Strategic Initiatives

The LTA leads and also collaborates in the development and implementation of various strategic initiatives focused on the enhancement of learning and teaching across the partnership. New and ongoing initiatives include work in the areas of learning analytics, the use of Virtual Learning Environment, open educational practice, and the use of Generative AI in learning and teaching. Further information on some of these initiatives is available from the LTA SharePoint pages.

The university has now approved a new Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) policy and UHI Principles on the use of Generative AI tools in learning and teaching, research, for activities associated with learning, teaching and research. Approved by Academic Council in March 2024, our policy, principles and associated staff and student guidance are intended to establish our agreed position on the use of GAI for learning, teaching and research, although we expect this position to mature over time. The university has also approved a suite and GAI tools that have been officially endorsed for staff and student use, and which also expand over time.

Digital Education Practice

Approved by Academic Council in December 2023, the Learning and Teaching Academy (LTA) and Information Technology and Digital Infrastructure (ITDI) are now embarking on Phase 1 of a joint programme of work focused on the ‘Strategic Development of Tertiary Digital Education Practice’.

The focus of the joint programme of work, which for this first year is being part-funded by the Scottish Funding Council, is on taking a more co-ordinated and integrated approach to the significant further enhancement of digitally enabled learning and teaching at UHI, across the range of our FE and HE provision.

A current key activity is on re-invigorating and extending the existing template for unit and module spaces in Brightspace, and on supporting colleagues to further extends their effective use of the VLE. Workshops to enable this are running across this and the next Academic Year.

Learning Analytics

The university has been undertaking an ongoing programme of work to explore, benchmark, pilot and implement approaches to the use of learning analytics to improve student support, provide additional support for individual and groups of students where this is required, and to enhance learning and teaching through identifying ‘crunch points’ and other challenges for students in the design and delivery of curricula. This work is being co-ordinated by LTA and ITDI through the Learning Analytics Steering Group.

Open

Open educational practices, in forms including ‘open digital’ and ‘open in the community’, are evident across the university. However open education is still an emergent area for the institution, and one that we are actively seeking to develop in line with the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Strategy and the LTES value of ‘Harnessing open education approaches’. To support our work in this area, the university approved a ‘Framework for the Development of Open Education Practices’ (currently in Version 1.1 and about to be further revised), and an ‘Open Educational Resources (OER) Policy’. We have also recently established a new learning object repository, EdShare, as a platform for sharing and repurposing educational resources.