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Make the group working more manageable and ‘visible’ by having each group post a weekly update of progress to a private discussion board visible to the group and tutor

Consider the use of wikis for the authoring of group reports to aid version control, provide a space for formative feedback and to see the pattern of individual contributions

Use wikis and other online spaces to allow peer review and assessment of group reports (e.g. reviewing a report online, then completing a peer review survey in the VLE)

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Provide skeleton notes online for students to explore ahead of the next class, and to assist with their note taking in the lecture itself

Have students work individually or in small groups to prepare a mini presentation slot on a particular topic as part of a lecture

Provide skeleton lecture slides for small groups of more advanced students to research and complete as the basis for a lecture they facilitate or co-facilitate for students at earlier stages

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Provide links to online case studies for students to explore ahead of discussion in class

Have students work individually or in pairs in sourcing relevant case studies to be shared online (via a discussion board, wiki, or social bookmarking’) prior to a tutorial

Have students work individually or in small groups to produce a online case study on an allocated topic to be presented and discussed in class and within the VLE

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Provide a discussion board for students to post follow-up comments (queries, issues that are still not clear) to that week’s seminar to be picked up during first part of the next week’s lecture

Encourage more equal engagement in seminars by having students take turns (in pairs or small groups) to produce a summary of that week’s seminar to be posted online, perhaps with a follow-up question to be tackled

Have students work in pairs or small groups to design and lead online seminars for particular units, with guidance from tutor on their proposed topic and approach

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Use copyright cleared online video and multimedia clips to reinforce points and examples in class

Bring guest experts into discussion forums or live virtual classrooms

Have groups of students to make short audio or video recordings relating to the main topics to be covered

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Direct students to use ‘problems forums’ to handle any general questions about the subject matter or coursework, so that the tutors answers to common questions are there for all to see and to encourage peer support in large groups

Online spaces are used to bring more experienced peers into the cohort as part of a student mentoring arrangement

Where possible use online tools and spaces to support creative and authentic projects that drive collaborative learning from the outset, thus reducing the reliance on teacher-led instruction in large groups

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Use the online version of the module feedback survey perhaps with the inclusion of ‘feed forward’ questions that can be used to provide additional online guidance for future cohorts

Use an asynchronous discussion board (anonymised or not) to allow students to reflect on and articulate views on the effectiveness of module delivery and ask questions that ‘link forward’ to what comes next

SSLC runs through a more open and visible means for participation with a collaborative online area where agendas and minutes can be shared and questions raised in advance, and where a tool like Elluminate can allow remote participation in meetings

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Use short online MC-style self-tests to allow students to gauge their understanding of key terms and concepts

Link self-tests to the release of different sections of material including model answers to common questions or the ‘tutors view’ on complex or contentious issues

Have students collaborate in designing online self-tests that can be reused with future cohorts

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Have students take turns in defining one or two key terms or concepts for each week for inclusion in an online class glossary (e.g. in a wiki)

Have students work in pairs to create an online guide to a particular topic (for example a ‘scavenger hunt’ of places on the web for their peers to explore)

The use of online resources (collaborative spaces, links to readings, reports and video clips) that students can use in case and problem based learning tasks

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Provide links to the websites of relevant professional groups and the private websites or blogs of noted experts in the field for exploration online and as part of class activities

Online guest expert sessions are constructed by the participants themselves who collectively determine questions to be asked and discussed

Participants find, engage in, and report back on relevant online supported professional communities that could support continued CPD post-graduation (and in doing so create an online directory of groups and communities e.g. in wiki)

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Provide online work-based learning tips and guidance for those new out on placement, including a discussion board where general questions can be handled Help maintain social connections and support amongst students on placement through setting up a Twitter group or #tag for the cohort

Hold weekly or fortnightly work-based learning meet-up sessions via Elluminate or similar real-time tool. Consider students taking turns to share their work and lessons learned from their placements

Consider technology-supported forms of assessment that will allow students to engage with the academic side of their work placement as an integrated part of the experience (e.g. maintaining a reflective blog that leads in the development of a final report, documentary, or Patchwork Text).

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Provide links to video or narrated visual tutorials of safe laboratory and field work procedure as a means to prepare effectively. Consider linking these to a short online self-test to help students gauge their readiness for practice

Make lab and field work more engaging through the use of mobile applications including: QR codes for ‘point of use’ information and explanation of equipment and field samples; personal technologies such as cameras, video and mobile phones to record lab and field work; applications which employ ‘pin drop’ features to record locations; and the use of Geocaching to provide a structure and focus to field activities

Have students work in small groups to prepare a ‘virtual field trip’ or ‘virtual lab tour’ that will bring together a range of relevant resources (e.g. documents, websites, video clips) that can be assessed as an output of their lab or field work and used as a learning artefact for future students on the same module

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Provide incoming direct entrants and international students with links to pre-arrival information and resources about the institution and studying in HE, and to information about the course itself. Feature wherever possible the voices of students who have successfully made the transition For useful Edinburgh Napier resources in this general area see:
http://college2uni.podbean.com/
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/getready/
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/SPICE/

Allow direct entrants to have online access (pre-arrival and/or on arrival) to lecture materials, online readings, and online discussions from core modules that ran in the year(s) before their entry to the programme

Provide new students including direct entrants with pre-entry access via online social network groups to the peers they will be studying alongside (see University of Bradford’s Develop Me! Social network for a great example http://developme.ning.com/)

Create formal learning opportunities between current students and those from FE that are on an articulation route for a named programme (e.g. by having FE HNC/HND students undertake joint online tasks including discussions with those in the cohort they will be joining)

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Establishing the means for students to take content and contribute it to the public domain in an informed way. This could involve a discussion on the VLE covering: 1.Intellectual Property, Knowledge Exchange and Issues relating to the publication of content in the public domain. 2. Determining the medium of choice (ppt, keynote, open office, slideshare). 3. Deciding on how and where to host or where to contribute material for the public domain

Students are tasked with curating a YouTube channel on a given topic or research question. A discussion is held online between the group members to decide what to include and exclude (based on quality, currency etc.). The guidelines for the curation are drawn up online (e.g. using a tool like Google Docs) to result in a collaboratively produced shared reference document. The public domain contribution is the YouTube channel, with its title and short description

Students establish an online research community network in their discipline, led by the students themselves (through LinkedIn or other relevant professional networking platform) where the exchange of information and expertise takes place (i.e. opportunity to search for researchers who share common interests)

Student create network through social media to showcase individual or collaborative projects online (i.e. YouTube) that other individuals can critique

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Establish a peer mentor discussion board at programme level, enabling open peer support and mentoring opportunities within a programme group, with private boards for mentor-mentee pairings that are set up within a programme community

Suggest the exploration of additional tools (e.g. Google plus, Skype, a private blog shared between the mentor and mentee) to enrich the mentor/mentee relationship and to make this more responsive and more effective in addressing needs as they arise

Establish an interdisciplinary peer mentoring space with mentoring resources on the VLE to support critical evaluation of theories common to disciplines and programmes within which mentoring is used or required in relation to the development and professional accreditation of students (e.g. Nursing)

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Establish ‘core skills’ online forums (e.g. an online equivalent to generic MathsPlus provision, or for digital literacy development) that are available asynchronously to avoid timetable clashes and where students could seek advice from study skills advisors and each other (this could be linked into peer-mentoring initiatives where more experienced peers help less experienced peers)

Within discipline-specific course provision provide from the outset access to exemplar projects and case studies available online that place the discipline the student is studying in a wider interdisciplinary context. Have students explore and discuss these examples within the context of tutor-led, online and coursework activities

Establish a means for students from different disciplines to post their honours project ideas online to seek collaborative partners. For example a product design student wishes to develop a medical device for their project, a business student sees the entrepreneurial potential of this as a focus for their honours project, and a nursing student understands the viability issues and can do the same. All three own their major project, but have a synergy in terms of learning experience, realisation and commercialisation, and peer support.

Students could use a shared social networking space to seek partners, match projects and ‘tag’ shared interests, or use the profile feature of the VLE where it allows this

Have students develop online environments and resources as a means of supporting collaboration between disciplines. For example computing students could undertake a project to set up an environment which can then be used to support multidisciplinary collaboration and role play, with students from other subjects working together to create case studies, scenarios, and resource collections in areas where disciplines cross (e.g. joint projects around law and child protection, nursing and informatics). The computing students are assessed on the environment they have created in consultation with the students who are to create the content, and the students who create the content are assessed on the case studies and reports they have produced together.

Alternatively programme leaders may initiate an interdisciplinary joint project where groups of students are given a brief for a specific task to undertake (e.g. to research, design or produce something), and where online tools and spaces can be used to plan and co-ordinate progress but also to make project outcomes (written work, other deliverables) available as digital artefacts for wider dissemination and future reuse

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Provide students with links and subscription information for online news feeds, podcasts, professional groups, blogs and twitter accounts that are good sources of regular international news and information in their discipline area. Make a point of using news and updates from these sources yourself in classroom and online activities, and getting your students involved in regularly sharing what they have discovered from these sources as part of discussion and debate. Think about a ‘what’s on top’ spot where at the start of each class one or two different students take turns to share something that is happening within the global context of the discipline (i.e. a relevant scientific breakthrough, crisis, conference, publication, or piece of legislation within another country or continent)

Consider using real-time virtual classroom technology to hold regular seminars involving your students and the tutors and students from similar modules or programmes running in other countries or continents, or to bring in guest experts who can help your students explore their discipline area (and the nature and practice of it) from different cultural and geographic perspectives

Have students collaborate on joint projects with students from another country or continent, with a view to undertaking a particular project that they can manage and present in shared online spaces but also with a focus on learning about each other’s culture and cultural practices (which could form the basis of an individual reflective piece of work)

Use the VLE or an institutionally independent space (for example a wiki) as a platform for joint modules or courses that bring together cross-cultural cohorts from different countries in exploring, comparing, critiquing and producing joint coursework relating to their discipline within a globalised context (for a good example of this see the International Nursing module described within the Edinburgh Napier LTA Resource Bank)

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Develop a wiki on a controversial topic and ask students to identify and contribute article links

Identify researchers with an active online presence (e.g. those using twitter or blogs, who put articles online or feature in TED talks) for students to follow and perhaps invite online for a Q&A session

Help students explore simple online research tools (e.g. for creating questionnaires) that they can start to use relatively easily for their own research purposes

Have students critique Wikipedia articles you know have omissions and inaccuracies, and undertake further research to help them prepare more current and accurate articles to post online. You can assess these against equivalent kinds of criteria as an essay, but allow the student the additional satisfaction and confidence that might come from adding their work to the publicly available knowledge in their discipline area (see also the further examples under ‘Contributing Knowledge to the Public Domain’)

Consider offering an asynchronous research ‘mini-conference’ to prepare and support undergraduate students during project work. This could be a group-based conference overseen by the tutor and running over a couple of weeks in which all the students in a cohort can outline their research project plans (e.g. for small-scale research projects or dissertations), contribute literature resources to a shared page of links, and use discussion boards to formulate and ask questions about the research process. This kind of approach can be used to support students in the research process generally, help them build their confidence and a supportive network, and learn from the tutor and peers with stronger research skills

Involve students who are new or less experienced as researchers in ‘apprentice researcher’ roles on research projects undertaken by students further on in a programme or being led by the tutor, assessing them on their contributions in terms of collecting and presenting data, literature, and authoring project updates to be shared within an online space (e.g. blog, wiki, website) for the research project

Get students to interview leading researchers in their field and produce a podcast/video of the interview along with an online ‘resource base’ of links, articles, and recorded presentations of their work

Get undergraduates who have already been supported in developing some key research skills to collectively undertake research projects that they help devise, collect the data for, and write up in a style that matches the general requirements for papers in a chosen journal in their discipline area. They could then present this work online, as a means to disseminate it more widely. While research work at undergraduate level will likely not match the required depth or rigour for submission to an academic journal, writing up their work to the style of a chosen journal, and making this available online, will provide an insight into doing research at advanced levels

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Introduce research students to institutional and other technologies that can support their research activity at the outset. This could include reference management tools like EndNote or Mendeley, or introducing the #phdchat tag on Twitter as a means to interact with other research students elsewhere

Consider also collaborative spaces on the VLE, including discussion boards, that are shared by research students across the School for Faculty as a place to ask general questions from experienced research supervisors and seek support from each other.

Webinars open to research students across Schools and Faculties could be used to bring together and guide groups of research students at similar stages, or for supervisors and guest experts to offer ‘masterclass’ sessions on particular methods and approaches

Have students explore and use their institutional research repository as a means to disseminate their work, and have them engage with other open access repositories and networks (such as SHERPA and MIMAS) or discipline focused communities (for example LinkedIn groups) for the purposes of public engagement and building their academic and research profiles

Have research students present their work within a wider network of colleagues in and beyond their discipline by leading online webinars (as part of a Faculty or institutional series open to invited guests). The recording of the webinars will give the student a useful record of the session, including questions tackled, that could provide a stepping stone to wider public presentation of their work

Help research students establish their own online-supported community where they can share their work and support one another, organise events and social gatherings, and where recent post-docs can offer peer mentorship and begin to develop skills that could be of use when they move into co-supervising and supervising roles. An online community of this kind could feature an online research students journal or periodical that would allow them to disseminate their work more widely, and provide links to personal blogs that research students use to establish and build their academic public profile

Have students submit proposals to present their work as part of online conferences or seminar series being run by professional bodies and networks in their discipline, or as part of national and international online conferences. Alternatively have research students help organise and run an ‘emerging researchers’ online conference that could feature research student peers from other institutions and which would raise the profile of research student activity beyond institutional and regional levels