related to the above, if you are delivering a lecture / presentation in real-time online, you will need someone to manage the back channel of questions and discussions. Identify a TA or someone suitable who could perform this role now.

Recording lectures for online delivery

• If you have prepared a one hour, or two hour lecture, consider breaking this down before recording. Breaking up your lecture into smaller chunks (eg 20 minutes) will be easier for you (less editing required in post) and more digestible for your students.
• See previous post for the various supported tools available to you for recording lectures / smaller classes.

Further support

• Consider offering online office hours. I shall be running an Informatics Learning Technology service office hour. This will be online, via Blackboard Collaborate and will be every week day 10-11am. You can access here (Chrome or Firefox are the recommended browsers): https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/47b0a9ad52514aa28667b3dfab10b727

This is a reminder of the tools and services available to you in the event of disruption to campus based activities, such as the current COVID-19 epidemic.

If your *students* can’t access campus

• If students can’t come to lectures, they can access the lecture recordings via the Lecture Recordings link in Learn. Please note: this is only for those lectures delivered in a centrally supported room.
• Any room which supports lecture recording, also supports Live Streaming. Please get in touch if you would like to enable live streaming of your lectures.
• For those courses requiring to use submit, students can download and install Virtual DICE or remote access to normal DICE machines via XRDP or SSH. Please log a call with computing help for further information.
• For those courses which don’t require to use submit, remember that Learn has an assignment tool which will more than likely meet your needs. The Informatics Learning Technology Service can help with this – please get in touch.

If *you* can’t access campus

• The same product used for lecture recording at scale across campus (Echo360) has an application users can download from the website. Please note: the application is only available for Mac and PC. If you require a loan device, please get in touch.
• The Echo360 application – called Universal Capture – allows you to capture audio, screen + video. You can then publish direct to your course via the recording interface. This means students will access your recording in the same place as recordings of campus based lectures. See the bottom of the page for links to video and written guidance.
• The Echo360 player (the interface students use to watch lecture recordings) also has a nice feature where they can ask questions at specific points in the presentation. The lecturer can then review these and answer questions in the appropriate context. See Media Hopper Replay: Q&A discussions, flagging confusing content, and bookmarking for further guidance.
• You may want to deliver smaller, tutorial sized classes via Blackboard Collaborate. Collaborate sessions can be scheduled via MyEd or Learn. All sessions run in the browser (Chrome is recommended) and so there’s no need to worry about user devices.

Further Help

In addition to local help via the Informatics Learning Technology service, Blackboard are running sessions on Tuesday 10 March called “Preparing to scale online teaching and learning during Coronavirus”. This webinar is for anyone involved in administering or delivering teaching and learning, including but not limited to system administrators, eLearning technologists, IT managers, Heads of Teaching and Learning, faculty and academic staff. Register here: http://bit.ly/COVID-19EURUG

Media Hopper Replay’s universal capture tool – video instructions

Media Hopper Replay’s Universal Capture tool – Mac

http://www.docs.is.ed.ac.uk/skills/documents/Lecture%20Recording/Guides/3873_v2.pdf

Media Hopper Replay’s Universal Capture tool – Windows

http://www.docs.is.ed.ac.uk/skills/documents/Lecture%20Recording/Guides/3872_v2.pdf

Media Hopper Replay: Q&A Discussions, flagging confusing content and bookmarking

http://www.docs.is.ed.ac.uk/skills/documents/Lecture%20Recording/Guides/3887.pdf

An Instructor’s guide to Media Hopper Replay: Viewing course and student analytics

https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/An+Instructor%27s+guide+to+Media+Hopper+ReplayA+Viewing+course+and+student+analytics/1_rs96etgi