My blog software has been complaining that my page of Friday messages had been going on too long.

I know how it feels.

Here’s a new page for 2022.

Friday 7th January 2022!

Me protesting outside the Supreme Court of the United States. I’m the one in a mask.

Dear All,

Happy New Year and welcome back. Even a short week can be tiring after a holiday.

I hope that those of you whose festive plans were stymied by omicron still managed to find comfort in hearth and home.

The new year has already brought us two new staff, Ellen Groen and Joe Tomaney, who both bring many years of excellent project management and organisational skills to work on the Online Course Production Service and related projects. Ellen has a background in managing digital applications and communications projects and Joe has been working on major construction projects, most recently with the University’s Estates department.

I know that many of you will have made your new year’s resolution to make the internet less sexist and racist. Please join in our many activities to improve Wikipedia. Ewan has just won a student experience grant for three students to  spend 1 day a week for 12 weeks improving Wikipedia’s coverage of LGBT History, Black History and Gender History. If you would like to be involved in suggesting/sourcing content for that,  or guiding the students, please let me know.

At a city level, Edinburgh.gov are doing a consultation on renaming buildings, streets and statues in response to the history of slavery and colonialism.  They’d be happy to have your opinion on whether this is a good idea. You may have other things ( or people or potential statues) you’d like to suggest.  https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/edinburgh-slavery-and-colonialism-legacy-review-on/

Speaking of colonial legacy, the Queen is giving us an additional bank holiday on June 3 2022. Pop it in your diaries now. Additional leave entitlement for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee | The University of Edinburgh

You will remember that last year, for our LTW lockdown Burns Night celebrations, we named the LTW Scottish Wildcat ( Lady Lawson) and Paul won a free ticket to go and stroke her.  The Zoo have been in touch to find out whether we want to continue with this cat or whether we would like to adopt a different animal mascot this year. If you have suggestions of which animal would best embody LTW in tooth and claw in 2022, let me know.

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday  14th January

Lady Lawson the Wildcat

Dear All,

Well done for another week.

Congratulations to the 23 Things team who have begun dry January by winning a  Merlot design classic award.

And to Digital skills Team for making the top ten most read posts of 2021: https://www.teaching-matters-blog.ed.ac.uk/top-ten-teaching-matters-posts-of-2021/

People are keen to hear your thoughts. ALT would like to hear about how your roles have changed and what your needs in relation to professional development and recognition are. Complete this year’s survey, https://go.alt.ac.uk/ALTsurvey21. Don’t be shy.

It’s not long until we start the annual process of development review, so if you are interested in developing new skills or taking a free online course, please do discuss with your manager soon, you don’t have to wait for your ADR to get started.  There are also a range of  ‘community’ skills to think about  such as being a first aider or fire warden if you would like to add those to your repertoire.

Since the implementation of the University’s Digital Strategy will impact all of us, please familiarise yourself with the Digital Strategy Discussion Document, then use the survey available to give your feedback on the Digital Strategy Digital Strategy (SharePoint)

The team who run Ucreate MakerSpace have been inspired by Repair Shop on the telly and would like to know if you can mend things. In my experience we have a number of people in LTW who  are pretty handy when a thing falls over so please do take a look: https://forms.office.com/r/yzDSecUMSE

If you are missing Argyle House you can see it on the telly if you have BritBox: https://www.britbox.co.uk/programme/Irvine_Welshs_Crime_59933

Sympathies to James Slack who is once again all over the media. Never let it be said that in LTW we don’t know the difference between a work meeting and a party.

Best wishes,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 21st January

The award Stuart won for Academic Development good practice.
The award Stuart won for Academic Development good practice.

Dear All,

Well done and thank you for another week.

In these dark days of January, I am seeing you planning and looking ahead to the summer by submitting half a dozen proposals to Learning and Teaching Conference and  40 adverts for summer interns to join us in LTW.  If you are currently an intern, please tell all your friends to ready their CVs for the best place to work in digital*.

Monday this week was Martin Luther King Day. Many people do not know that MLK applied to Edinburgh in 1950 to do his doctorate here in the school of divinity ‘For sometime now I have had a great deal of interest in Edinburgh, and would like very much to study there’. We did offer him a place but he chose Boston University instead*.

In other #BLM news the fight between the ‘Big Sirs’, Geoff Palmer and Tam Devine continues in the media. The pugilists have taken to their corners and reminders about the University’s Dignity and Respect Policy have been sent*.

It sounds like national advice regarding hybrid working may be set to change again, so we should return to our discussions about how to make AH an easy place to work hybridly.  As we all now know, working in the office can now include parties, drinks trolleys and suitcases of wine, so I’m checking out our new robot colleagues Starship

It’s going to be time to plan for International Women’s Day soon #BreakTheBias International Women’s Day 2022 (internationalwomensday.com)  Please let me know of any role-modelling or mentoring type activities  we can celebrate.

The UCISA awards are open https://www.ucisa.ac.uk/News-and-Blogs/News/2021/December/Awards

You’ll be getting ready to trap and roast a haggis for Burns Night. Last year I noticed that the pictures of haggis on Wikipedia were a bit less than appetising, so if you have more to add, or pictures of your piping in, please do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns_supper  If you find yourself really feeling the Burns you can join in writing in Scots:  https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Have a lovely weekend,

Melissa
Director, LTW*

*fact

 

Friday  4th February

cat
Water Tiger ( Life in the Brogan House)

Dear All,

Well done for another week.

Happy lunar new year. Happy year of the Water Tiger. According to the water tiger we will have a year of prosperity if we exercise strength, exorcise evil and show our bravery.  Standard fare for LTW.

You might think that in the year of the tiger I would adopt for us another large cat. But no, I have adopted for LTW as our spirit animal this year a Pancake Tortoise.  A pancake tortoise has an articulated shell and is more flexible and agile than your average tortoise  Pancake tortoise | Edinburgh Zoo which makes it an excellent match for us.

Its name is Watty. If you would like to see Watty Tortoise ( say it fast) you can win a free ticket to the Zoo in our next LTW baking competition: for Pancake Day (1st March)  the  judges would like you to make a pancake tortoise. It should be brown and yellow and able to camouflage itself when it goes on foraging missions.  Get your best flour and eggs lined up. Delia, James, Geoff and Stratos I’m looking to you for leadership here.

Before we even get to March, February is the month of celebrations and we will be advertising various history and inclusion activities.

Congratulations to Tracy for attracting huge numbers of staff and students to her data programme again, and to the whole team who have a semester 2 programme packed with returning favourites such as basic data visualisations, introduction to reference managers and subtitling for media creators, new courses such as a range of Office 365 essentials courses (available for staff and students both on campus and via webinar), digital research toolkit (webinar), photoshop introduction (on campus), open educational resources: diversifying the curriculum with open education (webinar), and a variety of new Library Bitesize webinars for students.

There will soon be a raft of training for web editors and Bruce has blogged about Our new Web Publishing Platform – what this means for EdWeb editors – Website and Communications Blog

Thank you to everyone helping with finding  a SCORM compliant course authoring tool for People and Money. It’s essential that we are able to recommend a good solution.

Thank you as ever to all of you who spend time helping to recruit new colleagues to the many jobs which need to be filled. I realise it is additional workload, but our people are our best asset and as you know, ed and web technologists are highly sought after due to their unusual appearance and behaviour.

Best wishes, stay safe,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 11th February

hymn
A hymn for those whose VR headsets run low on power.

Dear All,

Well done for another week. Well done to Geoff for securing a new role as Media Studio Manager and to Caitlin and Kathleen for being promoted to Learn Ultra Administrative Assistants.   Sadly we wave goodbye to Milo, but happily welcome Chris who joins us as our new Scrum Master. #AsOne

I trust you all remained safe on Safer Internet Day. The Digital Skills Team created a playlist for you specially https://www.linkedin.com/learning-login/continue?account=50251009

Our Summer Intern Unitemps recruitment has begun in earnest, please use all your finest networks and social media channels to attract the best and brightest of our students to start their career in digital https://www.unitemps.com/branches/university-of-edinburgh/

Take a moment to respond to the ISG Staff Motivation Survey Question I am sure you have some creative responses.

Well done for responding to so many help desk calls. Numbers of calls received are ~25% lower than last year – they have been consistently lower since September – however, volumes remain higher when compared to pre-pandemic years (74% for January 2020 and 18% for January 2019). We’ve seen 42 calls in January to our AV Helpline about Lecture Recording, these calls are all user awareness around ‘how do I ad-hoc record’ or ‘failed to use microphone’, so clearly there are many colleagues who have forgotten.

Thank you for the work you are doing to migrate Teaching Matters blog into blogs.ed to give it more resilience, and thank you for the work you do to write articles for Teaching Matters and the many other blogs and newsletters which swirl around us.

Some very interesting things happening in the hybrid classrooms in Moray House. https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/hybrid_pioneers/wp-content/uploads/sites/5067/2022/01/Hybrid-Pioneers-Interim-Report.pdf

You will remember that there were 3 senior academic posts being recruited. We now know that Kim Graham (Provost) will come from Cardiff and Sarah Prescott (VP CAHSS) will come from University College Dublin. It’s always worth taking a look to see what learning technology is going on in those places so that we can help them to understand how what we provide is similar or different. Iain Gordon will be VP CSE, I think we know what technology he is used to.

Best wishes, stay safe,

-Melissa
Director, LTW

Friday 18th February

Picture taken by me at the water’s edge. No rights reserved by me.

Dear All,

Well done for another windy week. Placards were fair flying off the picket line. For some reason strikes do often co-incide with bad weather and school holidays.

Just a short note to note we now have an LTW short URL https://edin.ac/ltw

Thank you to Nick, Christopher, Christopher, Suzanne and Alistair who brought the General Council back to campus after 2 years online.

I hope you remembered to #lovedata and celebrate the patron saints of metadata on Valentine’s Day. St Cyril and St Methodius will be glad of your support. https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/melissa/tag/valentines/

If you like to celebrate,  the Catalyst Awards are now open again: https://www.anthology.com/catalyst-awards as are the  nominations for Scotland Digital Tech 2022. https://www.scotlandis.com/digitaltech/

A bad week for our colleagues in Art Collections, the family want the semi-naked Sean Connery painting ( currently on display in the Principal’s house) back https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10507793/Bitter-row-breaks-painting-young-Sean-Connery-swimming-trunks.html and for colleagues in Medical School comms who illustrated their #LGBTHM22 tweets about James Barry with a picture of Joseph Barry –  an entirely different person! https://twitter.com/EdinUniMedicine/status/1493958726453186571

Interesting piece in WonkHE highlighting the fact that very few academic staff have ever had any teacher training https://wonkhe.com/blogs/teaching-in-higher-education-should-be-professionalised/  important, because any of you who are trained teachers should not be shy about having that expertise.

We have a new site for ISG Managers featuring a range of information and resources relating to recruiting and managing students https://uoe.sharepoint.com/sites/ISGCorporatePeople/SitePages/Student-Recruitment.aspx

Despite the strikes the university seems to be nearly back up to full speed and the sports activities are open to you and your families ( see below).  If you stay home, be careful not to move fast and break things: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/12/rising-popularity-of-vr-headsets-sparks-31-rise-in-insurance-claims

Stay safe,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 25th February

Dear All,

Well done for another week.

It was lovely to see many of you together in Argyle House for a big collaborative session to plan for our roll out of the upgraded VLE. It was great to see the levels of energy in the room as we tried to predict what could possibly go wrong.

Another big turn-out was seen at the Web Editors community, indicating that the messages about the need to ready yourselves for migration are getting through.  ISG and LTW will be part of this migration, so start now getting rid of old content on unloved web pages.

Speaking of messaging, we have adverts out for a new comms officer,  new AV technicians, project administrators, training consultants and student interns.  Please  share these adverts on your social networks to help us attract the best people to these roles.

Please make sure that everyone in your team knows why putting a hyperlink on the word ‘here’ is not acceptable practice.

Despite the challenges of P&M, we have been lucky to recruit to some key roles recently, and we welcome Fiona Buckland as our new manager in EDE .

We also wave goodbye to Duncan McGruer. Duncan has been here 17 years, man and boy, but his skills are now needed elsewhere.  ScotGov’s gain is a huge loss for us.

It has been a tough week in pay and pensions. It is very common for many of us to pay very little attention to the pension we think will be there when we finish a career working in education, but it is always worth checking.   The university deducts vast amounts of money from pay packets during a strike and when strikes are unsuccessful campaigns colleagues feel understandably bruised and disinclined to take part in university wide change projects.

On top of this, it is hard not to be deeply moved by the news coming out of Ukraine. The university is such an international community we always know that someone amongst us will have friends and family affected by conflicts and crises around the world whether covered in the news or not.

Stay safe,

Melissa
-Director, LTW

Friday 4th March

chuffed to be on the same page as the First Minister
chuffed to be on the same page as the First Minister

Dear All,

Thank you and well done for another week.  I realise that there is a certain level of anxiety around regarding the imminent big P&M switcheroo. Please make sure you have completed or extended any live job adverts and recruitment processes and cross your fingers that payroll completes.

The ISG directors discussed hybrid working plans again this week and I am told that more colleagues will be visible in Argyle House soon. The university seems to be moving towards a vague position of having ‘most staff back most of the time’. Make sure you book the rooms you need for meetings. Remember, if you are working on campus with windows open you can request a winter-warming-hybrid-working-hoodie voucher from me.

If you have new recruits who have not yet had their tour of Argyle House nor an explanation of the not random images which are stuck on the windows of the meeting rooms, now’s the time.

It’s timely too because  it’s International Women’s Day next week and one of the meeting rooms has a female nude. People sometimes query if that work is work appropriate.

When we first moved to Argyle House one of my hopes was that we would take the opportunity afforded by the move to Argyle House to display more artwork created by women artists.  We do have a substantial university art collection and we commission new works. If you have used the meeting rooms you will have been immersed in an installation by Fabienne Hess.  The images on the glass walls of our meeting suite is a whole work by Hess, she was commissioned as part of the refurbishment the office spaces to create a work featuring images of existing objects of University collections. The process of digitizing, which started in the summer of 2012, has involved photographing diverse items, from ancient manuscripts to musical instruments, anatomical drawings to historic maps. Throughout the process Fabienne  created a series of ‘sub-collections’- these groupings, put together in arbitrary themes such as those images containing a red dot, those featuring a person raising an arm, a triangular shape, a certain shade of blue, black and white stripes etc, to create a set of ‘new’ collections. One of these new collections is the installation you are in.  Take a moment to look next time you are in.

Best wishes, stay safe,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 11th March

an LTW hoodie in the wild
an LTW hoodie in the wild

Dear All,

Well done and thank you for another week.  Thank you to those of you working behind the scenes to save data from Ukraine.

Can you believe it is two years now since we left Argyle House and began to build our home office chairs?

Another change in restrictions is imminent. Hundreds of lectures are being livestreamed across the campus each week. When there is no longer any limit on how closely packed students can be in lecture theatres it will be interesting to see how many do.

With restrictions easing and the university calling people back (again), please make sure you have a hybrid working experiment arrangement in place if you want to keep working sometimes from home.

Thank you to those of you who participated in Open Education Week and International Women’s Day. It was lovely to see new Wikipedia pages being added,( Dagny Holm – Wikipedia), witches being pardoned and Digital Skills teaching restarting in our inspirationally-named AH classrooms.  If you are new to LTW, ask a colleague to explain about Eleanor Ormerod, Brenda Moon, Grace Hopper, Xia Pesu, Annie Numbers, Mary Somerville, Marjorie Rackstraw and Irene Young.   Any LTW veterans who do not know the answers should see me immediately.

For those of you who watch social media you may have seen the gender pay gap bot actively shaming organisations who do not see the connection between celebrating women and paying them fairly Twitter gender pay gap bot calls out companies on International Women’s Day – The Washington Post

Thank you as ever to those of you who craft papers and contribute to the many consultations, strategy groups and committees.
Thank you as ever to those of you on the front line dealing with enquiries and grumbles.
Thank you to all of you who have nominated each other for recognition and  rewards.
Thank you in advance to all who join in on recruiting and supporting our summer intern cohort.
It is important work.

Have a lovely weekend,

Melissa

Dir, LTW

Friday 18th March

Dr Madden presenting and representing.
Dr Madden presenting and representing.

Dear All,

Thank you for another week. As the crisis in Ukraine continues the government is trying to decide if online distance learning counts as exports to Russia and our partner platforms are opening up their content to learners from Ukraine.

I am just back from my first face to face conference in 2 years and realising that I have lost the essential skills and muscle memory for balancing a lunch plate, cutlery, drink and laptop while standing in heels, reading a tiny name badge and making polite conversation.

The conference had live signing and captions but it was still a shock to remember how hard it is to read text on slides from the back of a room.  BSL training if you are interested: https://www.ed.ac.uk/about/british-sign-language-plan/bsl-awareness-training

EDE will be hosting a visitor from Helsinki next week, so it feels like university exchange life is starting to return again.

Satu is recruiting again for contributors for this year’s Digital Skills Festival, this year’s Festival will be delivered in a hybrid format, with a programme of online and in-person events running throughout the week. If you have a thing you think staff or students should know how to do, please sign up by Friday25th March: https://forms.office.com/r/9RQiK5Nxeq

Please do a last push to get the message out to students who could begin their careers in digital through an internship with us.

The Students Association have had their annual round of elections, see if you can spot any names you recognise or would like to invite to your project steering groups. The new roles start in June. https://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/yourvoice/elections/results

If you like air and space and planes, you are invited by the University Protocol office attend the Mountbatten Lecture – The Royal Air Force in 2022; at the Leading Edge Tickets, Thu 14 Apr 2022 at 17:15 | Eventbrite

Sadly our pensions and pay continue to be eroded, so no change there. Strikes again next week.

Have a good weekend and please take a moment to rebook your summer travels avoiding P&O.

Stay safe,

-Melissa

Dir, LTW

Friday 25th March

Dear All

Thank you for another week of work.  Well done for successfully increasing the number of Liams in DLAM. All welcome.

It was lovely to see so many of you at the watch party in AH for the ISG all-staff meeting.  Piles of snacks and LFTs were on offer and quickly taken.

You will have seen in Gavin’s slides that the hybrid working experiments are back on again for all Directorates, so please make your sure your manager knows when you will be coming in.  All Directors have been asked to report on when staff will be back. Most staff said they wanted some elements of hybrid working in the future, so I am pleased that we are nearly there. Once you are all equally feeding your experiences into our data I will be in a good position to establish working patterns in our services for the medium and longer term.

Our next door neighbours have suffered a cyber-attack Heriot Watt Cyber Attack so please check your doors and windows.

In the warm weather the campus has been lively again. There is a spring sale on at the hoodie shop so if you haven’t used your vouchers yet, now is the time. Sale (ed.ac.uk)

The Library and study spaces are busy and the food trucks are up at KB. Some huge new buildings have been added and the hedgehogs who had the campus to themselves during lockdown are not amused.

Students are occupying Gordon Aikman, and they are holding hostage one of the largest projection screens in Scotland and a state of the art sound system . One student who has spent every night inside Gordon Aikman this week said: “It’s been an amazing space with a great atmosphere.”  Inside Gordon Aikman,  so that’s a quote for the LST service web page.

Old College is also occupied today and students have chained the gates so colleagues in the Law Library will be heading back to the Main. The Main library used to be known as the Litill Library after Clement Litill who gave the first books in 1580, but people got confused by such a large building.

Computing magazine would like you to apply for one of their awards Computing Awards 2022 and if you identify as under 30 there are categories just for you:  Thirty under 30 – Learning Technologies 2022

I am sure you will have seen the sad news that the inventor of gifs has died and will respond accordingly.

‘He helped shape the modern world’: gif inventor Stephen Wilhite dies

Have a good weekend,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 1st April

Dear All,

Thank you for another week. Welcome to Miki who has joined us in DLAM this week and to Sian, Kirsty and Eleanor who are working with Ewan improve Black, Gender and LGBT herstory on Wikipedia.

The unions are balloting again for more strikes and no sooner had we reclaimed the Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre (GALT), when we lost Evolution House. The flood damage in there is worse than first thought.

I am enjoying reading all the reward nominations. Thank you to those who did the work to write them for your colleagues.

Speaking of reading, the ISG Reading group have another intriguing topic for us all. On Wednesday 13th April 12.30-13.30 we will be discussing Scammers, Girlbosses and Entertainment looking at recent high profile scandals involving fraudsters such as Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvey. The resource list has now been updated and contains a number of articles of interest. Please feel free to engage with as many of these as you are interested in (and have time for). Join the meeting from the Teams channel or using the link: ISG Reading Group meeting For those of you in the office on Thursday April 14th  the ISG Reading Group will be having a social lunch. Let Lilinaz know if you would like to come along.

After 18th April face coverings will no longer be a legal requirement but the Scottish Government will continue to encourage use in public transport and communal areas.   Wearing face coverings will be a personal choice of students, colleagues and visitors. Some people will be happy with this change, others will be more anxious, please continue to treat each other with consideration, respect and compassion.

School exams are coming back, as are charges for single–use coffee cups and rising fuel prices. If warm offices and good coffee are attractive to you, make sure you engage with the various groups discussing the refit of Argyle House  for hybrid working.

You will remember that there is a bunch of mandatory training which we all have to do each year to reassure the University (and each other) that we know what we are doing.  Everyone in LTW gets time to do this training during work hours. We do  however, spend a bunch of extra time chasing you up to get it done. This year as an experiment, I am going to designate a Mandatory Training Day (MTD). It is the training which is mandatory rather than the day, but if we pick a specific day and put it in everybody’s diary, no-one will feel that they don’t have time.  To coincide with Learning at Work Week 2022, I am designatingFriday 20 May 2022 as LTW Mandatory Training Day (LTWMTD).  If you do not work Fridays, pick another day that week and tell your line manager which one you have chosen.  Kevin will send out a list of all the training which you have to do. It’s all online.   If you are in AH on Friday 20 May I will provide coffee and snacks. You are welcome to sit in groups and compare your answers. If you are at home, you are welcome to ask other member of your household for their thoughts on your answers.  By the end of the day (barring system collapse) we will all have completed all the training and we will all know what needs to be known about data security, EQIAs, bullying, bribery and corruption.

If you like a bit of new tech,  James Dyson has got us covered. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/30/dyson-launches-zone-air-purifying-bluetooth-headphones-with-visor

Be sure to complete the commuter survey 2022 Commuter Travel Survey (onlinesurveys.ac.uk)it crashed yesterday due to excessive traffic but seems quicker this morning.

Best wishes for Ramadan and Autism Awareness Week.

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 8th April

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.  Welcome to Richard who has joined LST, and get well soon to those of you currently managing covids, slipped discs, frozen shoulders, flu and other assorted ailments and pains. Thank you to everyone who pitched in to hold EdWeb together at the start of the week. April is the cruellest month and a return to cold weather probably isn’t helping.

Good to see our spring content has been thriving, the Interactive Content team have provided 200 copies of their latest University of Edinburgh colouring book to the Edinburgh Cares project.https://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/undergraduate/access-edinburgh/carers-care-experience and our open textbook has been downloaded a thousand times since it was published in October. Fundamentals of Music Theory | Edinburgh Diamond

You may be interested to read the Lothian Lockdown diaries Lothian Lockdown: The Lothian Diary Project – Investigating questions of public health, media and communication among residents of Edinburgh and the Lothians in relation to COVID-19  or the first few issues of ‘The Student’ “The Student, issues 1-12” (ed.ac.uk)

ALT are keen to get you involved in their annual conference committee Call for Conference Committee for #altc22 | Association for Learning Technology

It was lovely to see some of you in the alumni group of our ‘Renew You’ women’s development programme. If you are interested in women’s development programmes and would like me to restart these in Argyle House, please let me know.

Thank you to all of you involved in recruiting and selecting our summer intern cohort class of’22, and to those of you who attended Learn Ultra Bootcamp and everyone involved in running our first community ‘Design-a-thon’ https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/website-communications/design-systems-inaugural-designathon/

Have a good weekend,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 15th April

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.

Karen has blogged https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/khowie/2022/04/11/how-work-etiquette-has-changed/ so has Tracey Learn Ultra Base Navigation: accessibility & inclusion – Educational Design and Engagement  and so have I The upgrade of Learn VLE to Learn Ultra at The University of Edinburgh  blog  and the total number of University of Edinburgh WordPress blogs has increased by 38% since March 2021.

Thank you for all your service and service reports.  We had 41 Lecture Recording related calls to our AV Helpline this month, these were all around user awareness, academic staff returning to campus and trying hybrid teaching.  1st line support volumes across LTW services are 27% lower than last year. Volumes have been consistently lower month on month compared to the 20-21 Academic Year, but are still 10% higher than the pre-pandemic year. Hybrid teaching in action at University of Edinburgh. March saw 5,532 lecture recordings on campus, of which 841 were live-streamed. This is the largest number of live streams from campus lecture theatres in any month.  2.14 million minutes of born-digital online learning content was viewed in March. Content views in LinkedIn Learning and our Digital Skills Programme are down, which may be attributed to factors such as industrial action, increased workloads or general digital fatigue. Use of TopHat for attendance is up compared to last year (+3025%) and is approaching the same level as in 2020. Our course design teams ran sessions for staff designing new Dissertation courses for the Usher Institute and 2 Accessibility/Universal Design for Learning training workshops this month. We used MyEd to notify staff and students of important service updates. The VPN password alert published w/c 21/03 had over 4,700 clicks from users. EdWeb was out for 17 minutes in March, but the team recovered it quickly, thank you.

The Principal promised us more money, which was nice, given what colleagues lose when they strike and the rising costs of living. I have heard from some of you that you find the Principal’s town hall meetings depressing, others enjoy seeing the range of robust voices.  Do take care of yourselves, join collective action to improve the place  and don’t let this stuff ruin your week.  If there are things we can do in LTW which help to make work enjoyable, please let me know.

Hot buns crossed for a quiet weekend. I hope your Easter eggs are rolling and your Passover Seder is in good order.

Best wishes,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 22nd April

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.  Welcome to Mark who has joined EDE, and thank you to all the managers bringing in new desks and new laptops for our incoming wave of student interns and summer contractors.

I hope you have been enjoying the activities of the Science Festival  Homepage – Edinburgh Science (sciencefestival.co.uk) Today is Earth Day 2022 ,  a good day to  embark on one of our many earth MOOCs https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/1_g41cxdfp

I sent around some ‘mood boosting’ activities from the sports and exercise centre if you would like to partake as an individual or as a team. If you prefer the arts I hope some of you will join me at the opening of the ‘Student of Light’ exhibit (see previous email). If you are in Glasgow, our consultant Sheila McNeill is having an exhibition of her work  at Nicolls Gallery (656 Dumbarton Road) opening tonight. Vote for Stewart’s Lego mouse party birthday cake here: LEGO IDEAS – Celebrating 90 years of play in LEGO House! – Celebrate: LEGO Mouse Party. Pop the dates of the ECA degree show in your diary ECA Graduate Show 2022 | Edinburgh College of Art

If the link works you can watch Emma Carroll’s TEDX talk about our wiki witches 2022 Conference: Riddle Me This | TEDxStAndrews  , or listen to Ewan’s podcast Podcast: Wikimedia and History (40 minutes) – Teaching Matters blog.

If you would like to help update the Jisc digital capability framework and the role profiles  JISC would love to have your feedback into their survey: https://jisc.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/jisc-role-profiles-review

Have a lovely weekend,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 29th April

Dear All,

Thank you for another week. Please take a moment to check in P&M that you got paid this month.

Congratulations to Tracy for being nominated for a EUSA Teaching Award. Congratulations to Satu for getting lovely feedback from her group on the leadership programme.

Welcome Kendal, Scott, Darren and Alan who have joined our rapidly expanding EDE teams and thank you all for summer intern recruitment and selection.

Congratulations to the teams working on our “How to create an online course” course, it has attracted 5,345 enrolments which is pretty darn good and shows that there is continued opportunity for the University to position itself as a leader in the online learning practice.

When you come into AH remember to:

  • Clean your hands regularly
  • Respect each other’s personal space
  • Wear a face covering indoors
  • And stay home if you’re unwell

You can help raise awareness of University Covid guidance by promoting Play Your Part in your area. To support this, they have created a folder with assets, including text and graphics, that you can use. This also includes a link to the Scottish Government’s Covid Sense campaign:  Play Your Part and Covid Sense assets

 The University has been ranked 6th in the UK and 29th in the world for its positive impact on the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2022/university-ranks-sixth-in-uk-for-positive-impact

If you are coming in for Gavin’s Free Lunch on Monday,  I recommend bringing a handy Tupperware ™ box, just in case there are left-overs.

It looks like it is all kicking off on the Freedom of Speech blogs. Thank you again to those previously involved in developing the take-down policy. I am glad to have it now.

Remember to cast off the darkness and celebrate the light for Beltane and also to vote on 5th May.

Stay safe,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 13th May

flowers being fabulous.

Dear All,

Well done and thank you for another week.

Thank you for the blogs and articles you have been writing for Times Higher Digital, for Teaching Matters and in support of our service developments. These writing tasks are so important for making our work discoverable and helping people beyond LTW ( or in LTW) to know what you do and the impact your work has.

Speaking of impact, you’ll see the University is rightly chuffed with the results of the REF. Even if you don’t think your work is particularly related to the REF itself, I can assure you that the general level of happiness, funding, investment and support for colleagues seems to cheer up immensely when we do well. A good REF result also raises the ‘external view’ of our status as a university and perhaps as a place to work, so this all feeds into our interest in attracting and retaining staff.

Speaking of attracting staff we are recruiting an assistant web developer Assistant Web Developer – University of Edinburgh Jobs Careers (oraclecloud.com) please tell your friends.

I know you will all have next week’s mandatory training day in your diaries. As I’m sure you know,  the word ‘assessment’ derives from the Latin for  ‘to sit beside with snacks’ so if you would like to do the training with provisions, be sure to reply to Kevin’s email.  It will be a chance to reflect on your approach to learning. Are you the kind of person who goes straight to the assessment to test what you already know, or do you like to work through the content learning deeply?  Are you interested in intrinsic or extrinsic reward? Are you a speed learner online or mostly motivated by cake in the workplace? As you learn you might reflect on what elements of these online eLearning packages show good quality course learning design, and which do not?

Speaking of quality, if you have time when you are on campus, do stop in at the ‘Main’ Library and check out the Robert Blomfield photography exhibition, it’s fun to look at these pictures taken by a student in the 1960s to see how much ( or little ) has changed.

Best wishes,

-Melissa
Director, LTW

Friday 20th May

training with mandatory snacks.

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.  I won’t write a long message because I know you are all fully immersed in your mandatory training. Thank you for doing that.

Sadly we wave goodbye to Kelly this week after many years of being a delight around the office.

Enjoying the summer weather, Edina have invented a new app to tell you if the carparks are full before you head to the East Lothian beaches:

Experts support new tool promoting tourism | The University of Edinburgh

In other local news, after a 3 year gap the Canal festival is back. If you have a team and a raft: Edinburgh Canal Festval – Edinburgh Canal Festival

 In very local news, the Digital Skills festival is back: Home | Digital Skills Festival – The University of Edinburgh

And the book festival will be back at ECA imminently: Home | Edinburgh International Book Festival (edbookfest.co.uk)

Have a lovely weekend,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 27th May

it will rise with the moon

Dear All,

Well done for another week.

I notice that the exceptional salary payment has been perfectly timed to co-incide with the upgrade to Learn Ultra, so many good things on the same day! Remember next week has TWO Bank Holidays in it, if you like that kind of thing.

There has clearly been some conferencing going on. Good to see social media coverage when you are out and about.

The postgraduate online recruitment fayre in Events Air attracted the biggest numbers yet and the most popular session in the digital skills fest is Ari and Eboni doing Tik Tok and Instareels. Paul has been networking with the CEO of Anthology and we have several vendors visiting at start of June.

Those of you presenting at the University of Edinburgh Learning and Teaching Conference will have your slides ready, and anyone wanting to present at ALT-C or Open Apereo, check in with your manager.

Only a couple of days left to get your mandatory training completions in to win a fabulous team prize.

Have a lovely weekend.

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 3rd June

Dear All,

Well done for another week. Lovely to see Argyle House resplendent in Jubilee bunting and ‘The Shows’ back in the Meadows.  Welcome to a fabulous group of summer interns who join us to do good works and make the world a better place.  Welcome also to Fiona who will now lead our academic comms strategy.  Sadly we waved goodbye to Martin who interned with us for many years and has now gone off to embark on his new career.

Thank you to everyone who organises and delivers sessions in the Digital Skills Festival ( DSF) . Final numbers are still coming in, but it has been a huge success, building and growing from last year. 36 sessions (out of 60 total) were delivered by you from LTW. That is a huge contribution to  up-skilling our community. Thank you to all the trainers and managers who manage this on top of usual workloads.   It is great to see the spread of people signing up to learn core applications as well as new social media tools.   It is also great to see the range of experiments going on to reach new audiences.  For the Post Graduate Online Open Day  ( PGOOD ) the Student Recruitment and Admissions (SRA) team used Mary’s Short Message Service (SMS) to nudge the people who had signed up and we saw higher conversion rate (from sign up to attendee) this year compared to 2021, so it might be that SMS texts were the cause of this. Our  “Why choose the University of Edinburgh fireside chat session with Melissa and Lauren” was amongst the highest live attended sessions hosted, with 76 people joining us.  Lauren’s “How do you learn online and an intro to the VLE” did even better, attracting 87  attendees.  Which is nearly as many as Ari and Eboni got for “TikToks and Instagram Reels”.

The support for Learn Ultra early adopters is shaping up really well, hundreds of exams and assessments were delivered online and I can see a raft of new graduates coming through the “Developing Your Data Skills” programme.

This week is National Volunteers Week. Please do remember that you get a day off ( each year) as a gift from the University to do volunteering. It is a day for you to use for any kind of volunteering, it doesn’t have to be for a team volunteering activity. I used mine to attend an all-day training session for a charity board on which I sit. The training day was on a week day, so this extra day of special leave from the university made it possible for me to attend without using my annual leave.   If any of you are stuck for ideas about what kind of organisations would welcome you as a volunteer there is a very useful website home – Volunteer Edinburgh .

We (LTW) also have a longstanding relationship with Wikimedia UK through Ewan, our Wikimedian in Residence (WiR) and he’d be happy to show you how to volunteer your time into improving content online.  I have also contacted the Sustainability and Social Responsibility Team ( SRS) to see if they would like help planting trees or counting hedgehogs. Watch out for a rustle in your hedgerow.

When you are in the office wed-fri next week, book yourself a slot to visit the degree show for creative inspiration:

ECA Graduate Show 2022 | Edinburgh College of Art Graduate Show 2022

Have a lovely weekend,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 10th June

Dear All,

Thank you for all your work for another busy week.  It is lovely to see and welcome so many of our summer interns into LTW, thank you to all the teams and managers who make this valuable work experience possible, and thank you to all those who do these jobs. We are lucky to have you.

Thank you in advance to all of you presenting sessions or posters at the University of Edinburgh Learning and `Teaching Conference next week . Come along to see your teams ‘Live at McEwan Hall’. Make sure the AV teams have your chosen entrance music lined up for when you come on stage.

I am delighted to see that our ISG makerspace team are offering a drop in ‘making and repair’ session as part of the conference: https://universityofedinburgh.eventscase.com/EN/learningandteachingconference2022/Exhibitors-and-Posters a Repair Café – a space for staff, students and the wider community to come and learn how to fix their broken goods and breathe new life into items previously destined for landfill. Very cool.

If you are a maker yourself, you can also check out the University of Edinburgh craft community on Teams, https://teams.microsoft.com/l/channel/19%3ac9c510cb829a48ac9ddd030950538377%40thread.tacv2/General?groupId=763bc914-fbac-434f-9b4f-28c258550264&tenantId=2e9f06b0-1669-4589-8789-10a06934dc61  so many ideas for exchanging craft creations and kit.   If you would like to get started with digital making, our kit-loan service, maker spaces and virtual world holodecks are all open again in the Main (Littl) Library https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/help-consultancy/ucreate

If you are a creator of digital content for social media, let me know because it would be lovely to showcase this at LTW all staff meeting, which you will now have in your diaries in mid-July.  For those of you new to LTW, it is our mid-summer gathering to celebrate the longest days and the best achievements of the year.

If you are new to LTW and wish to catch up with my archive of Friday messages, make yourself a large cup of tea and read our story of lock down here: https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/melissa/messages-to-my-staff/  If that inspires you to start your own blog, you are very welcome to https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/  You are not alone.

Train strikes are imminent. ( or perhaps not  ScotRail agrees 5% pay deal with train drivers’ union – BBC News). Make sure you let your manager know if this is going to cause you disruption in getting to the office.

Best wishes,

-Melissa

Friday 17th June

Dear All,

Well done and thank you for another week . Lots going on.  Thank you especially to the DLAM and service support teams today.

Welcome back to Hazel, who will be helping to ensure that our job adverts are as attractive as they can be. We will be starting new projects for the new academic year in August so if you have jobs ready to be advertised over the next few weeks let me know.

We will also be advertising our new ‘movie mooc’. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/how-to-create-video-for-online-courses   I am so pleased to see LTW colleagues showcasing and sharing your skills to the world via our MOOC platforms.  Just a reminder, we are always looking for people to feature in our photography, snippets and trailers. Those of you considering beginning/extending your career as a model, actor or voice-over artist, our media production teams will be happy to hear from you.  Welcome also to Safiya who is joining us for work experience to develop her photography portfolio and help us with new content for our digital influencing.

To help us get our messages out we have  2 shiny new brochures beautifully designed by our graphics design service. Thank you to all who helped to put them together. The new brochures showcase our University of Edinburgh programme of short online courses and the open educational resources which we release for free to everyone around the world. The brochures are very useful for giving to visitors and for stalls at fayres . They were ‘going like hotcakes’ at MacEwan Hall this week, as were the Digital Skills fans and various fluffy gonks.  Thank you to all who staffed our stands.  Please check out the full range of LTW merchandise and Jenni will be happy to hear any suggestions for more.   If you are working in Argyle House, or out and about on campus and you would like a voucher for a hybrid working hoodie to keep yourself warm through the Scottish summer, ask your manager today,  they will know what to do.

Speaking of hybrid working, the University is keen to gather your views. We would like to hear from you about your experience of working in the University right now, and invite you to complete the survey below, which complements the Hybrid and Home Working survey that was carried out last year. It will take around 15 minutes to complete and will remain open until 25 June. Lilinaz is part of the research team and I assume they are just as happy to hear from ‘students as staff’ since you are here with us as interns.  Please do:    Access the Hybrid Work 2022 survey

To help us ensure that our messages are inclusive the university has published an Inclusive Language Guide. Read about it on the Web Team blog:   https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/website-communications/inclusive-language-guide-published/

If you are travelling for Pebblebash, ALT Scotland, SCHOMS or any other events, check your travel policy and trains carefully.  If you are a fan of slow travel, paddling, or life on the water, I’ll see you at the canal festival on Saturday https://edinburghcanalfestival.org.uk/

Have a good weekend,

Melissa

Director, LTW

 

Friday 24th June

Dear All,

Well done for another week. Welcome to Charlie who has joined DLAM and welcome back to Jen of Web, great to have you both as part of the team.

The longest summer days have been long days for everyone working with Learn in preparation for a big switch-on of the new navigation (UBN) next week.

The LST team have been down in Durham  at the SCHOMS conference and supplier fayre. I hope they will bring home a new range of shiny gadgets for us to try in our classrooms.

We hosted  digital humanities visitors from Michigan interested in our wicca wiki data.  You can join us to edit Wikipedia this afternoon Women in Red event – adding inspiring women missing from Wikipedia Tickets, Fri 24 Jun 2022 at 13:00 | Eventbrite or come along to find out why this kind of work is important Recovering Histories, editing Wikipedia & information activism Tickets, Fri 1 Jul 2022 at 13:00 | Eventbrite

EDUCAUSE would like your opinion on the top technology issues affecting higher education  IT Issues 2023 (alchemer.com)

ALT would like you to join their board 2022 Annual General Meeting and Trustee elections | Association for Learning Technology (alt.ac.uk)

ALT would also like you to nominate yourselves, projects and teams for awards 2022 Learning Technologist of the Year Awards | Association for Learning Technology (alt.ac.uk)  We have won these awards in the past, so take a look at the criteria and discuss it in your team. Don’t be shy.  We have also won OE Global awards and I am always happy to win more if we want to go in again, because I have no doubt that your work is world-class. About OE Awards – OE Awards for Excellence (oeglobal.org)

Have a lovely weekend,

-Melissa

Friday 1st Juy

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.

The University is about to launch a new student support model, which brings with it a raft of new Student Advisers and Wellbeing Advisers in the Colleges, Schools, and Student Experience Services. If you happen to meet any of these new colleagues, please take the opportunity to tell them about the services LTW offers.

As the city fills up again with tourists, if you have friends and family visiting, why not take advantage of the splendid Curious Edinburgh walking tours which we support http://curiousedinburgh.org/community-tours/ , or use our historic map to locate your nearest accused witch http://witches.is.ed.ac.uk/

In addition to the special payment which was awarded by the University to staff this week in recognition of the considerable work done to keep our university (and higher education more widely) going during the pandemic, I am very pleased to say that many LTW staff have been awarded additional lump sums and increments in the annual rounds of reward and recognition.  The award letters have not quite appeared yet, but will be a lovely surprise for many when they do. Well done, All.

If you are keen to stay up to date with all the goings-on in higher education, do remember that the university has a subscription – free for you- to the Times Higher Education Supplement  online and I encourage any or all of you to follow Wonkhe  https://wonkhe.com/

Have a lovely weekend,

-Melissa

Director LTW

Friday 8th July

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.  It’s graduation season and the prosecco bars are back in Bristo Square. If you missed the earlier sweepstake for the Grand National, get your runners and riders ready for the Tory leadership race.

Thank you to you all for getting your annual development reviews (ADR) done. It’s important that everyone has a chance to review, plan and highlight any additional training or development needs. Don’t be shy.

If you sometimes have your lunch or coffee over at ECA your chances of bumping in to a famous author are about to increase considerably. Book your tickets for the book festival now, https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on

Join us on the 13thJuly at the ISG reading group to discuss the experience of Gen Z workers. If you think you might be a Boomer, a Millennial, or Generation X,Y or Z please do come along and share your thoughts on stereotypes and assumptions of cross-generational cultural shift.   The Resource List has now been updated and contains a number of articles as well as a podcast and a film.

This will be the twentieth meeting of the reading group, thank you to all who make it such an interesting, lively and nuanced set of discussions.

July is traditionally a time for summer holidays. If you are taking annual leave, have a lovely time, but remember to come back. We have an impressive set of projects and service improvements planned for the start of term and for next academic year and all your skills are valued contributions to our success.  If you are coming to the LTW all-staff meeting  on July 19th, please reply to the diary invitation so that we can get the correct numbers for afternoon tea.  Heads and team leads have been asked to contribute to a celebration of achievements over the last 6 months, so please do let your manager know about any triumphs, however small.

For the Festivals in July and August a lot of the university venues change use to become theatre and party venues. This means it is a busy time for our LST teams, taking all our teaching AV  kit out of the rooms and then putting it all back in again in time for teaching to start.

It is great to see so much interesting work being done by so many of you during your summer internships, it is a real bonus for us to have such a running start to be ready for another year.

Have a lovely weekend,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday  22nd July

Edinburgh in SecondLife
Edinburgh in SecondLife

Dear All,
Thank you for another hot week.

It was lovely to see so many of you presenting cool projects at the Ladies Baths.  Follow this link to access the presentations and published agenda from the day – LTW Staff Meeting Jul 22 Presentations

Welcome to Juan, who has joined our media production team.

I am delighted to see some lovely blogging going on Information Services Group: Student Employee Blog – Hear from students about their experience working in the University’s Information Services Group (ed.ac.uk) July posts from Caitlin, Eloise and Molly. Great to read.

A number of exciting opportunities coming up:

  • If you happen to be passing old college, you can be in the background shot for a Netflix series. Wear a party outfit.
  • If you would like to be part of the University of Edinburgh delegation to COP27 in Sharm Egypt, apply here and tell them about the great work you do on open education and online courses to support the UNSDGs. https://w2.irm.ed.ac.uk/COP27-interest
  • If you would like a 25% discount on tickets in the international festival, grab them now Staff News article. They will still be expensive, but you can’t put a price on culture.
  • If you would like to sponsor Billy on his effort to cycle 300 miles from Nepal to India over 5 days he is raising money to help Dr Grahams homes in India to continue providing a home and education for children in need.  https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/cycle-to-dgh Not a lot of flat roads in Nepal.
  • If you would like to visit Watty Tortoise ( LTW’s 2022 mascot animal, more agile than your average tortoise)  at Edinburgh Zoo  you can win free entry for yourself or a child by sending me your best ideas in response to the 2 themes I introduced at the staff meeting:

Theme 1 Virtual Worlds:

Some people would suggest that the future of the internet and the future of work, rest and play, is The Metaverse.

University of Edinburgh has had a presence in virtual worlds for many years, is it time to revisit what we do there?

Theme 2 Living Worlds:

The planet we live on is in a climate and environmental crisis.

University of Edinburgh has many campuses and a huge estate. We also have a ‘biodiversity plan’ and we should think about how we can engage with this – Biodiversity plan launched to benefit plants, animals and more | The University of Edinburgh

What should we do in the real world? Thinking about community volunteering and engaging with ‘A day to make a difference’ (1 day’s paid leave per rolling year). Colleagues can make suggestions for working with organisations they already have contact with. Would you prefer to do things in groups or individually? Day time, or evening? Use the day to do non-university related things?

Have a lovely weekend,

-Melissa

Friday 29th July

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.  You’ll have had your holiday and it is now time to start preparing for start of term. Yes, really.

Get ready to cheer when the downloads tip over into 100k  https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/OpenEd

If you are looking for someone else to cheer for, there are 56 University of Edinburgh staff, students and alumni participating in the Commonwealth Games. Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games | The University of Edinburgh   If you are not from a country steeped in the history of the (Empire) Commonwealth Games, it is one of the rare opportunities for Scotland to compete in multi-sport events as a county in its own right.  Edinburgh hosted the Games back in 1970, which is why the big flumes near Pollock are called the Commonwealth Pool.

If you are inspired to take to the track, the University offers you cycle training Cycle Training | The University of Edinburgh  Ask Kevin about the time he met Chris Hoy.

If you prefer to climb into a book, the University offers you a discount at the book festival bookshop in ECA Discount for Edinburgh International Book Festival 2022 | The University of Edinburgh

Karen and Jackie have blogged about the Women in Technology Conference WiT22 Conference – Digital Learning Applications and Media

Ioana has blogged about accessibility Ioana -Uncovering the depths of accessibility testing in the Digital Learning Internship – Student Employee Blog

The beautiful short online courses and OER brochure PDFs are now available on our online course production website

https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/learning-technology/onlinecourse-production/short-online-courses/short-online-courses-oer-brochures

If you are an individual member of ALT  you will have received an email to vote on the trustee elections. https://www.alt.ac.uk/news/all_news/trustee-elections-voting-now-open  We also have an institutional vote and we have used it strategically with the aim of supporting diversity of views at board level.

Have a lovely weekend,

-Melissa

Friday 5th August

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.

It is now August and we are in a new financial year. Prepare to forget everything you thought you knew about how financial systems in this university work and be patient as the ‘Money’ part of ‘People and Money’ starts to roll out. Training is available.

A warm welcome to Leopold in DLAM,  he’s come a long way to join us. Thank you to the teams who did a lot of digital paperwork to make this so.

Lovely to see James and Delia baking again. Definitely one of the perks of being in the office on the right day. Sadly missing out on all future baking largesse will be Denny, who is off to pastures new.

Supply chains are still stretched and its getting a bit close to the wire for all the AV fit outs. Thank you to everyone involved in knitting and kitting solutions. Well done to anyone who can find green vegetables.

The market is hot for online courses and we will have to be nimble to maintain our place in these markets. Thank you to everyone working on the two BI data dashboards which enable us to see year on year data for online masters and for MOOCs. Thank you to Avicenna for complex data wrangling, and to Paula for helping translate the university’s ‘bio’ into Spanish so that it can feature on the native Spanish edX site . As ever, if you have language skills, or voice-over skills, or would like to feature in any of our outreach marketing campaigns as a ‘model learner’, please volunteer directly to  Lauren or Ari.

It’s that time of year and the book MOOC has been launched  in conjunction with the book Festival and the James Tait Black prize. The oldest literary prize in the world supported in short course digital form. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/how-to-read-a-novel

If you like to keep track of the time of year and the various holidays and holidays we celebrate in our teams, I’ve added a multi-faith calendar to the ISG  Equality, Diversity and Inclusion hub. It has (all?) the dates for the upcoming academic year.  ISG Equality, Diversity and Inclusion – Home (sharepoint.com)

Have a good weekend,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 12th August

group space in lectures

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.

It was lovely to see the presentations from so many of our LTW summer interns and to read your blogs. https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/isintern/ Thank you to Eva for gathering those blogs together and to Anna for organising the event. Applications for ISG internships are competitive; you are lucky to get the job, and we are lucky to have you.   I am pleased that in some cases we have secured enough funding from the university to be able to keep you on for a few more months as part-time staff in our services this academic year.

Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to be part of our online learning photoshoot. Global influencing campaigns are in your future.

You will have noticed that the festivals are in full swing. 52 of our teaching spaces rooms  have been packed up and decommissioned so that they can be used for performances or Festival Staff office space.   I have mentioned before that you get discounts at festival shows and book festival shops, you can also go along to support ISG staff in their festival shows such as the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas where one of our cyber security team will explain that you are in fact, being watched.  The Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas: Wrongful Convictions and a Hacked Toothbrush (2022) – The Stand Comedy Club

Sadly this week we wave goodbye to Duncan after many years leading our UX work. I know that the Web team know how to tidy up after leaving celebrations.

I hope you have in your diary to attend the ISG Barbeque at Pollock on Thursday.   Sometimes cooking outdoors is called barbeque, sometimes it is called witchcraft. 3,000 new items about witchcraft cook-out investigations have now been added to Wikidata and we will showcase them at the Book Festival alongside Jenny Fagan’s new book, Hex. Jenni Fagan: ‘Geillis Duncan Has a Broomstick’ | What’s On | Edinburgh International Book Festival (edbookfest.co.uk)

Have a lovely weekend, stay safe in the heat.

-Melissa

 

Friday 19th August

Me explaining to Nick Barley what the book festival really needs…

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.  A few people looking a bit tired after the ISG all-staff, all-afternoon BBQ yesterday.

As September draws near, the senior management will return again to discussions about hybrid working models.  When we last gathered data from LTW several of you mentioned that there are elements of your management roles which are easier to do online and others which are better face to face.  I am keen to gather more data about this, so if you have a management role in LTW, where you manage people, money, services  or projects, please do fill in this survey Home and Hybrid Working – LTW Managers Survey (onlinesurveys.ac.uk) The survey will be open until 12/09. Do contact Lilinaz if you have any questions.

Ever organised, Kevin has started planning our winter thanksgiving/festive lunch. To help us confirm interest and provisional booking numbers, please complete this Form by Wednesday 31 August 2022.

I am always pleased to see your writing and publications. This week Stuart has been having haunted flashbacks to earlier lives of online learning  Ghost Hunting in the Broken Archives: Re-Historicizing Digital Education in an Institutional Context | SpringerLink and Amy has written about digital safety for international students. Amy Yin – Digital Safety Support Internship – Information Services Group: Student Employee Blog (ed.ac.uk)

It  is important to think about the various international student communities who use our services. University of Edinburgh has a lot of international students who come to our city to study and we also have several thousand who study online and sometimes discussions about those groups get a bit confused.   For instance,  the Chinese students on campus are a large part of our user audience, whereas we actually have only a few students who study fully online from China. Although that number is growing, and international travel restrictions still apply.  I am interested to hear your views on how we can improve services to ensure that international students and staff are welcomed and included.

Have a lovely weekend,

-Melissa

Friday 26th August

by some devilish cantraip slight, the faces in the Old College portraits have changed at night….

Dear All,

Thank you for another week.

I hope you have been enjoying  Festival and Fringe shows. I notice that by some devilish cantraip slight, the faces in the Old College portraits have changed at night….

If you think it’s busy now, wait until welcome week starts!

We have some job adverts out, please send them on to all your friends.

I am very pleased that with our 2022/23 budget now confirmed, LTW Heads have decided to keep a whole bunch of our interns on, to work with us one day per week throughout the academic year. Joining our two Napier Interns (who work with us full-time), and our Web Governance Intern ( Astoria has been with us for ages), we also have this year we also have this year: a Digital Content Training Research Intern, a  Digital Marketing Intern, a Diversity Recruitment and Attraction Intern,  a Media Administration Intern, an Edtech Operations Intern, a Design System and Web Media Intern, a Nudge Intern, a Student Notifications Service Software Developer Intern, a User Research Intern,  2 Digital Learning Interns,  7 Learn Foundations Interns, 4 Web Content Migration Liaison Assistants and a Digital Skills Training Coding Intern!  And possibly more ( apologies to anyone I’ve missed).  This is the largest cohort of p/t student workers we have ever had in LTW. To ensure that we take full advantage, we will be having regular ‘Heads Learn from Interns’ sessions where the LTW senior management team will hear recommendations and advice based on your insights and expertise. As with all University staff, the students’ pay rates have increased in line with the UCEA national pay negotiations. This increase will affect any hours worked from 1st August onwards, so check your September pay packet. Interns are welcome to join us at our festive do. Complete this Form by Wednesday 31 August 2022.

If imperial weights and measures were phased out before you were even born and you think the Empire was a bad idea anyway and we don’t need reminding of it, please take a moment to respond to the government consultation Choice on units of measurement: markings and sales – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)  before 11pm tonight.

Have a lovely weekend and please take your litter home with you.

-Melissa

Friday 2nd Sept

To the lighthouse

Dear All,

Thank you for another week. Thank you for the work you have done on your outstanding annual reviews.

You may remember that the ISG experiments in hybrid working were scheduled to review in September. We have been gathering a variety of data and feedback and suggestions from you and from around the other directorates. LTW SMT have been thinking a lot about how we create a sense of belonging and community in LTW and about how disconcerting it can be when the office feels empty. Many of you are now settled into a rhythm of some days in the office and some days at home and that is great.  Seeing you all about the place has helped me to make the case that LTW should try to co-locate so that we can see each other and not be spread across so many wings.

We have part-time staff and we have new colleagues joining us soon. If we get a wing of AH to ourselves we can have more scope to curate our community space and make it a nicer place to be.  We will need to think about how we use shared space and how we prioritise comfort and care. I hope you agree that this will be a nice change to try.   If you have thoughts about which wing we should occupy, and what kinds of new ways of working/using space we can try, please have a chat with your team managers, they will feed that back to me.

Looking forward, beyond the start of term, Ada Lovelace Day always comes up fast. This year it is  Tuesday 11Th October.  If you are new to LTW you can look back at what we have done in previous years to celebrate Ada, the first computer programmer and Mary, the person for whom the word ‘scientist’ was invented https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/ada-lovelace-day/ https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/melissa/2014/09/07/ada-and-mary/

If you like a bit of ancient rivalry, you can get a free ticket to watch Edinburgh trounce St Andrews in the Scottish Varsity Rugby 3pm Saturday 24/09/22 at Peffermill http://scottishvarsitymatch.com/2022-scottish-varsity-match/  It is claimed to be oldest varsity match in the world.  This year it is just the men. There has been a women’s match since 2014 but the teams really are massively mismatched (Edinburgh win 52-0)  and so we need a new plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scottish_Varsity#Women’s_Results

Have a good weekend,

-Melissa

 

Friday 9th Sept

Orange is the new black

Dear All,

Thank you again for another week.

The week has ended with a couple of unusual events. A monsoon hit Argyle House, causing flooding and drenching  and then the Queen died.  The teams who need access to the kit stores and media studios may experience ongoing disruption from the former and the whole University from the latter.  Web teams and comms colleagues have had a plan for Operation Unicorn, and I expect we will see statements, books of condolence, events cancelled and processions organised. And a lot of Wikipedia editing. No reigning monarch has died in Scotland since James V, in 1542 I think and there will be a lot of mourning, memories of our own lost loved ones and organising to do at this sad time.

Best wishes,

-Melissa

Friday 23rd September

Dear All,

wild skies
wild skies

Thank you for another week. Thank you to everyone supporting services at the start of term and especially to Digital Skills for confusing international freshers with their new spicy condom range and the LST who rolled out AV for the Queen’s memorial service in McEwan Hall at short notice on top of all their ‘normal’ start of term ‘down to the wire’ work and EFI’s new model for hybrid teaching.

We had a bank holiday on Monday for a day of national mourning.  I noted that none of the many TV commentators chose to talk like a pirate, despite it being 19th September.

In this last week of September we will celebrate the autumnal equinox today, the Goddess in all her various forms 26th-4th and the beginning of a new year on 26th. Much feasting and harvest festivaling.

Coming up fast is October, featuring once again Ada Lovelace Day on 11th, National Poetry day on 7th  and World Menopause day on 18th.  October is also Black History month, LGBT History month, Breast Cancer Awareness month, National Apple Month and Bat Appreciation month. I am confident that we have enough OER in our collections to celebrate all of these. If you have other ideas of activities we can do in LTW to mark events, let me know.   I will warn you now that I am ordering special Halloween snacks from Edinburgh First.

Thank you to all who are volunteering to be fire marshalls and to Fiona for entering into the great ‘who/where the plants’ debate. Thank you to everyone helping each other to navigate the processes of P&M.

Staff and students are back on campus, pavements are crowded and edHelp queues are growing. There are some stunning new spaces. Check out KB’s new Nucleus for national architecture day. It’s so gorgeous every campus is going to want one.

Speaking of gorgeous, today is the last day to nominate your colleagues for an ISG Staff recognition award.  I have heard that some of the categories have only a few nominations, so  a real chance to be a winner here :ISG Recognition Awards Nominations Form: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=sAafLmkWiUWHiRCgaTTcYQSWXdfBlCJIiVYu76WWccNUOEFZOFJRWFVQSTFJNTZNNUVFSTVMQkdGRi4u
Categories are: Colleague of the Year, Outstanding Team, Team Player, Excellence in Customer Care, Inspiring Role Model, Student Staff Member of the Year, Outstanding Student Experience, Lifetime Achievement and ISG in the Community. You only need 200 kind words to say about a person, and since today is LTW Friday writing day, take a moment to spread a little joy.

Best wishes,

-Melissa
Director, LTW

Friday 30th September

use your digits to make badges

Dear All,

Thank you all for another week.

The weather is dreech and the state of the economy is grim. There are a lot of real stressors out there, what with the cost of living, Cost of living | The University of Edinburgh energy bills, a student housing crisis Edinburgh’s housing crisis: a student’s view – The Cockburn Association, a hurricane in Florida and violence against the protestors in Iran   Mahsa Amini: how one women’s death ignited protests in Iran – podcast | News | The Guardian

Our services are at full pelt for the first few weeks of term, everyone is working hard behind the scenes, so please be kind to each other. Care and attention is needed when we are this stretched.  1400 week one lecture captures and media viewing higher than 2019 up 504%. 138 courses are involved in the Early Adopter Programme.  Learn logins are now back to pre-covid levels reflecting the shifting landscape for hybrid and blended.  My Ed log-ins are down and interaction data from our platforms shows when students are flagging questions, making notes or feeling confused. If any of you are writing articles or assignments about learning technology, we’ve got all the data you need.

Take care where you are clicking. Lorna sleuthed a copyright scam this week and Callum has advice for spotting dodgy texts  “I’ve received two text messages like this in the last 24 hours, and taking a peek at the websites, they’re extremely convincing.

I am looking forward to seeing you for Ada Lovelace Day  Ada Lovelace Day 2022 – Ada Lovelace Day One of our guest speakers is Prof Emma Hart. If you would like to watch her TED talk in advance:  Self-assembling robots and the potential of artificial evolution | TED Talk  . Ucreate Makerspace will be offering induction sessions that afternoon if you want to start your robot design.

Looking forward to our LTW gathering  on Halloween, let me know if you would like to join in as one of our speakers. We will hear about hauntology, hauntological music, IT horrors, witchy data, uncanny spaces for learning technology and the global travels of a tumshie.  More welcome if you have a theme for 5-10 minutes’ talk.

If anyone missed out on earlier winter-warming hoodie vouchers, let me know.

-Melissa

Friday 7th October

lion
Pride Edinburgh

Dear All,

Thank you for your work for another week.

The energy company of wolves are at our door and there are lions in the Meadows. The infrastructure teams are regularly testing the UPS (big batteries) and generators in our data centres to cover power cuts  if planned.

Welcome to Dave who joins our EDE platform-wrangling team this week. Congratulations to Emma and Mary who have both secured promoted posts in WAC services. In the face of hard times good news for interns and staff on grades 1-3 who get a well deserved pay rise in October in line with the Real Living Wage.

There is disconcerting news from one of our main MOOC partners as Futurelearn prepare for ‘strategic options to reduce expenditure’. And also from one of the lovely venues close to Argyle House, the Edinburgh FilmHouse has called in the receivers.   If you know anyone in these businesses which are struggling, please help to share our job adverts on LinkedIn, we have a LOT of work to do this year and would welcome new colleagues .

Thank you for keeping your service reports up to date and helping your managers to help me understand the load and pain points. I am starting to see the data from September and it looks like the EdHelp portlet in MyEd has been a big success and students from Reproductive Biology added 17,000 words to Wikipedia last week to improve public-facing content on topics relevant to their research. If you would like to be part of some research about using lecture recording data, sign up here: Echo360 focus groups (qualtrics.com).

The Library have announced their next exhibition What’s on | The University of Edinburgh . If you would like to come to the opening preview (with wine and crisps subject to P&M), let me know.

Thank you to all of you in the comms content team, keep those stories coming. Thank you for nominating your colleagues for awards, more than 120 have been received. Thank you to those who are contributing to Ada Lovelace day Ada Lovelace Day 11th October – . and organising team activities, I am hearing great feedback from beach clean-ups,  HP5 sessions and visits to the Makerspace holodeck.

If you have ideas of how we might join the celebrations of 20 years of Creative Commons, let me know.

https://creativecommons.org/2022/10/05/join-us-to-celebrate-20-years-of-creative-commons/

Have a good weekend,

-Melissa

Director, LTW

Friday 14th October

Dear All,

Thank you all for another week of work. It was lovely to see some of you at the Main Library for Ada Lovelace Day on Tuesday and I hope to see even more of you for our IT Horrors event on Halloween.  Lesley’s team have gone big and gone early in the pumpkin challenge, so the gauntlet is thrown.

If you needed more reasons to hang out in Argyle House, following Annika’s fabulous Challah bread, Delia is opening the blogging with ‘food I had at work’. Masticate on this! – A foray into Delia’s world (ed.ac.uk)  and Edinburgh First have launched a range of affordable entrée level soups starting at £1.50 in all their cafes.

It’s that time of year for the Open Education Global Awards and I am very pleased to see several LTW projects listed. The Interactive Content Team are up for the ‘Best OER’ for their Moo-MOOCing,  the Fundamentals of Music open E-text book is up for ‘ Best Open reuse/adaptation’  and Ewan’s relentless pursuit of equity and quality in Wikipedia is up for ‘Best Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’.  OEAwards 2022 Shortlist of Finalists Announced – OEGlobal  Winners will be announced on October 20th.

Have a good weekend,

-Melissa

Dir, LTW

Friday 21st October

the view from our offices never gets old

Dear All,

Thank you for your work for another week. I expect we will all spend a bit of today watching the chaos in Westminster.

Thank you to all who responded to our ‘Mangers hybrid working’ survey, and to Anna and Lilinaz who have collated the results.

Congratulations to all of you nominated for ISG Staff Awards. Thank you to whomever nominated me for lifetime achievement. Congratulations to Ewan for winning a Global Open Education Award.

Speaking of lifetime achievement, in celebration of World Menopause Day on Tuesday I can now report that P&M absence reporting includes a category for menopause.   It’s listed under ‘S’ of course, but if you are suffering symptoms you can use it. I notice there is also a category of absence reporting for ‘Data Migration (unknown)’ so if you feel you might be suffering from that, there’s a place for you too.

https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/melissa/2022/10/15/menopause-in-the-workplace-a-hot-topic-for-discussion/

You may also have spotted the most recent of many reports from the Office for Students. It is about Blended Learning and the article in THES refers to me as  ‘boots on the ground’ https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/blended-learning-review-flags-regulatory-concern-ofs  The Office of Students does not hold sway in Scotland, but later in December I hope it will become clear why I was involved in this work.

You will be pleased to hear that we are now underway to start our project to co-locate our LTW teams in Argyle House. We will aim to be all on the same wing, which will serve as a home base for our excursions and meetings out and about on campus. We will make our move in early December, so if you have dead plants or old kit which could be binned, now is the time to do that. New flowers have appeared ( thank you, Miki) and now that Fiona has secured the plant vouchers for the wing, we can look forward to a Christmas cactus.

If you remember the world of The Before Times you may remember that in-person exams required trustworthy invigilators. Having laid them all off during 2020, the University is now recruiting again.

Administrator (A1) (PAO – Student Services) – University of Edinburgh Jobs Careers (oraclecloud.com) These roles are for ‘fractional staff’ because it is only around 20 hours each year. Stereotypically they have tended to be retired persons, but there is no need for them to be, so if you know anyone who might like a warm exam hall, please do pass on the advert.

Have a good weekend,

-Melissa

Friday 28th October

pumpkin views

Dear All,

Thank you for your work for another week.

Good to see some consistency at Westminster, Gordon Brown continues to be the only PM since 1937 to study at a university other than Oxford.

Edinburgh is rightly proud of being named as no1 in the UK for sustainability. Peter Mathieson said: These rankings reflect the efforts of our staff and students in making the University of Edinburgh more environmentally and socially responsible. Our own strategy aligns the University with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and we continue to deliver positive change locally and globally through our academic research, education, operations and partnerships. I’m really pleased to see our progress being recognised.” Thank you all for the contribution you make to that.

If you identify as new, you may like to join New Staff Meet-Up Sessions | The University of Edinburgh

If you would like to learn BSL,  training is open to all staff across the University of Edinburgh. More details about the training can be found on MyEd; type in ‘British Sign Language’ and it will show a list of dates of sessions being offered between November 2022 – February 2023.

Great to see  so many colleagues in DLAM working towards their CMALT certification.
Jackie and Charlie have blogged about creative collaboration Jackie and Charlie’s statistics collaboration (a Flash-to-HTML5 challenge story) – Digital Learning Applications and Media

Myles has blogged about short courses and badges 2022 The Age of Ultra and the start for digital badges and short courses – mylesthoughts (ed.ac.uk)

Ranuli has blogged about her internship Ranuli Palipane – Digital Marketing Internship 2021/22 – Information Services Group: Student Employee Blog (ed.ac.uk)

Ari and Lauren stormed it at CAM’s Communications and Marketing Forum at the Playfair Library. Ari’s Pecha Kucha session on the authentic student voice has been widely praised.The UCU have gained a huge mandate for more strikes so I expect we will see pickets and posters soon. The UCU also have a survey out about the impact of P&M UCU Edinburgh | People and Money Impact Autumn 2022 (qualtrics.com).

Speaking of IT horrors, I see DST are meeting LTS in the orange and black decorations challenge.  I am looking forward to seeing you on Monday at our  ‘Samhuinn Spooky Stories’ lunchtime session. Even if you haven’t booked, you are welcome to just turnip.

-Melissa

Friday 4th November

enlightenment

Dear All,

Thank you for all your work again this week. The nights are fair drawing in. If you haven’t had your winter-warming hybrid-working hoodie-voucher, let me know. As pumpkins give way to pyrotechnics I bet we are the only learning technology group to have a hauntology playlist on Spotify and moodle  https://www.moodle.is.ed.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1588

You will see your winter diaries filling up with invitations to town halls , Q&As for P&M, Digital Strategy, staff awards, festive fun etc. If you are not receiving these emails on all-staff lists or if you are not seeing the ISG newsletters etc, please let Fiona Hendrie know so that she can continue her campaign to get mailing lists up to date.

You may have also seen new buildings opening, including the new Nucleus at KB. I hope we will take an LTW class trip to see them soon.   If you like autumn leaves and books I recommend a beautiful exhibit in the library What’s on | The University of Edinburgh

With Christmas, Channukah and Thanksgiving sharing and feeding just around the corner, the LTW social co-ordinators are compiling the quiz rounds and structuring a secret Santa. It’s not too late to volunteer. Please help by paying for your meal in advance.

Have a good weekend,

-Melissa

Friday 11th November

projection

Dear All,

Thank you for your work for another week.  I hope you were not entangled in the massive Bombskare at Waverley last night.

Welcome to Yuru who has joined our Portal Services team and to Cerys who has joined Digital Skills.

If you are in town this evening you can join the Student’s Association at their Festive Lights switch-on at Teviot. https://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/events/id/1900-teviot-christmas-light-switch-on?fbclid=IwAR1st2wVCWLwNZb0_mtMWID-tM9cUc6-PKbqoQ8f940NrFwNaLTH7_3n-aA 

This weekend you may wish to seek out the University’s Remembrance Service at Old College, or the one at St Giles. Looking ahead I’d be happy to hear thoughts on activities for International Men’s Day on 19th. Home – International Men’s Day (internationalmensday.com)

I hope you are supporting Stewart’s ‘Hello, Toilet Dolly!’ fundraiser for Sight Scotland https://lnkd.in/edymPece and you have signed up for the University Winter run Winter Run sign-up page.

I am very pleased to hear so much positive feedback from schools and deaneries on the roll-out of Learn Ultra. Well done, All. But we must not be complacent, there’s still a risk that many people have not clocked that they are going to have to do something differently come next summer.  We will gather the Clans of Learn Support in Argyle House  on 23rd Nov to celebrate our successes and reflect on what we have learned. Stuart has blogged: Adopting ‘Ultra’ Early: Leading the way with Learn – Teaching Matters blog (ed.ac.uk)

You may have spotted that the UCU have announced the strike dates for Thanksgiving UCU – Biggest ever university strikes set to hit UK campuses over pay, conditions & pensions and Colm has announced the dates for next year’s Teaching and Learning Conference Learning and Teaching Conference 2023 website

Thank you to managers who are nominating their staff for leadership programmes and to all of you for doing your service data updates.

Cyclists, take care in this wind. Drivers, give them space to wobble and fall.
If you are over 50 be sure to get your boosters.
Have a good weekend.

-Melissa

Friday 18th November

Strike that from Waddington’s Lexicon, ‘the Wonder Game’.

Dear All,

Thank you for all your work for another week.  As we head towards days of strike action next week in universities and schools I realise this disruption is going to be difficult. Cost of living is high and strikers will lose their days pay. Strikers are fighting for better pay and pensions for all, please give them your support if you can.

This week we welcome Khushi as our new Digital Marketing intern, and congratulate Jennifer and Ryan in WAC who have become certified scrum masters and Geoff for winning the pumpkin competition.

As Twitter disintegrates before our eyes we can only hope that more companies realise the importance of their maintenance, content accessibility, user experience and development teams.

Thank you to all involved, our procurement of a new polling service is now concluded. We will move from Top Hat to Wool Cap to keep our ears warm.

After many successful years of winning external awards, I was pleased to see so many LTW nominations for the internal staff awards. Everyone nominated should feel rightly chuffed and thank you to all those who took the time to write nominations. This is just the inaugural year of these  ISG awards and if we celebrate well I am sure it will become a very cheery annual event.  If you aren’t able to get to St Cecilia’s, please come along to our watch party in AH.  After that, Peter Mathieson invites us all to join him in the Old College Quadrangle for mulled wine, Christmas pies, singing by the University Choir and Music by the Salvation Army Band on Wednesday 23rd November at 4.45 p.m. when the Christmas tree lights will be officially switched on. He very much hopes you can join him for this Festive event.

If you like a bit of festive singing, the University carol service will be on Sunday 11th December and is a fab time to see McEwan Hall packed to the rafters.

Best wishes,

-Melissa

Friday 25th November

Dear All,

Thank you for your work for another week.  The race to the end of the year is now on and as we slip and slide to avoid thin ice, please take care not to crash into each other!

Thank you for coming along and tuning in to the ISG staff awards. So many of you wrote nominations, what a lovely bunch of people you are. On the night, LTW colleagues dominated in several categories and we won 5 out of 8 overall. Congratulations to Ewan, Amy, Ari, Lilinaz, and the Learn VLE team. Well done, All.  So, so proud of the work you do.

There was a huge turnout for the Christmas tree lighting. I don’t think I have ever seen so many people in Old College quad.

Thank you to all of you doing work behind the scenes to prepare for the office moves. Tidying, packing and binning.  And for all the work you are doing in preparing festive activities, quiz rounds and secret Santas.  If you have not yet signed up for Secret Santa, you can make your wish here: Festive Lunch Gift Exchange Form  by 12pm on Monday 28 November, so that elves can do the matching.

Congratulations also to Lesley and Euan who have architected a restructuring of services to create a 3rd team within LST. This will ensure that we deliver a step-change  in AV services, IT infrastructure and EFI. This really is a fast-changing area of work and Edinburgh is one of the biggest players nationally as we design, fit-out and transform our spaces for teaching.  Euan will lead the new team and Lesley will lead LST as Head from the start of the new year.  Massive thanks to you both for this leadership.

Giving thanks as every year.

Best wishes,

-Melissa

Friday 10th December

Dear All,

word cloud generated from staff peer nominations
word cloud generated from staff peer nominations

Thank you for all your work for another week. I am so pleased to see that the moving of kit seems to have gone smoothly and the plant budget is being well spent to make the place look more friendly. Thank you to everyone who helped tidy up and throw out.

It was lovely to see so many of you at the ISG all-staff meeting yesterday and I hope you will join us for lunch today, weather, health and transport permitting. ( we have had a couple of late drop-outs, so if you are in town and you would like lunch today, let Kevin know now).

Next week at our LTW all-staff meeting we will explore Kings Buildings and share ideas for shaping our collaborative working spaces. The students at KB will be deep into exam time, so we must not chatter too loudly.  Thank you as every year to the teams who support exams, online exams and marking. It’s the most high stakes  moment of the year for so many of our users.

Next week we will also think of how we can use our space to engender new ways of working, so bring any ideas for soft furnishings, book cases, award cabinets, comfy chairs and picture hanging.

If you are commuting in, I notice that the university is promoting the Ride Share scheme https://www.ed.ac.uk/transport/driving/liftshare

Fiona is about to send out our LTW festive card to thank people around the university (and outwith) who gave us their time this year to be part of our projects and services. If you have names for this list which you think your section head might have missed, please update them now!

Best wishes,

-Melissa

Dir LTW.

Friday 16th  December

Festive thank you from all the teams in Learning, Teaching & Web.

Dear All,

Thank you all for your work for another year.

Congratulations to the Salty Sprouts Team on winning the LTW Festive lunch quiz, and thank you to all who participated in making that event a success. Yesterday we were up at KB to visit the new Nucleus Building which looked spacious and sparkly in the winter sunshine. You can contribute to the Miro board to add your thoughts on how to improve our space at Argyle House and  if any of you would like to be part of the group deciding on art for the Nucleus building please do  Nucleus art submissions and Art & Curation group (office.com)

News from the sector is that JISC have published their insights survey Teaching staff digital experience insights survey 2021/22; UK higher education (HE) survey findings (jisc.ac.uk)

Thank you to the super troupers who made their way to the BlackBoard conference despite snow and rail strikes. In the new year we will begin our blue table  bids again and planning will become the name of the game.

Enjoy your winter festive celebrations, lag your pipes and mind your candles.
Remember not to come into the office on these days: Christmas closure dates: 2022 and 2023 | The University of Edinburgh
Extra thanks to those who stay on call throughout Christmas and New Year in case of emergencies.
Be well and get a good rest if you can.
Best wishes,

-Melissa