Digital Vision 2017
For Students: Enhanced confidence to create, collaborate and communicate digitally
For Staff: The right technologies, working reliably and being used effectively
For Everyone: A digital network that connects people to support learning and enhance the creation and sharing of new knowledge more effectively
For Spaces: Integrated, coherent and support effective practice and collaboration
LALT Showcase
350+ staff and students attended on a rainy Tuesday in term-time
Offering a wide range of workshops led by academic colleagues, external suppliers, ICT, Library and guest speaker, Eric Stoller, to promote digital within teaching and learning
“it was hands down the most inspiring session I have been to in years. Loved it and keep doing it.”
“this was an EXCELLENT event! I think it was VERY well organised and VERY relevant to what the university is about. It provided a supportive and collaborative environment, which is what LALT should be.”
81% positive response rate on exit poll
Student Life
Originally launched in March 2017, the focused promotion of the blog and social media channels to new students starting in September 2017 resulted in a 278% increase in traffic to the Student Life blog and 167% increase in Facebook page likes from A-level Results Day to the start of term.
There was also a massive increase in video views over the same period with 9,490 views and 14,413 minutes watched in total between 15 August and 15 October 2017.
With content created by students for students
Staff Support
Reviewed and updated all current CPD provision for AY17-18
30 updated face-to-face training sessions delivered between August – September 2017
Online support also revamped with the creation of 26 Blackboard, 4 Panopto, 2 Collaborate Ultra & 6 Turnitin support videos & 55 PDF helpsheets.
All support materials available on the Blackboard help and support tab, including Lynda.com
Digital Education Leadership Programme underway (Q4 2017 & Q1 2018) for all Digital Leads, based on the highly successful Jisc Digital Leadership Programme. Devised with input from College Directors of Education.
Student Video Support Assistants
Students recruited to provide support for video based projects (and technical assistance for Panopto). Six in 2016/17 and increasing to ten in 2017/18.
Starting life as Video Based Learning Support Assistants (linked to the Panopto rollout), the VSAS have engaged with a wide variety video projects in support of the digital agenda
Producing high quality videos for academic teaching, professional services, Student Life as well as assisting in the Bb Upgrade project by creating screen casted tutorial videos
The student VSAs have gained professional and transferable skills through this opportunity
VSAs have now generated over 150 videos under Digital Education and Student Life
Activity promoted at a national conference (ALT-C)
Student Content Creators
The Student Life initiative has enabled student freelance opportunities for bloggers and vloggers with 26 students regularly creating content for the blog and social media.
Use of Facebook Live for accommodation tours and Q&A sessions in the week after A Level Results Day resulted in a spike in engagement on Facebook. These sessions also involved close collaboration with other Professional Service Departments and directly led to Accommodation recruiting a Graduate Intern to help develop their social media activity.
Engagement on social media was driven by a student-led approach involving student take-overs and cross-promotion of content.
The student Content creators and Video Support Assistants have also led training sessions for other students in career skills sessions developed in collaboration with Careers and the Students Union.
Panopto
The full Panopto system is currently working in six lecture theatres
Panopto Desktop rolled out to cover over 70 teaching spaces as well as being available to all staff via Software Centre.
Panopto app is also available on Android and iOS devices
By Dec 2017, there have been 2,438 videos uploaded across 328 Blackboard modules
These are a mix of: lecture recordings, screencasting flipped learning style videos, recording of student assessments, student created videos for assessment purposes and staff feedback
The uploaded videos have a combined total of 23,853 views. Of these 6,503 were unique viewers. In total, 168,479 minutes have been viewed to date.
The most prolific academic user has uploaded 418 videos (or 2,453 mins of content)
Innovation Projects
Jisc pilot in ThinkTank Jan 2017
Pilot project with support from Estates and ICT to explore benefits of digitally enabled spaces
87% of pilot users agreed a digital classroom will benefit teaching across the University
Outcomes informed the creation of the social learning space in Minerva, with a focus on future upgrades and extension through technology
Teaching room audit of all bookable teaching spaces planned w/c 18th December 2017
Innovation Projects
Meet the Neighbours is a collaborative project developed with colleagues in Student Services. It involves students interviewing local West End residents who provide tips and advice for students living in the area.
The aim is to promote and develop better community relationships through positive messaging and breaking down barriers.
"The Carholme Community Forum said this year’s Freshers was by far the best they have seen in many years with police and ASB team figures down significantly since last year." Students Union report
Innovation Projects
360 Video Pilot in Health and Social Care
Project to explore new approaches to deliver enhanced understanding of the patient experience for student nurses
Activity promoted at a national conference (ALT-C)
360 VR was also showcased to academics by the School of Nursing & Social Care within the LALT Showcase, including how to create a 360 VR video within pedagogy
Plans to extend the successful small pilot into a suite of videos covering the patient journey
Innovation Projects
Am I Hired?
New online tool to promote a positive social media profile and support student employability
Emerged from a Graduate Internship Lincoln Award project, led by Digital Education and Student Life. Project activity completed with cross stakeholder input.
Since soft launch in November, AM I HIRED? has had 315 unique users accessing the resource and 69% fully completing the activity
Twitter is the most connected social media channel for 97% of users, with 81% for Facebook in second place.
Plans to integrate further into Careers training and Careers website
Innovation Projects
Poll Everywhere Pilot (Audience Response System)
Pilot activity to explore use of audience participation technologies with a classroom
96 users, 1034 polls, 34,417 responses to date
The busiest single academic has run 57 polls, achieving a total of 2113 responses
Pilot feedback to be reviewed Q1 2018 to inform next steps
LALT blog development
The LALT blog was launched in July 2017 and is designed to encourage academics to share best practice in teaching and learning with each other and the wider world.
The blog has gradually built up an audience, helped by events such as the LALT Digital Showcase in November and it has now had over 16,000 page views.
A redesign of the site is due to happen early in 2018 along with the launch of a new Innovation in Teaching and Learning section which will showcase best practice case studies from each of the four Colleges. This has been developed in collaboration with the College Directors of Education.
Lynda.com Staff Pilot
Thousands of support videos made available to all staff October 2017
In the first 2 months (and growing):
476 users
110 certificates of completion issued
521 hours of content viewed
7036 videos viewed
Average viewing time is 18 mins
Video playlists cover a range of topics with some promoted via BlackBoard
Student hub prototype development
Building on the success of the Student Life blog, a new prototype student hub which will provide access to key information and resources for current students is currently in development.
The project is being steered by external digital user experience consultant Paul Boag and involves a collaborative user-led approach involving task analysis, audience surveys and the iterative development of a design prototype.
More than 100 members of staff have subscribed to a regular newsletter updating them on project developments.
An initial prototype should be ready by the end of Q1 in 2018.
BlackBoard Upgrade
Upgrade informed by feedback from students and staff and supported by ICT and Digital Education Developers
Staff satisfaction survey, Jan 2017
Feedback informed overall improvements, with student usability testing and input from key professional services to enhance their support tabs
Bb enhanced with addition of responsive design and updated graphical interface
Modules are also now listed under year tabs to stream line module lists, with usability features to enable staff to filter the full list of modules
Bb now features a rolling banner to promote institutional activities and alert staff and students to important announcements
Bb handled 3.3 million logins in 2017
5.35% increase over same period in 2016