Friday 14th February

Dear All,

Thank you for your work this week.

Happy Valentines/ Metadata day! valentine’s patron saints of metadata

It’s been right chilly in the office this week and you’ll have been enjoying your winter-warming LTW hoodie. If you don’t yet have one of those, ask your manager what to do.

We are already at the semester mid point. It’s flexible learning week next week and quite a few academic colleagues seem to have their out of office email on.

If you would like to tune into Digifest 2025 conference Digifest 2025 , ask your manager what to do.

If you would like to see who we are up against at UCISA Conf , the full list is published UCISA25 Awards Shortlist – UCISA

If you think we should apply for a Catalyst award this year Catalyst Awards 2025 | Anthology let Lee-Ann or Karen know.

If you think we should apply for Digital leadership awards Digital Technology Leaders Awards 2025 – Home Page let Kevin know.

Thank you to all of you who are out and about visiting schools for engagement visits and crafting communications to our wide and multi-speed audiences.

Good luck to Bart for his first student Gen AI training session today.

Great to see Wesley blogging SADIE: An approach to managing AI in EdTech services – Teaching Matters

Thank you to everyone who has already done the Staff Experience Survey Staff Survey 2025 – Home We are at 53%, which is more than the average ISG ( 42%) but it would be great to get to 70% , it only takes a few minutes and you get the satisfaction of telling management what you think.

Thank you to everyone who completed the paperwork for having summer interns. Despite the depressing news about the University finances ISG is committed to offering students paid work wherever we can, and Katie has been gathering feedback from interns over several years, if you would like to see those data, just ask.

It’s that time of year again to look forward to International Women’s Day. I so much enjoyed being asked your questions at our December LTW All-Staff meeting, I have agreed to do it again and I have got two other ISG Directors to join me on Friday 7th March at our lunchtime panel:

Anne Roberston, Director of EDINA
Ingrid Fehr, Director of User Services
Melissa Highton, Director of Learning, Teaching and Web

We will share thoughts on journeys into the tech industry and hopes for the future of edtech, AI and the student experience. Book your place and come along with your questions.

The panel will be followed by lunch and then our traditional Wikipedia edit-a-thon. You will have the chance to learn how to edit Wikipedia and contribute to articles about inspiring women. Fewer than 20% of Wikipedia articles are about women, so join us to close this gap. Join us in celebrating International Women’s Day!

In other inspiring women news: that Alastair Taylor is the proud parent of Isla who debuted for the Hibs women’s football first team at just 15 years old: Hibernian Women on X: “A First Team debut for 15-year-old academy talent, Isla Taylor! 💚 https://t.co/7YjqZVlYEZ” / X Probably not enough for a Wikipedia page yet, but watch this space.

-Melissa