The ePortfolio system is being redeveloped and relaunched for academic year 2021/22 and we would like your feedback. We aim to develop a system that emphasises reflection and supports students to capture and develop their learning activities whilst at Newcastle University, supporting employability in the future.
After consultation with colleagues and students, prototype designs have been created to show how the key tools within ePortfolio will appear in Canvas.
The ePortfolio team will be holding 30-minute workshops for colleagues on Thursday 20 May to explore the prototype designs and to answer any other questions. To sign up, please declare your interest in this sign-up sheet.
Workshop times:
09:00 – 09:30
09:30 – 10:00
12:00 – 12:30
12:30 – 13:00
16:00 – 16:30
16:30 – 17:00
Your feedback is valuable in helping us to redevelop the system to support student reflection and enhance skills development.
If you have any questions regarding ePortfolio, please contact ltds@newcastle.ac.uk
The University is currently exploring the use of learning analytics to support students’ learning. To find out more about our approach to analytics and how you can use analytics to enhance the student experience, visit the learning analytics pages on the Digital Learning website.
Here you will be able to find out more about the benefits of using analytics in your programmes, how you can use the analytics tools available to you, and answers to frequently asked questions.
Canvas New Analytics
As part of the learning analytics available to colleagues, Canvas New Analytics is an interactive tool that offers insights into students’ performance and engagement within courses in Canvas. The Canvas New Analytics pages on the Digital Learning website have been updated to include guidance on using New Analytics in your courses, as well as answers to frequently asked questions, and possible scenarios where analytics can be used to support student engagement and performance.
Canvas New Analytics workshop
An Introduction to Canvas New Analytics workshop will take place on 27 May 2021 at 13:00. The workshop is available to all colleagues who would like to know more about using the New Analytics tool within Canvas courses.
The workshop will provide an introduction to the tool, and explore how you can use it to measure student participation and engagement with course materials.
If you would like to know more about learning analytics at the University, please contact ltds@newcastle.ac.uk
With increased emphasis on online and remote learning, and the need to focus on innovative ways to support students, Newcastle University is currently reviewing the use of student data to support students’ learning, and how to incorporate reflective learning as part of staff and student practices.
We need your input…
The University is running focus groups that will offer you the opportunity to contribute to two topics that impact on the student learning experience and provide you with the tools to enhance student engagement and attainment. Please see below for details.
Using data to support student learning
We would like to invite you to take part in an online focus group on the use of student data to support teaching and learning. Newcastle University aims to understand whether staff and students would benefit from the use of a learning analytics system to enhance teaching, personal tutoring and student attainment.
Learning analytics can be understood as the process of making meaning of students’ participation in online content and activities with the aim of providing informed feedback to optimize learning.
The focus groups give us the opportunity to share ideas, needs, and challenges with the use of learning analytics, and your valuable opinions will help inform the University’s investigation into the use of student data to enhance the student learning experience.
Date
Time
Monday 30 November 2020
10.00 – 11.30
Monday 30 November 2020
13.00 -14.30
Tuesday 1 December 2020
10.00 – 11.30
Tuesday 1 December 2020
13.00 -14.30
Wednesday 2 December 2020
10.00 – 11.30
Dates and times of analytics focus groups
If you are able to take part in a learning analytics focus group, please complete the following form by Thursday 26 November 2020: data focus group sign-up sheet
Re-defining ePortfolio
We would like to invite you to take part in a focus group on how best to incorporate student reflective learning, both academic and personal, within your practice.
Driven by a need to engage better with reflective practice, the University’s current ePortfolio system is under review. We are returning to a baseline of what we need to achieve to support students and staff to understand, undertake, provide evidence for, and in some cases assess, reflective practice.
This gives us the opportunity to share ideas, needs and challenges with reflective practice in order to identify what is needed from a ‘system’ that is relevant to all students. Furthermore, we aim to identify technology that will work in parallel with current University systems to ensure streamlined working processes for staff and students.
We need your valuable opinions to help shape the University’s ePortfolio review process. If you are able to take part in a focus group, please complete the following short form by Thursday 3 December 2020: ePortfolio focus group sign-up sheet
Date
Time
Tuesday 8 December 2020
10.00 – 11.00
Tuesday 8 December 2020
15.00 – 16.00
Wednesday 9 December 2020
10.00 – 11.00
Wednesday 9 December 2020
15.00 – 16.00
Dates and times of ePortfolio focus groups
If you have any questions about the focus groups, please contact ltds@ncl.ac.uk
The Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) celebrates collaborative work that has had a demonstrable impact on teaching and learning.
LTDS support applications to CATE, and work with the National Teaching Fellows/CATE winners in the University to promote their work and teaching excellence. Each institution can nominate one team to each round of the scheme. In 2020 there was success for the E-Learning Unit in the School of Mathematics, Statistics & Physics, who received the Awardfor promoting the use of technology to support the teaching and learning of mathematics in the School, University and wider community.
We are pleased to announce the launch of the University process to determine the institutional nominees to the 2021 Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence.
Application to be an institutional nominee
Nominations are welcomed from teams who feel their work has a major, positive impact on student teaching and learning. Collaborative teams who would like to be considered should provide a maximum of 1000 words, which address the following criteria:
Evidence of excellence in the team’s collaborative approach
Excellence in the impact of collaborative working
All higher education providers are eligible to enter one team. Your team’s submission should be sent to LTDS@newcastle.ac.uk by 12 noon on 16th November 2020.
Advance HE Criteria
1. Excellence in the team’s collaborative approach: Evidence of excellence in the team’s approach to working collaboratively; commensurate with their context and the opportunities afforded by it.
This may, for example, be demonstrated by providing evidence of:
having a clear set of aims, objectives and rationale for the team’s approach and how the group constitutes a team and developed as a team;
demonstrating direct engagement of students within or with the team;
illustrating how the team has contributed to wider thematic and sector priorities, for example, assessment and feedback; retention, employability, staff development; students as partners; technology and social media;
working collaboratively with a range of stakeholder groups;
embedding practices across different programmes, disciplines, campuses or institutions;
being flexible and creative in working to address unanticipated situations or events;
measuring the impact or outcomes of collaborative work.
2.Excellence in the impact of collaborative working: Evidence of the team having a demonstrable impact on teaching and learning beyond their immediate academic or professional area.
This may, for example, be demonstrated by providing evidence of:
the reach of the team’s work;
the benefit or value derived from working as a team;
the impact of supporting colleagues and/or influencing support for student learning;
the impact on student learning or outcomes;
the impact of any outcomes/outputs of collaborative work.
How LTDS can help:
We can provide support and advice on the CATE scheme and the application process. For all queries please contact LTDS@newcastle.ac.uk
To improve functionality, and in line with staff and student
requests, there have been some recent updates to the ePortfolio system.
Graduate Framework
The new Graduate Framework was embedded in ePortfolio for
the start of this academic year, and is now the default skill set for taught
students. Students can link blog posts (reflections/evidence) to attributes of
the Framework. Students can download their information as a PDF, including a
summary of number of posts by graduate attribute. The old Graduate Skills
Framework is still available for those who have used it previously.
Supervision Groups
Supervision Groups are used to support projects, placements and other activities. Supervisors can communicate with groups of students, whilst students share reflections and updates with just the supervisors in a safe environment for non-collaborative work.
The groups now support multiple supervisors following requests for this. In addition, the interfaces for Supervision Groups and sharing portfolio content have been simplified and made more efficient.
Placement Support
The Placements sub-system for ePortfolio supports access by external
supervisors as well as students and staff. It includes rubric-based assessment,
custom forms, automated form scheduling, and 3-way file sharing. This went live
in 2018/19 for PGCE programmes and additional programmes are using it in
2019/20.
There
have been numerous enhancements based on requests from different placement schemes,
including additional options for rubric-based assessment, CSV downloads of form
data, admin notes, and quick links to create record meetings.
Other Changes
There have been various other enhancements/bug fixes in ePortfolio, including:
Meeting records – now includes a
duration (requested for Admin recording of meetings and avoiding overlapping
events).
Accessibility – you may notice some
changes, including darker colours for buttons in order to meet accessibility
colour contrast requirements.
Various changes – to support switching
to a new institutional data feed, which is more efficient and sustainable.
If you would like to know more about any of these changes, or
would like to know more about utilising new functionality, please contact Sam Flowers in LTDS.
During 2019-20, Advance HE will be running a series of one-day Innovation in Teaching Practice Workshops.
With teaching excellence still a major focus of the HE sector, and increasing pressures across institutions to respond to policies such as the subject level TEF in England and challenges such as the mental wellbeing of both staff teams and students, Advance HE’s workshops will provide practical guidance on improving your teaching practices working alongside peers from a range of institutions and disciplines.
As members of Advance HE, staff at Newcastle University are able to receive discounted rates for Advance HE development programmes, conferences and events. Although there isn’t central funding for such events, your school may wish to fund relevant opportunities. Whether you are near the start of your career, an academic, a member of professional services, a senior leader in an executive team or working in governance, Advance HE have timely and tailored development opportunities for you and your teams.
