University of Glamorgan

The Technology Enhanced Learning Team at Glamorgan in the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) is undertaking a Building Capacity Project as part of a group of Welsh institutions building on the success of the HEFCW Gwella (Enhancement) project.

JISC is managing similar projects in Wales and England as part of the Building Capacity Programme.

At Glamorgan our project, overseen by the Pro-Vice Chancellor (Learning and Student Support), Professor Clive Mulholland, and managed by the Head of CELT is focussed on Curriculum Design through Technology Enhanced Learning.

The initial focus of the project will be to identify the way the range of resources which have emerged from previous projects funded by JISC can be deployed at Glamorgan. At this point in the project we will be able to draw on two experienced ‘critical friends’ Professor Tony Toole and Professor Paul Bacsich.

Once the resources have been identified they will be used to build institutional capacity with three key groups:

1. Those who are already leaders in Technology Enhanced Learning leadership – who will have the opportunity to showcase new and innovative technologies which can be utilised in the learning and teaching environment at faculty and course level
2. Those who are already engaged with Technology Enhanced Learning – who will be given the opportunity to receive bespoke guidance and advice to enhance their current and future curricula
3. Those who are less engaged with Technology Enhanced Learning – who will be involved in assisting CELT in identifying the barriers to further engagement, so that they can be addressed at an institutional level

The Building Capacity area of this blog will act as the project website and project progress will be updated here regularly as it progresses over the next few months.

Posted by hblackey | 0 comments | Tagged with buildingcapacity, gwella, jisc

Turnitin and GradeMark are now available in 10 different languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Malay Bahasia, and Thai. These 10 languages are available to all customers using the drop-down language selection menu in the upper right corner of every Turnitin web page. Papers submitted in these languages will be matched to an ever-growing base of English and non-English language-based content.

Recent upgrades to Turnitin application web servers have resulted in improvements to both performance and system reliability. GradeMark is showing dramatic speed improvements of approximately 3.5 times. Improved system reliability means that users will experience uninterrupted system access. More new features can be found from the TurnitinUK's New Features!

Glamorgan's updates

In October, more than 34 staff were supported through emails, phone calls and office visits for the online submission and assessment agenda. 5 training for staff were conducted with 15 attendees. 10 student sessions were conducted and in total of more than 200 students attended these sessions in group.

As a result, the TurnitinUK System statistics (figures on the 29th Oct 09) for the University of Glamorgan shows that there are currently 416 instructors (385 instructors in Sept 09); 6393 students (4944 students in Sept 09) and 12412 submissions (11793 submissions in Sept 09)

There are some updates on the Glamorgan's Turnitin wiki for the user guides, training Power Point, upcoming sessions and FAQs. There are 262 visits; 217 absolute unique visitors up-to-date. Upcoming training can be found from the Turnitin wiki site.

Posted by Esyin | 0 comments | Tagged with gwella, tel, turnitin

September 2009 is one of the busiest months for CELT in supporting "Technology Enhanced Learning, Teaching and Assessment" agenda. We had many queries and support requests for Turnitin and GradeMark. More than 40 staff were supported through emails, phone calls and visits. In September, 8 training for staff were conducted with 50 attendees. 14 student sessions were conducted and in total of more than 500 students attended these sessions in group.

The accumulated total from 21 Jan to 30 Sept 09: (1) One-to-one support: more than 154 staff were supported; more than 26 students were supported; (2) 30 staff sessions were conducted; 142 staff attended the training; (3) 24 student sessions were conducted; more than 624 students attended the sessions.

As a result, the TurnitinUK System statistics (figures on the 8 Oct 09) for the University of Glamorgan shows that there are currently 385 instructors (311 instructors in Aug 09); 4944 students (4005 students in Aug 09) and 11793 submissions (11372 submissions in Aug 09)

The Glamorgan's Turnitin wiki were shared across the Glamorgan and the UK user group for the upcoming sessions and FAQs. There are 227 visits; 164 absolute unique visitors up-to-date. Upcoming training can be found from the Turnitin wiki site. Please contact Esyin Chew if you have further query.

Posted by Esyin | 0 comments | Tagged with gwella, tel, turnitin

It is indeed an active month for CELT in terms of the efforts spent in Turnitin and Grademark. Some up-to-date figures for the month: In Aug 2009, more than 24 staff were supported in one-to-one approach through emails, phone calls and face-to-face meetings. In the same month, 3 staff training and 2 student sessions were conducted. In total of 13 staff and 12 students were trained in group.

The accumulated total from 21 Jan to 1 Sept 09:

- One-to-one support: more than 114 staff were supported; more than 23 students were supported.

- 22 staff sessions were conducted; 92 staff attended;

- 10 student sessions were conducted; 96 students attended.

As a result, the TurnitinUK System statistics (figures on the 5 Sept 09) for the University of Glamorgan shows that there are currently 311 instructors (284 instructors in July 09); 4005 students (3885 students in July 09) and 11372 submissions (10944 submissions in July 09)

The Glamorgan's Turnitin wiki were shared across the Glamorgan and the UK user group for the upcoming sessions and FAQs. There are 117 visits; 77 absolute unique visitors.

Upcoming training can be found from the Turnitin wiki site. Please contact Esyin Chew if you have further query.

Posted by Esyin | 0 comments | Tagged with gwella, technology enhanced learning, turnitin

The first keynote at ALT-C was from Michael Wesch

I’ve blogged about it as it was going on here you can also follow live discussions about the talk on Twitter

Posted by hblackey | 0 comments | Tagged with alt-c2009, gwella, tel

This year the Association of Learning Technologists Conference (ALT-C) focuses on dreaming dreams, but taking responsibility.

This means the conference will focus on the way we can have bright ideas, but need to root our dreams in evidence. So a focus on doing Technology Enhanced Learning and using research as the basis of decision making.

I’ll try to reflect some of the key conference themes in the Learning Zone over the next few days.

Posted by hblackey | 0 comments | Tagged with alt-c2009, gwella, tel

Since the launch of the module (and organisation)-based Campus Pack tools at Easter, CELT Technology Enhanced Learning team has been greatly encouraged by increasing demand for information and small group training sessions in the pedagogic uses of the applications. This exciting initiative enables staff and students to add, develop and manage their own content within the VLE, a first for our students.

The CELT team offers separate training sessions on podcasting and blogs/ wikis. These sessions not only cover the ‘how-to’ aspects of creating blogs, wikis and podcasts in Blackboard modules and organisations, but also seek to engage staff in actively considering the effective pedagogic deployment of such tools as a means of enhancing practice in learning, teaching and assessment.

Since mid-June when the first session was run, a total of 35 academic staff members from a range of faculties have received training in the Campus Pack tools with more sessions already in place for September onwards.

A related issue is the imminent launch of the Campus Pack Expo LX e-Portfolio which will give all students and staff access to a personal webspace outside of the module system. One of the prime functions of the e-portfolio will be the enhancement of student engagement in Personal Development Planning (PDP), but more on this in my next entry.

Please contact Steve Woodward at CELT to arrange a Campus Pack training session.

Posted by swoodwar | 6 comments | Tagged with gwella, social _software, technology_enhanced_learning, web_2.0

The University’s Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy 2007-2012 is vested in the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) to promote learning and teaching excellence, resulting the increased use of online assessment and to enhance prevention and detection of plagiarism with TurnitinUK. CELT encourages all academics across the University and partner colleges to embed TurnitinUK through Blackboard. As such, CELT offers both pedagogical and technical support for TurnitinUK as follows:

A. One-to-One Support:

CELT provides one-to-one advice through emails, phone calls or face-to-face support by sitting beside the individual (either walk him/her through the TurnitinUK or to solve any issue ASAP).

B. Disciplinary-tailored Group training:

CELT organises small group training of 3-15 academics from different departments upon request. The training is conducted in a computer lab for academics to have hands on experience to play around with TurnitinUK through Blackboard. Student sessions would be arranged upon request by individual staff. Some staff would brief their students themselves

The following are some updates for the above activities:

1. One-to-One Support :

i. June and July: more than 20 staff were supported
ii. Accumulated total (21 Jan - 5 Aug 09): more than 95 staff were supported; more than 18 students were supported in one-to-one approached upon request

2. Group Training:

i. June and July: 5 staff sessions were conducted; 21staff were trained
ii. Accumulated total (21 Jan - 5 Aug 09): 19 staff sessions were conducted; 79 staff were trained; 8 student sessions were conducted; 83 students were trained

iii. Excellent feedback for the training, i.e. easy-to-use system and pedagogical-focused training

As a result, the TurnitinUK System statistics (figures on the 7 Aug 09) for the University of Glamorgan shows that there are currently 284 instructors (224 instructors in March 09); 3885 students (2582 students in March 09) and 10944 submissions (8643 submissions in March 09)

It has been a huge take-up by both the staff and studentsin the past few months!

The Glamorgan's Turnitin wiki were shared across the Glamorgan and the UK user group for the upcoming sessions and FAQs. There are 107 visits; 45 absolute unique visitors and an average of 5.50minutes of time the visitors spent on site.

Upcoming training can be found from the Turnitin wiki site. Fee free to contact Esyin Chew if you have further query.

Posted by Esyin | 0 comments | Tagged with gwella, tel, turnitin

TurnitinUK is pleased to announce that they have recently launched a new way for Turnitin UK users to request new features and suggest changes that they would like to see in the Turnitin UK software - a new user feedback website at Turnitin User Voice.

This site allows you to suggest new enhancements that you would like to see in the Turnitin software and view other suggestions that have been made by other users. As well as being able to create new suggestions for where Turnitin can be improved or enhanced, you can assign a limited number of votes to the exiting suggestions to convey how important they are to you. Periodically TurnitinUK will propose the top suggestions to the developers for them to consider as candidates for inclusion in the product.

Such a voting system where each user can spend a maximum of 10 votes on any combination of enhancement suggestions that they feel would most benefit their Turnitin UK users. As well as being able to vote for enhancements you can suggest your own enhancement suggestions that you and other users could then vote for.

If you know of any other Turnitin users that you feel would have an opinion they would like to share with our user feedback website please pass these details on to them. The more views we can collect the better!

Please go to the following web site Turnitin User Feedback Forum to sign up and start voting.

If you know of any instructor level Turnitin users that you feel would value the chance to vote for and suggest future enhancements please direct them to the link included above. (Please not that users will need to sign up to using their intuitional email address to avoid an authorisation request needing to be sent)

Posted by Esyin | 0 comments | Tagged with gwella, tel, turnitin

All academics and student in Glamorgan could access to the WriteCycle through Blackboard. The WriteCycle is an online essay-type assignment submission, plagiarism detection tool, peer-review, online grading and feedback process available in Blackboard.

1. Originality Checking: Turnitin’s Originality Checking ensures originality, as well as use of proper citation

2. Peer Feedback: Peer Review lets you organize students to review each other’s work and deliver clear, timely comments.

3. Grade Anywhere: GradeMark offers a rich set of tools for clear mark-ups, comment library, custom feedback and standardized rubrics.

(sourced from http://www.submit.ac.uk)

Futher detail please contact CELT or visit Turnitin Wiki.

Posted by Esyin | 0 comments | Tagged with gwella, technology enhanced learning, turnitin

The JISC plagiarism detection, online submission and assessment services, Turnitin is recognised worldwide as the standard online plagiarism prevention service.

Turnitin is #1 choice for 450,000 academics in 108 countries at over 7,000 institutions. It processes over 130,000 papers a day and provide end-to-end online submission, assessment, feedback and grading facilities.

Do you have any query about Turnitin? A wiki for FAQ and upcoming training sessions was developed - Wiki for Glamorgan Turnitin

Posted by Esyin | 4 comments | Tagged with gwella, technology enhanced learning, turnitin

The module-based Campus Pack tools are now live and ready for use on all Blackboard modules and organisations. This exciting initiative will enable staff and students to add, develop and manage their own content within the VLE, a first for our students.

, is a blogging tool that allows the creation of group or private online journals;

, enables collaborative activity through the use of a Wiki – a quick way to add, edit and develop web page content within modules;

, a tool which will embed the podcast, the RSS feed and the player in a Blackboard Module, making it very easy to upload and access audio and video material.

The CELT Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) Team will be taking the lead in providing academic advice and guidance in the following ways:

• CELT TEL staff are available for awareness raising of the initiative at faculty departmental/ divisional meetings, and for 1:1 and small group training sessions assisting staff to set up and use the tools within their Bb modules (in the first instance contact Steve Woodward (swoodwar@glam.ac.uk)/ ext 4230) to arrange sessions for your staff.

• How-to guidance for each of the three tools will made available on the CELT website from the end of April (on the front page and under Staff Support Resources with the other Blackboard How-to guides)

• Publicity material will be released through outlets such as Inform, the CELT website, the Learning Zone blog, etc.

There are also some very useful video tutorials for the tools provided by the Learning Objects company.

The LCSS Customer Support team is available to provide technical support and advice (ext 2882 email: issupport@glam.ac.uk)

Posted by swoodwar | 0 comments | Tagged with gwella, social _software, technology_enhanced_learning, web_2.0

In the last ELESIG meeting, I learn an interesting project from the University of Bradford to enhance students' experiences - Develop me! Using social software such as Ning before and during the times in the university, the students would feel more confident about being at University, meet and chat with other students at the university and to access to a complete learner support services. One of the services is the Personal Development Plan - SaPRA.

"It's good to know that the institution or lecturer cares about you"

Do we care about our students and do we understand their experiences? There is a list of recent Learner Experience Projects across the country and the learners' videos and audios - talking about their experiences of using technology. Students plead us to develop them! Have we made our full effort to do so?

QMP, Turnitin and social software can help and CELT is here to help!

Posted by Esyin | 0 comments | Tagged with gwella, learner experience, tel