Skip to content

Digital Capability, Skills and Support

Back to Academic Essentials homepage

 

Digital Capability, Skills and Support aims to provide you with a range of guidance, information and resources relating to teaching, learning and assessment.

In the first instance, please use our dedicated search list ‘looking for something in particular’. This provides you with links to the source of content. Wherever there are multiple sources, these will appear on this page. As part of the development of Academic Essentials, we are working with our stakeholders to bring together all multiple sources of content into one place.

The content here has been curated by a range of stakeholders from across both academic and professional services teams and is managed by the Academic Development & Diversity (AD&D) Team.

We very much welcome contributions to this resource, suggestions on how we can improve and any other feedback.

Questions?
Join one of our drop-in sessions!

Idea
Email the AD&D Team.

 

Tools and Resources

An A-Z library of tools and resources that support digital capability, skills and development.  Select one of the following titles:


Assistive Technology

Assistive Technology – supporting you and your students. 

Back to A-Z section

Blackboard

Blackboard is intended to support teaching, learning and assessment for Sheffield Hallam University staff and students. Staff may use Blackboard for:

  • supporting the teaching and learning of Sheffield Hallam students.
  • supporting academic administration processes.
  • management of academic content.
  • supporting research activities.

From the 16th July 2022, there will be new ways of navigating Blackboard (website) including the look and feel for the Blackboard home page (the page you see once you’ve logged in). Blackboard will be unavailable in the morning, starting 9am, though it should be considered at risk during the afternoon. As always the team will strive to minimise any downtime. There will be no changes inside Blackboard sites themselves – the contents of your sites and the way you build them will stay the same.

All guidance can be found on the Digital Learning Team: Help with Technology Enhanced Learning website which covers the following themes:

Getting used to Blackboard

TEL Help guidance: e-learning starter pack  *  blackboard at SHU  *  understanding the interface  *  adding content  *  setting up student groups  *  seeing the student view  

Accessibility

Blackboard Ally: improving the accessibility of content – presentation by Stuart Hepplestone in the Digital Learning Team, this session focussed on using Blackboard Ally to check and improve your content in Blackboard.

Assessing Online

TEL Help guidance: online submission  *  physical submission  *  blackboard tests  *  achievements 

Communicating and Collaborating

TEL Help guidance:

messages to students  *  collaborative  *  Blogs  *  wikis  *  discussion boards  *  google apps  *  padlet  *  surveying you students 

Additional resources: 

Getting help

TEL Help guidance: Digital Learning Support contacts  *  support resources for students 

Getting used to PebblePad (Pebble+ and ATLAS)

TEL Help guidance: Pebble +  *  ATLAS 

Managing your Blackboard site

TEL Help guidance:

start of semester  *  new or copying existing files  *  enrolling staff  / enrolling students  *  managing site settings  *  getting ready for new year  *  attendance

Additional resources: 

  • 2021/22 academic year: the process of rollover has been completed. Further information can be found on Blackboard site creation for 2021/22 complete guidance – Digital Learning Team.
  • 2021/22 academic year: staff enrolments have been carried across to the new sites. You will need to use the Staff Enrolment Tool in the Control Panel to add any new staff or unenroll staff who no longer need access. Course and Module Leaders are automatically enrolled on Blackboard sites based on data in SITS. If the incorrect Course or Module Leader is shown in the Blackboard site, you can update them using the self-service option in SITS online. If the External Examiner is incorrect, please email externalexaminers@shu.ac.uk.
  • 2021/22 academic year: for the automatic set-up of module sites, no action is needed from academic staff. Where a 2021/22 module is indicated as ‘running’ in SITS (i.e. marked active and has a named module leader) and had a Blackboard site in 2020/21, the contents of that Blackboard site will be copied into the new site. Copied sites will include the content from the 2020/21 site but not the announcements, discussions, assignments, or Grade Centre columns. Where a 2021/22 module is indicated as running in SITS but did not have a Blackboard site in 2020/21, a new Blackboard site will be created from a standard template.
  • 2021/22 academic year: from 2020/21 will typically be copied forward into a 2021/22 version of the site. However, you can check/change the settings of your organisation site by going to your Blackboard Sites channel, and selecting the ‘Manage Settings’ link from the dropdown menu next to the site name. Set it to ‘Copy’ or ‘No Copy’ as required. 

Media

TEL Help guidance:

media server  *  screencasting  *  panopto

Additional resources: 

Online feedback and marks

TEL Help guidance:

setting/managing grade centre  *  feedback rubrics  *  turinitin originality reports  *  marking blackboard tests  *  marking work online / marking work offline

Additional resources: 

Threshold Standards (TS)

TEL Help guidance:

introduction  *  taught module sites  *  navigation and information  *  communication  *  assessment and feedback  *  beyond TS  ** TEL practice development

Also visit Assessment Essentials website for assessment and feedback guidance.

Back to A-Z section

Careers Centre 360

Career Centre 360 provides students with interactive online career development tools and resources to help them work towards achieving their career goals.

Case Studies

Visit AD&D: inclusive academic practice – case studies for a wide range of digital related case studies and a collection of journal articles, book chapters and conference presentations from colleagues at Hallam.

 

Back to A-Z section

Closed Captioning / Subtitles / Transcriptions

Back to A-Z section

Cyber Awareness

To protect the University and help staff defend themselves against online fraud, the University has invested in a Cyber Aware online course to highlight the risks in online activity and how we can deal with these. 

Back to A-Z section

Digital Accessibility

SCULPT Model

Digital Accessibility: design principles for content creation – SCULPT – presented by Nick Russell and Kieran White in the Web Accessibility Project, the session focussed on key accessibility considerations when creating or updating content and how to apply them.

Creating Accessible Digital Content – presented by Nick Russell and Kieran White in the Web Accessibility Project, this one hour session explored the SCULPT model – a six step guide to success.

In Conversation

Digital Accessibility – a short podcast in which colleagues discuss how digital accessibility techniques can be adopted to produce more inclusive teaching materials. Also visit Inclusive Practice section below – creating accessible content / materials.

Resources

  • Are your websites accessible?
    • Web Accessibility in Mind Conference:
    • PopeTech: bring to you their November Accessibility Focus: colour contrast – articles and videos.
    • Designing for web accessibility website – introduces some basic considerations to help you get started making your user interface design and visual design more accessible to people with disabilities. 
    • Read more on the Global Accessibility Awareness’ Day website.
    • Accessibility Insights – The “Headings” and “Tab stop” checkers are really handy to make sure your sight has correct headers and it can be navigated via keyboard.
    • Wave –  checks lots of issues and gives you a little report. 

Back to A-Z section

Digital Champions

Brought to you by the Digital Skills Hub, this initiative launched in August 2020 with the aim of building a network of Digital Champions across the university. Any member of staff can call upon their local Champion for help with the Apps that they support. This page explains what Champions do and how to get hold of your local champion. If being a Champion appeals to you can find out more about that too.

Back to A-Z section

Excel

Brought to you by the Digital Skills Hub, begin your Excel journey or explore more advanced functionality.

Back to A-Z section

Inclusive Pedagogy and Practice

AD&D: inclusive pedagogy & practice – provides a range of guidance, information and resources that assist with implementing inclusive pedagogy and practices in your teaching and learning.   

Back to A-Z section

In Conversation

AD&D: In Conversation brings to you a series of short video podcasts showcasing our academic colleagues’ experiences of delivering teaching and learning during the pandemic. Each podcast is structured around a specific theme where colleagues can explore the challenges of delivery in the digital void, provide practical solutions and share best practice.

Back to A-Z section

IT Services

Back to A-Z section

Equipment

Back to A-Z section

LinkedIn Learning

Activate your  LinkedIn Learning account and discover courses and pathways to develop you and your students’ academic and employability skills. 

Become a LinkedIn Learning Curator – an ideal opportunity for those with a focus on learning, teaching or leading the development of others. You can upload your own content, create a new learning path, share content and see insights.  Here is a short demo video of the curator role on LinkedIn Learning (6 minutes watch) to showcase the features.  

Back to A-Z section

Media

The Library Learning and Teaching Support Team host a range of video, images and audio resources to support your teaching and learning.

Microsoft Lists

Brought to your by the Digital Skills Hub, this is the starting point on your journey to get to grips with Microsoft Lists. 

Back to A-Z section

MS Teams

  • What is Microsoft Teams all about? – presented by Mary Hill in the Digital Skills Team, this session provided an introduction to  MS Teams and putting in context here at SHU. The team have also provided sessions on;
    • Putting Microsoft Teams to good use showing and explaining in more detail the benefits Teams has to offer;
    • Microsoft Teams: Course Cohort Community Teams aimed at Course Leaders, Academic Advisors and Administrators who are Owners and Members of student Teams. This session aims to provide you with further information about the course Teams that have been set up for students. We will cover: The purpose of the course cohort Teams The Student Voice channel MS Teams functionality with a focus on being a Team Owner.
  • MS Teams – what is it and how you use it
  • MS Teams – learning resources, courses and videos
  • MS Teams – not just another tool – Presented by Richard McCarter, Jason Ruffell and Iain Thompson Digital Learning Team, SETL at the December 2020 Course Leader Fest ‘Engaging and Thriving’.
  • October 2021 – Transcriptions now available in Microsoft Teams.

July 2021 – Microsoft hosted their Customer Touchpoint Training Sessions which were open to all Microsoft customers. Here are their resource documents relating to MS Teams:

Back to A-Z section

Lectures

Back to A-Z section

Office 365

Brought to you by the Digital Skills Hub, explore the Office 365 functionality.

Back to A-Z section

OneDrive

An introduction to MS OneDrive for Business, a cloud storage solution that is recommended as an alternative to your F Drive.

Back to A-Z section

OneNote

Brought to you by the Digital Skills Hub, explore OneNote, this free-form information gathering application form the basics to more advanced functionality.

Back to A-Z section

Outlook

Use Outlook to send, receive and organise email, share you calendar, schedule meetings, manage your contacts, create tasks and share files. You can also source additional information on the use of emails via:

Back to A-Z section

PDFs

Guidance on making your PDF documents accessible. 

Action needed if you use Adobe Creative Cloud applications

There are two important changes being made to Adobe Creative Cloud Applications on University managed devices on Friday 24 March. We need you to let us know if you use any Adobe software so you can continue using it and don’t lose any data stored on your SHU Adobe Creative Cloud Account. Find out what action you need to take on the intranet.  

Back to A-Z section

Planner

Brought to you by the Digital Skills Hub, get more work done with Planner. Create Kanban boards using content-rich tasks with features including files, checklists, and labels. Collaborate in Planner and Microsoft Teams and check visual status charts—all in the Microsoft cloud.

Back to A-Z section

PowerPoint

Brought to you by the Digital Skills Hub:

Also visit AD&D: Digital Resilience in terms of guidance in making your PowerPoint documents accessible and inclusive for all.

Back to A-Z section

Printing, copying and scanning

For staff and student guidance visit the My Hallam printing, copying and scanning page. 

Back to A-Z section

Remote Working

 

Back to A-Z section

Screencasts

Back to A-Z section

SharePoint

SharePoint is an application used to build intranet sites. It is used to create many of the College and Directorate sites that are accessed via the Staff Intranet home page. There is also a home page for accessing these high level sites. Take a look at the Digital Skills Hub’s online tutorials on how to use SharePoint.

Back to A-Z section

Social Media

The aim of this Social Media for Learning website is to help you explore the different ways you can interact online using social media and the tools to help you do this. December 2020 – First edition of the Journal of Social Media for Learning – conference special edition #SocMedHE19. 

Back to A-Z section

Storing and sharing files

Storing and sharing files is brought to you by the Digital Skills Hub. Explore guidance on using, sharing, collaborating on, publishing, archiving, protecting files etc.

Back to A-Z section

Sway

Brought to you by the Digital Skills Hub, create and share interactive reports, presentations, personal stories, and more. Sway is an easy-to-use digital storytelling app for creating interactive presentations.

Back to A-Z section

Timetabling

Look at the Course and Module Delivery overview page for details of the timetabling systems and guidance.  

Back to A-Z section

Tools for Tasks

Use Tools for Tasks to help work out which apps are the right ones to use for a specific purpose. Apart from categorisation you can check out other properties of each app to see if it meets your needs.

Back to A-Z section

Trello

Do you use Trello? We are aware a number of colleagues across the University may use Trello. Trello is one of many apps which are useful for planning, tracking and organising. Tasks by Planner and To Do is an app already available in MS Teams and is a good alternative to the free version of Trello.  We want to understand Trello usage cross the University to scope the need for the Trello App for Teams.

  • If you use Trello, please answer this question so we can capture usage.
  • If you know a colleague who uses Trello. Please forward them this question so we can capture usage. 

Back to A-Z section

TurnitIn / Originality Checking

Visit Assessment Essentials resource website for full details 

Back to A-Z section

Twitter

Visit the Social Media for Learning blog site brough to your by Sue Beckingham, which features:

Back to A-Z section

Video Conferencing

Back to A-Z section

Webinars

Back to A-Z section

Whiteboard

Brought to you by the Digital Skills Hub, guidance on using Whiteboard, an infinite, collaborative canvas.

Back to A-Z section

Word

 

Back to A-Z section

WordPress (WP)

Hallam use the WordPress platform for many of it’s resources. Most WP sites are hosted on the blogs@SHU server. Take a look at making your WordPress sites accessible.  

Back to A-Z section

Zoom

Back to A-Z section

Back to top of page

Last updated: 20th March 2023 NB