FHM Digital Education Day 2025: Programme Confirmed!

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The full programme for the Faculty of Health and Medicine’s (FHM) Digital Education Day has now been confirmed (see below for details). This in-person event will take place on 3rd September and brings together academic and professional services colleagues to share their teaching practices, innovations, ideas and projects.

9:45-10:00 Welcome

Professor Bob Lauder

10:00 The use of marking matrixes on the MBChB programme

Dr. Olaug Grude, LMS

10:30 BLS Student Engagement Project

Dr. Andrew Lewis, BLS

11:00 Break (refreshments provided)

11:30 Introducing the new Moodle template

Stephen Owens, ISS

12:00 Using MS Whiteboard and Moodle Board to enable student discussion and collaboration

Dr. Guillermo Perez Algorta, DHR

12:30 Lunch Break

13:15 Peer-power: designing reflective assessment in Moodle

Dr. Faye Tucker, LMS

13:45 Designing wide: effective digital accessibility

Ellen Wildman, ISS

14:15 The use of the Data Immersion Suite on the MBChB programme

Professor Cliff Shelton, LMS

14:45 Close

Professor Sarah Brearley

The event will be held in Management School, Lecture Theatre 19 WP B002.

To book your space follow this link: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/calendar/fhm/digital-education-day1 

For more information on the event, feel free to get in touch. Staff from other Faculties are most welcome to attend.

Enhancing Digital Accessibility: Upcoming Training

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The Digital Accessibility Team are offering a series of engaging training sessions to kick off the 2025/26 academic year designed to boost digital accessibility skills across the University. Whether you’re a staff member or student, these workshops and webinars provide practical guidance on creating inclusive digital content.

The hands-on Accessible Presentations and PDF Accessibility workshops offer in-depth training for those who regularly present or share these documents, covering everything from colour contrast and reading order to tagging and alt text. These sessions are ideal for anyone looking to make their materials more accessible. Noting the PDF workshop requires prior request to access the Adobe Creative Cloud.

For those short on time, our micro Lunch and Learn sessions deliver bite-sized training on key accessibility topics. From the Top 5 Tips for Digital Accessibility to Effective Alt Text and Accessible Tables, these sessions tackle common issues and provide plenty of examples.

You can also discover a range of Assistive Tools and Technology available to staff, including built-in features, Apps Anywhere options, and free plugins.

If you can’t attend live, explore the Creating Accessible Resources online course. See each sessions’ meeting information for all the details. Let’s work together to make digital spaces more inclusive for everyone!

Moodle Update 2025: What’s New?

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Lancaster University Moodle has been updated to version 4.5 today! We were previously on version 4.3. So what’s changed and how will this impact users?

Some of the main improvements include:

  • Updates to activity icons
  • A new ‘subsections’ feature
  • Updates to the grading table
  • Improvements to accessibility
  • A screen recording function in the editor
  • A new ‘ordering’ question type in the quiz activity

For the general user, the three biggest changes are probably the updates to activity icons, the new ‘subsections’ feature and the updates to the grading table. I’ll go through each one below:

Activity Icons

The activity icons are now a greater variety of colours and a small number have a different design. Apart from being more visually appealing, this will help users distinguish between activity types more quickly.

The activity picker in Moodle.

 

Subsections

The new ‘subsections’ feature is probably the most significant change and something many of us have wanted in Moodle for a while. You might have previously created your own subheadings using the text and media area activity. However, these subheading often took up quite a lot of room on the page and didn’t reduce the amount of scrolling a user had to do. This new feature changes all that!

The first thing to note, is that the subsections feature looks slightly different depending on which layout you are using in Moodle.

Moodle ‘all sections on one page’ layout example:

All sections on one page layout example with two subsections added.

Moodle ‘one section per page’ layout example:

Example of the one section per page layout with two subsections.

This new feature is useful for Moodle spaces associated with lengthy modules (e.g 10 weeks or more) with lots of resources and activities for students to engage with each week.

In addition to the reduction in scrolling on the page, the new subsections now appear in the left-hand navigation bar which makes it easier for a user to jump to that subsection. You can also restrict access to subsections as well as (e.g. by date or group).

Grading Table

Don’t panic! No functionality has been removed from the assignment grading table.

There have been 4 changes of note:

1.The “view all submissions” button (red button) has now been removed. To view all submissions there is now a tab at the top of the assignment activity.

Grading table summary page with the submissions tab circled in blue pen.

2.In the previous version, at the top of the grading table you had the option to filter submissions by name. To filter by other options such as marker or workflow state, you had to scroll to the bottom of the grading table (….a bit of a pain!). Now, all the filters appear at the top of the grading table.

Grading table with new filter options at the top.

3.The third change is that when you select submissions, you used to be able to enable bulk actions by scrolling to the bottom and using the “with selected” filter. Now, when you make selections, a floating bar will appear (much like it does with the bulk options feature on your Moodle course page) and you can select different actions from there (e.g. lock, download etc.). It will save you some scrolling!

4.On individual submissions, the ‘grade’ button has now been tucked away under a three dots menu under the ‘grade’ column of the table. It is still there, just not quite as visible as before.

Watch this video for a more detailed breakdown of the changes.

Please note that the video uses the Exams Moodle platform for the purposes of the demonstration but that the changes remain the same across the different platforms.

Other changes

The following features were removed as they weren’t often used here at Lancaster and some are no longer supported in the newer versions of Moodle.

  • Atto text editor
  • Realtime quiz activity
  • Lightbox Gallery

Ongoing news

Full lists of improvements can be seen on the Moodle website, but please note that not all features listed will be made available in the Lancaster University Moodle:

Ongoing news about the upcoming improvements will be posted to the Moodle discussion channel of the Digital Education Network group in Teams as it becomes available.

If you’re not currently a member of the Digital Education Network, you can request access by clicking on the link above and selecting to open it in Teams, then clicking the ‘Join’ button.

If you have any questions about any of the changes or want to have a look over your Moodle spaces for the upcoming academic year, please feel free to get in touch.

FHM Digital Education Day 2025

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Learning Technologists in the Faculty of Health and Medicine (FHM) are launching the first ever FHM Digital Education Day which will be held on 3rd September 2025. This in-person event will bring together academic and professional services staff from across the Faculty and from ISS. It is an opportunity for colleagues to come together to share practice. Our wide variety of speakers will be sharing their solutions, ideas, experiences and expertise with all things linking to digital learning and assessment.

The current programme includes the following sessions:

  1. Prof. Bob Lauder: Welcome to the day
  2. Dr Olaug Grude: The use of marking matrixes on the MBChB programme
  3. Dr Andy Lewis: BLS Student Engagement Project
  4. Stephen Owens: Introducing the new Moodle template
  5. Dr Guillermo Perez Algorta : Using MS Whiteboard and Moodle Board to enable student discussion and collaboration
  6. Ellen Wildman: Designing Wide: Effective Digital Accessibility
  7. Prof. Cliff Shelton : The use of the Data Immersion Suite on the MBChB programme

Refreshments will be provided in the morning break. The event will be held in Management School, Lecture Theatre 19 WP B002.

Full programme to be confirmed. To book your space follow this link: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/calendar/fhm/digital-education-day1 

For more information on the event, feel free to get in touch. Staff from other Faculties are most welcome to attend.

Upcoming Training Sessions: May 2025

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I will be offering the following lunch-time training sessions to staff in the Faculty of Health and Medicine (FHM) but staff from across the University are very welcome to join:

Tuesday 20th May, 12-12:30pm: Preparing your Moodle space for a new cohort

This short lunchtime session will look at the key things that staff should include in their Moodle spaces. It will also showcase the one section per page layout and other features of Moodle that can improve the student experience and staff monitoring of engagement. The information shared in this session is based on student feedback on Moodle as well as staff feedback.

This session is most relevant to academic staff and professional service staff involved in creating resources for Moodle spaces and managing Moodle spaces.

Book your place: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/event/4376280

Thursday 22nd May, 12-12:30pm: Video production using Panopto

This short lunchtime session will look at how to access video recordings as well as how to record, edit and caption your videos.

This session is most relevant to academic staff who teach and professional service staff who need to create training materials. 

Book your place: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/event/4376282

All sessions will be recorded and a copy of the recording will be sent to attendees.

Accessible thesis template now available!

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Written by Ellen Wildman, Digital Accessibility Skills Developer (ISS)

If you support students who need to submit a thesis, let them know there is now a digitally accessible template available that is also aligned with the formatting requirements that the University set. 

Accessible theses are created in a specific way so everyone can use them – regardless of background, circumstance, or disability. An analysis of academic papers sourced from different research areas found that about 98% had accessibility issues (Menzies et al., 2022). Making research available to everyone puts into practice Lancaster University’s lived value of respecting a diverse and inclusive community of communities.  

Student benefits 

As shown in the first page of the template below, by using this template, students will:  

  1. Align their thesis with the necessary layout stipulated by the Manual of Academic Regulations and Procedures. 
  2. Ensure their research is digitally accessible (when used appropriately). 
  3. Enable ease of navigation by using features of Microsoft Word, for example automatically create a dynamic table of contents with heading-use.

Thesis template document in Microsoft Word. The text shows the opening lines of the template which are customisable.

Direct relevant students to visit the Accessible thesis page on ASK to download the template and top-tips to make their thesis accessible. There is also a video to assist those students who might need support to use a Microsoft template. 

Reference  

Menzies, R., Tigwell, G.W. and Crabb, M. (2022). Author Reflections on Creating Accessible Academic Papers. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing. doi:https://doi.org/10.1145/3546195.  

Improving Peer Online Forums Project

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Written by Sam Pilgrim, Learning Technologist (FHM)

As Learning Technologists, we are asked to become involved in a wide variety of projects. One recent example is a research project I started working on in my previous role in Information Systems Services (ISS) and continued after my move to the Faculty of Health and Medicine (FHM).

The IPOF (Improving Peer Online Forums) Project on Mental Health Forums is a research project led by Professor Fiona Lobban in conjunction with NHS Berkshire’s SHaRON team, to investigate mental health forums and ways to improve them. More information on IPOF, its aims and outputs, can be found on the Lancaster University FHM research pages.

I worked with the research team and co-design group to develop a forum moderator training package using Xerte, online software that allows a user to create interactive learning packages. The package consisted of nine modules developed by lived experience experts and forum moderators along with LU academic and research staff on different topics including:

  • the moderator role;
  • moderator support;
  • mental health on online forums;
  • expressing empathy through language;
  • managing risk;
  • managing challenging situations;
  • encouraging activity; and
  • a final quiz.

Each module was reviewed and amended by the co-design group at monthly meetings, and the final design and content emerged from the feedback discussions.

Graphics and animations created by others in the team were embedded into the training package to aid understanding and increase engagement.

The final package was handed over to the NHS Berkshire who are now in the process of publishing it to their website.

Front page of a Xerte package created for IPOF. The package is called "Mental Health Forum Moderator Training".
The front page of one of the Xerte packages entitled ‘Mental Health Forum Moderator Training’

Add GenAI RAG categories to Moodle at the click of a button

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Written by Dr. Richard Floyd, Digital Learning Facilitator (ISS)

Each assignment in Moodle needs to have a Red, Amber, or Green category for the use of generative AI. The University has provided some guidance for staff covering what these categories mean and how this should be communicated to students.

To make it easier for staff to share this information with students, we have now added a set of custom components to the text editor in Moodle. This will allow you to choose your category and automatically insert the official icon and text into your assignment description.

How to add an AI RAG category to your assignment description

  1. Edit your assignment settings
  2. In the description field, click the three dots to expand the toolbar, then select the Components for Learning (C4L) option (the Lego brick):The TinyMC text editor in Moodle with the 'Components 4 Learning" (C4L) lego brick icon circled in red.
  3. Under the Custom tab, select the relevant category and then click save:The custom tab for components in the C4L section of the TinyMC editor. The 'RAG AI - Red)' option is selected.
  4. The component will then appear in your assignment description:An example of an assignment with the Generative AI category applied in Moodle in the "description" section of the settings.

If you require any further support, get in touch with a Faculty Learning Technologist or a Digital Learning Facilitator.

eStream 2025 update: What’s new?

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An update to Planet eStream will be launched across Lancaster University on 23rd April 2025. It is quite a big change and users will be automatically moved to the new version on this date.

If you aren’t already familiar with the platform, Planet eStream is the recommended method of embedding on-demand videos into Moodle courses. You can also use it for multimedia student submissions without file type or size limits. Another feature is Planet eStream Connect which makes it easy to record upcoming TV and radio programmes, with access to an extensive archive of pre-recorded shows that can also be embedded directly into Moodle. The TV and radio archive currently goes back to 2007 and eStream are aiming to backfill the archive to 1987.

This new update doesn’t just provide a new look; there are great improvements to a user’s experience through a more streamlined navigation and recording is now available across all browsers without the need for additional plugins.

In this post, I’m going to introduce you to some of the key changes and a couple of features you may not have noticed.

The new look

Your area in eStream is now a side bar that can be opened and closed and appears on the right hand side of the screen. It automatically pops up when you enter the site and can be closed via the ‘X’ sign. To reopen the sidebar click on your profile/initials icon in the top right hand corner. The default section of your area is the “favourites” tab but you can also access other tabs relevant to you such as your watch history, your media area, quizzes, video edits and conversions. You might remember that your personal eStream area used to default to the quizzes tab so the default to the favourites tab is a small change.

The Lancaster University eStream homepage also looks quite different and in my opinion, more attractive. The most popular videos for eStream users at Lancaster University are displayed on this page for easy access.

The icons to search categories, create new media or open tools are slightly different but can still be found at the top of the page to the right of the search bar.

The Lancaster eStream homepage as shown with the users area side bar open.

Creating new media

To create or record media in eStream go to the cloud icon at the top of the page and this will open the “Create Media Options”.

From here you can access the web recorder as well as other ways to add content to eStream such as the options to create a playlist, upload media, add external links and access the TV and radio archive (eStream Connect). eStream also has a separate option where you can import Microsoft Teams Meetings from your OneDrive which is useful for captioning and sharing online lectures or events with students and other staff.

The web recorder no longer needs additional browser plugins to work and can work on any browser. For example, when using Chrome as your browser, to use the web recorder you had to enable a Planet eStream extension – this no longer applies in the updated version.

Continue reading eStream 2025 update: What’s new? →

Lent Term 2025: Training Offering

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We will be offering the following lunch-time training sessions to staff in the Faculty of Health and Medicine (FHM) but staff from across the University are very welcome to join:

Wednesday 5th March (12-12:30): Making Resources Digitally Accessible in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint

In this session, we will look at how to use the accessibility checks in Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint. We will look at some of the common problems with document accessibility and also look at how to use ALLY in Moodle to view and improve the accessibility score of documents. Due to the length of the session, this will be a demonstration session rather than a workshop. Follow-up appointment details will be shared in the session to book a 1:1 support meeting to put what you have learned into practice if required.

Use this link to book your place: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/event/4347623 

Wednesday 12th March (12-12:30): Quizzes in Moodle

An introduction on how to set up a quiz in Moodle either for formative or summative assessment. We will look at a some example question types and also show an example of an online exam. Due to the length of the session, this will be a demonstration session rather than a workshop.

Use this link to book your place: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/event/4347630

Wednesday 19th March (12-12:30): Assessment Feedback in Moodle

This session will showcase three different ways to mark and provide feedback on assessments in Moodle. The session will cover how to set up 3 different types of feedback in Moodle: feedback criteria, rubrics and marking guides. Due to the length of the session, this will be a demonstration session rather than a workshop. Follow-up appointments are available should you wish to discuss a particular assessment.

Use this link to book your place: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/event/4347643

Wednesday 26th March (12-12:30): Video Production in eStream

We will look at how to record a video (including screen capture) and then how to automatically caption the video using eStream, sometimes referred to as ‘Planet eStream’.

This session is useful if you wish to record welcome videos, lectures or show students how to record videos of their own for assignment submissions. Due to the length of the session, this will be a demonstration session rather than a workshop.

Use this link to book your place: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/event/4347647

Wednesday 2nd April (12-12:30): Groups, Groupings and Group Choice in Moodle

We will look at how to set up a group and groupings of students in Moodle as well as how to set up an activity where students can make a choice about which group they want to be in. This is useful for setting up Learning Sets, group work tasks and more! Due to the length of the session, this will be a demonstration session rather than a workshop.

Use this link to book your place: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/event/4347650

Meetings will take place online and attendees will receive a recording.

We hope to see you all there!