We spend a lot of time working with different learning management systems (LMS) and there are some great products out there that do amazing things. An LMS we really like is Moodle and we thought we would share a few things we think are great.

We have recently partnered with a Dutch company called Drieam who have created a new e-Portfolio tool and we are helping to bring this to the UK market. The tool is great - over the years we have used numerous e-Portfolio solutions and struggled with their integration, usability or impact. We think this tool, called Portflow, is a game-changer and it works perfectly with Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard and D2L.

On Wednesday 17th April 2024, Mark will be talking at the Cambridge Assessment Network at their event: Assessment Horizons and Assessment Principles: navigating the future together. Mark will explore the role and potential of assessment design as a process for developing graduates of the future. In particular it will look at ePortfolios as a vehicle for delivering this design, and how we can create an agile system to help prepare students for an unknown future. In this talk, Mark will take an exploratory look at a degree education and explore the role of assessment as the ‘glue’ which, if designed correctly, can help bring a degree back together. Specifically, he will explore a structured approach to the design, delivery and assessment of the co-curriculum to support graduate development.

A book by Jenny Gilbert and Simon Pratt-Adams (2022) Soft Systems Methodology in Education - Applying a Critical Realist Approach to Research on Teacher Education. Published by Springer. This book presents a unique contribution by adopting systems thinking principles, and combines soft systems methodology with critical realism as a qualitative research method to investigate teacher education. The innovative research strategy focuses on the creation of illustrations that vividly depict the perspectives of different stakeholders.

This February sees the launch of our new Virtual EDU service and we are very excited. A virtual EDU is: ' where a institution outsources its educational development to a third party and that third party works in partnership to deliver a shared service.'

We are excited to be partnering with the Cambridge Assessment Network on their forthcoming CPD accredited workshops series on the Communication and management of assessment in Higher Education . The workshops start on Monday the 11th of September 2023 and will run in four sessions over a two-week period. Assessment and feedback are core activities in Higher Education as a tool for learning as well as measuring the attainment of learning. Data collected on student experience of assessment (e.g., the National Student Survey in the UK) indicates room for improvement in many areas. Assessment and feedback in Higher Education is a complex and emotive topic area, so there needs to be a balance between quality, learning, experience and robustness. Much work has been undertaken on the design, quality assurance and enhancement of assessment practices and the aim of this workshop series is to combine these activities with a project management approach and through a student experience lens. Indeed, the students’ assessment experience is significantly influenced by how the entire assessment journey is designed and curated. Ask yourself this question: ‘When leading a module, have I designed a weekly student communication plan aligned to their assessment?’ A simple module timeline is shown below - the module assessment is launched at the beginning, submitted at the end with a formative activity in the middle. How can the assessment experience be supported and enhanced by structured activities, communication, practice and activities between these core components? With consideration, how can these new activities enhance student engagement, attainment, first time pass rates as well as reduce assessment anxiety? This workshop series will explore these areas, offer ideas of immediate implementation and practices for their subsequent measurement.

We are excited to be working with the University of the West of England to deliver digital transformation workshops for SMEs as part of their Workforce for the Future programme, being delivered on behalf of the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) through the European Social Fund (ESF). These workshops are designed to support the thinking and development of digital training strategies, underpinned by our skill mapping approach, to help businesses meet their future goals.

Recently, we have been reflecting on project management and university working. Odds are, most academics are project managers without either (a) realising it or (b) wanting to admit it. In this post, we explore this and an example of an academic staff CPD journey.