Reading Time: 5 minutes This blog post builds on the second LOUISA Academic User Group (AUG) and Professional Services User Group (PSUG) meeting which took place in February 2025.   It draws on insights from members and colleagues across the University to showcase how colleagues in various disciplines support assessment and feedback through the integration of rubrics and learning technology. […]

Reading Time: < 1 minutes The 23rd Durham Blackboard Users’ Conference was held just a few short weeks ago, with the theme focusing on the concept of Personalised Learning. The theme’s full title, Personalised Learning: Transformation or Twaddle?, was perhaps more than just a c…

Reading Time: 3 minutes On 27th February 2025, as part of the LOUISA project, representatives from Professional Services teams across the University gathered to discuss requirements, wishes and questions around assessment and feedback within Learn. The aim of these sessions is to get College and School input into how assessment and feedback works, and for this input to impact […]

Reading Time: 5 minutes In this post, Course Organiser Madeleine Campbell and Learning Technologist Jamie Auld Smith share their experience of implementing an integrated Learn assignment rubric with the aim of enhancing the consistency of essay feedback provided to postgraduate students while ensuring a practical and transparent marking and moderation workflow. Jamie and Madeleine share this work on behalf […]

Reading Time: 2 minutes   Attending the first round of the Academic User Group (AUG) and Professional Services User Group (PSUG) meetings in late 2024 was a fantastic opportunity to connect with colleagues across disciplines, Schools, and Colleges. As a Learning Technologist, collaborating on assessment (re)design is a key part of my role, and these sessions provided valuable insights […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes The Turnitin integration with Learn assignments allows instructors to use Turnitin’s similarity checker within a Learn assignment making the most of Learn’s flexible grading view and marking features. The similarity checker compares the text in a student submission against an extensive database of websites, academic reference materials and previously submitted work, to produce a similarity […]

Reading Time: < 1 minutes The last ALT-C I attended was when it was hosted here in at The University of Edinburgh in the impressive McEwan Hall in 2019, just before the world changed. So it felt appropriate that the opening Keynote by Chris Friend (Keane University, USA) ‘Human…

Reading Time: < 1 minutes 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 p…

Reading Time: 3 minutes To support colleagues with the move to Learn Ultra, additional Migration Assistants were brought onboard in the run up to Semester One to provide expertise around moving very large and complex courses. In this post, Migration Assistant Paula Sivandan shares some advice for streamlining complex courses. The launch of Learn Ultra for the 2023-24 academic […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes Chris McKenzie, Senior Lecturer and Programme Director within CMVM, moved his fully online programme ‘MSc in Pain Management’ into Learn Ultra in the 22/23 academic year as part of the Early Adopter programme (opens in a new tab). “We decided to go all in and redo the whole MSc in Pain Management programme for the […]