CELT Newsletters

Delivery for academic year 2022/23

Campus or online? 

In academic year 2022/23 we will be moving back to full on campus delivery for live teaching sessions. We will discontinue live streaming as part of our standard offer, but will still be expecting all appropriate learning sessions to be recorded and posted to Brightspace for students to revisit post live delivery. 

A revised University policy is currently being drafted and this will be published as soon as it has been approved through committees as required. We will also be publishing revised guidance and instructions for the recording and posting of lectures. 

Defining part time learning

A move to block learning has provided challenges for our part time students.While our model of part time study has been defined by number of credits completed per year, with learning stretched over 12 week the number of hours studied per week has been very low.  To provide better clarity for our part time students, from 2022/23, we will clearly explain that part time study is based on the number of modules undertaken each academic year, and students should expect to study modules over the period of one study block.   In addition, part time registration periods will be reduced from 9 years to 6. 

Over the next year we will work to ensure that our programmes have been well designed for block, and that our regulations and marketing align with this approach. 

Engagement and Attendance

Our expectations for student engagement and attendance

Students will be expected to attend all live teaching sessions, on campus, unless they have an authorised absence. The University's Digital Strategy Group is currently reviewing technology-based solutions for recording attendance, and the CELT Committee is reviewing updates for our policy and how we monitor engagement with learning made available through Brightspace. The policy will be published and shared with you all ready for the new academic year. 

Brightspace

Templates

We will be introducing module templates for the next academic year.  This will mean that all modules will be pre-populated with the folder structure that meets the Brightspace Baseline Standard with some standardised content embedded for support services. The Learning Design team will be available to discuss how you might want to use the templated structure and offer guidance on how you may wish to evolve the template to work with your module design.
 

Rubrics

A rubric is a tool, that includes descriptions of levels of performance, to enable the grading and/or feedback of students’ work. Rubrics that cover the generic marking criteria for level 3 – 7 are available in all Brightspace modules.  These rubrics can be used as they are, or you can create more specific rubrics to meet the module/assessment needs.
 

Anonymous Marking and Resubmissions

There have been discussions regarding the use of anonymous marking in relation to resubmitted work.  At the last CELT Committee it was agreed that it isn't always feasible to implement anonymous marking for resubmissions,  even if the first attempt was anonymous.  Where there is a need to gauge student progress on resubmitted work in assessment types such as portfolios the anonymous marking option should be disabled. 
 

Assessment Submission Folders

Summative assessment submission folders should be created by Academic Administrators based on a first attempt with a second folder for resubmission attempts.  The special access feature should be used to allow for different access based on learner needs through reasonable adjustments in both first and second attempt folders.  

Draft submission folders should also be created to allow learners to use the similarity checking tool for developmental purposes.
 

Reasonable Adjustment Flags

Following an update from the Reasonable Adjustment Task and Finishing group at the CELT Committee, we will be piloting the use of identification codes appearing in the Classlist tool in Brightspace.  These codes will identify students that have particular reasonable adjustments (RAs), meaning that academic staff will not need to look in other systems to see which students have RAs.  These codes will only be visible to staff accessing the Classlist tool each in of their modules.  

Support

With the arrival of new colleagues, Learning Design have realigned team members to Schools, the new alignments are:

• School of Engineering, Arts, Science and Technology – Dr Simon Lavis
• School of Health and Sports Sciences – Marc Prime
• School of Social Sciences and Humanities – Dr Mary Cornelius 
• Suffolk Business School and Partnerships – Richard Williams
• Directorate of Learning and Teaching - Soukaina Soussi

Learning Designers are available to attend course team meetings and will be reaching out to course leaders to introduce themselves.  The team have a daily presence in the Learning Innovation Hub within the Library, please do drop-in for to see what support is available to you.

Dr Simon Lavis has joined the team recently.  Simon comes to us from working as a GTA within the School of Communications whilst completing his PhD at The Ohio State University.

We will also be saying farewell to Olly Fayers and Aaron Burrell from the team in the coming weeks.  We wish both well in the next phase of their careers and are actively recruiting. 

Planning for induction

In line with our expectation of a full campus experience and all live delivery being on campus, we are also returning to a full on campus induction for our new students. A new students' module in Brightspace will still be made available to our new students on acceptance of offer, with links to guidance, and checklists to ensure they are ready to begin their studies with us. We will be in touch with course teams to ensure that planning and bookings are in place, and that you have a clear understanding of the content of the new students module. 

Student feedback

From next academic year, SOFIA will become the central hub of all student feedback, received outside of the National Student Survey.  A new SOFIA platform is currently being piloted, and will be rolled out for the beginning of next academic year. 

The new system will be available for all students at Ipswich, and will enable positive and negative feedback to be provided directly to professional services team and course teams. These teams will also be able to respond directly to students where submissions have not been anonymised. Our Student Experience and Engagement team will continue to collate feedback to Student Voice Forums and will provide Schools and Professional Services teams with theme based reports as needed. 

Further detail on reporting lines and training on providing responses will be offered in the lead up to the launch. 

Following a soft launch of the CPD Hub we have now pushed out the widget to all staff.  You will see the above image on your Brightspace homepage, this is a clickable link which will take you to the CPD Hub home.  You will be able to easily access staff development opportunities through one interface.  

HEA Fellowship

PgCAP 

We still have some spaces left for the next cohort for the PgCAP, which will begin in October 2022. You can find information on the programme, and links for application on our guidance pages. 

PASSPoRT

The PASSPoRT route for Fellowship is for those who are not eligible for the PgCAP or APA, or are looking to advance their level of fellowship. It may also be appropriate for those with a teaching qualification who have no level of fellowship. 

We encourage all who are looking to take this route to review AdvanceHE Fellowship Category tool, and to engage with one of the Writing Retreats which are aligned to the submission dates and panels.