In FMS and SAgE, students can produce heavily mathematical theses. These can be difficult to manage in Microsoft Word as it is not designed for documents that include a lot of equations and other mathematical notations. Furthermore, theses are often very large documents with each chapter in a separate file. Compiling those chapters into a single document is something that LaTeX is ideal for. It was designed with professional typesetting so that users can focus on their content and not the style of the document.
Here at FMS TEL, we added a session in LaTeX to our catalogue of digital skills sessions a few years ago, and since the pandemic we have transitioned this to a webinar with some interactivity.
LaTeX is an open-source mark-up language so the training sessions are on primarily on learning the LaTeX code. This enables postgraduates to set up their documents from scratch or, more likely, to modify pre-existing templates such as the template that we provide them on the Digital Skills Hub or working a boilerplate paper. The slides used in the session are also provided on the Digital Skills Hub as well as some additional materials used during the session such as the graph files used.
Sessions are in two parts and cover how to set up your document in LaTeX, incorporating comments, mathematics, images, bibliography and references, tables and matrices, and more. There are many different LaTeX editors but the training session is built around the Overleaf.com editor as that is completely in the cloud and therefore nothing needs to be installed to be able to use it. It is free to use unless collaboration is needed with a document or other advanced needs. Skills learned with this editor should be easily transferable to other editors.
We have had a great response to the LaTeX training session. It is always very popular and we get a lot of positive feedback from participants.
Having a new assessment system (Inspera) offers the opportunity to redesign assessments, and there are many examples of authentic assessment already running throughout FMS.
What is Authentic Assessment?
Authentic assessment covers a wide range of assessment techniques, including setting tasks that students may be asked to undertake in their future careers. It also covers the setting of other purposeful tasks – assessments that have value beyond simply testing knowledge, such as reflective tasks.
During the FMS TEL conference, a session was run that covered several examples of authentic assessment. Examples came from the School of Dentistry, presented by Ruth Valentine and Chris Penlington, the School of Psychology’s Psychology of Religion module led by Patrick Rosenkranz, and the School of Biomedical Sciences, presented by Lindsey Ferrie. The resources can be accessed via the links below.
Are you supervising a postgraduate student? If so, consider recommending Digital Skills workshops to help them with the process of formatting their thesis.
Digital Skills offers a series of four workshops specifically designed to help postgraduate students to format their thesis effectively and efficiently in Microsoft Word to University standards.
Sessions cover the use of Styles, caption and cross-referencing, customising multilevel lists, managing images and tables, modifying EndNote output, and merging chapter files. These skills provide students with the ability to create a successfully formatted thesis.
The first in the series of sessions takes place on 21st October 10-12pm. Encourage your students to sign up now via Workshops. Alternatively, students can complete the tutorial in their own time via the Digital Skills website.
Inspera is the new Digital Exam System available at the University. Inspera offers a wide range of features covering a large variety of exam styles. Colleagues wishing to learn more about Inspera are strongly encouraged to attend the event below, and explore the online guidance available on the LTDS website.
Further to our previous post, there have been some changes to the launch events as below.
12 October 2021 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM UK, 5:00 PM-18:30 PM Malaysia (via Zoom)
Inspera is the new Digital Exam System available at the University. Inspera offers a wide range of features covering a large variety of exam styles. Colleagues wishing to learn more about Inspera are strongly encouraged to attend the event below, and explore the online guidance available on the LTDS website.
Come along to one of the online events for live demonstrations, the chance to speak with our Inspera colleagues and to find out more about uses for digital assessments.
The FMS TEL Conference ran at the beginning of this month. Fifteen events ran in the week beginning 6th September 2021, with diverse themes covering technology in teaching, technical guides and inspiration, and how we interact with technology as people.
Sessions were attended by staff from Newcastle and from NUMed, with over 150 session bookings across the conference. Feedback from attendees has been positive, and colleagues shared their plans for implementing their learning from the conference.
Many thanks to the session hosts, everyone working behind the scenes, and to the attendees for joining us.
Session resources can be found on our Canvas and MLE communities.
You may not have expensive software like Photoshop for image editing or you may just want to do a quick edit. There is a free option for basic editing in Windows 10. It’s called Photos.
If you’d like to find out how to do basic editing in Photos then check out this guide on the FMS TEL Community:
The move to online learning and subsequent staff development of synchronous online teaching skills has created opportunities for increased links, and sharing of resources, between physically separated campuses. This means that cross-campus, transnational teaching, could be utilised to enhance teaching provision. This session will discuss some examples of cross-campus teaching on the MBBS degree between the UK and NUMed Malaysia, and explore the feasibility and opportunities for adopting cross-campus teaching in other courses within the University.
Boundary Setting and a Shared Code in the Era of Digital Delivery
Joanna Matthan, Director of Academic Studies, School of Dental Sciences
This session focuses on the teaching of Head and Neck Anatomy within the School of Dental Sciences, and how the move to online teaching necessitated the development of a specialised Digital Code around the use of cadaveric imagery. An excellent way to see how expectations can be set for even the most challenging of online teaching situations.
Day 2 Recordings: Tuesday 7th September
Enhancing your Content: Basic HTML
Emily Smith, FMS TEL Team
In this session you will be introduced to easy changes you can make to divide up your content, add colour and make areas of your content pop! You will learn how to work around any accessibility issues and how to make your content look great on any device. No prior coding experience is required!
This session introduces efforts to teach students how to use built in tools in Word, PowerPoint, and Adobe Reader to make their work accessible to users with a variety of disabilities. Addressing both the how and why to broaden digital literacy knowledge. Attendees will learn how create accessible documents for themselves, too!
See NU Reflect (previously ePortfolio), redesigned to emphasise support for reflective practice and awareness and evidencing transferable skills across the University. Presentation and demonstration plus time for your questions.
Day 3 Recordings: Wednesday 8th September
Confidence and Resilience for Teaching with Technology
Paul Hubbard, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, NUMed
Join Colleagues from NUMed and FMS for a discussion of how to build confidence and resilience when experimenting with new technological teaching methods. Examples of good practice and success stories will be shared, and there will be plenty of time to chat, ask questions and discuss your own plans.
Many of us – staff and students – have struggled with the feeling of losing the human connections we would normally have in face-to-face teaching spaces. This webinar concentrates on how to regain some of that connected feeling. The webinar will include plenty of examples and quick tips that can help reduce the awkwardness of teaching online.
In the first half of this session, medicine-focused examples of H5P content will be shared to get your creative juices flowing. In the second half of this session you will be let loose on the H5P platform to create your own content with members of the FMS TEL team on hand to assist with any queries.
Getting Your Work Out There – Using Canvas Commons to Share and Promote Your Teaching
Michelle Miller, FMS TEL Team
This session will introduce Canvas Commons as a digital repository for your Canvas Content that can be used to store and share your material within your own courses, within Newcastle University, and/or with all Canvas institutions.
This session aims to increase the help we give to students to improve their academic writing with an emphasis on academic integrity. After a short refresher on how Turnitin scores work, we will discuss reasons for high scores, and how we can provide students with online activities to improve their writing.
Introduction to Authentic Assessment
Ruth Valentine, Dean of Taught Programmes; Chris Penlington, Clinical Psychologist; Eleanor Gordon, FMS TEL Team
This session introduces the principles behind Authentic Assessment, with real examples from FMS presented by practitioners. A range of examples and ideas will be shared, with frank discussion around challenges and benefits of this approach, and space to discuss how you might implement this in your own teaching.
Planning for the Future
David Kennedy, Deputy Dean of Taught Programmes & Deputy Head of School of Medical Education
Inspera Assessment was selected as our digital exam system following a rigorous procurement process, which began with requirements mapping workshops in February 2020, attended by over 60 academic and professional services staff.
In 2021/22 Inspera will be the standard tool for centrally supported digital exams, and will be used for all modules that have a present-in-person digital exam in MOFS (with the exception of any specialist digital exams that require Numbas).
Inspera will be available for additional new digital exams from 2022/23 onwards. There will be opportunities during the academic year to see demonstrations of the software and learn more about the new types of assessment it makes possible. To discuss a potential new Inspera digital exam please contact digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk.
Further information on preparing for exams in 2021/22 and the types of assessment possible with Inspera is now available on the Inspera pages of the Learning and Teaching website. This also includes information on how to prepare students for Inspera digital exams and links to student facing resources on the Academic Skills Kit webpages.
As part of the FMS TEL Conference last week members of the FMS TEL Team created a few medicine focused examples of H5P content.
We have shared these examples with the University to use in course content or to clone and edit to fit specific needs. You can find all of our examples in: All content > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Generic Content
H5P Folder structure
Example content includes:
Accordion: Vertically stacked expandable items
Agamotto: Sequence of images and explanations
Drag and Drop: Drag and drop task with images
Drag Text: Text-based drag and drop task
Flashcards: Stylish and modern flashcards
Image Hotspots: An image with info hotspots
Image Juxtaposition: Interactive images
Memory Game: Image pairing task
Timeline: Interactive timeline of event with multimedia
