Welcome to the CELT newsletter for August 2023, and the first of this new academic year. In this newsletter, we provide you with an update on:
We would also like to make you all aware of a briefing we are holding for Course Leaders and Heads of Subject in the first week of September This will be an opportunity for them to ask us any questions about the year ahead - in relation to any of the points above, or more generally. If you have any questions would like answered, please do let them know, or email celt@uos.ac.uk
At our University we recognise the importance and value of creating communities of learning on our campus in which we can support our students to thrive. We do expect all live and timetabled teaching to be delivered on campus, and for students to attend these sessions on campus. This means that typically, we do not expect learning sessions to be live streamed or web-cast. They should still be recorded and released to students in the module area within Brightspace post live delivery.
Read the updated Student Attendance and Engagement Policy
Read the the updated Learning Session Recording Policy
In certain, and particular circumstances, there may be exceptions to these policies, and it may be possible for events to be delivered via Panopto. These normally relate to:
Panopto provides excellent accessibility functionality. It can be used to pre-record content or to record and share live delivery. Additional features include:
Information on how to set up recordings and share in Brightspace has been published for you. The Learning Design have scheduled a series of events through August and into September on "Getting started with Panopto" which you can book onto using the CPD calendar.
You can also contact the Learning Designer who supports your course.
Bongo Virtual Classroom no longer forms a part of our technologies, and is no longer available for use.
As part of our compliance with regulators, the University has to monitor the attendance of students at timetabled live teaching events. This is for all types of courses including traditional and apprenticeship programmes. It is also a requirement for all international students. At the University, we now use a platform called Checkin+. In room scanners no longer function.
All staff delivering live taught sessions are expected to take an attendance register at the beginning of every learning session. Full instructions for doing this are provided in the Checkin+ guide. Key points are:
Dashboards have been built which will enable Associate Deans and Heads of Subject to see attendance data, restricted by School. In addition, dashboards have been built to provide clear data for the Apprenticeships Hub and International. Lecturers will be able to see data at module and student level.
The system has also been set up so that notifications are emailed to students on a weekly basis starting at one week of unauthorised absence. These will be sent to students who have hit an 80% attendance threshold, or 90% for international students. Messages will signpost to additional support, including the Student Experience and Engagement team, and make clear that ongoing unauthorised absence may result in loss of funding and withdrawal.
Students will also be able to view their attendance data in the Study Goal Web App.
As well as the published guidance linked to above, the Learning Design team have scheduled a series of events through August and into September on "Taking attendance with Digital Attendance Registers". You can book onto an event using the CPD Calendar. You can also contact the Learning Designer who supports your course.
We are developing some information slides which we will send to course leaders for use in Induction and welcome sessions for new and returning students. Information is also being provided to students through Brightspace course pages.
We are all aware of the AI tools which have received much attention, particularly in relation to academic integrity and assessment. During the next academic year, CELT will be working on a series of activities to understand how we can capitalise on the opportunities AI tools can provide, but also how we can ensure our students understand the tools, and how they impact our learning, teaching and assessment.
To kick us off, Dr Chris Huggins, Associate Dean, Learning, Teaching and Student Experience in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities will be delivering some webinars during September. In these sessions he will focus on the practicalities of what to do when encountering student work where the use of AI tools is suspected. The focus is on using the university's existing policies and assessment regulations which are already well-equipped to address such cases in a supportive and developmental way for students, while nevertheless maintaining academic rigour and quality. There will be opportunity to ask questions, and a recording of one of the webinars will be made available via the CPD Hub [Brightspace].
You can book onto these webinars using the links below. Teams links will be sent to you before the events.