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Converting documents to accessible formats: SensusAccess 

SensusAccess gives users the ability to convert documents into formats that work for them. This is particularly important for documents that are inaccessible and SensusAccess offers a self-service solution to this.

We are pleased to confirm that SensusAccess will be available throughout Semester 2 for a University-wide pilot to determine whether it meets the needs of students and staff.  The system will be available to all students and staff for the remainder of the current academic year, with an evaluation being undertaken in the summer to inform a decision on whether to continue to make SensusAccess available at Newcastle beyond 2018-19.

SensusAccess is available on the ASK website and there will be links to this in several locations on the University’s online provision, including the Blackboard homepage, Student Health and Wellbeing website, Library website and the LTDS website, ensuring users can find the system from a range of locations.

The system will be easy to use for students and staff.  During the pilot they will be able upload documents to SensusAccess choosing the file type that they require. The uploaded document is automatically deleted after being converted. No uploaded or converted documents are stored by SensusAccess. Full information about the conditions of use, including copyright, is available on the ASK website.

As this is a pilot, we are keen to hear your views and will be conducting an evaluation at the end of the pilot period. If you would like to feedback your experiences or need any further information, please email ltds@ncl.ac.uk Students are encouraged to contact disabilityadvisor@ncl.ac.uk to provide feedback.

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Mathematical skills catch-up: 2018 award-winning NUTELA learning and teaching conference poster

The 2019 Newcastle University Learning and Teaching Conference takes place at the start of April, with the theme “The changing landscape of Higher Education”. We are looking forward to hearing about what has been going on around the University over the past year, as well as disseminating info on some of the projects we’ve been involved with here in the MSP E-Learning Unit.

Last year, we were delighted to accept the NUTELA award for best Technology Enhanced Learning  submission at the conference, for our poster “Mathematical skills catch-up: Developing a University-wide solution through online formative tests”. The poster described a project, supported by the University Education Development Fund (then ULTSEC Strategic Fund), which was carried out in 2017 to develop online formative Numbas tests for departments outside of our own.

The project is described in detail in this blog post and outputted nearly 150 questions, packaged into over 20 tests, covering everything from the volume of ice cream cones to the probability of rolling three sixes. The poster describes not just the resources created, but also how the collaboration between six students and several staff members worked, which might be of interest for anyone thinking of applying for the latest round of funding to work with students on a project. It also discusses how to easily add Numbas content to Blackboard, which is described in the following video:

If you don’t know about the excellent activities put on by the NUTELA (Newcastle University Teaching Enhanced Learning Advocates) team, then do check out their section of this blog. As part of the award we received a small amount of money from them to support further activities. This was used to help fund a (mainly Yorkshire-wide) tour last summer, where I was involved in talks and workshops at Durham, Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam and Huddersfield, introducing Numbas and promoting the resources we have been creating, which we make available through our public editor and database. Since last summer’s conference, I am delighted to have been invited to also actually be “a NUTELA”, so I look forward to being on the voting/awarding side of the poster presentations this year!

I am certain that technology enhanced learning will be a running theme at this year’s learning and teaching conference. I’m pleased to know of at least one submission talking about Numbas applications outside of maths, as well as another poster in the pipeline from our unit (talk about conflict of interest 😆), this time on the slightly different topic of web-based / accessible lecture notes.

Don’t forget to register, and hope to see you there…

numbas-logo-large

Numbas is developed by the e-learning unit in the School of Mathematics, Statistics & Physics. If you have any questions, or are interested in using Numbas in your course, you can contact Chris at christopher.graham@ncl.ac.uk or the team at numbas@ncl.ac.uk 

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Find out more about the Academic Practice Team

By Sue Gill, Academic Practice Team Leader, LTDS 

The Academic Practice Team in LTDS supports 3 areas of activity CASAP, ILTHE and UKPSF. All three areas offer support and ideas for PGR students and staff to think about how they support student learning most effectively and have the opportunity to talk to others and share experiences, ideas

Certificate in Advanced Studies in Academic Practice (CASAP)

This programme for staff can lead to recognition with the Higher Education Academy at Descriptor 2, Fellow, of the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF). The first two of the three 20-credit modules on the programme form the Newcastle Teaching Award (NTA).

Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE)

This blended learning programme provides training to postgraduate researchers, research associates and other part-time staff members who have infrequent teaching responsibilities.

UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF)

Support is available for staff to obtain recognition through this scheme which is accredited by the Advance HE. Our internal Experiential Route provides a flexible pathway for staff to gain HEA fellowship on the basis of their experience in teaching and supporting learning.

Links to all these areas can be found on our web page https://www.ncl.ac.uk/ltds/professional/

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CASAP Review

By Sue Gill, Team Manager, Academic Practice Team, LTDS

As some of you will be aware we will be introducing a new scheme to replace CASAP from September 2019 for new starters.

The first point to make clear is that for anyone who is currently working their way through CASAP, you will be able to continue and complete your programme. We’ve been working hard to ensure that there is a transition period long enough to work for everyone. That includes those colleagues who are booked to begin LTES during this rest of this academic year, we’ll be running the second and third modules so you can complete as much as you need of the programme.

The replacement for CASAP currently has the working title of Newcastle Teaching Award 2. It is a structured scheme which will lead to Associate Fellowship or Fellowship recognition over a period of 2 years. It is intended that the normal probationary requirement would be achieving D2 via the scheme (replacing the existing Newcastle Teaching Award). Continue reading “CASAP Review”

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Learning and Teaching Conference: Keynote Speaker Announced

Chris Millward

The changing landscape of Higher Education,  3 April 2019

We are pleased to announce that Chris Millward,  Office for Students  (OfS), will be a keynote speaker at this year’s Learning and Teaching Conference.

Chris is the first Director for Fair Access and Participation in the Office for Students (OfS).  His role is to ensure that universities and colleges are doing all they can to support underrepresented groups to access and succeed in higher education. Chris is also an executive member of the OfS board.

In his previous role at HEFCE as Director (Policy), he led HEFCE’s work on access and student success, learning and teaching, and higher level skills.  This included delivery of the Teaching Excellence Framework, the National Student Survey and the National Collaborative Outreach Partnerships, as well as programmes to remove barriers to student success, to improve postgraduate progression and to develop degree apprenticeships.

Chris has also worked at the universities of Warwick, Edinburgh and Durham before joining the Arts and Humanities Research Council as Head of Research Programmes in 2002 and HEFCE in 2006.

The keynote will focus on:  Access, success and progression in the new HE environment. We are looking forward to welcoming staff and students from across the University to this one day event celebrating learning and teaching.

Full information about this event is available on the conference website and staff and students can register here.

If you have any questions please get in touch with LTDS@ncl.ac.uk

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Inclusive Practice Network annual conference 2019 Inclusive assessment: innovations in practice

Thursday 6 June 2019, University of Bath
Call for Papers now open

If you have an idea for an interactive workshop  submit your abstract by the 31 January 2019.

Examples topics include:

  • Student choice in assessment
  • Providing alternative assessments
  • Quality assurance and equivalency
  • Allowing extra time in exams for all students
  • Administration of examination innovations
  • Innovating mitigating circumstances processes

Your abstract should include:

  • A short title of no more than 20 words.
  • The name and contact details for the lead presenter and name of any co-presenters
  • A clear statement of the topic of your session will develop participants’ understanding, skills and knowledge through discussion, practice or activity.
  • An outline of the proposed schedule of the session. Each workshop will last for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Please return these details to mike@inclusioninhe.com

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Meet the Teams: Educational Governance Team

The Educational Governance Team in LTDS

We are (front row left to right) Laura Johnstone, Jolein De Ridder, Janice Trewick, Jack Ennis, (left to right back row) Gilly Box, Sarah Levison, Liz Turnbull.

Some examples of the things the team lead on;

  • Responding to the student voice, surveys, student representation and so on.
  • Training in EvaSys for Surveys or the External Examiner system.
  • Development of new programmes, Degree Apprenticeships or Educational Partnerships.
  • Developing and maintaining the many policy, process, guidance documents and forms in the Quality Standards Handbook – adding to these as the University moves forward (e.g. incorporating Degree Apprenticeships).
  • Support of various committees; University Education Committee, Taught Programme Sub-Committee, INTO Strategy Group and Cross-Faculty Education Committee.
  • Monitoring and review processes such as Learning and Teaching Review, Annual Monitoring and Review.
  • Governance structures such as Board of Studies activity or supporting your Student Staff Committees.
  • Collation of key programme information such as accreditation information, management of programmes on SAP, the MOFs system and Module Catalogue.

Some random examples of things you maybe didn’t know the team did; Continue reading “Meet the Teams: Educational Governance Team”

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Accessibility Stocking Fillers

Do you want to find out how to make your content accessible for everyone?

In our latest 3Ps we covered a range of accessibility tools and tips to ensure that we can quickly and easily make new and existing materials accessible to everyone.

In the session we covered three topics:

  • How to use styles, colours, alt text to create accessible content.
  • Tools available to students and staff so make content accessible and support the
  • Some of the frustrations staff and students might experience and how to overcome them.

If you weren’t able to attend the session you can have a go and test your accessibility knowledge with the Accessibility Checking Activities.

Resources

Microsoft Office

The Microsoft Office Accessibility Center is a great place to look for handy guides on producing accessible Office documents with out of the box accessible templates. Microsoft Office is available for free to all staff and students and has some great Microsoft Accessibility Features built in.

Adobe Acrobat PDFs

Staff and Students have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro from University Machines. Acrobat has a built in PDF Accessibility Checker which can automatically fix issues with your PDFs and also advise you on why certain elements aren’t accessible.

Video Captions

The session focused mainly of text and images but if you’d like to find out more about creating accessible audio and video content you check out our blog post on creating captions.

On Campus

For disabled users accessing IT services on campus we offer specialist software and hardware available to staff and students via our Easy Access Accessibility Service.

Printable Checklists

Download and print copies of our A4 checklists for Word, Powerpoint, PDFs and Blackboard and keep them with you for quick reference.

What support is available?

The Student Health and Wellbeing Service provides information, advice and guidance on a wide range of student support issues, helping students to maximise their potential whilst at university.

If you have any queries about creating accessible content get in touch with us and we’ll be happy to offer advice and guidance – contact LTDS@ncl.ac.uk

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Peer Mentoring Thank You Event 2018

Group of mentors

Peer Mentoring Thank You Event 2018

Peer mentors from across the University gathered at the Lindisfarne Room on Monday 26 November 2018 to celebrate another successful year of the peer mentoring scheme.

Peer Mentors and Staff Coordinators were invited to this celebration as a thank you from the University following another excellent start to the academic year with new students being supported and encouraged as they started their journey on their chosen programme of study and made the transition into Higher Education. These students (the mentees) were invited to provide their opinion of the scheme and to share the many benefits they had experienced as a result of having a peer mentor:

“Explained clearly what it was like from a student perspective and what I should expect to know and learn and how to do so.”

Continue reading “Peer Mentoring Thank You Event 2018”

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Advance HE Subject Networks Engagement Events

Advance HE are holding a series of engagement events to help shape the way they can support Subject Networks, a method of sharing ideas and best practice . These are being developed as a result of a recent consultation and Advance HE are hoping to engage with staff from a range of institutions to ensure that they meet the needs of modern day HE.

As we are an institutional member of Advance HE, attendance at these events is free for Newcastle University staff.

Please find details of the events below. The links will take you directly to the Advance HE booking page: Continue reading “Advance HE Subject Networks Engagement Events”