Dear All,

Thank you for your work this week.

This week we welcome back Mary, but prepare to say goodbye to Karen, one of our section heads, who after 20+ years at Edinburgh University has finally had enough of us and is moving on.

It’s a tough time to be a karen, but Our Karen was never a karen, she is a maven and will be much missed.

If you would like to carry on Karen’s legacy, we need more Ada Lovelace Day volunteer helpers. If you would like to enjoy more of Karen’s musings, you can read her blog: The witterings and musings of a learning technologist – By Karen Howie (Head of Digital Learning Applications and Media in Information Services)

I hope you have all managed to secure a locker for all your personal items and a padlock to keep them locked.

Speaking of unlocked, we’re delighted to have published a new open education ebook this week – the Toolkit for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Toolkit for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching (TILT) | Edinburgh Diamond | Books.  Huge thanks to Gill, Tess, Charlie, and Rebecca who all worked so hard on this and learned a lot about publishing in the process.

We will soon be celebrating 10 years of our Media Hopper Create. That’s a whole decade of staff and students creating media content – almost 338,000 items!   Proof that if we build it, they will use it.

If you are a school rep, remember to remind colleagues to use Media Hopper Create for any media they share via Learn – whether that’s course content or media submissions.  This will keep media in a platform which streams media better, provides automated captions (which is good for accessibility) and will save the University money.

If you are looking for support, the university is offering adjustment drop-ins New Reasonable Adjustments drop‑in sessions launching for staff and  funded mental health support. Fully funded support for mental health And we are offering a mindful editathon Learn to Edit Wikipedia – Celebrate Earth Day 2026!

Annual review season is soon upon us. Make sure your skills are up to date  Digital Skills Staff Development , check your personal information in P&M, add any changes, caring responsibilities etc.  Look back at what you said last year and think about any staff development you have had or might need, and be sure to highlight to your manager if you feel that your current work is significantly different from what’s in your old job description.

Have a good weekend,

Friday 17th April / Melissa Highton by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0