Scope of the group

Standing group as part of the Digital Education sub-committee which sits under the Education & Student Life Committee.

"Student engagement will be central to the on-going development of our whole set of offerings and learning practices"

"We aim to create a flexible and open university that encourages and supports collaborative working across boundaries and disciplines"

Thinking Ahead 2016-21

Main priorities

• Set up a Lincoln Digital Hub for sharing, disseminating and collaborating on digital related topics.
• Capture the digital footprint of the University to benefit the entire University community, avoiding silos of activity.
• Set up communities of practice to engage staff and inspire effective digital practice.
• Enable digital collaboration (outside and across the University) to benefit staff and students at Lincoln.
• Enable a wider student digital experience with incentivised contributions on community focussed platform.

Work package proposals

• Redevelop and relaunch the University's blogging platform with the aim of providing knowledge hubs for sharing and disseminating best practice and to support collaboration.
• Develop how to guides to help academics solve teaching problems with digital tools.
• Student Forum / Course Rep Forum – incorporated into the Digital Education Blog Project to encourage students to get involved, share best practice and support activity at local level.
• Integrate digital hubs with collaborative tools and social media.

Key developments and initiatives

• Recruitment of Journalism students to provide content and editorial oversight
• Development of School/Department subject area hubs
• Tie in with Staff and Student News blog redevelopment projects
• Development of academic-focused teaching and learning area
• Possible SLT thought leadership blog

Issues and challenges

• Lack of resource to develop and oversee new platform
• Promotion of new platform to students and academics - need to ensure engagement and regular flow of strong, new content
• Challenge of managing and co-ordinating migration of content from the old to new platform
• Tying together and co-ordinating with other initiatives
• Need to avoid the same issues with the platform arising again
• What to do about the use of the platform for student coursework and assessment?