What We Do

The eLearning team provide guidance and support on:

• MyAberdeen & Ally
• Panopto Video Platform
• Turnitin & Safe Assign
• Collaborate webinars
• Vevox Polling
• Digital Accessibility
• Questionmark OnDemand

We provide videos, written guides and web links on the Toolkit website for the applications we can support.

This service is intended to support teaching teams using MyAberdeen to improve the accessibility of learning materials and help raise awareness of accessibility issues. The Course Accessibility Service is run by University of Aberdeen students working within eLearning, who will audit the course on its digital accessibility. You will receive a written report highlighting accessibility issues found with the course area and an invitation to discuss the highlighted issues with the eLearning team. The focus of this service is providing support and guidance on how to improve the accessibility of documents. This can include creation of accessible templates or sharing good practice on how to fix aspects such as heading styles, use of colour, tables, and hyperlinks. To request the Course Accessibility Service for one or more of your courses, please email elearning@abdn.ac.uk

Collaborate is a real-time video conferencing tool that lets you add files, share applications, use a virtual whiteboard to interact, and set up breakout groups to enable group work. We offer two workshops: Getting Started and Focus on Breakout Groups. The former introduces the system and goes through the general interface, while the latter focuses on running and organising Breakout Groups within a session.

These online sessions give you the opportunity to experience Collaborate both as a student and as an instructor. The sessions will provide an overview of the tool, give you the chance to use the interactive features and to experience being a moderator.

Further information about upcoming Collaborate sessions is available on the course booking website and there is additional support material on Toolkit under MyAberdeen: Collaborate Ultra .

Panopto is the software supported by the University that provides lecture recording, screencasting, video streaming and video content management software.

eLearning provide online sessions covering information on getting started using Panopto and also a more advanced session focussing on enhancing your use of Panopto.

Further information about upcoming Panopto sessions are available on the course booking website and there is additional support material on Toolkit under Panopto .

Blackboard Ally is a tool within MyAberdeen that focuses on making digital course content more accessible. Online sessions are provided to give an overview of the need for digital accessibility, the feedback Blackboard Ally provides staff and the alternative formats available it generates for students. There will be an opportunity for questions during the session.

Further information about upcoming Ally sessions are available on the course booking website and there further support material available on Toolkit under Accessibility for Authors/Creators .

MyAberdeen is the University's virtual learning environment, where you can upload learning materials and resources associated with your course.

Prior to the start of semester there are a variety of sessions offered focussing upon:

• Content and Communication
• Assessment and Feedback

Further information about upcoming MyAberdeen sessions are available on the course booking website and there is additional support material on Toolkit under M yAberdeen: Staff , Blackboard & Turnitin Assignments for Staff and MyAberdeen: Admin .

This five-week online course has been developed to support staff in the design and tutoring of online courses. More information can be found on the Centre for Academic Development pages. Normally DTOC is offered twice a year, usually during October and April each year.

In response to the University's move to Blended Learning, eLearning offered a reduced version of the Designing and Tutoring Online Course, entitled DTOC LITE. This is a condensed version of DTOC and is delivered over five-days. Currently DTOC LITE is offered in January and August, see course booking for further information.

This 1 hour session provides an overview of the programme review and storyboarding process, which can be applied to fully online, blended as well as on campus programmes and courses.

In many cases, the programme review and storyboarding processes has greatly inspired both the programme team and course team in the development of their own programmes.

Sessions can be booked via course bookings , filtering by eLearning/MyAberdeen.

We are looking for people to contribute to one of this year's meetings! If you'd like to share your experiences with others at one of the MyAberdeen User Group meetings, please let us know by completing a short MS form and we will get in touch with you soon.

More information on upcoming events in 2022 can be found in the MS Teams area.

29 March 2021: Inaugural meeting

At this meeting we discussed the remit of the MyAberdeen User Group. The outcomes were that the User Group is:

• An informal space to discuss challenges and opportunities in the use MyAberdeen and of associated learning and teaching technologies.
• A safe space for staff to share good practices, and to get a chance to try things out with the help of colleagues, before using them with students.
• Somewhere to find out about new releases and improvements coming to MyAberdeen and have a chance to discuss with colleagues how they can be used.

7 June 2021: Experiences of grading online

Two lecturers kindly shared with us their experiences of grading online using the Original Course View on MyAberdeen. A recording of the session has been shared on the MS Teams area.

9 September 2021: Top tips for the start of term

This was a well attended session were staff had a chance to share with each other some top tips for the start of term. We have shared the slides from the session and collated all the main points from the discussion in the MS Teams area.