Blog Posts

digital badgers

As previously teased, I am a  delighted to say we are launching a 3-year pilot of BadgEd, a new Open Digital Badge service, so that students and staff can earn their stripes and show off their achievements in black and white! It’s taken me a while to get this in place. I am indebted to …

Open Scotland @10 Plenary Panel synthesis & outputs

This summary of the Open Scotland @10 plenary panel at OER23 by Lorna M. Campbell was originally published at OpenWorld blog. To mark 10 years of the Open Scotland initiative, Joe Wilson and I ran two events as part of the OER23 Conference at UHI in Inverness, which provided an opportunity for members of the education community to reflect […]

OER23 Conference: Imagining hopeful futures

I’m a bit late with this OER23 reflection, it’s taken me a couple of weeks to catch up with myself and to let some of the ideas generated by the conference percolate.   It was fabulous to see the OER Conference returning to Scotland for the fist time since we hosted it at the University of […]

“Digital Volunteering with Wikipedia” – the Edinburgh Award

We know that many students are involved in activities alongside their studies such as volunteering, part-time work, and getting involved in the University community. To help these activities to stand out from the crowd, our University has a new Award for “Digital Volunteering with Wikipedia” to sit beside other available Edinburgh Awards– the Edinburgh Award […]

Recovering Histories – Improving Equality and Diversity Online

Three students co-authored an application to take part in a Student Experience Grant project over a 14-week time period, learning how to edit Wikipedia and how to fill in diversity gaps on the website: Eleanor– PhD Student researching LGBTQ+ History. Sian – PhD student researching Black History. Kirsty  – Undergraduate student researching Gender History. Each […]

100 MOOCs more

University of Edinburgh has been publishing MOOCs as open educational resources for 10 years. Huge thanks go to all the academic teams who choose this route to share the knowledge they have created with learners all over the world.

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.