Discover and share good practice for smarter working universities

The right tools for the job: harnessing the power of student voice through HearNow

In this blog Jo Clarkson, Market Research and Insight Manager at the University of Warwick, shares how the HearNow project increased students’ feedback while minimising survey fatigue. The project by gathering students’ opinions as ‘snap-shot’ sentiments through technology and Gamification raised the number of active users from 200 to 13,000 with an average of 50% response rate.

Dilly Fung: making connections at UCL

University College London is pioneering a series of projects to break down the boundaries between teaching and research. Dr Dilly Fung, who leads on these initiatives within UCL, tells Rosie Niven how they are benefiting staff and students.
Collaborative teaching laboratory at the University of Birmingham

How one university is tackling under-utilised teaching spaces

Single discipline teaching labs can often be under used: typically for just 24 weeks per year. Ian Tidmarsh explains how new larger teaching labs at the University of Birmingham aim to provide more flexibility, higher utilisation and thus deliver better value for money.

A new website is born for changing the learning landscape

The Leadership Foundation has launched an area on its website dedicated to the HEFCE-funded project Changing the Learning Landscape, which will highlight technology enhanced learning activities in specific universities as well as tools that can be used to support these developments.

The UK Higher Education Learning Space Toolkit: a SCHOMS, AUDE and UCISA collaboration

This toolkit has been produced by three higher education organisations to help their members share best practice and work more effectively when creating learning spaces. It is intended to serve both as a practical guide and as a source of inspiration in the design of spaces that delight and motivate students, as well as meet their functional needs.
screen grab of phone screen showing social media apps

Social media: “Teaching in HE needs all the innovation it can get”

By encouraging his students to have course discussions on Twitter, Lee Dunn from the University of Glasgow started integrating new technology into his teaching. He shares why he did it and reflects on how that's worked out.

Exploring institutional practices in the post-digital age

The 15th annual Academic Practice and Technology conference included discussions around student engagement and digital provision and provided an opportunity to expand on ideas that can improve the link between students and institutions. Steve Dawes writes on the Association for Learning Technology blog about how the event showed that there is still a willingness to use digital technology to help students individually as well as part of a group.

Giving students power over their learning data

Universities are investing time and money in creating learning analytics systems, but Ed Foster of Nottingham Trent Universities says these systems are only as good to the support given to staff and students who use them.
University Business logo

Five ways video will change universities in 2016

How video is transforming the way tutors interact with students and empowering students to create their own personal curriculum. This article in University Business highlights some of the trends on the educational technological landscape for 2016.

Investing in teaching can create a more efficient university

Good teaching can have a positive impact on a university’s efficiency levels. Lucy Haire of the Higher Education Academy explains the benefits of investing in good teaching.