CLIPP Board

JISC funding- elevated

I noticed a recent article entitled ” How to make your JISC funding bid stand out from the crowd” on the CETIS news pages recently.  I thought it was nigh time that I posted a similar bid writing guide that Christa Appleton (JISC RSC West Midlands) and I crafted last year.  The Aston Research Support Unit have assisted us previously with the (TRAC) costing process of JISC bids – this aspect not to be underestimated!

Along with the above guide, JISC have also announced a new method of bidding for smaller project funds using their Elevator service.  The new service is designed for innovative projects that need to  gain funding up to £10K – without having to adhere to the strict criteria of their usual project funding programmes.

As Martin Hawksey has already Tweeted – it would be useful to see collaborative ideas with students pitching for funds.

Learning platform updates

The vendors of three of our core tools have recently announced product updates. We will be monitoring and testing (some of) these during the forthcoming months; and will report back on progress.

Turnitin2

Two new major updates are currently being planned for later this spring:

1)   Updated Basic integration;

• Upgraded Instructors interface, enabling better tracking and monitoring of all scripts in assignments
• Instructors being able to view any requested matched papers from within their own institution – without needing to contact Tii support
• The ability to attach audio feedback to scripts.

2)   Direct Integration (currently in beta test). Main features;

• Multi-part and continuous assignment types
• e-rater grammar checker
• removal of the roster synch button
• Export grades to Excel format, user un-mapping ability, ability to recycle /rollover old assignments (with new cohorts)
• Releasing grades only on “Post” date
• Improved support for moving assignments.

Read more here: http://submit.ac.uk/en_us/support/integrations/blackboard-direct

Note: some of the features listed above (e.g. audio feedback, or upgraded instructors interface) will be implemented as standard for the web document viewer, so they will ultimately appear in both the direct and basic integrations.

In addition to the above new features on the horizon are;

• A whole new set of analytics tools will be made available to assignment instructors.
• A phased roll out of fully iPad enabled Turnitin access will begin in spring 2012 through to winter 2013.
• Translated paraphrasing will also be available this year. This relatively new method of converting text into different languages – then back into English, can be now be “checked” to detect this practice.

Book your place on the free Turnitin webinars running spring 2012.

Read more

Learning greening

The Greening of ICT is an awareness of the issues associated with the use of IT within the tertiary education sector, i.e. the reduction of sector carbon footprint and associated energy costs (JISC 2009).  Here at Aston, we are running a number of initiatives associated with improving the sustainability of the campus – detailed in the Environment and sustainability web pages.  Also within this website CLIPP explain how the use of virtual classrooms and webinars (using Elluminate) can help with this campus wide push to both improve sustainability and enhance the student experience.

More recently CLIPP assisted Dr John Blewitt to run an entire conference online, covering these very issues.  We used Elluminate in conjunction with Blackboard to create a synchronous online experience, with presenters from across the globe.  The whole event ran very well, and not only show-cased the tools and their potential we have on offer for staff and students to learn “at a distance”, it also demonstrates our on-going commitment to reduce carbon emissions.  Dr Blewitt has since edited the four (video) presentations from the day, and added them to a new website explaining the ideas that underpinned the conference themes.

Turnitin – turnitup!

Turnitin; our text matching tool of choice are currently beta testing two new additions to their ever growing suite of features:

First is the direct integration – useful for those (like us) who have Turnitin fully integrated with their VLE.    We will be joining the beta testing process in the near future. I am attending a demonstration of this next week, and will report back soon.

Secondly is the beta release of translated paraphrasing. This relatively new method of converting text into different languages – then back into English, can be now be “checked” to detect this practice.

Training news

Turnitin are also  running a series awareness sessions running during February and March, covering a wide range of academic misconduct and plagiarism topics. Most are free, and can be attended via an online webinar. Find out more and book onto these here: http://community.turnitin.com/events/event_list.asp