Jisc Digifest 2023 – Hello Innovator

The Jisc Digifest 2023 was held on 7-8 March at Birmingham ICC (it was also online) and I was fortunate enough to attend this year’s event.

According the Digifest website Digifest is:

a celebration of the creative minds who think differently, who introduce new ideas and technologies to their organisations. Whether it’s the researcher at the cutting edge of vaccine development, the lecturer inspiring the next generation or the manager leading digital transformation, Digifest is for the innovators of tomorrow.’

A photo of Ben's name badge and lanyard for Digifest 2023
Ben, our man on the inside

The two days both had a packed agenda of exciting talks, presentations, discussions, and great catering. The agenda was based around celebrating innovation in all its forms using three key tracks:

  • Learning, teaching, and resources
  • Research
  • Leadership and culture

The agenda was so packed, you couldn’t get around everything.  Here are some of my highlights from the event and some useful links to follow up if you wanted to know more.

The event started on the Tuesday with Heidi Fraser-Krauss, chief executive of Jisc, welcoming everyone to Digifest 2023.

Heidi Fraser-Krauss, welcoming delegates to Digifest 2023

This was followed by a great keynote presentation from Inma Martinez, a digital pioneer and AI scientist, and a leading authority in the sectors of digital technology and machine intelligence. Since the 1990s, Inma has been a revolutionary figure within the technology industry and has become well known for her talent to create social engagement through technology. She’s been recognised as one of the top 50 AI influencers to follow on Twitter and one of the top 20 women changing the landscape of data.

Inma’s session was called ‘How artificial intelligence will ignite human creativity and help pave the way to human and machine innovation’: AI is making incredible (and fast) inroads into the innovation processes of many creative industries. This session explored how education will benefit from an AI that enhances human creativity, and how the future of innovation is a collaborative sandbox for humans and machine intelligence. The key takeaway from Inma’s session was not to panic. Although Open AI is here and it’s probably not going anywhere, the question is, how we can use it, rather than how is it going to change everything. AI can’t replicate our own imagination and emotional intelligence. Neoteny (a new word for me) is something that only we as humans go through and this how we can use AI to our advantage rather than panicking about how AI might change our industry.

Find out more about Inma and her work.

Before lunch (which was very good), I managed to catch three further sessions.

Firstly, a lightning talk called ‘Fostering authentic assessment and feedback to hone 21st-century skills’.  In this session, Abdulla Dilimi showcased how TU Dublin, OsloMet, and Deakin University cultivated high-quality feedback and authentic assessment with the help of pedagogical technology. The session was very good. As you’d expect, it was giving high praise to authentic assessment, focusing on how authentic assessment could combat some of the negative aspects of open AI technology; and how personalised feedback is a key benefit to authentic assessment.

The second session was called ‘How green is your campus? Supporting a student friendly, sustainable hybrid campus’. In this 30-minute session Anne Robertson, head of EDINA services, University of Edinburgh, gave a presentation of simple and fast location data solutions that:

  • Support students to find their way around campus, highlighting sustainable travel solutions and helping them find and book study spaces.
  • Enable estates colleagues to sustainably and safely manage the physical estate.
  • Assist with effective energy management, in a hybrid working world.

With the use of campus maps and real time analysis, University of Edinburgh helped students to become greener and get the best out of their time on campus. To maximise the use of university spaces and ensure that students could find a space to study with friends or individually across their vast campus.

The final session before lunch was a session about using virtual reality in teaching and learning practical skills. Josephine Grech, biology lecturer and digital excellence leader from Cardiff and Vale College gave a demonstration of how virtual reality is used in training learners for WorldSkills competitions, but also how it is applied in the classroom to increase engagement and learning outcomes. This was really engaging as a viewer and clearly engaging for the students. It is also student-led and student-developed to enhance the learning for others.

The first session in the afternoon was a keynote panel discussion with:

  • Paul Burne, customer success/service lead – hybrid edge, Amazon Web Services (AWS);
  • Karen Cooper, senior director – offer management, Honeywell;
  • Gareth Piggott, major accounts manager, Fortinet;
  • Richard Jackson, lead cloud security specialist, Jisc.

The title for the panel was called ‘On the Edge’ and was about a cloud-based programme called Edge Computing. This session was quite interesting and went through the benefits of this product.

The final session of the day was around Micro Credentials and how these have been utilised at Abertay University. They have seemed to get the best out of micro credentials using them across multiple courses in stage one and providing students with skills outside of their discipline.

The second day opened with a truly inspiring keynote presentation by Dr Sue Black, entitled ‘If I can Do It, So Can You’. Sue told the story of her life and career, the ups, the downs, and how by putting herself out of comfort zone, she was able to achieve so much and support so many other women.

Dr Sue Black, delivering her keynote presentation at Digifest 2023

Sue talked about her passion for getting everyone excited about the opportunities that technology offers, how she brought her family out of poverty and built a successful career through education, and a determination to succeed.

This was a great way to start day two of the conference on International Women’s Day.

Here are some links to find out more about Sue, her work and how she saved Bletchley Park:

  • sueblack.co.uk/
  • Tech Up – retraining women from underserved communities into technology careers.
  • #Techmums – #techmums is here to take the mystery out of technology. Whether it’s helping you to reconnect with old friends via social media, chatting to your child about online safety or finding out how to use technology to help you at work, #techmums can help!
  • And what impressed me the most, she’s been on desert island discs.

The rest of day two I managed to take in these sessions.

Firstly, Richard Buckley and Kate Whyles from Nottingham College delivered a session called ‘What does that button do?’ Shifting digital culture and growing innovation, engagement, and attainment at Nottingham College. The presentation went through how a small but perfectly formed team of six is at the forefront of developing and promoting a culture of digital curiosity, innovation, and increased collaboration to help drive up standards in teaching, learning and assessment in one of the UK’s largest FE colleges. My key takeaway was the phrase Positive Nuisance, I like that concept. How can you be a nuisance to others but in a way that will positively affect our students.

The second session was about how good AI and using things like the WHO5 can be for supporting students with their mental health and allow us to safeguard our students. Professor Peter Francis, deputy vice-chancellor (academic), Birmingham City University, took us through how their project developed a ‘predictive analytic system’ that integrates data from across university sectors and generates a predicted likelihood score for students experiencing poor wellbeing in the following month.

Implementing a model of student consent for this system, approximately 70% of the student population consented and this predictive system has shown over 80% accuracy in identifying students at risk of poor mental wellbeing. Through this identification they were able to intervene proactively through tailored messages to students that highlight wellbeing services that are proportionate to their level of risk.

The final session before I braved the snow and the long train journey home was about why you should consider student-led learning for your future education.

The session focussed on four key areas to fuel activity and deepen learning for our students. These were:

  • Challenge
  • Curiosity
  • Control
  • Fantasy

This will help students to develop job-readiness and learn to take responsibility themselves.

Digifest 2023 was a fantastic conference, and I would recommend getting along next year if you can. Please get in touch if you would like to know more, and thank you for reading.

NUTELA Small Grants Fund: Enhancing student learning through innovative scholarship conference, Bristol 2018

Alison Clapp, Lecturer, Faculty of Medical Sciences Graduate School

Thanks to NUTELA funding my travel, and the FMS Graduate School funding my attendance, I spent two days in Bristol University last summer listening to what other universities (and Newcastle too!) are doing to enhance their students’ learning. Overall it emphasised the practicalities with many presentations on enhancing feedback, technology enhanced learning and student wellbeing. Here is a flavour of the conference:

There was much about student mental health which, in my role with older, part-time, distance students, is not something I have paid much attention to. We should be considering this…. the government is going to make it mandatory for undergraduates (‘UK Step-Change Framework’) and we do need to show we are thinking about it for postgraduates including our online students. We are not meant to be qualified counsellors, but we do need to flag up problems and communicate with students about them including suggestions for getting professional help. The keynote speaker, Fabienne Vailes, will be at the Three Rivers Conference in September. Continue reading “NUTELA Small Grants Fund: Enhancing student learning through innovative scholarship conference, Bristol 2018”

RAISE 2019- The impact of student engagement

RAISE: Researching, Advancing and Inspiring Student Engagement
Dates: 4-5 September 2019
Location: Newcastle University, UK

Delegate registration is open for the Researching, Advancing & Inspiring Student Engagement (RAISE) Conference.

Student participation is particularly welcomed (students pay a very low fee). This year there is a two day format  but this is followed by a Development Day on the 6th with workshops and SIGS at the same venue.

The conference aims to offer a forum and platform showcasing practice and research about, student engagement (SE) and working in partnership. Staff in all roles, all students, and others interested in university and college higher education are welcome.

There are over 100 presentations and keynotes from Cathy Bovill, Brice MacFarlane and Colin Bryson.

There is still capacity for posters (those accepted will benefit from the presenter discount).

For full details of the programme and to register http://www.raise-network.com/events/conference-2019/ 

Note the early bird rate ends on May 30th and the final date for registration is June 30th.

Contact for any queries or proposals for poster submissions (send a 300 word max abstract): raise@ncl.ac.uk

Join the email list to keep up to date on Conference and other RAISE news.

Learning and Teaching Conference 2019: Resources

Delegates at the conference

The changing landscape of Higher Education

3 April 2019

Over 250 delegates attended this year’s conference to celebrate learning and teaching here at Newcastle University.

The packed programme included  45 presentations, workshops and lightning talks, as well as keynotes from  Professor Alison Shaw, Vice-President, National Foundation for Educational Research and Founder, North East Futures UTC and Chris Millward, Office for Students.

You can find a full range of resources from the conference below, including ReCap recordings and copies of presentation slides.

Don’t forget to save the date for next year’s conference which will be held on  2 April 2020. You can also sign up for the conference reminder service if you want to find out when the call for submissions and registration opens.

Welcome

Professor Suzanne Cholerton, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Education

ReCap recording

Curtis Group Shot

Continue reading “Learning and Teaching Conference 2019: Resources”

Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching: Pedagogy and Knowledge Production conference

9-10 April, 2019, hosted by Keele University

“The future and end of interdisciplinarity. What is implied when we aim for more robust interdisciplinary insights?” presented by Dr. Machiel Keestra has been confirmed as the Keynote talk for the  Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching: Pedagogy and Knowledge Production conference.

Machiel Keestra is assistant professor (UD) at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Amsterdam. He studied philosophy and psychology in Amsterdam and Heidelberg (Germany) and his PhD thesis Sculpting the Space of Actions. Since 2010 Dr. Keestra has been the elected board member of the US based Association for Interdisciplinary Studies and their President from 2014-16. In addition he has been on the strategic board of the 2017 and 2019 International Transdisciplinarity Conferences and is co-chair of the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies conference in Amsterdam, October 24-26th 2019 (http://aisconference2019.nl/).

Registration is open until the 29th of March at a very reasonable £60 for the full conference. The draft programme of speakers is now available from the website, https://www.keele.ac.uk/ilas/conferences/interdisciplinarylearningandteachingconference/.

3 Rivers Regional Learning and Teaching Conference 2019

‘Embedding Student and Staff Well-Being in the  Curriculum’

Calman Learning Centre, Durham University
10 September 2019

The call for papers and registration for the 2019 3 Rivers Regional learning and teaching conference is now open.

Building upon the success of previous partnership events held by the region’s Universities (Teesside, Durham, Newcastle, Sunderland and Northumbria), our theme for 2019 is ‘Embedding Student and Staff Well-Being in the  Curriculum’.

Contributions are welcomed on this and any other learning and teaching initiatives in higher-education in the format of either a 15 minute talk or a Show a Tell, where you can demonstrate a new learning and teaching initiative over coffee to the delegates. The event will be hosted by Durham’s Centre for Academic Development in the Calman Learning Centre.

Further details on the conference, including the keynote, registration and submitting a presentation proposal are available via the conference website here https://3riversnortheast.wordpress.com/

Note the call for papers closes on 15th March 2019 at 1pm, and registration will close on 19th April 2019. If you have any further queries or questions, please contact acad.dev@durham.ac.uk

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

Advance HE: Teaching and Learning Conference

The theme of the 2019 Advance HE  Teaching and Learning Conference  is Innovation for Teaching Excellence and papers that cover the following themes are welcomed:

  • Interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary innovation in teaching and learning practice
  • Innovation in inclusive curricula
  • Innovation in blended and immersive teaching and learning practice
  • Innovative practice that aids transition and retention
  • Innovation practice to support employability
  • Innovative practice to enhance assessment and feedback

Call for papers now open

The deadline for submissions is 7 January 2019.

Event details

Conference theme:

2-4 July 2019

Day One: Arts and Humanities, Health and Social Care

Day Two: Thematic/interdisciplinary

Day Three: STEM, Social Sciences

Find out more on the Advance HE website

The Year Abroad Conference 2018: Still time to register

Are you  involved in the  preparation, support, management, organisation or assessment of the Year Abroad?

Register for the Year Abroad Conference which will take place on 14th September 2018 at Newcastle University.

This is a unique opportunity to meet colleagues working in this area to share ideas and expertise. A number of topics will be covered including mental health, assessment, employability and more. Please take a look at the full programme here.

The conference is organised by Newcastle University School of Modern Languages, in collaboration with colleagues from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick.

The deadline for registration is 26th August 2018. To find out more and to register please visit The Year Abroad Conference Website.  If you can’t attend the whole day but would be particularly interested in one or two sessions, please do get in touch with the conference organisers Sandra Salin or Damien Hall.

Success for NUTELA Small Grants Fund applicants

Sonia Bussey and Dr Jo Matthan are the first successful recipients of the NUTELA Small Grants Fund. The fund was set up this academic year with the aim of helping colleagues explore and embed technology-enhanced practices into their learning and teaching.

Sonia  will be using the funds to support her submission to the Three Rivers Conference where she will be delivering a ‘show and tell’ session to introduce delegates to Adobe Connect web-conferencing software as an innovative platform to support student learning at distance.

Joanna is going to be attending the International Conference AMEE to present the results of The Darkside of Technology Enhanced Learning in Medical Education.

“I am delighted to be one of the first applicants to receive a NUTELA small grant. It will allow me to explore technology-enhanced practices utilised elsewhere, disseminate some of the experiences we have gleaned from our project to a wider audience and help evaluate practices that I hope will enhance the overall student experience. The grant is an important statement to those of us on the shop-floor and, on a very practical level, illustrates that Newcastle University values even the small-scale projects we do to promote innovation in technology-enhanced learning and to evaluate the real implications of these innovations for staff and students.”

Dr Jo Matthan, School of Medical Education Continue reading “Success for NUTELA Small Grants Fund applicants”