The Jisc Podcast

In this episode Lis Parcell is joined by Matt Turner and Gabi Witthaus at the Higher Education Futures institute (HEFi), University of Birmingham to talk about a hybrid teaching project involving two universities. Gabi and Matt were part of a research team made up of staff and students from University of Nottingham (project lead) and University of Birmingham (project partner) which investigated experiences of hybrid teaching and learning in academic year 2020/2021. The principal investigator was Cecilia Goria (University of Nottingham) and the project was supported and funded by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). “…the term ‘hybrid teaching’ is used to refer to lectures/seminars/classes in which some students are physically present in a classroom and others join online simultaneously from remote locations” Lis begins by talking to Matt and Gabi about the origins of the project and their definition of hybrid teaching. They look at how hybrid teaching rooms were developed at the two partic

In this episode, Sarah Knight, Head of learning and teaching transformation in higher education at Jisc is joined by Mike Phillips, the executive dean at the School of Health Science and Wellbeing at Staffordshire University where he discusses how the use of immersive learning and simulation learning is transforming the student experience in health care. Mike outlines the role that the School of Health Science and Wellbeing has in the immersive journey and shares the challenges of delivering health care education in the sector over the past 20 years. Mike then goes on to explore how technology has enabled the university to address some of the challenges they face including the pandemic accelerating plans and the use of simulation placements for students across health, social care and wellbeing disciplines. Mike shares how he has brought staff along on the journey to ‘simmersive’ and the innovative approaches that they’ve used to create an authentic workplace setting for students. Mike highlights the 3 P’s whi

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 s

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

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

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

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 t

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.

This week we chatted with Aftab Hussain, information learning technology manager at Bolton College, about Firstpass, an automated system that helps automate the marking and feedback of open-ended questions using artificial intelligence Aftab talks through the benefits of Firstpass, sharing how the system can help reduce the burden on teachers when marking formative assessments, whilst providing students with instant feedback to their answers. Lastly, Aftab shares the latest updates and progress of Ada, Bolton college's digital assistant which went live in 2017.

This week Derfel Owen, Registrar and director of student and registry services at University College London, joins us to talk about how the university moved their exams online as part of a university wide digital assessment strategy. Derfel explains how and why the university chose to transition exams to online at such scale, providing more than 20,000 students with 1200 digital exams in Spring 2021. He also shares the lessons learnt from the project, and provides advice about how other institutions could approach bringing assessments online. We also discuss the future of assessment, looking into how things such as artificial intelligence help to improve the assessment marking process.

In this episode we are joined by Clare Killen, senior consultant for the business intelligence team at Jisc, to talk about the findings from the recently released HE and FE staff digital experience insight surveys. The annual survey polls over 6,500 teaching staff in further and higher education, looking into their experiences of using technology to support their teaching. Clare provides an interesting deep dive analysis into the results, as well as suggesting what can be done to support staff digital skills going forward. The episode also investigates how the role of teaching staff has changed since the pandemic.

Our guest this week is Debs Gray, Principal of Grimsby Institute, and Jisc trustee. She joined us to talk all about the college’s trailblazing industry 4.0 programme. This episode is packed with advice about how to support staff and students to prepare for the workplace of the future, in terms of digital skills and making the most out of the tools you already have. Debs maintains a strong focus on not just levelling the field, but tilting it, giving every student a fair chance. You’d be hard pushed to find someone more passionate about further education. A big thank you to Debs for coming on the show!

We’re joined by Dr Jill McKay, a senior lecturer of veterinary science education at the University of Edinburgh. Jill has completed some fascinating research into lecture capture, how students use recordings, and why. The data is really encouraging, so it’s worth a listen to hear some of the benefits, in particular for students from widening participation backgrounds. As you’ll be able to tell, this was a wonderfully fun and interesting chat. Jill is a brilliant speaker, and shares some great resources to help you to use recordings to their best potential, in a way that helps both staff and students.

Dr Phil Anthony, learning technologist from the division of natural sciences at the University of Kent, joins us to talk about his international digital teaching best practice community, where sector professionals from all around the world now engage to share advice, experiences and ideas about teaching online and digitally. Phil is a brilliant guest, full of ideas and insights from what he’s learned from setting up the community. The group has proved a huge success in so many ways, reassuring staff around the world on mutual experiences (enter the great cameras on or off debate again, Phil shares a really interesting story there). Phil also shares his top tips on making online teaching engaging, and how you can join in with the online community yourself – by visiting the link in our show notes.

Dr Rachel Bolton-King is an associate professor of forensic science, in the department of criminology, policing and forensic science at Staffordshire University. She joins us to talk about remote delivery, and how to help students to engage when working online. Rachel covers how to ensure forensics students are fully engaged when working online and how to offer a truly immersive experience to students who are at home. We also explore what the future holds for subjects like forensics with large practical elements, and how can technology might help to enhance the teaching and learning experience for students and staff. This was an inspiring conversation, and Rachel’s enthusiasm and expertise knowledge really shine through. A big thank you to Rachel for coming on the show! If you’ve listened back to the series over the summer, or particularly enjoy this episode, please do share with your colleagues who might enjoy it too. And don’t forget, if you have any questions, or would like to come on the show, you can ema

Rob Blagden, director of libraries, technology and information at the University of Gloucestershire, joins us to talk all about the environmental impact of universities, and what can be done to address the climate emergency. You’ll hear all about what the university is doing in terms of sustainable technology, making physical buildings and systems more eco-friendly, and educating students and staff about the climate emergency.