UCISA Academic Support Group

Recently, I became a committee member for the UCISA Academic Support Group.

The remit of the group includes:

• Helping university support staff to promote and support the use of new technologies in teaching and learning.
• Providing a forum for the discussion of, and the exchange of information on the development and use of technologies in teaching and learning.

The group is responsible for the Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning, a national survey which institutions are asked to contribute to every 2 years. The latest survey results were published last month, making it the eighth in the series of reports. The surveys provide details of the different learning technologies institutions are using, but also explore the drivers behind the adoption of Technology Enhanced Learning within institutions. To support the survey are a number of accompanying case studies, which provide further insight into institutional practice. For a number of years I have found these surveys an invaluable method of benchmarking our practice against that of other institutions.

As well as the survey, the group also delivers a variety of events throughout the year. Last week, I attended the annual planning meeting, were I was given the role of events co-ordinator. During the meeting we discussed some of our activities for the year ahead, so do keep an eye out for some of the topical events we are planning to run in the New Year.

Digital commons session - Lecture capture

UPDATE: We now have materials to support this session which can be found here. This includes the cards, which can be printed as needed, some instructions and the supporting slides. Any questions or feedback please let us know. We'd also be keen to know how the session went if you decide to run it.

As part of the Digital Commons session around lecture capture, following on from informative morning panel, Pete Mella and I facilitated a session around the benefits and concerns of lecture capture.

The aim of the session was to consider some of the points raised from the panel session, discuss these in teams and decide which were the most prominent points.

For this session we put participants into small groups and gave each table to pack of cards. These were coloured red and green.  

Red = Statements which were considered a concern around the use of lecture capture

Green = Statements which were seen as a benefit of lecture capture

In the activity we asked for each team to come up with the card that had the most important point  for each colour and have one backup, in case of duplication amongst teams. We also provided a blank “wildcard” which they could complete if they felt the issue wasn’t covered in the existing deck.

After a short discussion we brought the group back together to discuss our thoughts.

Some of the issues that were considered most prevalent were:

Concerns

Confidentiality (wildcard)

This concern was to do with how and where students may access lecture capture materials. Some of our courses contain particularly sensitive data which students could potentially show to a wider audience either knowingly or unknowingly (e.g. playing the recording in a public place).

This is indeed a valid concern and advice given was to be assured that the video is only available inside the MOLE course by default, with downloads disabled. You have the ability to pause the recording, so the session could be amended slightly to bring together the parts that needed not to be recorded.

Ultimately though it was agreed that not every session is right for lecture recording and some instances it is sensible not to record. Though in most instances minor ordering amendments can allow the session to recorded without affecting the quality of the lecture.

Technical issues

One issue which still concerns people is whether the technology will work on the day and will sessions be recorded successfully. Whilst there have been some instances of failed recordings identified, the service has been going well given its growth this academic year. It was highlighted that many of these issues are being resolved and staff were reminded that if they do identify any issues to contact either the AV or CiCS Helpdesk to help issues to be resolved more quickly.

As with all synchronous technology supported activities, ensuring you have a plan B in place where possible is good practice. This could be making lecture slides available on MOLE and providing any supporting material you can give to students. The system we have in place requires almost no intervention from the tutor and the only setup required is to turn on the microphone.

Benefits

Disabled students

The use of lecture capture was seen to be a huge benefit to students with a wide range of disabilities, and the benefits ranged from not needing to take verbatim notes to being able to access materials if a student is unable to attend in person.

International students

For international students where for many English is a second language, lecture capture can be used to positive effect, giving students another opportunity to view the lecture.

You are able to add subtitles/transcripts to help support the recording too, which was seen as something that could help both international and students with disabilities.

As part of the session we produced a series of slides looking at each topic and some of the research underpinning these, which you can find below.

We then passed over to Dan Courtney and James Slack who gave an overview of the system and gave people an opportunity to ask any questions about the technology supporting lecture capture.

If you have any questions about the session or are interested in running it in your area please contact tel@sheffield.ac.uk

The annual three week ‘Manic’ Period

Obviously the beginning of any new academic year is a very busy time for the majority of us and the TEL help desk is certainly no exception. Each year, the three week period comprising of ‘Freshers’ week and the following two, are by far our busiest. ‘Manic’ is the word I always use.

The ‘Supportworks’ enquiry system which we use, records the volume of traffic we handle and the last five years totals for this period are as follows:

2016-17 - 677

2015-16 - 613

2014-15 - 741

2013-14 - 747

2012-13 - 786

This year as in every year, nearly half (45%) of all the enquiries during this three week period are from folk (staff and students) asking to be given access to their particular MOLE courses.

For students in particular, these requests are mostly unnecessary as the MOLE system is populated with student enrolments automatically by electronic transfer from the University's main student registration system.  Once the choice of courses is completed on their main registration record, student’s MOLE accounts are automatically updated (the process runs four times each day) and the list of courses shown on their MOLE homepage then changes to reflect this.

Today’s students live in a world where they are used to things happening instantaneously (in an IT sense anyway) and having completed their registration process, if they cannot see their courses in MOLE straight away they tend to assume something has gone wrong.  We manage to answer the vast majority of enquiries the same day as they are received and in most cases in the interim period of the enquiry being sent and us reading it, we usually find that the above automated system has done its job and the student has been given access to their courses. We simply then just need to reply happily confirming this.

Of course no system is 100% perfect and there are times when we have to step in to manually add a student to a course, but thankfully this is not very often in comparison.

Staff are not added to courses automatically unless the same course ran last year and they were a part of it, in which case they are automatically enrolled in this year’s course too.

New or existing staff, requiring access to a particular course for the first time always have to be added manually. We can do this and staff already having the role of Instructor in a course can add other staff to that same course.

Sometimes individual staff members don’t realise they are not added automatically to new courses and they contact us in a panic because they need to prepare material for the first teaching session to be held shortly, only to find they don’t have access to the course.

Sometimes a teaching department’s Administration/Clerical teams send us long lists of staff that need adding to courses. We also receive quite a lot of requests asking us to merge two or more courses together in MOLE. Obviously we don’t mind doing this but ideally it would be better for everyone concerned if we could receive these enrolment lists and merger requests earlier in the summer (courses are usually created in July and even earlier in some cases).

Add to the mix the usual everyday requests for assistance in how to do something, Turnitin queries, technical problems etc and it all adds up to a ‘Manic’ three weeks - but guess what? ...I love it!!!

Teaching Copyright and Creative Commons (featuring the Selfie Monkey)

Last week I led a short presentation for students in the Theatre Department, alongside colleagues Steve McIndoe and Kate Grigson from the Library, about copyright considerations to take into account when using others' materials in recorded theatre productions.

It's easy to spend sessions like this dwelling on the restrictions and getting bogged down in legal minutiae, and making copyright sound boring, overly pedantic and restrictive. While going over some of the necessary basics of copyright law, the main point of this session was to give an understanding of why protecting your artistic work is important, and to give students information about using Creative Commons material that allows them the create work that they can be confident about sharing widely without legal snags. If the work they produce at university has sound copyright thought behind it they can use it as a showreel or share it via social media, reaching new audiences and showing future employers they have the knowledge and attention to detail to use others' work with care and legal consideration (which gives them a head start on many graduates entering the creative industries).

Some good discussion was had in the session. We spent some time examining The Verve's infamous use of an uncleared sample of a Rolling Stones cover on their song Bittersweet Symphony, leading to the band losing all royalties, awards and artistic control from their biggest hit to Jagger, Richards and their publishers. We also discussed the 'selfie monkey' and who owned the copyright of the above image - the photographer who owned and set up the camera, or the monkey who took the picture (it's no-one - the monkey took the picture, but animals aren't covered by copyright law - but the photographer is challenging this!).

Hopefully the students found the session useful, and it gave them some grounding to think about these issues as they progress through their studies. As creators themselves they should know their own rights, and respect the rights of others, but perhaps as importantly know the ways Creative Commons plugs them into a rich source of material to remix and adapt creatively and legally. Teaching about copyright and IP issues, rather than being dry and draconian, can be a liberating way to allow students to work with and repurpose material, adding to their digital and information literacies, and creating more engaged digital citizens.

Pete Mella

Turnitin Summit October 2016

"We aren't dealing with ordinary machines here."

Director of Sheffield Robotics and contributor to our free online course Building a Future with Robots Professor Tony Prescott has written this illuminating article for The Conversation entitled Why watching Westworld's robots should make us question ourselves. In it, Professor Prescott uses the new HBO series Westworld as his basis for discussing how the design of increasingly complex AI must force humanity to look at the morality of creating machines that can, for all intents and purposes, ‘think’ for themselves.



It also reminded us of another article that Professor Prescott wrote last year which bridges the gap between Building a Future With Robots and our most recent free course, The Musculoskeletal System: The Science of Staying Active Into Old Age.

In this article Tony looks at how robotics and developing technologies can aid us as we age; everything from helping with the chores and providing mobility assistance, to designing automatic furniture and combating loneliness.

Along with showcasing the breadth of research taking place at The University of Sheffield, these articles also underline the importance of working in an interdisciplinary way and how academics contribute to a wide range of projects across many subject areas.

Find out more about our open online courses on FutureLearn here.