LOUISA Professional Services User Group: a Learning Technologist’s View
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 decisions made around future processes.
I was glad to participate as a Learning Technologist from the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences (PPLS), as it gave me an insight into the goings-on of other Schools and teams within Professional Services, as well as the opportunity to make the needs of my School heard. The PSUG group has run multiple times, but this in this instance we discussed rubrics. From my perspective, it was important to understand how professional services are supporting rubrics and in what context they are being used across different Schools and Colleges. I also found it was a good opportunity to see how everyone defined rubrics, as well as whether there was any ambiguity over any of the terms.
Expectations
Something I had expected was that there would be varying requirements across the different Schools and Colleges. For example, the discussion in my group had revealed that the College of Science and Engineering approached marking in a different way from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Within Colleges, and Schools even, depending on the nature of the subject matter, it may be easier or harder to quantify a student’s grade based on strict criteria. Some markers may thrive when given a defined set of criteria to mark students, while others may consider their topic too broad or subjective to be narrowed down in such a way. What everyone could agree on was that a rubric should be used for student benefit, and in cases where it can apply needed context to a student’s grade, it is a useful thing to implement. Applying a consistent approach where possible could improve assessment and feedback from both a student and staff perspective.
Surprises
What I did not anticipate from this session was how useful it was to get perspectives from across Professional Services. It is easy to lump Professional Services together, but the experience a Learning Technologist has supporting learning and teaching is different from that of someone in the Teaching Organisation, which then differs from the experience of a Student Advisor. I believe that understanding the perspectives of all these parties is essential to ensure the decisions made best reflect the working patterns of those who use the systems most. I did not participate in the Academic User Group, but I imagine the experience of the academics also varies across the Schools and Colleges, and this also affects requirements from the LOUISA project.
Food for thought
What was useful about this session was that it provoked questions that I can take back to my own School and College. For example, how do the academics and Professional Services staff in PPLS define rubrics? Is there a general positive attitude towards them or do people prefer other methods of marking? Understanding this helps to narrow down the points on which we can focus our attention, to up consistency where possible and improve student experience and the processes of
staff who support the systems. It also made me think about how our team can promote best practice and make use of the community across the University who are making these changes together.
I found that participating in the Professional Services User Group does have benefits outside of the topics discussed. Not only does the experience allow us to understand what is going on across other Schools and Colleges, but it was a good chance to reflect on solutions to common problems. It has been a useful resource throughout the move to Learn Ultra and continues to be beneficial as a community to discuss best practice, air concerns, and design solutions for shared problems.
Share
