Blog Posts

Cherish inclusive design standards

It’s my last week at the University of Edinburgh, a quiet time to reflect. Over the last couple of years, we have published the University Design System, the Inclusive Language Guide, and the Editorial Style Guide. These have brought us closer to inclusive design standards. We need to keep developing these resources, and not take […]

Open Media Bank: Legacy MOOC Project

The Instructional Design Team have just completed a project with the OER (Open Educational Resources) Service which, as all good projects do, started with a mysterious old dusty spreadsheet. It was a record of legacy MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)…

OfS review of Blended Learning

In March 2002 the Office for Students announced their plan to review blended learning provision in English universities.  I was delighted to be invited to be part of the expert panel doing the review. The OfS currently hold no sway in Scotland, but they shape the ways in which some of the universities in England …

Ada Lovelace Day 2022

As every year, I gathered colleagues, friends and students to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day again.  There was story on the BBC that this year might be the end for ALD, but I am not convinced. There is still much work to be done. “According to data published by STEM Women – a company which organises networking …

ALTC 2022 – Reconnecting

Earlier this month the annual ALT Conference returned as an in-person event for the first time since the pandemic.  Around 400 participants joined the hybrid conference at the University of Manchester, for both an in-person and online programme.  For many delegates it was their first in-person conference since the Before Times and I think it’s […]

OER22 In Person & Online

Last week I was at the OER22 Conference, and I was actually at the conference because for the first time in two years the OER Conference was in person and online.  OER22 was a hybrid conference in every sense of the word; the first day took place in London, the second day featured recorded online […]

Wikipedia, Student Activism and the Ivory Tower

This was a talk presented at the LILAC 2022 Information Literacy Conference held at Manchester Metropolitan University on 11-13 April 2022. The slides will be uploaded shortly. 0) Intro slide: Video of Manchester Metropolitan University’s Wikipedia page being edited. Anyone can click “Edit” on any page on Wikipedia to improve its open-licensed information with verifiable […]

Down the rabbit hole with Wikipedia – LILAC 2022

I asked LILAC Information Literacy Conference 2022 delegates what their favourite Wikipedia pages were and here’s what they answered: Boris Johnson (It’s not flattering) The Dyatlov Pass incident Dolly Parton Cellar door High five Mary Shelley Loch_Ness_Monster The Sopranos List of Manufacturing processes Disambiguation (disambiguation) List of The Simpsons guest stars Defenestrations of Prague Marxist […]

Open EducationWeek 2022

Open Education Week 2022

An annual celebration, Open Education Week (OE Week) March 7-11th is an opportunity for actively sharing and learning about the latest achievements in Open Education worldwide. This year we’re running two information events. The first is a webinar ‘Open to the World’ about our open course development. The webinar is free and open for anyone within or outwith the university to attend! The second is an information session for internal University of Edinburgh staff on how open education is being used in curriculum across the university to the benefit of staff and students.

A new OER Policy for the University of Edinburgh

This post originally featured on the University of Edinburgh’s Teaching Matters blog.  In September 2021, the University of Edinburgh’s Education Committee approved a new Open Education Resources (OER) Policy, which revises and updates our previous 2016 policy. Supported by the central OER Service, the policy encourages staff and students to use, create and publish OERs […]

Fundamentals of Music Theory open textbook published

We’re incredibly proud to announce the publication of our Fundamentals of Music Theory open textbook, which is the first ebook to be hosted on Edinburgh Diamond, a new service provided by Edinburgh University Library that supports the publication of academic and student-led Open Access books and journals. This open textbook is the result of a project […]

Illustration of Earth with arms and legs waving

ClimateHub UK

COP26 is only two weeks away and there have been bundles of activities across the education sector to raise awareness and education around climate and environment. One of these has been the creation of Climate Hub UK by the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC) with funding from the Scottish Government.

OEGlobal Open Curation Award

OEGlobal Open Curation Award

We are incredibly proud to receive the 2021 OEGlobal Awards for Excellence Open Curation Award for our collection of high quality student made OER on the TES platform.

Since 2015, the University of Edinburgh’s Open Education Resource (OER) Service has collaborated with Geoscience’s Outreach (GO) course, where students create educational projects with community clients, to curate an exceptional collection of high quality OERs into an accessible collection on the TES platform.