Viewpoints

Environmental Health Workshop

2012-02-14T13:45:00.010Z

On 8th February Catherine led a Viewpoint's workshop with colleagues from Environmental Health. The team used the Assessment and Feedback strand as they considered their undergraduate course in preparation for revalidation. They also used the Learner Engagement strand as they began the process of planning a new fully online masters programme for initial evaluation.

8 feb 2012

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Assessment and Feedback for Learning Conference

2012-01-26T10:39:00.031Z

Today Alan Masson and Catherine O'Donnell delivered a Viewpoints workshop at the Assessment and Feedback for Learning Conference at the University of Ulster.

Slides are available via slideshare

26 jan2012 a&f_final

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JISC Innovating e-Learning 2011 conference

2011-11-24T15:42:00.005Z

Today the Viewpoints project delivered an online session entitled What needs to change in curriculum design? at the JISC Innovating e-Learning 2011 conference along with presenters: from the Open University, Strathclyde University, Birmingham City University and University of Hertfordshire.

Dr Alan Masson presented and Catherine O'Donnell facilitated on behalf of Viewpoints.

Further details will be added soon.

Seda Conference, Nov 2011

2011-11-18T11:04:00.016Z

Yesterday Dr Alan Masson and Catherine O'Donnell along with Helen Beethem from the JISC Developing Digital Literacies Programme delivered a Viewpoints Information skills workshop at the 16th Annual SEDA Conference 2011 <http://www.seda.ac.uk/index.php?p=14_2&e=419&x=1>.

Slides are available via Slideshare.

Seda nov11

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Information Skills Scenarios

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Photographs taken during the session are available via Flickr

The Student's Union Perspective

2011-11-16T14:19:00.006Z

The Student's Union Perspective

As part of the Viewpoints project outputs, the Student Engagement Manager, from the Student's Union, University of Ulster was interviewed by Dr Vilinda Ross about her experience with the Viewpoints process.

Assessment and Feedback Workshop: Week 7 PGCHEP

2011-11-09T14:32:00.017Z

Today Dr Alan Masson and Catherine O'Donnell delivered a Vewpoints Assessment and Feedback workshop on week 7 of the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice. Colleagues Dr Vilinda Ross (Jordanstown), Dr Clare Carter (Coleraine) and Roisin Curran (Maggee) facilitated.

Photographs of the session are available via Flickr.

Assessment and Feedback Workshop

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Scenarios for the Pg CHEP

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JISC Programme meeting

2011-10-14T10:26:00.002+01:00

Dr Alan Masson and Catherine O'Donnell attended the JISC Programme meeting at Nottingham 11th/12th October 2011 <http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/curriculumdesign/progmtgoct11.aspx>

They also attend a cross cluster meeting the following day.

Update to Information Skills cards

2011-08-24T11:03:00.003+01:00

The Information Skills cards have just been updated – this new version is version 4.0.

This current (beta) edit is designed to reflect the recent changes in the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy, as documented online on the SCONUL website.

All the cards have been changed to reflect both the updated Information Literacy Pillars and the supporting information in the Core Model publication, which explains each of the Pillars.

The cards have also been updated with the International Information Literacy logo, as recommended by the SCONUL Working Group on Information Literacy.

The updated cards can be viewed and downloaded from our Viewpoints online Slideshare area.

The cards are not yet final – they have been sent out for consultation by University of Ulster Library staff. Once all comments and edits from them have been collated and incorporated, we will upload a final printable set of the updated Information Skills cards to the Viewpoints Resources website.

Information Skills printable cards (version 4 - updated)

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Assessment in Higher Education Conference

2011-07-06T16:00:00.003+01:00

Catherine O'Donnell and Jill Harrison today presented a Viewpoints poster at the third Assessment in Higher Education Conference – University of Cumbria.

Cumbria Study of Higher Education Network hosted this conference in collaboration with Northumbria University Centre for Excellence in Assessment for Learning and BERA Higher Education SIG. The theme was assessment practice.

School of Computing and Mathematics workshop

2011-06-20T16:59:00.005+01:00

Today Catherine O'Donnell and Dr Vilinda Ross delivered a Viewpoints workshop to academics from the School of Computing and Mathematics, at the School of Computing Away Day.
The workshop was held on Belfast Campus.

Staff were organised into small teams and considered one of the following key objectives: Retention, Graduate Qualities, Employability, Entrepreneurship, Study Skills, Assessment and Feedback, Currency of the Curriculum and Year 1 Transition.

All four Viewpoints themes (Assessment and Feedback, Information Skills, Creativity in the Curriculum, and Learner Engagement) were used during the course of this workshop.

Photos of the session can now be viewed on Flickr.

The presentation for this session is available to view on Slideshare:

Course Level Revalidation workshop, School of Computing and Mathematics, 20/06/11

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School of Creative Arts workshop

2011-06-17T17:25:00.001+01:00

Today Dr Alan Masson from Viewpoints and Dr Vicky Davies from Staff Development delivered an Assessment and Feedback workshop to academics from the School of Creative Arts who are preparing for revalidation. The workshop took place in Magee Campus.

Photographs of the outputs of this session can be viewed on Flickr.

Sixth International Blended Learning Conference (BLU)

2011-06-16T17:29:00.000+01:00

Viewpoints were involved in a joint workshop entitled ‘Sustaining and embedding innovations to achieve institutional enhancement in learning and teaching’ at the University of Hertfordshire on the 15th and 16th June 2011. Catherine O’Donnell represented the Viewpoints project at this event.

The workshop began with a short overview of the key success factors for sustaining and embedding projects. The teams then split into two sub-groups for the discussion element.

Each sub-group presented information about their project. This provided participants with an opportunity to learn more about the projects and their relevance to their own institutions.

Sub-groups then took part in discussions about the barriers and enablers aligned with the chapter headings in the Good Practice Guide to Sustaining and Embedding Innovations.

A copy of the presentation delivered at this joint workshop can be found on Slideshare.

Blended Learning Conference: Sustaining and embedding innovations to achieve institutional enhancement in learning and teaching

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Train the Trainer Workshop

2011-06-07T15:06:00.005+01:00

Yesterday Alan Masson and Catherine O'Donnell delivered a ‘train the trainer’ workshop to key educational support staff from City and Greenwich Universities in London to facilitate the embedding of project outputs into relevant teaching and learning processes within the respective institutions.

The presentation can be viewed on slideshare and photographs of the outputs can be viewed on flickr.

HEA Seminar: Encouraging creative and innovative “Viewpoints” in Curriculum Design

2011-06-03T15:13:00.009+01:00

Yesterday the Viewpoints team delivered a seminar as part of the Higher Education Academy’s Northern Ireland Seminar Series. The programme from the day can be found on slideshare. The aim of the seminar was to introduce the Viewpoints Project and demonstrate how course teams can be assisted to incorporate pedagogic best practice research into their teaching and learning plans and be encouraged to be more creative and innovative in their designs.

The morning session began by Eddie Gulc from the Higher Education Academy welcoming everyone to the event, followed by Alan Masson introducing the Viewpoints Project. The participants then had an opportunity to try a taster workshop lead by Catherine O'Donnell. Research findings and experiences to date were shared with the participants.

Alan introduced the afternoon session and set the Viewpoints workshop in context. Catherine O'Donnell introduced the Viewpoints handbook and and offered guidelines, tips and lessons learnt. There was an opportunity for the participants to discuss how they could embed the Viewpoints approach into their own institutions. The day finished with a question and answer session.

Host institutions are required to produce a briefing paper within two months of delivering their seminar to stimulate discussion, share practice and support the sector’s access to relevant research/evaluation evidence. The briefing paper will summarise the key issues presented at the seminar, including the implications of research/evaluation evidence for practice.

The presentations from the day to can be found on slideshare. The scenarios used can also be found on slideshare.

Some photographs from the day can be found on flickr:

Outputs from the day can be found on flickr:

Viewpoints resources available for download

2011-06-01T17:52:00.004+01:00

Viewpoints now have a Resources section available on the website.

Here, you can browse and download our curriculum design resources, which can help academics plan and enhance their curriculum design.

Our resources include a series of reflective tools (timelines and printable prompt cards) to inspire ideas on creating effective curriculum designs.

The resources section also includes the Viewpoints Handbook (a guide to delivering a curriculum design workshop), supporting resources for each of the four themes, facilitator guides and presentation templates.

You can browse and download resources individually or download the entire resource pack as one compressed ZIP file (26 MB in total).

Speech and Language Therapy

2011-05-13T14:00:00.004+01:00

Catherine and Vilinda delivered a Viewpoints course level workshop with the Speech and Language Therapy team at Jordanstown who are preparing for revalidation. The team chose to focus on planning their Assessment and Feedback strategies across three years of the course. Photographs and outputs are available via Flickr.

Seda Conference

2011-05-05T13:30:00.004+01:00

Today Alan Masson, Catherine O'Donnell and Jill Harrison presented a workshop entitled an ‘Encouraging creativity and reflection in the curriculum’ during Parallel Session 1 at the SEDA Spring Teaching Learning and Assessment Conference 2011 at the Holyrood Hotel in Edinburgh.

Delegates were given the opportunity to consider a given scenario and:

o Explore innovation in curriculum design within institutional processes.
o Engage in one aspect of the Viewpoints toolkit.
o Understand how sharing curriculum plans across a student learning timeline at course, module and activity level can help academics prepare for effective practice.
o Discuss, share and evaluate how the Viewpoints approach may be applicable to their own Institution and/or teaching practice.

Further information about the session is available at: http://www.seda.ac.uk/resources/files/2_OdonnellMassonharrison.pdf.

Slides from the session are available via the Viewpoints Slideshare website.
Scenarios from the session are also available via the Viewpoints Slideshare website.

Viewpoints draft Handbook - Executive Summary now available

2011-04-21T12:33:00.005+01:00

Viewpoints are currently working on a Handbook to help academic staff with their curriculum design, at module or whole-course level.

The Handbook will give course teams all the information they need to run their own curriculum design workshops, using reflective resources developed by the Viewpoints Project - a learner timeline worksheet and best-practice pedagogical principles based around four themes - Assessment and Feedback, Information Skills, Learner Engagement and Creativity in the Curriculum.

The Executive Summary and flow diagram of the Viewpoints process are now available via Slideshare. We will post a full (draft) version of the Handbook once our April Interim Report to JISC is published, to allow interested academics to feed back and comment on the document.

A full copy of the draft Handbook is available on request to academics interested in reviewing the full Guide. Contact k.virapen@ulster.ac.uk if you would like to receive a copy.

Viewpoints draft handbook - executive summary

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TFL Development Programme - Student Engagement

2011-04-18T16:22:00.005+01:00

Catherine O'Donnell and Vilinda Ross today facilitated a Viewpoints session during the TFL Development Programme for Ulster staff at the Rosspark Hotel.

The theme of the TFL Programme was 'Student Engagement' and the project teams were working on various proposals around this theme.

There were twelve workshop participants, and 3 project teams from the University of Ulster.

The project teams used this Viewpoints taster session of 1 hour to explore how the process could be used to help them scope out their project plans on the theme of Student Engagement. The Viewpoints themes used for this taster session were Assessment and Feedback, Learner Engagement and Creativity in the Curriculum. The introductory session primarily focused on module level.

There was a good response to this taster session, with 60% indicating that they found the session very useful.

Slides from the session are available via the Viewpoints Slideshare website:

TFL Development Programme - 18th April 2011

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Photos are also available for view on the Viewpoints Flickr photostream:

Encouraging creative and innovative 'Viewpoints' in Curriculum Design

2011-04-05T10:10:00.004+01:00

Viewpoints has rescheduled its seminar as part of the Higher Education Academy's Northern Ireland Seminar Series. It will now be held on the 2nd June 2011, 10am - 3pm.

To book your place email: saj.copeland@ulster.ac.uk.

Further Information is available on The Higher Education Academy website or via the poster which can be downloaded from Slideshare.

Information about the event:

This seminar will demonstrate how course teams can be helped to incorporate pedagogic best practice research into their teaching and learning plans, and be encouraged to be more creative and innovative in their designs.

It will share research findings to date and experiences from past workshops (e.g., photos, videos, evaluative commentaries and case studies) and will demonstrate how these can stimulate constructive dialogue and foster collaboration, helping course teams build ideas towards a student-centred curriculum design model.

Attendees will be invited to participate in group activities using either the ‘assessment and feedback’ or ‘learner engagement’ strands of the Viewpoints tools.

These activities will help participants consider how course teams address an agreed challenge e.g., designing an assessment and feedback or learner engagement strategy which:

Supports students’ transition to higher education;
Provides a supportive learning environment for students from different backgrounds;
Improves feedback methods/opportunities for students to respond to feedback;
Enables flexible learning opportunities;
Increases the employability of graduates during their final year.

The afternoon session will give participants an opportunity to:

Explore other Viewpoints themes, such as 'information skills' and 'creativity in the curriculum';
Review a 'Train the trainer' handbook currently in development;
Discuss how the Viewpoints process and tools may be useful within other institutions.

50 places are available on this all-day seminar, which will take place on the Belfast campus.

HEA Seminar - Encouraging creative and innovative 'Viewpoints' in Curriculum Design, 2 June 2011

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Assessment and Feedback workshop - Radiography

2011-03-25T18:11:00.001Z

Catherine O'Donnell and Dr Vilinda Ross facilitated a Viewpoints workshop on Friday 25th March with 9 diagnostic and 2 therapeutic Radiography colleagues preparing for revalidation in 2012.

The team were keen to explore how they could develop and use their assessment strategy to promote students' learning:-

· At module level
· At course level

Part of the session involved them looking at one module as a demonstration of how they could employ Viewpoints prompts at modular level. The rest of the session involved the radiographers using the Viewpoints tools and process to begin looking at their overall course perspectives.

Slides are available online at Slideshare (an online presentation viewing facility):

Viewpoints Assessment and Feedback workshop - Radiotherapy 25th March 2011

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Photos are available online via the photo-sharing site, Flickr:

Greenwich University Open Lecture - Learner-Centred Course Design

2011-03-23T19:37:00.001Z

Viewpoints Project Director Alan Masson delivered a presentation today at Greenwich University, as part of their Open Lecture Series in Teaching and Learning. The topic of the presentation was 'Learner-Centred Course Design'.

Alan discussed how learner-centred models and frameworks could assist course teams to reflect on, plan, and articulate new course designs for a creative environment. He also talked about the Viewpoints project in the context of learner-centred models, and how the Viewpoints workshop and resources could benefit learner-centred design.

Slides from the presentation are available here.

Learner-Centred Course Design - Greenwich presentation, March 2011

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Viewpoints printable cards now available for download

2011-03-22T16:06:00.005Z

Viewpoints has now released printable PDF versions of its cards, for use in workshops on curriculum design.

Staff both in Ulster and in other HE or FE institutions may now download the cards for their own use.

These resources will eventually form part of a freely available Handbook which we are currently preparing, which will show users how to run their own curriculum design workshop, using our downloadable resources.

Printable Assessment and Feedback cards - view/download

Printable Information Skills cards - view/download

Printable Learner Engagement cards - view/download

All these cards are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial - ShareAlike license, which lets users remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and license their new creation under the identical terms.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR DOWNLOAD AND PRINTING

Go to the link for your chosen set of cards (see above) and click on the Download button above the presentation. Your PDF download will begin. Save this PDF to your computer.
Choose File > Print.
When your printing options come up on screen, print two to a page and (if this option is available to you) choose double-sided printing (front and back).
If your printer doesn't support double-sided printing, you can glue/staple pages together to get the front and back of each cards put together - match up the colours and titles of cards to get the front and back of each card.
Cut out the cards to size and glue/staple together if you haven't printed double-sided.

Once you've printed your cards, you can use them in workshops or to aid discussions when considering curriculum design.

Nursing revalidation workshop, Jordanstown campus

2011-03-07T13:22:00.000Z

Alan Masson today facilitated a Viewpoints workshop on Jordanstown campus for nursing professionals who are considering course revalidation.

The workshop consisted of twelve nursing practitioners, and included staff from the University of Ulster, Queen's University and a variety of Northern Ireland health trusts.

The teams focused on two specific themes for the workshop: Assessment and Feedback and Learner Engagement.

The workshop was received enthusiastically by all staff, with one participant commenting that the Viewpoints process was "a good starting point for [the] curriculum design and development."

Photos of the workshop outputs are now available for view or download via our Viewpoints Flickr photostream.

Encouraging creative and innovative ‘Viewpoints’ in Curriculum Design

2011-02-10T16:05:00.006Z

Viewpoints is hosting a seminar as part of the Higher Education Academy's Northern Ireland Seminar Series on 30 March 2011.

To book your place email: saj.copeland@ulster.ac.uk.
Further Information available on The Higher Education Academy website.

Information about the event:

This seminar will demonstrate how course teams can be assisted to incorporate pedagogic best practice research into their teaching and learning plans, and be encouraged to be more creative and innovative in their designs.

Attendees will be invited to participate in group activities using either the ‘assessment and feedback’ or ‘learner engagement’ strands of the Viewpoints tools.

These activities will help participants consider how course teams address an agreed challenge e.g., designing an assessment and feedback or learner engagement strategy which:

o Supports students’ transition to higher education;
o Provides a supportive learning environment for students from different backgrounds;
o Improves feedback methods/opportunities for students to respond to feedback;
o Enables flexible learning opportunities;
o Increases the employability of graduates during their final year.

Learner Engagement Workshop – Students' Union

2011-01-21T13:56:00.017Z

Jill Harrison, Catherine O'Donnell, and Alan Masson facilitated a Learner Engagement workshop for the Students Union on Friday 21 January 2011.

The students' union is currently developing a 10-point credit module for student representation. The objective was to minimise additional workload for participants, support participants to become effective course representatives and create a community for representatives to share good practice.

The group used the Learner Engagement cards and the module worksheets during the 2-hour group work activity-based session.

In the evaluation exercise afterwards (implemented by Vilinda Ross), participants noted the usefulness of the visual approach and prompts implemented at the Viewpoints session. One participant remarked that the approach provided a "good visual display of our work and plan for a semester" while another stated that the Viewpoints outputs and resources had managed to "spark creativity as well as providing sound building blocks for the module". Participants felt that the workshop had helped them reflect on the learner perspective, helping the team "recognise the needs of the learner and how we can make the student experience better for them, and therefore make them better class reps".

Slides from the session are available online at slideshare:

Viewpoints: Student Representation

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All the resources used in the workshop (worksheet and Learner Engagement cards) are available for view or download from the Viewpoints Flickr photostream.

Photos from the day are also available on Flickr:

Revalidation event, Belfast Campus

2010-12-14T17:19:00.007Z

Catherine O'Donnell, Jill Harrison and Karen Virapen today delivered a Viewpoints workshop session as part of a Revalidation event at Belfast Campus, arranged by Roisin Curran in Staff Development.

Staff from different Art and Design courses who are preparing for revalidation next year attended this workshop. There were about 50 staff attending, in ten groups arranged around the different courses.

Staff were encouraged to consider their courses with the help of Viewpoints prompts - using Assessment and Feedback, Information Skills, and Creativity and Innovation course level cards, and working around course-level laminates. (The Learner Engagement strand was also presented to staff as an option - Learner Engagement cards are currently under development.)

Staff discussed their courses in their teams, noted ideas and action points on the course laminates, and presented their ideas to the group at the end of the session.

Slides from the Viewpoints session are available online:

Viewpoints: School of Art & Design Revalidation Workshop

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A Viewpoints revalidation diagram explains the process in more detail and has some useful embedded links for staff. It can be downloaded from Slideshare.

Course revalidation

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All the resources used in the workshop (worksheets, course level cards, Assessment and Feedback, Creativity and Information Skills module level cards) are available for view or download from the Viewpoints Flickr photostream.

Photos from the day are also available on Flickr.

CAMEL meeting, Open University

2010-12-03T16:40:00.001Z

The fourth CAMEL meeting for JISC Curriculum Design Cluster C took place over two days, on the 2nd and 3rd December at the Open University, Milton Keynes.

Peter Bullen, our Critical Friend, chaired the sessions, attended by project representatives from the University of Ulster, the Open University, and University of Strathclyde (virtually via FlashMeeting). The theme of the meeting was 'cluster output'.

Day 1 began by talking about project overlaps and it was agreed that what we are all doing could be described as:

Changing culture - individual, team, and institutional processes to improve learning design and therefore the experiences of students.

The project teams are changing culture by the following means:

• Promoting a Curriculum Design language 

• Providing frameworks for Curriculum Design (i.e. decision-making frameworks) 

• Encouraging and supporting collaboration, reflection and dialogue 

• Prompting ideas for Curriculum Design 

• Identifying, developing and using catalysts for change (i.e. approval processes)

We then had a brainstorming activity to come up with ideas of possible outputs/artefacts.
We agreed that the cluster should explore the idea of running/leading an online conference based around a theme, which asks the question: 'What needs to change in curriculum design?'

Day 2 began by recapping on ideas discussed from day 1 and then the teams explored a second possible cluster output – podcasts, which could also be used for the online conference.
We finished the day by planning our next steps.

Assessment and Feedback workshop for Ulster PgCHEP course

2010-10-27T17:50:00.001+01:00

Dr Alan Masson (Magee Campus) and Catherine O'Donnell (Jordanstown Campus) delivered 'Week 6: Assessment and Feedback' on the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education course (PgCHEP) today.

This lesson included an introduction to Viewpoints curriculum design materials and an Assessment and Feedback workshop for PgCHEP students.

Students worked in small groups while considering a scenario of their own choice. The sessions were well received and the Viewpoints team have been asked to do a similar session on the course in 2011.

Photos from the sessions are available on the Viewpoints Flickr photostream.

The slides from this session are available via Slideshare.

Assessment and Feedback PgCHEP workshop, Oct 27th 2010

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Viewpoints steering group meeting

2010-10-15T16:02:00.002+01:00

Viewpoints had their third ever steering group meeting today in Jordanstown campus.

Attendees included Viewpoints Director Alan Masson and his team, chair Professor Mark Stubbs from Manchester Metropolitan University, our Critical Friend, Peter Bullen, Director of Access and Distributed Learning, Sylvia Alexander, Shiela MacNeill from JISC CETIS, and key Ulster stakeholders from across the University.

Firstly, the minutes from the previous meeting in April were read and approved by the group. Director Alan Masson reported on the activities of Viewpoints from April until October of this year, aided by comments and feedback from steering group members, who had received the report a week in advance, in order to give them time to comment. The group members asked for clarifications during Alan's presentation, and made suggestions as to specific content.

All comments and suggestions from the steering group will be incorporated into the draft report, which will then be finalised by the Viewpoints team and sent to JISC as our definitive Interim Report for this reporting period.

The steering group stakeholders were extremely enthusiastic and positive about the work done by Viewpoints during this reporting period, and made a number of constructive suggestions and additions to content. These suggestions and advice should help the Viewpoints team work towards final tool development and dissemination, as we enter the final year of the project.

JISC Joint Programme Meeting: Curriculum Design and Curriculum Delivery

2010-10-13T16:42:00.002+01:00

Catherine O’Donnell and Jill Harrison both attended the JISC Joint Programme Meeting: Curriculum Design and Curriculum Delivery on 12^th and 13^th October 2010 at the National College for School Leadership, Nottingham.

The theme of the workshop was “Delivering the Benefits: from Project to Institutional Enhancement”. Guest Speakers were Peter Findlay - Assistant Director of the QAA and Professor Betty Collis - Learning Technology Consultant.

The meeting provided an opportunity to view the work completed by the Curriculum Delivery projects and gain an overview of lessons learnt by these projects.

Tweets from the programme meeting are available at: http://twitter.com/#search?q=jisccdd.

Viewpoints videos now more accessible

2010-09-17T14:02:00.019+01:00

Viewpoints videos are now more accessible to a wider range of users - they all now have closed captions available in YouTube. All of our subsequent videos and 'digital stories' will also use closed captions.

'Closed captions' are subtitles that appear on screen as a video plays, providing a text representation of the audio content of the video. They are called 'closed' as they can be turned on and off according to the user's preference.

Captioning video is good standard practice - it helps meet W3C accessibility guidelines by allowing users with hearing impairments to access the audio content of the video.

It can also benefit users with no audio playback hardware, mobile users sited in a quiet area (like a library), those learning to speak a non-native language, or in an environment when the audio is difficult to make out.

To sample closed captioning in YouTube, you can view either of the videos below.

Click Play on the chosen video, then hover over the grey-and-white triangular button on the bottom right of the YouTube screen (second from the right).
Then, select the CC (closed caption) button that pops up, and your captions should appear automatically.
To make the captions disappear again, follow the same process, hover over the triangular button and deselect the CC button this time.

Notice how the captions are synced with the audio - this is all done with automatic timecodes.

Do you want to know how to add closed captions to your YouTube videos? Follow this simple step-by-step guide written by Viewpoints, which will walk you through the straightforward process. (You can download this document from SlideShare as well, if you want a copy on your hard drive.)

As a rough guide, it will take 30-50 minutes to create and upload captions for a 3-minute YouTube video. A simple online tool specified in this document (with full instructions for use) will help you add timecodes so that your text is synced properly to the audio on screen.

Viewpoints workshop delivered at ALT-C conference

2010-09-08T13:12:00.002+01:00

Catherine O'Donnell and Alan Masson delivered an interactive Viewpoints workshop today at the ALT-C 2010 conference in Nottingham, the 17th International Conference for the Association for Learning Technology.

The workshop was entitled 'Encouraging creativity and reflection in the curriculum', and aimed to stimulate constructive dialogue around curriculum planning, allow collaboration and creativity, and help participants plan a student-centred curriculum design model.

The workshop was one hour in duration and allowed participants to try out one aspect of the Viewpoints tool strand in a hands-on session. Afterwards, participants or interested parties can communicate via the forum on the Viewpoints social networking Ning area (sign-up required).

Slides from this workshop are available to view here:

Encouraging creativity and reflection in the curriculum

View more presentations from Viewpoints, University of Ulster.

Creativity workshop in Belfast Campus

2010-09-01T12:02:00.002+01:00

Alan Masson, Catherine O'Donnell, Roisin Curran and Jill Harrison today delivered a Viewpoints creativity workshop on Belfast Campus.

The workshop was delivered to members of staff from Hospitality and Tourism Management. The team wanted to generate some ideas around creativity in the curriculum, although they are not undergoing revalidation until 2012/2013. Creativity card prompts were used, as well as Assessment and Feedback and Information Skills cards. 22 members of staff attended

In the evaluation exercise afterwards, most staff indicated they found the session useful to help them reflect on creativity in curriculum design and the learner perspective, although many indicated they would prefer more time to explore the concepts.

Information Skills cards version 2 now complete

2010-07-22T16:04:00.002+01:00

Viewpoints have now completed a new set of the Information Skills cards, with the help of key stakeholders in the University of Ulster, such as Ulster librarians.

The new versions of the cards have been extensively reworded to reflect current Information Skills practices in Ulster and in other higher education institutions.

They have also been 'branded' with the Information Skills logo, to distinguish them from other sets of workshop cards.

These cards have been printed but also can be viewed or downloaded as JPEGs on the Viewpoints Flickr photostream:

Viewpoints Poster presentation at CAA Conference 2010

2010-07-21T18:03:00.002+01:00

Fiona Doherty and Jill Harrison today presented a Viewpoints poster at the 2010 International Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) Conference: Research into E-Assessment.

This two-day research-led conference was hosted by the University of Southampton and organised by its School of ECS and the IET at the Open University. The theme of the conference was e-assessment and there was a great deal of interest in the work that Viewpoints are doing, especially regarding the online tool and the Assessment and Feedback strand of the tool suite.

You can view the presented poster here:

Module Worksheet

2010-07-20T16:49:00.004+01:00

This is the Module Perspective worksheet that Viewpoints staff use when delivering a face-to-face workshop with Ulster staff.

(You can download a JPEG of the worksheet from our Flickr photostream)

It allows academics to think about their curriculum design at a module level, and plan their curriculum for that particular module.

Staff are encouraged to identify their objective for their group activity, write it on the module worksheet, and then they are shown the relevant cards for their strand (for example, Assessment and Feedback, Creativity in the Curriculum or Information Skills cards).

They then choose the principles that are relevant to their objective, and map their principles to the worksheet by placing them on the timeline.

Next, they turn the chosen cards over and select the relevant implementation ideas or examples. Finally, they can tailor the plan by adding their own notes and action points to the worksheet.

Assessment and Feedback/Creativity session - Economics

2010-06-11T15:57:00.002+01:00

Catherine O'Donnell, Roisin Curran, Karen Virapen and Jill Harrison today delivered a workshop session looking at assessment and feedback strategies and creativity in the curriculum. This session was delivered to staff from the School of Economics.

The group wanted to focus around the first year experience, particularly looking at assessment and feedback strategies for this group. They have some retention and student engagement issues with first years, so are keen to revise their curricula. They also need an overall look at their course strategy in preparation for revalidation next year, and so Roisin Curran gave them a talk on how they could bring creativity to their courses.

Some groups were initially unconvinced as to the merits of using the workshop approach in revising their assessment and feedback strategy, but by the end of the process all the groups were able to come up with a suggested plan to move forward and revise their courses for students.

Slides for this session are available here:

Curriculum Design - Economics workshop

View more presentations from Viewpoints, University of Ulster.

Elluminate online seminar

2010-06-09T16:02:00.005+01:00

Viewpoints today hosted an online seminar (using Elluminate software). The aim of this session was to tell interested parties more about the work of Viewpoints.

This Elluminate session gave a brief overview of the Viewpoints project, our key objectives, and the tools that we aim to produce. It described our tool framework and planned project outputs and touched on the possible benefits of our approach to curriculum design.

Participants were able to view some sample workshop materials and a walkthrough of our planned online tool functionality.

Two interactive activities during the session allowed participants to try out the workshop approach for themselves.

Viewpoints also shared user experiences to date by demonstrating a range of 'user stories' in video, audio, photo and quote form.

The session covered the work done to embed Viewpoints tools within our institution, and ended with a discussion of future directions and a structured question and answer session.

To watch the recording of the Elluminate session, click on the link below (warning: this will launch a Java-based application for Elluminate)

Viewpoints archived recording, Elluminate online seminar

You can also watch the user videos that were shown as part of this session:

Assessment and Feedback workshop - School of Law

2010-05-28T16:09:00.003+01:00

Catherine O'Donnell and Karen Virapen today delivered an Assessment and Feedback workshop for a group of academics from the School of Law.

The School of Law are currently undergoing a First Year Review, and in relation to this, the group wanted to look at realigning the first year curricula to give students a more relevant challenge, and help teach students how to develop independent study skills. It seems that first year Law students sometimes struggle with transition, some core law modules, and with the assessment workload.

With this in mind, three teams from the School looked at three different modules with a view to revising them. They looked at redesigning their assessment and feedback strategy at module level. The workshop generated a lot of lively debate, and hopefully this will help kick-start the process of redesigning assessment and feedback strategies for first year students.

Photos of the group outputs and progress are available here:

Slides for this session are also available online through SlideShare:

Curriculum Design, Assessment and Feedback: School of Law First Year Review

View more presentations from Viewpoints, University of Ulster.

Business Subject Planning Away Day - Assessment and Feedback/Creativity sessions

2010-05-13T12:14:00.003+01:00

Today Dr Alan Masson and Catherine O'Donnell delivered two one hour workshops, one on Assessment and Feedback and another on Creativity in the Curriculum. These workshops were for academics from the Ulster Business School, who were taking part in a (Revalidation) Business Subject Planning Away event.

Slides from the workshops are available here:

Curriculum Design, Assessment and Feedback

View more presentations from Viewpoints, University of Ulster.

The workshops provided some focus, assisted group discussion, helped staff consider challenges and helped them plan what they need to do while preparing for revalidation.

Photos of the group outputs and progress are available here:

JISC Curriculum Design Programme Meeting

2010-05-12T15:06:00.002+01:00

Brass Tacks: Key Challenges in Delivering a Flexible Curriculum, Maple House, Birmingham

Sharon Copeland (Project Manager) gave an update on Viewpoints at the Programme Meeting, bringing everyone up-to-date with the advances the team have achieved.

She told the group about how the team were embedding the tools into the validation process and the work done with the Centre for Higher Educational Practice for the Creativity and Innovation strand of the project.

Sarah Knight (JISC Programme Manager) praised the team for their work to date. Some of the participating projects (such as the University of Bolton) expressed their interest in seeing the digital tools when they are ready for release, as they see a close link with their own curriculum developments.

The meeting was a good opportunity to catch up with the work of the other groups in the Curriculum Design programme and recognise the links across different groups.

Third CAMEL meeting

2010-04-28T15:42:00.012+01:00

The third CAMEL meeting for JISC Curriculum Design Cluster C took place over two days, on the 27th and 28th April. This time University of Ulster hosted the meeting, which took place at Belfast Campus. Peter Bullen, the Cluster's critical friend, was the chair for the event.

Day 1 began with a short presentation on Viewpoints tools, followed by an interactive session. All the attendees got a chance to try out a module-level workshop, usingthe Assessment and Feedback and Information Skills best practice cards and large A0 laminate worksheets.

See the Viewpoints presentation here:

Viewpoints CAMEL meeting - workshop presentationView more

presentations from Viewpoints, University of Ulster.

The whole cluster group was split into two teams, both considering module design. One team looked at their Assessment and Feedback strategy and one considered their Information Skills strategy for a course module.

Both teams had a number of tasks to complete: they chose their objective for consideration, selected relevant best practice cards, mapped these principles to the timeline, chose implementation ideas from the reverse of the cards, tailored the solution to their own ‘practice’, and came up with action points.

This was a lively and well debated session – the Assessment and Feedback group came up with an interesting ‘cyclical’ approach, using similar cards at different points in the timeline, but emphasizing student progression towards more autonomy – while the Information Skills group went for more of a matrix, and their action points were very specific and practically focused.

From the discussions, it emerged that Rebecca Galley is going to be talking to librarians in the Open University about information literacy, so that may be an interesting link for the Viewpoints team.

Peter Bullen emphasized that this particular CAMEL meeting was focusing on the impact each project could have on their prospective institutions, and subsequent discussions over the next two days revolved around that theme. As part of our first session on ‘impact’, we thought about an impact that, as a project, we could confident we could deliver, and one impact that we aspired to achieve. We then shared these with the rest of the cluster.

On the second day, Rachel Harris from Inspire Research joined us (via Elluminate) to help discuss impact on our respective institutions, based around the HEA’s Evaluation and Impact Assessment Approach.

In our teams, we discussed the first four questions from this document – intended outcomes, main beneficiaries, how to know these outcomes had been achieved, and how teams could discover whether outcomes had been achieved. Rachel (and the cluster) then commented on these initial discussions.

We discussed the difficulties of evaluating impact over the short life cycle of the JISC Design projects, and discussed how staff might use our workshops, and what the desired outcomes might be. We also discussed sharing these outputs with JISC CETIS.

Finally, we were reminded of key dates for the calendar: the upcoming JISC Design Programme meeting on Wednesday 12th May, the LAMS Design Bash on Friday 16th July, and two further CAMEL meetings for our cluster in November 2010 and April 2011.

Assessment and feedback session with PhD students

2010-03-09T18:00:00.004Z

Fiona Doherty and Catherine O’Donnell delivered a Viewpoints assessment and feedback workshop with PhD students today, as part of their ‘Assessment for Learning’ session with lecturer Dr Patricia Kearney.

The students used the assessment and feedback cards and the module worksheets during the 45 minutes group work activity-based session.

They planned an assessment and feedback strategy for teaching a Masters dissertation module focusing on chosen theme(s). One student from each group presented their final output to the rest of the group at the end of the session.

Photos of the group outputs are available here:

Slides from this session are available here:

Librarian Subject Meeting - Information Skills Presentation

2010-03-05T14:21:00.007Z

The Viewpoints team gave a presentation today in Jordanstown to all the University of Ulster Subject Librarians.

Librarian Subject Meeting

View more presentations from Viewpoints, University of Ulster.

The purpose of this meeting was to update librarians on the development of the Information Skills strand of the toolset, and to get feedback on the workshop tools developed so far.

We showed librarians the information skills prompt cards we have developed (based on SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy) and the worksheet laminates which we plan to use in Information Skills workshops with course teams.

Catherine O’Donnell led an interactive group activity, where groups were each given one of the cards, asked to critically consider the content and ideas on them, and then think about using the cards for each part of the student timeline.

Each small group then fed back their ideas to the meeting.

The subject librarians were a great audience for testing Information Skills development, as they have such an expert knowledge about the subject and good connections with module co-ordinators and course teams.

There was a lot of lively feedback about the cards and their content on the day and we hope to continue piloting Information Skills content with Ulster librarians in future as it develops.

Viewpoints project diagram

2010-02-26T11:00:00.006Z

The diagram below shows an overview of the Viewpoints project.

This illustration shows how the Viewpoints reflective tools attempt to bring best practice research into curriculum processes at Ulster.

The tools provide the structure for users to engage with best practice research (via the cards) and a learner timeline and relate this to their teaching practice.

Revalidation workshop

2010-02-16T18:00:00.003Z

Viewpoints resources were available for use at a revalidation workshop today. Roisin Curran, from Staff Development, delivered the workshop to course teams from the School of the Built Environment.

The resources were available during the course team discussion activity, were each team were asked to consider the ethos of their programme and to consider key topics, such as assessment and feedback, curriculum planning and creativity and innovation.

The Viewpoints resources available included course-level timeline worksheets, course-level best practice cards (assessment and feedback, information skills and creativity in teaching and learning), post-its and markers. Each group were shown the resources and given suggestions of how they could be used - then given the option to use them if they wanted.

Two of the three teams made use of the resources in different ways to aid their programme-planning requirement, as shown in the photos below.

This initial introductory use of the course-level resources showed the value of them to help with curriculum planning activities, such as the Ulster programme revalidation process. Further consideration needs to be given to the timing of the use of the resources in the revalidation process.

The session showed the demand for more scalable resources that practitioners can take away and use - such as a paper-based version of the worksheet timeline (in a flipchart paper format) and printable versions of the best practice cards (perhaps also available on post-its).

Meeting with CCEA

2010-01-28T18:00:00.005Z

Fiona Doherty met with Dorit Reppert and Emma McAllister from the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) today.

The CCEA requested the meeting to find out more about the Viewpoints project and to gauge if the Viewpoints resources could be adapted for their educational purposes.

Fiona provided an overview of the Viewpoints project and demonstrated the Viewpoints assessment and feedback workshop format, giving them the opportunity to use the best practice cards and the timeline worksheet.

Some photos of the output from the demonstration are available here:

Viewpoints at the Ulster eLearning Conference 2010

2010-01-21T18:00:00.009Z

Dr Alan Masson, Catherine O’Donnell and Fiona Doherty delivered workshops at the University of Ulster’s 8th annual e-learning conference at the Belfast campus today.

The workshop was titled ‘Reflecting Viewpoints: Encouraging creativity in curriculum design (assessment and feedback)’. The session consisted of an activity-based demonstration of the Viewpoints Assessment and Feedback workshop format and showed how this had been recently integrated into the CIES Reward and Recognition programme. The tasks used real-life scenarios from the Reward and Recognition programme projects. Each group compared their output to the programme outputs and shared these comparisons with all participants.

The slides from the workshop are available here:

Photos from the workshop are available here:

Karen Virapen looked after the Viewpoints stand at the conference - promoting the project activities. The Viewpoints poster was on display with project resources available to take away.

Viewpoints at the CIES Reward and Recognition Residential

2009-12-15T17:00:00.004Z

The Viewpoints A0 worksheets were available for each group at the CIES Reward and Recognition Programme IV: E-facilitated Assessment and Feedback Residential event, at the Rosspark Hotel, Kells on 14th and 15th December 09.

This event gave each group the time to develop a reusable learning object as part of their assessment and feedback project. External facilitators Tom Boyle (RLO-CETL Director, London Metropolitan University) and Dawn Leeder (Reward and Development Manager, University of Cambridge) helped them with this task.

The Viewpoints worksheets, developed in the assessment and feedback sessions with each group (delivered from the 1st -11th December), proved to be a good starting point and valuable resource for each group whilst developing their projects at the Residential.

Each group commented on how useful the Viewpoints sessions and worksheets were in the final group presentations at the end of the event. The facilitators also commented that they felt each group was better prepared as a result of the Viewpoints sessions, compared to previous Residential programme groups.

Viewpoints Assessment and Feedback sessions (1-11th Dec 09)

2009-12-11T17:36:00.013Z

Fiona Doherty and Catherine O’Donnell have been delivering Viewpoints assessment and feedback sessions to Ulster groups (consisting of several staff and a student) on the CETL Institutional E-learning Services (CIES) Reward and Recognition Programme IV: E-facilitated Assessment and Feedback.

The one-hour sessions let each group reflect on their chosen Reward and Recognition programme project. The session is based on six group tasks that encourage reflection, consider the student experience and provide some creative ideas on how to implement their project objective.

The hands-on session uses prompts, including a large laminated worksheet with a student timeline and nine assessment and feedback cards. The group work together using the worksheet, cards and markers to create an output tailored to address their chosen project objective.

The nine different coloured cards each depict an assessment and feedback principle (revised and adapted from the Re-engineering Assessment Practices (REAP) Project principles of good formative assessment and feedback). On the back of each card are several implementation ideas (revised and adapted from the QAA Enhancement Themes: The First Year Experience – Transforming assessment and feedback: enhancing interaction and empowerment in the first year
written by Professor David Nicol from the REAP Project).

Each participant gets an assessment and feedback pack at the end of the session. This pack contains several handouts that aim to bridge the gap between theory and practice at Ulster, e.g. the nine principles mapped to Ulster documentation (guidelines, strategies, etc.) and the principles mapped to e-learning technologies available at Ulster.

The completed worksheet outputs can then be used to help inform each group’s project development. The outputs are emailed to each group in a word document and as an image. The worksheets will be available for each group at the CIES Reward and Recognition Residential event on the 14th & 15th December at the Rosspark Hotel, Kells.

These initial sessions have been evaluated and will be analysed to inform future development of the Viewpoints workshops. Early feedback suggests that the sessions were very successful in helping the groups reflect on and plan their projects. One group member commented that the cards helped ‘to concentrate broad ideas’, while another said that the session ‘helped to clarify what is currently a problem for the group and provided some potential solutions’.

CAMEL meeting, Open University

2009-11-12T18:31:00.005Z

The second CAMEL meeting for JISC Curriculum Design Cluster C took place over two days, on the 11th and the 12th November at the Open University, Milton Keynes. Peter Bullen, our Critical Friend, chaired the sessions, attended by project representatives from the University of Ulster, University of Strathclyde and the Open University. Helen Beetham and Alison Muirhead also attended.

On the first day, Helen Beetham introduced a session on the cluster's recently completed project baseline reports, talking about issues arising from the three reports and highlighting similarities and differences. Afterwards, Alison Muirhead led a discussion about evaluation challenges and solutions, getting small groups to talk about potential ways of approaching evaluation.

Day 2 of the CAMEL meeting was centred around the Open University's recent work on curriculum design and curriculum representation. It kicked off with a short activity to get academics familiar with using Cloudworks, the Open University's social bookmarking system.

Simon Cross then talked to us about the recent survey looking at staff perceptions around learning design in the OU, and talked about Open University design solutions.

Gráinne Conole's session on course representations introduced a number of different course views being worked on at the Open University. You can view her presentation here:

Curriculum Representations

View more presentations from grainne.

Finally, Paul Mundin introduced a short session on curriculum mapping in the Open University.

JISC Learning & Teaching Practice Experts Meeting

2009-10-21T17:43:00.002+01:00

Alan Masson and Karen Virapen attended the Learning and Teaching Practice Experts meeting today at The Studio, Birmingham.

This meeting showed the group the newly launched Design Studio, and a group discussion on the development of this resource followed the presentation.

Breakout sessions for Cluster C and D Curriculum Design and Delivery projects gave delegates the chance to view the project posters (including the Viewpoints poster) and discuss the various challenges projects were facing. This session generated a lot of useful feedback or Viewpoints, which will help us when moving forward with tool development.

Selected members of the Experts group then showcased their work for delegates in presentation sessions (presentations are available on the JISC site).

Finally, Ros Smith chaired a group discussion around the area of e-assessment.

A Twitter feed from the meeting is available at http://twitter.com/#search?q=jiscexperts09.

JISC Programme Meeting

2009-10-14T17:00:00.003+01:00

Alan Masson and Fiona Doherty attended the joint two-day meeting for the Curriculum Design and Delivery Programmes at the Midland Hotel in Manchester.

The meeting provided the opportunity for the Curriculum Design and Delivery projects to network and gain an overview of each other’s work (by poster and video presentations) and to identify synergies between projects.

Further information about all the projects is available at:
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/curriculum/projects
http://www.netvibes.com/circlejisc
Video presentations are available at: http://www.youtube.com/jisccdd

Projects were introduced to the Design Studio, a wiki based toolkit that draws together a range of existing and developing resources around the curriculum design and delivery and the role technology plays in supporting these processes.

The Viewpoints project fits best in the Initiate or review and Develop or redevelop nodes of the curriculum lifecycle.

Tweets from the programme meeting are available at: http://twitter.com/#search?q=jisccdd

Ulster Curriculum Design Processes

2009-10-12T12:00:00.006+01:00

Catherine O'Donnell has mapped out Ulster curriculum design processes for the JISC Baseline Report.

These processes include:

- Course Revalidation
- Course & Subject Management
- Minor Revisions
- Quality Management & Audit
- New Course Approval

Each process has reference information, a framework and support feeding into it - and creates outputs with associated audiences. Fiona Doherty helped illustrate these mapped processes in a series of easy-to-understand colour-coded diagrams.

These diagrams are available to staff in the University of Ulster, in order to help them understand curriculum design processes.

Viewpoints video

2009-10-07T12:14:00.005+01:00

Viewpoints now has a video about the project live on YouTube.

This video was originally created for the JISC Programme Meeting for its Curriculum Design and Delivery projects. All the videos and posters produced for this meeting provide an opportunity for the other projects to get an overview of everyone's work to date.

The video is just over three minutes long and gives an overview of our work to date, including interviews with four stakeholders within the University whose feedback has informed tool development.

Videos from all the other Curriculum Design and Delivery projects can be viewed via JISC's own YouTube channel.

Viewpoints Steering Group meeting

2009-09-25T11:58:00.003+01:00

Viewpoints had its first official steering group meeting today.

Attendees included Viewpoints Director, Dr Alan Masson and Viewpoints staff, Critical Friend Peter Bullen, Ulster University Pro-Vice Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) Professor Denise McAlister, along with other key Ulster staff and attendees from outside the University. Professor Mark Stubbs from Manchester Metropolitan University chaired the group.

The meeting began by discussing possibilities for faculty membership, with Denise suggesting that we work with each Faculty Co-Ordinator to nominate a member of each faculty to work with us.

Discussions then moved into the work schedule over the life of the project – and staff briefly summarized tool developments so far, describing progress on the Student Profiler, Assessment and Feedback tool and the Information Skills tool.

The group also discussed potential accessibility of the potential tools. Suggestions included having specialized user groups for testing, creating an accessible version of the tools as a facilitated workshop, or creating an alternative paper-based version of the tools. It was agreed to investigate this issue further, looking at the work done by TechDis (in particular their work with Xerte).

After a brief discussion on national developments in curriculum design, the steering group meeting was concluded with an agreement to meet regularly every six months for the duration of the project.

Poster Presentation at ALT-C 2009

2009-09-10T12:00:00.012+01:00

Dr Alan Masson presented a poster about the Viewpoints project at ALT-C 2009 today.

This annual Association for Learning Technology conference is being hosted in Manchester from 8-10th September, with the theme ‘In dreams begin responsibility’.

The poster was presented as part of a workshop session entitled ‘Representing and supporting curriculum design at task, module and programme levels’ delivered by the Curriculum Design Programme Cluster Group ‘C’. This group consisted of Alan Masson (University of Ulster), Catherine Owen (University of Strathclyde), Simon Cross (Open University) and was facilitated by Peter Bullen (critical friend to the project cluster).

The workshop session used an interactive poster approach to give participants an overview of the work of the three projects to date. Participants were encouraged to engage with each poster, adding post-it notes and questions about the different project approaches. This stimulated conversations about curriculum design representations whilst considering the challenges for developing these for different audiences. Participants were also encouraged to consider how work done by each project could apply to their own particular context.

The Viewpoints poster illustrates our tool framework of ‘inform’, ‘inspire’ and ‘plan’ which helps academics to create student-centred curriculum design. The poster highlights various key elements of the project, including the emphasis on the student experience, the five different strands of the tool, delivery methods, possible applications, different tool perspectives (Module View and Course View), tool outputs and expected benefits and challenges.

Viewpoints Poster

The poster session provoked a great deal of debate and interest in the Viewpoints project, providing a useful opportunity for wider dissemination and feedback.

Further information on ALT-C 2009:
Keynote speakers and invited speakers sessions are available online via at http://elluminate.alt.ac.uk/ (select ‘Recordings’ for 8th - 10th September).
ALT Twitter channel available at: http://twitter.com/A_L_T.

Feedback on the Information Skills tool

2009-08-05T12:46:00.008+01:00

The Information Skills tool is now at the initial development stage and is now ready for market testing and feedback, so that Viewpoints can develop further versions.

Today Karen Virapen met with Colette McKenna, User Services Librarian, and the team of Sub-Librarians from the University of Ulster. It's important that we get detailed feedback from librarians about the tool at this early stage, as they work closely with academics and students in delivering information skills training.

All the librarians have been invited to an online social network area in Ning, where they can comment on tool prototypes and feed back on any aspects of the design or content.

We hope that collaboration with the library will prove useful in developing useful resources for the Information Skills tool, that will eventually help module co-ordinators and course directors plan their courses.

Progress to date: tool overviews

2009-07-30T16:26:00.006+01:00

Instructional Technologists Karen Virapen and Fiona Doherty presented their tool walkthroughs to the Viewpoints team today. Colette Murphy from Staff Development and Vilinda Ross from Access and Distributed Learning also attended the meeting to give their feedback.

The aim of the meeting was to showcase the work done on the Assessment and Feedback tool and the Information Skills tool to date. Both tools are at the stage of wireframe development, where actions and user choices are drawn out, screen by screen, to show how the tool might function.

Based on the feedback from today, the team will make refinements to the prototype tools , and once the data implications have been considered, make some decisions on possible technologies to use in creating the tools.

Assessment & Feedback Reflective Tool

View more presentations from Viewpoints Project.

Information Skills presentation, 30th July

View more presentations from Viewpoints Project.

Initial market testing of the Assessment & Feedback Reflective Tool

2009-06-19T10:00:00.011+01:00

Fiona Doherty has been meeting with academic staff from across various faculties to carry out some initial market testing of the Assessment & Feedback Reflective Tool. This involves showing a mock-up screenshot of the Assessment & Feedback Reflective Tool and interviewing staff to get their feedback on it.

The staff provide their views on: the tool concept, how to use the tool, potential issues, and the possible application in their own practice – processes such as new course design, revalidation and evidence for staff probation.

This initial market testing has helped to prove the validity of the tool. The feedback will help refine the tool - moving it forward to the wire-framing phase and the development of the tool prototype.

Professor David Boud visits Ulster

2009-06-18T18:00:00.007+01:00

The Centre for Higher Education Practice organised a series of useful events with visiting Professor David Boud this week.

Professor David Boud has been involved in research and teaching development in adult, higher and professional education for over 30 years and has contributed extensively to the literature.

The events this week included:

• Assessment of group work – Case study presentations from Ulster staff
• Research Day – Pedagogic research and getting published
• Assessment Futures – Website resource providing ideas, strategies, examples and support relating to key assessment elements.

The assessment sessions were of particular interest to the Viewpoints project, as David Boud’s literature has informed the REAP principles which are being used in the Assessment & Feedback Reflective Tool. The Assessment Futures resource takes a similar approach to the proposed Assessment and Feedback tool – by beginning with assessment elements and using ideas and examples to encourage reflection and help to enhance practice.

Visit to the University of Strathclyde

2009-06-10T20:00:00.009+01:00

Alan Masson and Fiona Doherty spent today with the Principles in Patterns (PiP) project at the University of Strathclyde. This provided the opportunity to follow up on identified synergies established at the initial cluster CAMEL event in April - giving us the chance to share ideas and practice and allowing for discussion and debate around both projects.

The day began with David Nicols and Catherine Owen briefing us on the REAP change model. They explained how the REAP project supported academic staff by embedding the REAP principles into successful curriculum designs, resulting in measurable improvements and institutional change. In the afternoon Fiona Doherty updated the PiP team on how the Viewpoints project is proposing to make use of the REAP principles and techniques in the Assessment & Feedback Reflective Tool and how all proposed tools will work together at the curriculum design level.

Alan Masson also briefed the team on the various tools developed by the Ulster CETL Institutional E-Learning Services (CIES) including the Hybrid Learning Model, Practice Exchange Repository and the E-Learning Tools & Technologies Database.

We also met up with Sheila MacNeill, Assistant Director, JISC CETIS, to update her on the progress of the Viewpoints project. We discussed many aspects such as: project outputs, base line approach, evaluation process, the projects unique selling point and preferred data schemas. Sheila has posted details of this meeting at: http://prod.cetis.ac.uk/projects/viewpoints

Many thanks to the PiP team, in particular Catherine Owen, for organising and hosting the meeting.

Queen's CED Assessment and Feedback Conference

2009-05-21T16:25:00.004+01:00

Instructional Technologists Fiona Doherty and Karen Virapen attended Queen's CED Assessment and Feedback Conference, held over two days on the 19th and 20th May in the Lanyon Building.

This conference is particularly relevant and timely, as Viewpoints are currently developing an Assessment and Feedback tool as part of their suite of reflective curriculum tools for University staff.

Keynote speakers at this conference were Dr Chris Rust from Oxford Brookes University, and Professor David Nicol from the University of Strathclyde. David Nicol is the director of the REAP project, as well as working on one of the JISC Curriculum Design Projects in our cluster group, PiP (Principles in Patterns).

Both Rust and Nicol stressed the need to engage and empower students regarding assessment and feedback. Both keynote speakers presented ideas of what constituted good practice, along with numerous examples of how to put these principles into practice. Their evidence showed that good assessment and feedback practices enhance learning in the following ways:

Improved student satisfaction
Better student grades
Decreased teaching/preparation time for staff
More enjoyable experiences for staff and students alike.

Queen's academic staff presented a series of interesting and engaging parallel sessions, covering a range of topics such as using Jing screencast software for feedback, skills assessment, online assessment tools and making feedback effective.

JISC Curriculum Design programme meeting

2009-05-13T18:04:00.009+01:00

Viewpoints staff Alan Masson, Fiona Doherty and Karen Virapen attended this one-day JISC Curriculum Design meeting at the Aston Lakeside Centre, Birmingham. 50 delegates from the 12 different Curriculum Design projects were invited.

The theme of the day's workshop was 'Transformation: managing and measuring change'. We looked at change strategies, ways to measure change, and stakeholder engagement.

This event was a good opportunity for the two Instructional Technologists, Fiona Doherty and Karen Virapen, to meet key members of the JISC programme team, including Sarah Knight and Marianne Sheppard.

We also had a chance to talk to delegates from the other JISC-sponsored projects. The final discussion session with our Critical Friend Peter Bullen and members of our JISC cluster group allowed us to follow up ideas from the CAMEL meeting which took place in April. Catherine Owen, Project Manager of the Strathclyde PiP project let us know that the cluster has had a paper accepted for the ALT-C Conference in September of this year.

Stakeholders Engagement meeting with CHEP

2009-05-01T12:50:00.004+01:00

The Viewpoints team were invited to a meeting in Magee to brief staff from two of the Centre for Higher Education Practice working groups, Creativity in the Curriculum and Research and Practice in HE.

This meeting was a chance for the team to brief staff on the work of Viewpoints to date.

Presentations on the day included the following:

Alan Masson gave an introduction and overview of the Viewpoints project.

Viewpoints Briefing 30 April 2009 Am

View more OpenOffice presentations from Viewpoints Project.

Catherine O'Donnell presented her work on curriculum processes within the University.

Curriculum Design Processes

View more OpenOffice presentations from Viewpoints Project.

Karen Virapen demonstrated the beta version of the Student Profiler tool.

Student Profiler Introduction

View more OpenOffice presentations from Viewpoints Project.

Finally, Fiona Doherty talked about the development of the Assessment and Feedback tool.

Assessment & Feedback Reflective Tool

View more OpenOffice presentations from Viewpoints Project.

The meeting generated a lot of useful debate on assessment, student cohorts and curriculum design processes, and the feedback from this meeting will inform future development of Viewpoints tools. We also identified synergies in the work that we are doing and looked at possible ways we could work together with CHEP members.

This is the first in a series of Ulster stakeholder engagement meetings that will take place in the next few months.

CAMEL Meeting, University of Strathclyde

2009-04-21T20:12:00.002+01:00

This two-day event was a chance to re-connect with the other projects in our cluster, for the first time since the programme start-up meeting in October. It was a good opportunity to find out what work was going on in both the PiP project (University of Strathclyde) and the Open University's curriculum design initiative.

On the first day, all three projects introduced the work done so far. PiP are building on the work already done as part of their University's REAP project, and are now busy trying embed the principles within University practice. They aim to do the following:

take a new approach to curriculum design
articulate what is happening now in curriculum design, including the gaps/blocks
streamline institutional processes
discover what materials would be useful for staff.

The Open University are reflecting on what constitutes 'good practice' - good pedagogy, cost-effectiveness and innovation - and they shared information on some of their initiatives to date, including Compendium, a tool for visualising learning designs, and Cloudworks, a social bookmarking tool for academics to share designs.

Feedback on our own presentation was useful and thought-provoking - and highlighted various challenges to our own project, which will inform further work.

The second day's work focused on ways to represent curriculum design and map it at curriculum level - and for a detailed discussion on this, see Gráinne Conole's e4innovation blog.

The CAMEL meeting seems to have created more questions than answers, but it stimulated a lot of lively and often thought-provoking debate!

Visit from our Critical Friend, Peter Bullen

2009-04-03T18:26:00.010+01:00

Today, all the Viewpoints staff met our 'Critical Friend' for our JISC Curriculum Design cluster, Professor Peter Bullen.

Peter currently works as director of the Blended Learning Unit (BLU) at Hertfordshire University, as well as advising the three projects in Curriculum Design Cluster C (University of Strathclyde, the Open University and ourselves).

His role is to give us advice and guidance of what's going on in the sector, encourage us to review our progress, act as an ambassador for the project and to foster links between different projects, where possible.

Our all-day meeting covered a lot of ground. After introductions, Project Director Alan Masson gave a condensed account of the project's aims and direction.

This was followed by a brief presentation of Version 1 of the 'Student Profiler' - an interactive tool to allow staff to think about their student cohort, and the opportunities and risks that might involve. This tool takes the form of a wheel that staff can manipulate to give them an insight into the student group. The simple, yet effective, visual representation lets them think about the course from the student perspective.

Fiona Doherty then presented the second item in development - an interactive tool to help staff with assessment and feedback in their courses. This tool is based around the University of Strathclyde's REAP principles of good assessment, and works by letting staff apply these ideas to a typical student timeline.

Peter was encouraging about the work done so far, and suggested that we be more open about our ideas, showing people outputs as early as possible, in order to get informed feedback early on. To do this, we are creating an invitation-only Ning network online, where we can demo work in beta and get feedback.

Catherine O'Donnell, our Academic E-Learning Consultant and adviser, is involved in mapping all the current curriculum processes in the University - a huge task, but a vital one, as it tells us where Viewpoints work can fit in with current University of Ulster practices.

Peter flagged up our upcoming JISC CAMEL meeting, where our cluster will discuss links, ideas and areas for collaboration. The next CAMEL meeting will take place in Strathclyde in April.

Finally, we talked about stakeholder involvement, thinking about ideas like 'train the trainers' workshops and targeting key figures in each of the academic schools.

It was good for everyone to finally meet Peter and get his perspective on our work - and we look forward to working with him more.

Assessment and Feedback Workshop, Higher Education Academy

2009-04-01T17:26:00.004+01:00

Instructional Techologists Fiona Doherty and Karen Virapen attended the HEA Assessment & Feedback Workshop in York, designed to support the JISC Curriculum Design and Delivery programmes. This one-day event looked at general overarching issues in assessment.

During the day we were presented with examples of how change in assessment has become embedded in the curriculum in institutional practice. Presentations were delivered from the HEA and several universities, all of which are available on the HEA website.

JISC Curriculum Programmes – Case Studies

This event gave us the opportunity to find out more about two other JISC Curriculum programmes, the University of Hertfordshire ESCAPE Project and the University of Westminster eReflect Project.

Mark Russell from ESCAPE talked about how they are mapping technology to learning using Chickering & Gamson’s Principles and mapping technology to assessment using the REAP Principles. This has similarities with current Viewpoints work mapping C&G and REAP to a student timeline. Further information on the ESCAPE project is available at: http://escape-uh-jisc.blogspot.com/

Gunter Saunders, eReflect, University of Westminster explained how the eReflect project is developing a student centred process for reflection on feedback.

REAP Project - embedding good practice principles

Catherine Owens from the University of Strathclyde and Steve Draper from the University of Glasgow talked about the success of the REAP Project. In a case study of 1st year Psychology students, student performance improved considerably after the REAP Project redesigned their assessment and feedback practice based on REAP Principles.

This was a very useful and informative day for our project, as we are currently developing the Assessment and Feedback tool for Viewpoints, and a lot of the information has synergies with the work that we will be doing.

About Viewpoints

2009-03-18T18:00:00.013Z

ABOUT VIEWPOINTS

At Viewpoints, we believe that learners should be at the heart of teaching and learning. But how does this apply when designing a course?

Viewpoints, a JISC-funded project in the University of Ulster, are creating a series of simple, user-friendly reflective tools (both online and workshop versions) for staff to use, promoting and enhancing good curriculum design.

All our services aim to simplify the course design process, bringing key curriculum information and prompts together in a simple, succinct way. Our tools and workshops will help staff think about course development from a fresh new perspective - putting the learner at the centre of any course.

WHAT WE CAN DO FOR YOU

Viewpoints can help staff develop any part of a course - from re-working a module, right up to new course design or course revalidation level.

We focus on four different aspects of course design – assessment and feedback, information skills, student interactions and creativity and innovation. We also help you focus on different key points in the student life cycle - from induction to course completion - and consider how these might affect students' learning experiences. Above all, we help to focus attention on a course from the student perspective.

HOW IT WILL WORK

We will ask staff some simple questions about learners or learning perspectives. Based on these responses, they will be given some prompts and feedback that will help them plan and create better course documents.

Tools like the Student Profiler will focus on key issues, such as: who exactly are your students? What cohort issues (such as size of group, academic issues, etc.) might affect the course and how it is designed or delivered?

The output documents from Viewpoints sessions will let staff reflect on and plan their curricula from a new perspective, helping them to tailor courses to the needs of today's learners. These outputs can also be used to inform students about their particular course.

View/Download PDF - About Viewpoints

Project Team

2009-03-18T18:00:00.006Z

Alan Masson, Director, aj.masson@ulster.ac.uk

Sharon Hayes, Project Administrator, saj.hayes@ulster.ac.uk

Fiona Doherty, Instructional Technologist, fp.doherty@ulster.ac.uk

Karen Virapen, Instructional Technologist, k.virapen@ulster.ac.uk

James Gheel, Senior Systems Developer, j.gheel@ulster.ac.uk

Damien McConville, Academic E-Learning Consultant, d.mcconville@ulster.ac.uk

Catherine O’Donnell, Academic E-Learning Consultant, c.odonnell@ulster.ac.uk

Project Memory

2009-03-18T12:18:00.003Z

As the project progresses, it's become more important to manage the flow of information - and keep a record of what has happened during the project, both for ourselves and for people interested in Viewpoints.

There is a huge variety of online multimedia tools available that promise to simplify information handling - but we've decided to stick with a few well tried-and-tested editing tools.

This blog will be the main public information site - for people both inside and outside the university. It'll be updated regularly by team members, so anyone reading can quickly log on and find out what's happening, or comment online if they want to discuss any issues. Blogging is a great way to track ideas and progress over time, so hopefully readers will get a sense of how Viewpoints is developing.

For internal communication within the project team, we'll be sharing ideas via our Viewpoints wiki - it's a great way to collaborate on group documents and plans, especially if some team members are off-site. It also eliminates the need for multiple emails pinging round - a huge benefit in this age of overstuffed inboxes!

Some of our work in development will be shared via a closed Ning site. (Ning is a platform for creating your own secure social network). Here, stakeholders and key supporters can comment on work in beta.

To share links, useful articles and research we've found that support what we're doing, delicious is a great resource. Delicious is a Social Bookmarking service, which means you can save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people, and see what other people are bookmarking. You can see Viewpoints bookmarks all in one place here.

All our photos are held online - Viewpoints photos can be seen via the photo sharing site Flickr, and in time we hope to add videos on Youtube, to share case studies and digital stories from users.

From time to time we will also share presentations about the project, and these can now be viewed online via Slideshare, an online slide presentation tool. Keep checking back to see if new presentations have been added.

Finally, you can see our sample student timeline by visiting Dipity and scrolling to view the student life cycle at university.

All these tools will help us maintain a project memory and show how work is progressing from week to week.

Understanding our audience: Stakeholder analysis

2009-03-13T19:37:00.002Z

This was another crucial planning day for Viewpoints. This time, our goal was to work out who the important stakeholders are for the project, and how exactly they might inform our work, or spread the word about us.

We started by identifying a list of potential internal (i.e. within the University) and external stakeholders, and then mapped them to a list of categories from the JISC Infonet process review document - Strategic, Managerial, Operational, Direct Influence and Indirect Influence. We added two additional categories - Champion (for people who can promote the project on a wider basis) and Support (for those involved in development with us, who might not necessarily use the tools themselves.)

After today, we have a much clearer picture of the people who can influence the direction of the project and its outputs. We hope to begin meetings with internal stakeholders in the next few weeks.

New Project Administrator appointed

2009-02-23T11:41:00.002Z

Sharon McCaffrey has just been appointed to Viewpoints as the Project Administrator while the current administrator is on sabbatical.

Sharon has nine years of experience in the University of Ulster, working in administrative roles across a range of schools, research institutes and central departments. She is currently working o a part-time Masters in Human Rights Law.

Sharon's interests include social rights issues, civil society engagement and advocacy and human rights issues. She is also a keen animal lover.

Project Planning Day - the first cut

2009-02-20T17:56:00.005Z

With the expanded team in place, four members of Viewpoints - Alan Masson, Fiona Doherty, James Gheel and Karen Virapen - got together for an intensive project planning day.

The point of the day was to clarify some key areas for the project, as well as creating a draft project plan mapping out the process of creating each 'tool'.

We started by brainstorming as many ideas as possible onto a series of Post-Its - then grouped these on a whiteboard, as distinct themes began to emerge.

In Stage 2, we described four important areas -

People (i.e. internal and external groups who could be key to the project)
Outputs (tools and services that we plan to create)
Project Memory (ways to capture plans and record project activities)
Evaluation and Feedback (gauging if Viewpoints has been successful)

After lunch, we created a draft workplan, taking in all the stages of scoping and creating the planned Viewpoints tools and services. It was a productive - if somewhat exhausting - day! No doubt this plan will continue to evolve, but we have a useful starting point for the work to follow.

Two Instructional Technologists appointed

2009-02-02T10:02:00.000Z

Viewpoints have just recruited two new full-time staff to the project. Fiona Doherty and Karen Virapen have been appointed as Instructional Technologists, to work on the multimedia tools and services to help staff think about their curriculum design.

Fiona and Karen have both worked for three years in the University of Ulster in the CETL Institutional E-learning Services (CIES) centre.

They bring a variety of experience in the fields of multimedia design and development, visual storyboarding, online writing and editing, and delivering workshops and educational training. Both are looking forward to taking up their new posts at this key point in the project.

Alan Masson introduces Viewpoints

2009-01-13T13:54:00.003Z

Today, Project Director Alan Masson gave a short presentation on Viewpoints to staff in Access and Distributed Learning in the University. For many ADL staff, this was their first introduction to Viewpoints and its aims - namely, helping staff think about their curriculum design.

Alan gave a brief overview of the project, highlighting the five key strands for examination -

Assessment and feedback
Resources and information management
Communities
Teaching and learning
Module pathways

He also touched on the theoretical basis which will inform Viewpoints work in these five areas - such as the University of Strathclyde's REAP principles and the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy Model.

A full copy of the presentation can be viewed below:

Viewpoints Pitch

View more presentations from Viewpoints Project.

Sharon Hayes leaves

2008-12-24T18:07:00.001Z

The current Project Administrator leaves us on sabbatical for six months.

Programme start-up meeting

2008-10-13T09:52:00.003+01:00

Team members Alan Masson and Sharon Hayes attended the JISC programme start-up meeting at Eynsham Hall, Oxfordshire.

This initial meeting was a great opportunity to meet up with all the different curriculum design projects within the programme and get an overview of what each project is trying to do.