Academic Technology Updates

• We said farewell to Kerry Pinny last week and Craig Gall leaves the central team this week too. Natasha Nakariakova will take on the role of Interim Head of Academic Technology and Jim Judges will take on the role of Interim Head of the Digital Learning Environment. This temporary arrangement will be in place as the new Flexible Online Learning Division (FOLD) takes shape under director Sam Hardy.
• We would also like to take this opportunity to welcome Marius Jugariu as the new Head of Learning Systems (LSS). Marius brings a wealth of skills and experience and we look forward to working with him and his team over the coming months.
• The Centre for Teacher Education (CTE) are seeking a fixed-term 0.5 FTE Senior Academic Technologist. More details here

Moodle

• In December a bug in Warwick Guest Access was identified where the Designations and Department restrictions were not being applied. A fix was deployed within the same week. Please note, this relates to Warwick Guest Access, where you can apply restrictions based on roles and departments, not Guest Access where no restrictions on roles and departments can be applied. We believe this matter is resolved but if you notice any unexpected behaviour, please let us know.
• ​The Moodle Lesson tool can be used to provide an interactive activity with branching. At the end of the activity the last page will usually display a message saying "Congratulations - end of lesson reached". It has been proposed that we change this text to the more general phrase "You have reached the end of this activity.”​ This seems like a reasonable change but please do let us know if you have any feedback, queries or objections.
• Remember that H5P activities can be embedded in other Moodle resources or activities - anywhere where you have the Atto toolbar. See how in the following video:

Vevox

• The Vevox spring webinar series begins on Wednesday 2nd February. Guest speakers will be sharing their advice and showing you ways to boost student interaction to increase active learning and student success. Sign up for the Vevox webinar series here.
• Single sign-on (SSO) was successfully enabled for Vevox on 26th January. This allows users to log in to Vevox using Warwick's standard authentication procedure and therefore they will no longer need to create and maintain a separate password for Vevox. Logging into Vevox for the first time will still generate a helpdesk ticket for account approval. Students do not need accounts to take part in Vevox sessions - they only need a session ID - so please urge them not to try logging in or creating accounts. See the updated Vevox at Warwick guide for updated step-by-step instructions on logging in.
• Vevox also joined us on Thursday to talk about product updates, and we also heard from Dr. Lauren Schrock and the work being done with Vevox in WMG. You can find the recording of the session at Microsoft Stream.

Mahara

• On December 16th 2021, Mahara was successfully upgraded to version 21.10. More details about the new Mahara version here.
  • A new 'maroon' theme was implemented to refresh the look and feel of Mahara. This was thoroughly tested and resolved a number of CSS issues with the previous Warwick ID7 theme.
  • New functionality was added - we have enabled the SmartEvidence framework functionality and are interested in discussing how this might work for people in departments for assessing student skills and development. Please contact Paul Trimmer for more details.

Please do let us know if you see any issues with the new version and otherwise, get in touch if you would like more information or support in the use of this online portfolio tool.

eAssessment

The eAssessment team have successfully completed December/January exams. If you would like to discuss your needs for online exam and formative assessments, please contact us on eassessment@warwick.ac.uk

Lecture Capture and Echo360

A move to face-to-face teaching along with changes in anticipated attendance delivered an unprecedented surge in requests for lecture capture at the start of 2022.

This, along with some technical changes within the university and IT services, necessitated some radical changes in our approach to the service for a temporary period, as well as reassigning the entire Digital Learning Environment (DLE) team during the initial 2 weeks of the year. Changes to the lecture capture booking form and the university guidance also assisted greatly, ensuring a good service was maintained in circumstances that may otherwise have been disastrous.

Many thanks for all DLEs hard work, as well as to all the people making requests for their patience.

We will be asking for feedback on the process and using our experience to make improvements.

A quick reminder that LCS are responsible for scheduling as per our guidance. In-room technical support and questions regarding equipment are provided by Audio Visual services.

• For guidance on requesting automated lecture capture, please see our guide.
• To book lecture capture, please use the Lecture Capture booking form
• If our guides don’t answer your questions, please get in touch via lecturecapture@warwick.ac.uk

Hybrid teaching information: See Hybrid teaching technologies advice from Audio Visual Services (AV); Hybrid teaching at Warwick from Academic Technology; Hybrid advice from the Arts Faculty or contact LDCU via ldcu@warwick.ac.uk

Training & Workshop Opportunities

• The Technology Enhanced Active Learning (TEAL) Forums run fortnightly this term. The next meeting on Weds 5th Feb 1-2pm will feature an update on the Digital Pedagogy Library and a training needs discussion led by the Academic Technology team.
• See here for self-paced training (Introductions to Moodle, H5P, Vevox & Mahara, hybrid teaching)
  • There is a new introduction to hybrid teaching course available - we hope colleagues will find this useful
• The LDCU TEALfest will take place online 14th-18th March
• Find out about JISC Digifest here

Microsoft Teams

The Teams Meetings tool keeps developing and the features slowly evolve.

• Sharing PowerPoint in Teams meetings can be confusing. There are at least 5 different ways of doing this. The challenge is that sometimes when sharing your PowerPoint you can't see the Teams audience. See here for a discussion and review of the various options with a few tips.
• New feature alert! When you share your content in a Teams meeting there is a new feature that can be accessed via "Content from Camera" that allows the presenter to overlay themselves over a physical in-class Whiteboard, making the presenter transparent. A gimmick or a powerful new feature? See Robert O'Toole's post to find out more here.
• Please note that the Teams navigation problem reported in previous newsletters is ongoing. When using the Teams tiles view to navigate from one team space to another team the content of the Posts tab, in the new team space that you have just switched to, may not display correctly. Either (1) use the search bar to find and navigate to your Teams or (2) use Teams List view instead. We are waiting for a fix from Microsoft.
• We are still waiting for the rollout of the Teams ‘co-organizer’ role previously promised for general availability “November 2021”. This is now listed as being “February 2022”. We are disappointed this has been delayed again see the roadmap here.

 Funding

• A new ADC Cultivate funding call has been announced to support colleagues in attending a teaching and learning event that will benefit their professional development. Bids of up to £100 are welcomed from members of staff who teach and/or support student learning. See here for details.
• The spring call for WIHEA Project Funding (Scheme 1) is still open. Proposals are being invited to be submitted before the closing date on 4th February ‘22. See the WIHEA funding page for more information.
• The IATL Project Funding mentioned in previous newsletters remains open with a rolling deadline for project support applications from both students and staff which explore ways of fostering community and reimagining the future of learning at Warwick. Find out more about IATL funding here.

Podcast

The latest LDCU Podcast features Associate Professor Isobel Fischer (WBS) talking about assessment innovations including blogging for assessment, machine marking, online learning, the Metaverse, esports and more.

Community Input

If you have any feedback, questions, comments or tips that you would like to share then please do get in touch with Jim Judges: j.judges@warwick.ac.uk

This newsletter can only provide a taste and snapshot of some of the active areas of interest. We will do our best to send these updates each month. If you need help and guidance, please refer to the main online Academic Technology pages here. If you have a technical query with Moodle or any of our supported tools, please contact academictech@warwick.ac.uk. For more general IT enquiries, or if you are unsure who to ask please contact the IT helpdesk.

Subscription

This newsletter is aimed at departmental academic technology staff, moodle administrators and others with an interest in the technology enhance learning tools provided and supported by Warwick. Please feel free to share any of the news and information with others in your department. If you have colleagues who would like to receive a notification each time this monthly newsletter is published then please ask them to use the Notify button at the top right-hand corner of our main News page. If this information is no longer of interest and you would like to unsubscribe please contact Jim Judges: j.judges@warwick.ac.uk

All the best for now from the Central Academic Technology Team

Cameron Deans, Yihua Huang, Michelle Jackman, Jim Judges, Natasha Nakariakova, Kiruthika Prabhakaran, Paul Trimmer, Nadine Stewart & Svetlana Zakhidova

Academic Technology | Flexible & Online Learning| Education Group | University of Warwick