2020, kick-start the New Year with several staff development activities and resources, designed to help you make your content accessible.   

Learning Services are offering a range of sessions and resources to assist staff with issues raised by Blackboard Ally, from training sessions on making accessible documents, small steps videos that target a range of specific issues and guides that help with more complex document structures and conversions. 

Attend a Drop-in Session.

Sessions are being run from 8^th Jan to 26^th Feb, every Wednesday between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. Catalyst Oak Room (session on Wed 12^th Feb will run from 11-1pm).

No appointment necessary, drop into the Catalyst Oak Room (top floor) & get individual help with making your content accessible. Bring up issues you are having with particular documents and we will help you find a solution following best practice.

Book on a Digital Proficiency Staff Development Session. 

Improve your ICT skills with software that you use frequently, sessions such as ‘PowerPoint: Get Creative with Presentations’ and ‘Microsoft Word: Making Documents Accessible’ sessions. These sessions are vital in making presentations and documents more accessible and inclusive to all users. 

View Small Steps Videos. 

Learning Services are producing a series of short how-to videos for the most common accessibility issues found in content uploaded to Blackboard Courses.  All videos will be available by February and will walk you through a step by step approach to resolving issues such as; adding alt text to an image, using Header Styles in Word, saving a Word file to an accessible PDF and linking to 3^rd party resources.

How-to Videos:

• Add Alternative Text to images in Word and PowerPoint – Office 365 (transcript).
• Link to Third Party Content and use Digitised Versions in Learning Edge (transcript).

(this blog post will be updated with more links to more how-to videos).

Access Good Practice User Guides. 

Create documents that are usable to more people, follow some key tips to make PDF files and their alternative versions accessible for all your students.

• Creating a PDF from Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
• Adding Document Structure to a PDF File (Adobe Acrobat).
• Tags and Reading (Adobe Acrobat).
• Accessibility Check (Adobe Acrobat).

LinkedIn Learning – Creating Accessible PDFs

LinkedIn Learning specifically focuses on professional development. Industry experts provide insights and guidance to you on what you should know about in the production and remediation of PDFs. ‘Creating Accessible PDFs’ course is broken down into six key areas: 

1. Understanding Accessibility.
2. Accessibility in PDF Files.
3. Make an existing PDF File Accessible.
4. Create an Accessible PDF from Word.
5. Create an Accessible PDF File from PowerPoint and Excel.
6. Create an Accessible PDF File from Adobe InDesign.      

Each category is delivered in short manageable chunks, between 2 – 12 minutes sections, this means you can dip in and out of your learning as and when it suits you.

Want to know more about accessibility and what the new legislation means for your modules in Blackboard?

Contact your Learning Technology Development Officer: AskLTD or Tel. 7755

Panopto at Edge Hill University

The Panopto System at Edge Hill University is the University’s video management system for secure scalable hosting of video and audio resources.

Seamlessly integrating with Learning Edge (Blackboard), all seminar and lecture theatres are fitted with the latest recording and capture equipment, making it easy for tutors to use and access the Panopto System no matter where they are on campus.  Capturing a lecture can be as simple as pressing a record button from within your computer desktop.

There are three key reasons why lecturers say it is important to provide students with Panopto recordings. These are:

• To enhance student satisfaction. All students experience high quality and fulfilling University education that enriches their lives and careers.
• To offer better provision for students with disabilities, medical conditions or other commitments that sometimes make it impossible for them to attend classes physically. Accessibility and inclusivity are becoming ever more important drivers for the adoption of this technology.
• To improve student learning outcomes. Analytics show students are using Panopto recordings as a support mechanism and revision tool, to check key terms, concepts and understanding for a topic during the assessment period.

Safe learning for complex concept rules (Transcript).

How-to videos or video tutorials (Transcript).

The use of Panopto to create how-to videos is growing on campus. These types of video fall under two categories:

1. Practical videos to build-up skills or enhance the student experience:

• Orientation and induction for first-year students.
• Recordings that help explain assessment criteria and rubrics.
• Explainer videos that teach students about key university systems.

2. Tutorial videos that relate to specific elements within a course or discipline:

• Videos of laboratory demonstrations with multiple camera angles.
• Tutorials on musical techniques.
• Demonstrating software packages students need to use as part of their course.

New Research: Students’ Opinions and Expectations for Lecture Capture

Student Voice: Derek, 3rd Year Marketing Student (Transcript).

There’s a growing movement for online video tutorials, people are using platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo and Linkedin Learning and students are turning to these technologies to teach themselves new skills.  As a result, there’s an expectation that these types of resources will form part of their learning experience at University. Panopto provides staff with the tools that offer students a safe and secure way to engage with taught sessions and content.

With a simple tick of a box, Panopto will automatically generate a webcast link and stream your sessions live so that distance students can access them.

Live broadcasting (Transcript)

Opportunities for live broadcasting:

• Streaming live lectures to overflow classrooms.
• Sharing guest lectures with external audiences.
• Hosting ‘live lounges’ for music performances or concerts.

Along with the latest classroom equipment, Panopto is helping to expand your reach beyond the physical campus and offers a ‘humanised’ digital experience that makes both existing and new audiences feel like they’re part of a community of learning.

If you would like to learn more about Panopto, talk to your Learning Technology Development Officer or to find out more about Panopto at Edge Hill and the level of support available, contact the panopto@edgehill.ac.uk.

Qwickly Attendance is officially switching to the LTI version and will be live from Monday 9th September.

The LTI version uses a more up to date and universally compatible technology. In anticipation of the potential change a link was included in the Baseline template for all new 2019 course instances created.  

If you are using a ‘2019_’ course, you will initially see the two options as shown below.

As of Monday 9th September the ‘Attendance Register LTI‘ will work, while the ‘Attendance Register B2’ option will no longer function, in fact it should disappear. 

Actions

• You should show the LTI link if students will need to access it for Check-In, and hide the B2 link if it is not already hidden.
  
• If staff are taking attendance in pre 2019/20 Blackboard courses with, for example, the ‘2018_’ prefix, then a new Qwickly tool link will need to be added in the left hand course menu. When adding the menu tool link, please select ‘Qwickly Attendance LTI’ and then give it the name ‘Attendance Register LTI’ for consistency.

Are there any key differences?  

The main differences are behind the scenes, in how it is set up and works. Any fixes and enhancements will happen seamlessly as Qwickly support will apply them remotely.  

Existing users 

If you have already been using Qwickly, then data added to Tableau will still be available there. We have retained a copy of the full set of data so if any specific queries arise we have this as reference.

New view options 

You will see two new options when viewing the Attendance Record.  

Reverse – reverses the order in which the register sessions are displayed

Totals – shows a count of the different attendance statuses for each student, across all recorded sessions. Click ‘Records’ to return to the normal view 

Please contact LTD Support with any queries.

New Legislation

New accessibility legislation means that Universities have to make improvements to the information on our websites and VLE.  This includes all of your uploaded documents.  The rules will apply to new online content from Sept 2019 and will be applied to existing content by Sept 2020. 

As you are setting up new modules over the summer this is a perfect time to check the accessibility of content.   For 2018/19 our content accessibility score was 64% which is a great baseline to start from.  If you would like to check how accessible a course/module is get in touch with ltdsupport and we can provide the information & a summary of the top issues.  

It is essential that all department managers ensure that accessibility is high on the agenda for any departmental meetings so that all staff are aware of their obligation to make their course materials accessible.  

With just a few quick and simple steps you can vastly improve the content you upload to Learning Edge, so that all students are able to use it in a way that suites them and their needs.  We have put together a resource kit in our wiki pages containing lots of information on how to make your content accessible. 

Leah Wilson – Operations Coordinator

Turnitin & Electronic Marking Awareness with Adrian Cain
12^th June 19

Following an overview of all the EMA (Electronic Management of Assessment) tools used at Edge Hill, the session will then concentrate on Turnitin Feedback Studio the most widely used of all the EMA tools. It will look at EHU Guidelines, consistency of set-up and practice, student formative use for academic writing development, and it will offer a hands-on practical where attendees can mimic some of the electronic submissions process from both a tutor and students’ perspective.

Academic Staff Development Fortnight

From the 17th to the 28th of June Library and Learning Services invite you to a fortnight of events designed to update your skills and knowledge of the support we offer – from Research Support to Student Engagement, and everything in between. The full event timetable is available here and sessions can be booked through My View.
The Learning Technology Development (LTD) Team will be running the below sessions:

Give Your Course a Digital MOT with Adrian Cain
17th June 1pm-2pm & 27th June 11am-12pm

A supportive peer review session aimed at helping you audit and fine tune your Blackboard course area to maximise its effectiveness and impact on student learning. Gain an objective assessment against critical agendas, such as:
-Inclusion
-Baseline
-Electronic Marking of Assessments
-Consistency of students’ experience
-Retention
Members of the LTD team will help you develop an individual action plan to help enhance your course areas now and in the future.

Using Panopto and Ally with Martin Baxter & Mark Wilcock
26th June 11am – 12pm

This session will review and offer insight into Inclusive/Accessible learning and the tools availability within the institution. We will demonstrate the benefits of Blackboard Ally and Panopto to enhance the student learning experience.

• Review the level of content accessibility and systematically prioritise where improvements can be made.
• Auto generated ‘Alternative’ formats and how they can support different learning styles
• Going beyond lecture capture with Panopto

Catalyst 1^st Year Anniversary Celebration

On Wednesday 19th June we’ll be celebrating a full year of Catalyst (already!!) with a celebratory day of competitions, exhibitions, activities and more from all of the teams based in Catalyst.

The LTD garage and show room will be located behind the help desk – visit us and find out why LTD have all your motoring needs covered.

Build the ideal course car (involves lego!), race it and win a prize.

Leah Wilson – Operations Coordinator

The Learning Technology team are running two new essential training sessions Turnitin & Electronic Marking Awareness and Panopto – Recording and Utilising Video for Learning.

Turnitin & Electronic Marking Awareness
Facilitator – Adrian Cain (LTDO)

Following an overview of all the EMA (Electronic Management of Assessment) tools used at Edge Hill, the session will then concentrate on Turnitin Feedback Studio the most widely used of all the EMA tools. It will look at EHU Guidelines, consistency of set-up and practice, student formative use for academic writing development, and it will offer a hands-on practical where attendees can mimic some of the electronic submissions process from both a tutor and students’ perspective.

21/05/19 13:00-14:00 & 13/06/17 13:00-14:00 in Catalyst Oak Room. 

Panopto – Recording and Utilising Video for Learning
Facilitators – Mark Wilcock (LTDO) & Andrea Wright (Senior Lecturer/CLT)

This session aims to go beyond the generic use of lecture capture, with focus on the other pedagogical ways to develop content that all students can access in a way that enables them to be more effective learners.  We will demonstrate the different ways in which Panopto can be used.  Specifically, around generating media for weekly round ups, general revision, student recordings and online video submission.

Ideally your will have prior experience of setting up and using Panopto to benefit from this session.

20/05/19 10:00-11:00 in Catalyst Oak Room

Book through MyView (can be found under Learning & Teaching Technologies)

Email ltdsupport@edgehill.ac.uk for more information or to inquire about specific training for your Department.

Leah Wilson – Operations Coordinator