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Adventures in Technology Enhanced Learning @ UoP

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On a table a mobile phone showing a list of courses on LinkedIn Learning app, next to earphones and a mug filled with a dark beverage

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – LinkedIn Learning – Collection and Learning Paths

April 6, 2020 / / 0 Comments

LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning contains over 40,000 courses on technical, business and creative skills and is free to all University of Portsmouth students and staff. Many of the courses will map directly to studies, others will be on tools such as Autocad, MatLab or SPSS which are essential for study. The courses on a wide range of business skills can be used by staff for CPD and students for employability skills.

Collections and Learning Paths

With that amount of courses in the library, searching for exactly what is relevant or required can sometimes seem daunting. LinkedIn Learning will offer recommendations based on the skills and interests you have setup as part of your profile. If you’ve connected a personal LinkedIn account to your University LinkedIn Learning, you will also get recommendations based on your professional network. One way to organise courses is to use personal collections and learning paths. Everyone can create these, collections work for a group of courses or videos related to one particular topic or skill, learning paths when you want to work through courses in a particular order, building skills and knowledge. If you create personal collections and learning paths you can share a link to them so others users can access them.

With Admin access however, it is possible to create ‘University of Portsmouth’ collections and learning paths centrally. You’ll see these in LinkedIn Learning in the main library, under the browse button. As well as being available here and shareable via a single sign on link they can be recommended directly to users.

Custom Content

Another advantage of Admin access is that you have the ability to upload custom content into the University of Portsmouth LinkedIn Learning platform. These can be videos, PDFs, PowerPoints, links, pretty much any type of file. It means you can then create collections and learning paths with a mixture of LinkedIn Learning content with bespoke University content alongside it. Great if you want some specific explanation or demonstration alongside the expert industry standard content provided by LinkedIn Learning.

LinkedIn Learning Mapping Service

LinkedIn Learning provides a mapping service where they map their content against a list of competencies or skills in a particular area. We have done this for a number of areas: the CCI Placements team created a learning path based on competencies students need for finding a placement, a similar exercise was done for the student sports club committees. LinkedIn also provide mapping against frameworks used in Higher Education, such as the Jisc Digital Capability Framework and the framework for Researcher Development and Doctoral Skills. As well as this LinkedIn have developed course mapping against the range of activities for a typical university, things like teaching skills, skills for student success, professional development, project management and many other areas.

Next Steps

Have a go at creating your own collections or learning paths or using some of the ones set up by Linkedin Learning. If you think you could benefit from the Admin access and you want to create collections and learning for groups of students or staff contact ittraining@port.ac.uk for further help. Let us know also if you’d like to take advantage of the mapping service and get LinkedIn Learning content mapped to specific skills and competencies for your areas. Lastly check out the Linkedin Learning landing page and the collections and learning paths created by University colleagues.

For further reading on Linkedin Learning, then check out these previous posts:

LinkedIn Learning – Change

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – University of Portsmouth LinkedIn Seminar

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – Goodbye Lynda, hello LinkedIn Learning

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – Digital Capability Discovery Tool

Adrian Sharkey: @adrianjsharkey

University of Portsmouth LinkedIn Seminar

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – University of Portsmouth LinkedIn Seminar

November 11, 2019 / / 0 Comments

LinkedIn Services to Support University of Portsmouth Students and Staff

On Friday October 25th we had a visit from Ralph Blunden the Relationship Manager for LinkedIn. Since 2017 the University has been using Lynda, an online resource with thousands of courses on business, creative and technical skills. Lynda had been owned by LinkedIn for sometime and this summer, Lynda moved over to the LinkedIn Learning platform. Ralph offered to present on how LinkedIn Learning and LinkedIn could be used to support both students and staff and we had a great turnout from all around the University willing to listen.

People sitting in a room facing Ralph the person from LinkedIn Learning

There are now over 30,000 courses on LinkedIn with up to 40 new ones being added every week. The new platform personalises learning by making recommendations a lot more relevant, these are based on previous learning, on what is popular in the University and if a LinkedIn account is connected – recommendations are based on the skills shown on the user’s account. When courses are completed a badge can be added to a LinkedIn profile, which is particularly useful for students in order to show employability skills to potential employers.

LinkedIn have 23 million accounts in the UK, while only around 10% of these are active at any time it represents a significant section of the working population. Around 70% of employers recruit using social media showing a professional presence for employability and making connections is essential. With Industry 4.0 and changes about to happen because of emerging technologies like AI –  skills requirements are increasingly fluid – Linkedin data shows the average skill having a shelf life of 5 years. While hard skills are still important, the most in demand skills for employers is creativity along with other soft skills such as critical thinking, being able to learn, teamwork and adaptability.

LinkedIn are aiming for their services to compliment learning for students and staff in HE. LinkedIn Learning can supplement in class learning, allow opportunities for flipped classrooms, support accreditation and professional development for staff. It can promote employability and placement skills for students and encourage engagement with alumni, allowing students to make important professional connections. 

There a number of ways we could leverage LinkedIn Learning to target certain areas by packaging courses and creating collections/playlists or utilising the existing learning paths. Teaching excellence could include blended learning, flipped classrooms, instructional design and VLE training. Digital capabilities can be packaged, staff development and employability for students also. LinkedIn offer a mapping service, where if we supply the competencies we’re looking to develop they will map the appropriate courses against them, allowing the creation of collections/playlists.

For further support/assistance with LinkedIn Learning contact:

adrian.sharkey@port.ac.uk

Twitter: @adrianjsharkey

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adrianjsharkey/

Image Credit: supplied by LinkedIn

cartoon tablet with a hand pointing at the start arrow

Print-based booklet to accessible online resource

June 13, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Introduction

As an online course developer I recently had the task of creating an accessible online version of a print-based Wellbeing information booklet which Marketing had produced, which as one might expect, was quite heavy on graphics and styling.

The first page provides a good idea to what the 28 page PDF copy looks like:

Wellbeing PDF booklet front cover

What is an accessible document?

An accessible document is both simplified in the literal sense in terms of visual presentation and in a technical one to meet specific criteria for accessibility software. The former involves making sure things like making headings and fonts clear/bold and images have proper alt text to explain what they are. Technical concerns are things like making sure the document has proper metadata, has a logical ordering of text for screen readers, and is properly tagged. These concerns can be addressed using common word processing software, such as in this case, Microsoft Word 2016 and Adobe Acrobat DC.

 

Checking for accessibility

To check the document, the Blackboard Ally plugin for moodle was used. The original document had a score of just 8%:

However, it should be noted that this number is derived purely from the number of occurrences of problematic instances,  rather than a rating of how readable it is per se. The Ally tool does provide some useful guidance on how to fix the errors, such as explaining what each issue is, what it means, and how to practically fix it.

 

Converting to alternative formats with Blackboard Ally

A great  key feature, as used on this task, is the ability to automatically attempt to convert the document to an accessible version of your desired format.

The HTML format was exported  in this case, and the result was a fairly good rendition of just the basic text with foreground images kept. However, there were some critical errors in the conversion which meant that more than simply a post editing tidy up was needed. For example, the information from the table cells in this document didn’t export in a structured format and so the information was completely unreadable.

Original (left) versus Ally conversion to HTML:

As a result the document would need some manual re-entering of text to finish it off.

 

Editing with Word 2016

To begin with, the Ally HTML output was opened in Word 2016 as good starting point. The first job was to just go through and make sure all text had been properly converted. This was the most time consuming part of the whole processed, followed by subsequent proofing.

With that done, it was then down to solve the technical issues using Word’s built in accessibility tools.

This tool checks things such as whether tags are added, and more subtle things like whether a table has a heading row, and/or whether it’s properly marked up as such for screen readers. This is mostly a case of clicking each fault and either automatically fixing it (as in the case of meta tags) or manually fixing (the table headings had been stripped by the Ally conversion and so had to be manually re-entered as heading rows).

Once everything has been checked/ticked off, it’s then a case of exporting it as a PDF document.

At this point the advanced saving options panel was used to make sure the PDF would have the correct accessibility features by adding structure tags:

Now, in an ideal world, this would be the end of the process. However, Word 2016 falls short right at the final step here as for some bizarre reason, it fails to add a title in the metadata. You can certainly add a title in Word, however, it seems to be ignored when converted to PDF. Due to this Adobe Acrobat DC had to be used to finished it off, but this was partly the original intention anyway in order to ‘run it by a 2nd pair of eyes’ so to speak.

 

Finalising with Adobe DC

To finish off, the outputted PDF was opened with Adobe Acrobat DC which has its own accessibility tools.

This flagged up a few more problems and was able to auto correct them. It also enabled me to add the title metadata and then finally export the finished PDF.

 

The finished result

A 100% perfect score in Blackboard Ally!

The resultant document should now be 100% compatible with related accessibility assistive software. The image shown here has been properly tagged with alt text to explain what it’s representing, and so is perfectly acceptable in an accessible document.

It’s important to remember that accessible documents do not necessarily have to be pure text. And whilst the focus here is ultimately making visual content accessible for the visually impaired, there’s no harm in adding a little well conforming colour.

 

Image credit:
Header Banner, https://www.jisc.ac.uk, taken Feb 2019

Art Gallery
Photo by Luana Azevedo on Unsplash

Copyright for a Digital Age

May 16, 2019 / / 0 Comments


Copyright is a complex subject. It is also not a particularly exciting subject. It is, however, an important subject. In this post I am going to break it down into three sections that will hopefully get you to understand a little bit about why we all need to worry about copyright material. The three questions are:

  1. Why should I bother with copyright?
  2. What am I really after?
  3. How can I achieve my aims while adhering to the rules?

Firstly, before I answer these questions, I’d like to direct your attention to David Sherren’s article on copyright. David is the University copyright guru and should be able to offer advice and guidance for all specific questions on the subject. So onto the first question.

  1. Why should I bother with copyright?

I can think of at least two good answers. Firstly, how would you like it if someone stole from you and infringed your copyright? Secondly, there’s a chance of suffering financial loss.

A. How would you like it?

Suppose you have worked hard on something (an article, a piece of creative writing or audio/visual project perhaps) or you have simply uploaded a photo onto a social media platform. That piece of work is yours. If someone takes your work and uses it without permission, that would surely strike you as a little unfair. What if they then made money from your source materia

B. Financial loss.

If you take other’s work and use it the original authors might consider themselves entitled to payment for the reproduction of their work. Many times I hear the response “but it’s for educational purposes”. This argument only holds true in a limited number of situations and areas. The problem comes down to the wording of “educational use”. Education use generally allows any image to be used as part of a lecture or seminar; however, if the image is in a PowerPoint presentation that is then placed into Moodle or the web as a file (native or PDF) then this is classed as distribution and is no longer covered by the educational licence. This is a terribly grey area, as the British Library highlight with their explanation of fair use of works.

“A statutory definition for fair dealing does not exist; it will always be a matter of fact, degree and interpretation in every fair use case. Nor is there a percentage or quantitative measure to determine fair dealing.”

Essentially, as the user responsible for infringing copyright, would you take the risk of being the person financially liable for infringement?

For further information around real-world copyright cases and why it is important to maintain copyright please refer to the cases listed below.

  1.  German school sued for copyright
  2.  5 Famous copyright infringement cases
  3.  List of copyright cases
  4.  Exceptions to copyright within education
  5.  Further details on fair use of copyright material

2. What am I really after?

When I run my training session on copyright I pose the question of specificity: how specific does your search need to be? If you are really after a particular photo from the Pontiac Correctional Center 1978 riot then you might be unable to find something that is copyright cleared. However, if you really just need a photo to illustrate the police or a prison maybe even the situation following a riot these can all be found using a Creative Commons or royalty free image database.

      3. How can I achieve my aims while adhering to the rules?

This can be a tricky question. I suggest that the first step is just to ask yourself: “Should I really be using this resource?” If you are unsure of the answer then contact myself or, for a more comprehensive answer, David Sherren. We will attempt to clarify if you are able to use the material. It helps if you can provide us with all the information of where, when, and how you acquired the material.

Tips on copyright

  • Keep a Google Drive folder that contains all of the material and as Spreadsheet with all the information needed to demonstrate the nature of the copyright.
  • Use a search facility that provides royalty free and copyright clear material. (Flickr, Unsplash and Creative Commons) Remember to filter Flickr searches to be creative commons otherwise some of the images may not be royalty free and infringing someone else’s work.
  • Linking to material directly rather than downloading it.
  • Refer to the Library materials on copyright.
  • Refer to the Library catalogue for relevant databases of useable material.
  • Find legitimate streaming services for streaming TV programs.
  • Remember, there are a lot of myths that need debunking around copyright.
  • If you have an image that you are trying to find the source for, use something like TinEye.
  • If you are ever unsure – just ask.

Image credit.

Luana Azevedo

Lynda online learning – user survey

March 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

User survey

Since August 2017 all students and staff at University of Portsmouth have had access to Lynda.com, an online, on-demand learning resource designed to help users gain new technical, business and creative skills.

Lynda.com can be used in numerous ways. A student, for example, might use it as part of their course, or to learn additional skills such as Excel. A member of staff might use it for personal development, or to embed its resources into Moodle, create playlists and support students. We’d really like to learn about your experience of using Lynda since it was launched – so please take a couple of minutes to complete our user survey. Results from the survey will go towards improving and tailoring our provision of digital resources.

University of Portsmouth Lynda.com User Survey

Never heard of Lynda.com?

If you still haven’t used Lynda.com you’ve been missing out! Nearly 3,500 staff and students have used it since we launched, accumulating over 4,000 hours of instructional time. Lynda.com is available anytime, on any device, and as well as supporting your own learning it is possible to share courses, create playlists, and embed courses into Moodle – all helping to support the learning of students and staff.

With Lynda.com you get:

  • Unlimited access –  Choose from more than 5,000 video tutorials covering business, creative and technology topics.
  • Relevant recommendations –  Explore the most in-demand skills based on your interests.
  • Expert instructors –  Learn from industry leaders, all in one place.
  • Convenient learning –  Access courses on your schedule, from any desktop or mobile device.
  • Helpful resources –  Reinforce new knowledge with quizzes, exercise files and coding practice windows.
  • Relevant content – Map content to support the learning of your students and staff.

For further information:

www.port.ac.uk/lynda

Online Training for everyone – Lynda.com

adrian.sharkey@port.ac.uk

@adrianjsharkey

Digital Capability Discovery Tool

March 5, 2018 / / 0 Comments

In a previous blog post we looked at Digital Capability – what it is and why it’s important. The work that Government and organisations such as Jisc have carried out highlights the fact that digital capabilities are relevant to all areas of university business. Supporting the development of digital capabilities is vital in meeting the vision, ambitions and expectations of all HE institutions, and it is ingrained in our University and Education Strategies. In order for students and staff to evolve with changing technology, to live and work in a digital society and to meet new challenges, competencies in a number of areas need to be developed.

Digital Capabilities Framework

Although the term ‘digital capabilities’ includes the notion of being proficient in IT skills, it is far broader than this. It includes being able to manage information, recognise ‘fake news’, evaluate sources, present ideas in a variety of different digital formats, analyse information, and manage one’s online identity and safety.  All these areas are explained in the Digital Capabilities Framework.

Digital Discovery Tool

The Jisc Digital Discovery Tool – which is now available for use – is designed to help all staff realise their digital potential. (A student discovery tool will be available soon.) The tool asks for department and role, and there should be a category to suit all members of staff – everyone needs to be aware of their digital capability. After all, at the very least staff need to use digital tools to book leave, check payslips, take part in the University community, and communicate with other staff and students.

The Discovery Tool asks quiz-style questions in a non-judgemental way, and provides realistic examples. The process of answering the questions should make staff aware of their digital confidence and provide ideas for new skills to develop.

Once they have completed the form, staff get a comprehensive profile of their digital competencies. The report includes practical suggestions for ‘next steps’ with links to great resources. Individual data is not shared, and the tool is not designed to monitor individuals, but potentially the results could be used in a number of ways:

  • Departments could use overall data to assess which areas of digital capability need developing.
  • Individuals, by becoming more aware of digital capabilities, could use the feedback for personal development and CPD.
  • The report could be used to inform the PDR process.

Completing the Discovery Tool

  1. Login to the DIgital Discovery Tool.
  2. When you log in for the first time you need to sign up.
  3. Create a password, the code needed is dcap17!
  4. Select ‘University of Portsmouth’ as the organisation.
  5. Choose a Department and then an appropriate role.
  6. Answer the questionnaire.

Once the Discovery Tool has been completed a report is generated and can be downloaded as a pdf. If any further help or consultancy is required please contact any of the following;

Amy Barlow

Adrian Sharkey

Stephen Webb

@adrianjsharkey

A sign showing the words 'change' in lights

Interactive Classroom Tools – Some Advice for Students

February 5, 2018 / / 0 Comments

In some classroom situations your lecturer might decide to use interactive tools that require you (the student) to have access to a connected device (phone, tablet or laptop). When lecturers do this, the work traditionally reserved for in-class teaching can be done outside of lesson time. For  example, you could be asked to watch and investigate the subject of a lesson before even entering the classroom – then in class you are in a position to contribute and shape discussion. This approach is not about a lecturer talking at you for two hours – it’s about you being an active part of the process. This might require a shift in your working practice. This can be daunting at first – but don’t let it worry you!

Some people assume that if anyone starts university today having grown up in the 21st century then they must be an expert in all areas of technology. This assumption is, of course, false. While you may be technically proficient with a range of electronic devices, the question for you is: “Have I used my devices for more than just social media or games? Have I used them to develop my higher level thinking skills, or for more in-depth researching techniques than Google and Wikipedia can provide?”

The answer might be “possibly not” – but if it is, don’t worry: you need to learn to ask for help in areas where you are unsure or uncertain of how to proceed. Even seemingly ‘simple’ problems regarding Word, Excel or similar software might pose challenges. To this day I am a limited Excel user; although I’m definitely not a technophobe, my capabilities with the software are not what many would expect. However, now that the University has a full campus licence for Lynda.com I am able to develop my skills at a time of my choosing. Asking for help should not be seen as a problem or as an admission of failure: it’s a means of  making your life easier for the next three  years (and indeed for life after university). The finest minds are always asking questions and attempting to learn more to better themselves and by extension of those around them.

Two areas that lecturers are investigating are Social Media and Collaborative Learning – but it is down to you, the learner, to help shape the platform on which material is being delivered. Would you engage with course material on Facebook? Can you help develop an academics idea of how best to use Twitter in the classroom? These conversations are taking place and you should not be afraid to take part in them.

If you are unsure of how to participate in these conversations then please contact us and let us help. We deliver training to academics about future technologies and how they can be used in class, but we don’t always get the responses of how that has worked from the student perspective. We’d love to hear from you!

Image Credits: Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

Ross Findon

Turnitin

Turnitin – What’s in a number?

November 27, 2017 / / 0 Comments

The University of Portsmouth uses the Turnitin service to provide facilities for plagiarism detection, online marking and as a development tool for academic writing, although most users are interesting in one thing – a number.

Contained within the Originality Report is a Similarity Score out of 100, which many users wrongly believe to a be plagiarism score with a magic number, at which in can be conclusively determined whether plagiarism has or has not occurred. The problem is, this figure can be manipulated, there will also be mitigating circumstances and lastly let us not forget the system is not perfect either – there will be some margin for error.

Crudely speaking the Similarity Score number is a percentage of the words in your document which matched text from other documents that Turnitin searched against. For shorter assignments with a direct question and consequently a more concise correct answer may well therefore see higher score when compared to a longer assignment with more scope to include to include diverse material.

The number of students in your class and whether the assignment has been set in previous years (or at different institutions) may limit the scope for truly original material, that’s not to say a very high score is necessarily acceptable however it does mean that the latest content may not be unique for genuine reasons. An assignment based upon group work is also a recipe for a higher than usual Similarity Score since students are likely to be working from the same research, data and figures so will in all likelihood draw the same conclusions.

What does Turnitin check an assignment against? There are stored student papers in both a global central repository and the University of Portsmouth own repository (where we might store more sensitive documents). Turnitin also searches against material found on the internet and can check journals, periodicals and publications. Personally I would check against everything, if the service is available, use it.

Turnitin offers several filters which may be toggled, for example whether to include or exclude bibliographic references. Personally I cannot think of a reason why you want to include bibliographic references in the Similarity Score as citing sources is a requirement of good academic writing. That said if the assignment were a lab report and references were not expected then it might be safer to include bibliographic references just in case the Turnitin software incorrectly identified a bibliography and consequently excluded all of the text that followed. You can also toggle quoted material, quotes would not normally be considered within a plagiarism report although the volume of them may indicate a lack of original content from the author. Where quoted material is excluded from the Originality Report, Turnitin helpfully points out when more than 15% of the paper is quoted material. The final filter is for small matches, usually matches of 3-4 words are rather inconsequential, you may also have longer phrases that appear repeatedly throughout the assignment – you can exclude this from being repeatedly matched and skewing the Similarity Score using the ‘exclude small matches’ filter. Personally I use all the filters, excluding bibliographic references, quoted material and small matches – I can always turn them back on later when reviewing a paper if I am suspicious.

So after searching against all of the available material, excluding bibliographic references, quoted material and small matches, what is the magic number? Well, the magic number is… the number at which you become suspicious of course!

Finally, to wrap up this post, and just in case a concerned student has stumbled across this blog post, I would like to emphasise that if they know they have not deliberately plagiarised then they have nothing to worry about. If they are concerned that they have used another source and may not have referenced it properly, then guidance is available from the Academic Skills Unit (https://kb.myport.ac.uk/Article/Index/12/4?id=2747)

 

Email: academicskills@port.ac.uk

Telephone: +44 (0)23 9284 3462

Or, visit the Academic Skills Unit in person during our opening hours:

Third floor Reception, The Nuffield Centre

St Michael’s Road

Portsmouth

PO1 2ED

Students talking at he top of the stairs, plus other students walking up them

Preparing students for university

September 13, 2017 / / 0 Comments

The transition from further education to higher education can be a daunting experience for students. Being away from home for the first time, studying independently in an online environment, returning to education after raising a family or meeting new people from different backgrounds and cultures – these are all situations where students can feel out of their comfort zones. All can be equally terrifying and exciting!

Within DCQE we have always tried to bridge the gap between FE and HE, tried to support students from various backgrounds joining university for the first time, and tried to help students to prepare for life at university.

PrepUP

In June 2008 the eLearning Centre (now the TEL team), designed and developed a website specifically aimed at new students that were yet to join the University of Portsmouth, but had applied and had a place on a course. The site contained information about the students’ courses they had registered on, information such as ‘a typical week’, ‘recommended reading’ – guidance about reading lists and short videos from previous students talking about the course and tutor videos.

Over the years the site grew, from being aimed just at campus-taught courses to include distance learning courses; later, specific sections for postgraduate and international students were featured. PrepUP grew to include information about life at university, finance, accommodation and support facilities and it also contained interactive resources about lectures, seminars and a virtual tour around the university library. Competitions too became part of the PrepUP experience: students could win prizes such as hoodies donated by departments around the university and goodie bags tailored with course books and vouchers by the local bookshop, tickets up the Spinnaker Tower and tickets to visit Portsmouth Historical Dockyard.

Some of the designs of PrepUP over the years

Why was this important?

PrepUP helped new students receive information about their course and the University in a fun and engaging way, before they arrived. At the time, this facility wasn’t being provided by anyone else within the University. With the inclusion of Facebook groups, which provided a way for new students to get to know their peers before starting, PrepUP became an essential resource for all new students. From feedback the students told us that it helped them feel connected; it reassured them that university wasn’t so scary and that they’ll know people on their first day. Some of them even thanked us, as they had found a ‘best friend’ through PrepUP!

PrepUP in 2017

From 2008-2016 PrepUP remained popular for new students. However, during that time several other departments within the University started providing their own social media groups and pages for new students, and they began publishing information on the University website. This organic growth meant that students were now receiving mixed communications, duplicated information, and numerous email notifications about which social media groups to ‘like’ or ‘join’!  As part of a wider, University-wide rethink on the whole induction process, DCQE looked again at PrepUP and it’s purpose for new students in 2017. This year the delivery of course-related information has been pushed back to faculty and department level: Course Leaders and their teams, rather than DCQE, are the best people to provide information about their course and what students can do to prepare before joining. We have provided support to CLs by creating “welcome” videos and helping them to develop Google Sites as a way of providing information to students.

Example welcome video – Forensic Psychology UoP

The delivery of more general University-related material has been facilitated by a landing page for new students, created by the UoP Marketing team, called ‘Information for new students’. This page provides support for international and EU students; help with applications; assistance with finding somewhere to live; guidance on money and finance; information about the Students’ Union … and a link to a new site that DCQE has put together called Learning at Portsmouth.

Learning at Portsmouth

The Learning at Portsmouth site brings the focus back onto the services and support that DCQE offers as a whole, which is something we couldn’t do before with PrepUP. The site includes information about learning and studying at university, understanding digital literacy and learning how to work with learning technologies and looking at how our personal beliefs and mindsets impact on our learning. Our aim for Learning at Portsmouth is for the site to be a resource that all students can dip in and out of throughout their time at university, not just at the beginning!

What can I be doing to help new students experience?

We hope that the Learning at Portsmouth site will continue to develop, and that students will provide us with feedback about what is useful for them in preparing for and continuing with their university journey. If you are a Course Leader, and are thinking of the best ways to communicate with new students, perhaps this year or next, then we would recommend providing students with at least a welcome video to your course, so that 1) they can put a face to a name and know who you are from the offset, and 2) find out the ways to best prepare for your course by the expert – you!

If you have any questions regarding PrepUP/Learning at Portsmouth, or if you are a Course Leader who would like some support with resources for your new students, then please get in touch with me (marie.kendall-waters@port.ac.uk) or the TEL team (elearn@port.ac.uk) – we will be happy to help you!

Image credits: https://marketing.port.ac.uk/media/

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