We had a good turnout for the final NELE of the year at Northumbria. They got the ball rolling by sharing their experience of using Claude AI. While most of us are sticking to CoPilot because access is being included in our Microsoft site licenses, Northumbria have rolled out the Enterprise Pro version of Claude for all staff and students, only the 4th HEI to do so globally, and 2nd in the UK. This has been rolled out in a way that is “aligned to the university’s ethical values”, meaning that there is no training on user data, their data is isolated from the wider Claude AI, and they have integrated ‘abuse detection’ designed to stop students from asking it to write their work for them, with the big caveat that such measures can typically be circumvented by astute students (maybe they should get extra credit…).
Usage has been good, with 8,000 active users at any given time, though Andrew noted that some students are reluctant to use it because they think the university is monitoring them. Spoiler, they are, but only for safeguarding and this is made clear in their AI policy. Northumbria are also one of the few UK HEIs using Turnitin’s AI detection, with their academic community split on whether or not this is good or useful.
Next, Jean from their Library talked about assistive technology for neurodivergent students and the DSA audit which the government is currently conducting. Matching the experience of the sector, Northumbria are noting a big increase in the number of students declaring a specific learning disability, of which 44% are related to neurodivergence, and 29% to mental health. This isn’t a bad thing though. UCAS have changed how they ask students to report SpLD, moving from a medical to a social model of disability. Alas that the government hasn’t gotten that message though, and still ask students to submit multiple forms of evidence in order to be awarded DSA. Jean had a couple of students presenting with her to talk about their experience, and they spoke about how useful some of the specialist software has been for them, and how worried they are about the government’s review.
Leading on from this, Ross from Durham led our next discussion on digital accessibility. He talked about the new European Accessibility Act which, though it won’t directly apply in the UK, will still benefit us all as it applies to software vendors who are going to have to comply with these new standards. At first glance, this looks like the EU doing everyone a solid again, like forcing a charging standard and removable batteries. (Imperfect those these interventions may be, the intentions are good and generally beneficial.)
After lunch I led a discussion on Instructure’s recent Minor Security Incident and talked about how we responded at Sunderland. Newcastle’s response was broadly similar to ours, and most of us have contingency plans of some kind in place. Teesside, interestingly, have banned the use of IT related apps like Teams and Outlook on personal devices, a policy that was put in place around 18 months ago. I also know that at Durham if you want to install Outlook / Teams you have to agree to give them permission to remotely wipe your device – on Android at least, I don’t know if this is possible on iOS, outside of a fully managed device.
Next we had a demo of a virtual reality simulation Northumbria created for students to experience a police interrogation. At their Coach Lane Campus they have set up a house which can be configured to simulate different scenarios which are recorded with 360° cameras and which students can then experience in full VR using HTC Vive Focus 3 headsets. They used to do this kind of thing in a real environment, but that limits the amount of students who can be there at any one time, and requires a lot more effort to set-up and set-down. I came away from this one with a lot of ideas and new software to go and have a look at.
Finally, the day ended with a showcase of digital content created by Newcastle’s Digital Content team, which was good for me to compare with our own Showcase Module in Canvas, and gave me some ideas on how we could revamp that and make it a bit snazzier.
One last thing… like the Apple keynotes of old, I’ve saved the best news for last – NELE is getting its own website. This came out of a suggestion by one of our members who was looking for a central space for upcoming meeting dates and locations. This may also help us to reach out to FE Colleges where we have tried, but failed to get much engagement, either as NELE or ALT North East. I offered to set this up as I have the headroom to do so, and so I’ll be moving these write-ups to the new site from next year.
Leave a Comment
