In this episode, we are joined by Raheel Nawaz from Staffordshire University, where we learn about the exciting and innovative work Raheel is leading on in the digital transformation space.

Raheel Nawaz is a professor of artificial intelligence and a professor of digital education working at Staffordshire University as pro vice-chancellor for digital transformation.

Raheel explores his vision for digital transformation at Staffordshire University including the new digital at core strategy and the four main pillars that underpin this vision.

Raheel talks about the essential building blocks needed within a university to enable digital transformation to happen in the form of three main components : strategy, culture and governance of the strategy including the process Raheel and his team took when creating their digital transformation strategy.

He then goes on to explain the three projects the university are most excited about in the world of digital transformation. The first of the three being simplifying the student experience with the launch of the first ai assistant in any university with the aim of bringing course, community and career together in a single integrated student interface. Secondly, the self-coined ‘simmersive’, a support mantra of simulation and immersive and how Staffordshire is integrating this concept into the DNA of buildings and the student experience. And finally, a project around building minimum expectations around staff and student digital capabilities.

Raheel talks about what senior leaders can do to encourage a culture of digital transformation including what we can do for the culture of our university experience.

And finally we look to the future of the sector and where we see the university experience evolving since the pandemic and the rapid increase of ai. And finally posing the question to senior leaders ‘how do we make the most of technology?’

Show notes

Check out the events happening within our digital transformation series:
-    Join us at University of Northampton for rethinking learning and curriculum design on 6 July. Book now.
-    Taking place 18 July, join us at University of Greenwich for developing and implementing a digital strategy. Join our waiting list. 

Check out our framework guide for digital transformation in higher education, and explore a comprehensive perspective on how the digital environment can support positive work, research and learning experiences, and promote a sense of belonging and wellbeing.

Subscribe to our Headlines newsletter, which has all the latest edtech news, guidance and events tailored to you.

Get in touch with us at podcast@jisc.ac.uk if you’d like to come on the show or know someone who might suit the series.

This episode is the first in a series of podcasts focused on further education and skills, hosted by Andrew McFadyen and Louisa Stamatelopoulos. Throughout this series Andrew and Louisa will be joined by experts from further education colleges to shine a light on how they support digital development through the use of Jisc tools, such as the digital elevation tool, building digital capability service and digital experience insights surveys.

Phil Peatling, Head of Digital Learning at Boston College, firstly discusses the digital transformation of development and skills for both teachers and learners, to prepare them for digital advancements across industries.

Next, Phil talks about how Jisc’s digital elevation tool gave the college a platform for development and brought the Digital team and the IT technicians closer together to assess their digital maturity levels.

Phil also shares advice for teachers on using digital technology and how he sees the role of the further education teacher changing over time.

Show notes

See how our digital capability service can help you

Find out more about how the digital elevation tool can elevate FE and skills providers’ digital ambitions

Discover how the digital experience insights service works

Explore our further education and skills hub

Subscribe to our Headlines newsletter, which has all the latest edtech news, guidance and events tailored to you

Get in touch with us at podcast@jisc.ac.uk if you’d like to come on the show or know someone who might suit the series

How Nigel Francis uses the Star Wars universe to explain complicated topics like immunology 

We speak with Dr Nigel Francis, senior lecturer at Cardiff University, about his project, immunology wars, which is a series of videos and illustrations that describes the basic functions of the immune system through the Star Wars movies.

Simon explains how he first came up with the idea to explain immunology in this way and shares how he worked directly with the students to develop the concept.

By linking the cells of the immune system with the characters from Star Wars, Simon and his students have created a unique and creative way to help students remember these different cells and their roles in the immune response.

Show notes

Visit the Immunology Wars website
View the #DryLabsRealScience website Nigel mentions
Subscribe to our Headlines newsletter, which has all the latest edtech news, guidance and events tailored to you.
Get in touch with us at podcast@jisc.ac.uk if you’d like to come on the show or know someone who might suit the series.

Sarah Knight chats with consultants Helen Beetham and Sheila MacNeill about their recent review of learning and curriculum design in higher education.

We chat with Helen and Sheila about the findings from their review, which included a desk-based literature review, a survey of over 155 professionals and 20 interviews with staff from within higher education.

Alongside this, they also share examples of how universities are evolving their learning and curriculum design practices, and discuss how we can integrate things that worked well during the pandemic.

We’re joined by Simon Walker, Director of programme development at University College London, to discuss how they have moved to digital assessment by default.

Simon starts by talking through the challenges they have been facing with assessment, including how they had previously recognised that it was out of kilter with the student’s expectations for a modern education system. The pandemic enabled them to take a bold step toward adapting their practices, adopting an end-to-end digital assessment platform.

We then discuss how they have supported staff with their assessment and feedback practices, adopting a team of digital assessment advisers who help onboard faculties and share best practices.

In this episode, we are joined by Professor David Nicol, Suzanne McCallum, Lovleen Kushwah and Nick Quinn from The Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow to chat about how they are using comparison based feedback to improve their assessment and feedback practices.

Professor David Nicol, Research Professor: Teaching Excellence Initiative, at The Adam Smith Business School, starts by taking us through the research they have undertaken into feedback, looking at what feedback students generate themselves when asked to compare their work against other types of information such as videos, textbooks or lecture notes, instead of a teacher’s comments. David’s research found that students generate significant feedback on their own whilst also reducing the need for teacher comments. He then explains the three concepts behind the work at the university:

• All feedback is inner feedback - students are the protagonist of feedback.
• All feedback is a result of a comparison process.
• What students compare their work against determines the type of feedback they generate - Different kinds of information results in different kinds of feedback.

Suzanne McCallum, Lovleen Kushwah and Dr Nick Quinn then speak about the methods they are using to bring this comparison based feedback approach to life, sharing how they have found it so far and the feedback they have had from students.

In this third episode of our mini-series on rethinking assessment and feedback, we are joined by Karen Barton, director of the learning and teaching innovation centre at the University of Hertfordshire.

Karen shares some of the feedback they have had from students on assessment including, providing authentic assessment, providing personalised assessment where possible and changes to the workloads/phasing of assessment.

We then discuss a recent consultation and review that the university has taken to help identify the changes needed to support their vision for teaching, learning, and assessment. The review helped develop the ‘Herts learning principles’, which were created to help address some areas that the university sees as important in the future, with one of these principles being around how they harness technology to support their strategy.

We also discuss how the university is supporting staff to take these new assessment practices forward, discussing how they created an assessment experts group within the university to provide policy outputs, direction, and guidance for staff.

Lastly, Karen shares what she thinks are the critical success factors that need to be in place within an institution to help realise affective assessment and feedback.

In this episode of our rethinking assessment and feedback mini-series, Sarah Knight chats with Danny Liu and Benjamin Miller about how they are adapting their assessment and feedback practices at The University of Sydney.

Danny and Benjamin start by sharing some of the issues and challenges that an institution-wide review into assessment picked up, including assessment weighting, group work and assessment feedback.

They then talk about how the development of the student relationship engagement system (SRES) has helped solve the problem of engaging a large number of students with personalised feedback and personal care. 

Finally, they share their tips and advice on the steps UK universities could take to improve their assessment and feedback practices.

As part of our ‘rethinking assessment and feedback’ mini-series, Sarah Knight is joined by Gill Ferrell to chat about the newly released review into the UK assessment and feedback landscape in higher education.

This episode forms part of our mini-series ‘rethinking assessment and feedback’ hosted by Sarah Knight. Over the next few months these episodes, Sarah will chat with experts from universities across the world about how they are rethinking their assessment and feedback practices.

Gill discusses the results of a survey of 46 higher education providers on what aspects of assessment and feedback they are currently supporting with technology, what has changed over time, and their current use of online submissions and marking.

Sarah also chats with Gill about the principles of good assessment and feedback featured in our new guide. Gill shares some real-world examples from universities across the world of how some of these principles are effectively being applied today.

In this episode, we chat with Rob Blagden, director of libraries, technology & information at the University of Gloucestershire.

Rob talks through the steps his university took to bring over almost all of their exams online, sharing the successes and hurdles they encountered along the way. He also goes through the feedback received from staff and students on the process.

We also discuss the future technologies that excite Rob, including artificial intelligence, machine learning and how cloud computing can help enable that.