We are pleased to welcome the following exciting new digital learning projects for 2022/23:

Digital boundaries
Lead: Mark Wells, Senior Lecturer, School of Art and Media

Through a series of one day brief led group workshops this project will introduce Fashion Communication with Business Studies students to a breadth of digital skills that they can then apply, through critical evaluation, to their own learning and creative practice within their modules. The workshops will do this through working with specialist digital equipment and software that will look at creative digital technologies that they would not normally have the opportunity to engage with. The workshops will embed the digital skill within this rather than it being the traditional software training approach.

Enhancing digital literacy and fluency: students as collaborators and co-creators of knowledge through discussion boards
Lead: Simon Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science

The aim of the project is to train and collaborate with students in the use of discussion boards and give them control as administrators. Students will be trained to lead, maintain, and curate the discussion boards. We aim to increase their digital fluency and confidence on professional discussion platforms. Furthermore, we hope that giving them autonomy would lead to increased engagement with their learning and become digitally fluent. As part of the co-creators of their learning, they will gather information and create resources that would not only benefit the current cohort of students on the module but also future students.

Co-producing digital health competencies
Lead: Theo Fotis, Reader, School of Sport and Health Sciences

The aim of this project will be the co-creation of a framework of competencies and their evaluation in the practice-based placements. The student, under the guidance of the applicant, will take full responsibility for the exploration and lead the development and trial of a practice assessment set of digital competencies in co-creation with a clinical digital health team in the local Trust. The developed framework will become available to all the undergraduate nursing students and the developed knowledge will inform similar developments for all the other relevant disciplines including allied health professions and sports professionals’ digital competencies.

Lets QR the health and safety out of it!
Lead: Kayleigh Morley, Technical Manager, School of Education

The project requires multiple aspects of digital fluencies under two strands which setting up a QR code system and designing the relevant webpages (using WordPress). The two strands look at both physical health and safety such as machine safety as well as online digital safety. In collaboration with the Technical Services team as well as the Computing team, the student will populate, source, and evaluate (using student focus groups) applicable content, photos/videos or create their own to enhance their webpages so that it is of interest to the UG students of SoE.

YOU ARE HERE – a poetic exploration of Moulsecoomb campus using Actionbound
Lead: Joseph Ronan, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science

The aim of the YOU ARE HERE project is to create a poetic exploration of Moulsecoomb campus, using the Actionbound app (a ‘Bound’), and an interactive map (in Padlet) to welcome members of HSS to our new campus home at the start of 2023-24, and to serve as an ongoing collaborative induction and orientation tool throughout the year and in future years. The partnership project would the constitute the research, design, writing, testing and production of the Bound and the production of associated digital communications and instructional materials for both staff and student audiences.

The MUG-HUB: Enthusing learning about Medicines Use through podcasts
Lead: Sian Williams, Senior Lecturer, School of Applied Sciences

The Medicines Use Group (MUG) wants to increase student access to and understanding of issues related to medicines use research and education through a regular podcast (MUG-HUB). This project will be helpful to all students of Pharmacy at the University of Brighton and will provide an opportunity to engage with cutting edge research and education around issues related to Pharmacy. The aim is to create a series of 30-60 minute podcasts and the student will help with both the selection of topics and the production of the podcasts.

Developing digital literacies in the metaverse for higher education
Lead: asher Rospigliosi, Principal Lecturer, School of Business and Law

The project aims to develop digital literacies in the metaverse for higher education. This will involve students in creating and curating metaverse content with a focus on higher education in the context of the School of Business and Law. The outputs would be co-created by staff and students, led by students and would include a toolkit for developing digital literacies in the metaverse for higher education, a portfolio of examples of metaverse content with a focus on higher education in the context of the School of Business and Law, and learning resources for developing digital literacies in the metaverse for higher education.

Creating a university podcast series  as a medium to engage students in learning and teaching approaches
Lead: Marina Trowell, Lecturer, Learning and Teaching Hub

This podcast series will feature interviews with University of Brighton staff and students about using podcasts as a tool to engage students in learning and teaching approaches. The project will include the development of podcast questions, co-created by digital learning partner and staff partner, planning: length of interviews, format of interviews, production/editing of podcast. Together we will host podcast interviews and liaise with the Central Media Services Team to book sound recording studio and post-production editing suite. The final project outcome will be the co-creation of promotional blog article about the podcast series.

Census21
Lead: Deborah Madden, Principal Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences

This collaborative project brings together students and academics from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as colleagues from Widening Participation and community partners to co-design innovative digital learning resources and sessions for a range of learning contexts. Co-partnered with Strike a Light – Arts & Heritage CIC, the project delivers online workshops, lectures and interactive sessions, disseminating high quality digital pedagogical resources and links for school, healthcare and community settings. Using the newly released census returns for 1921, historical sources accessed to evidence the changing complexion of its data and the extent to which this highlights key social, cultural, economic and political shifts.

Transition to Ultra – help us shape the new version of My Studies
Lead: Craig Wakefield, Learning Technologist, Information Services

Following two years of successful pilots, the University of Brighton is planning to upgrade My Studies in the summer of 2023. The aim of this project is to capture the student experience of the new interface and help inform any changes before the launch. This project would involve working with the Digital Learning, Portal and Intranet Services team and there is an opportunity to work collaboratively to shape the project. Some examples of proposed work to undertake would be to gather student feedback on the new interface, feeding into the development of resources and promotional materials for students, and supporting users with learning the new system.

Exploring Virtual Reality
Lead: Cameron Paine, Head of Central Media Services, Information Services