Networking Event: Building Digital Capacity in Irish Higher Education

The following Networking Event on Wednesday 16th July may be of interest to people and institutions currently thinking about developing proposals for the new Fund for Building Digital Capacity. Importantly this event is independent from any of the initiatives that have been undertaken by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning to promote the funding call.

Networking Event Invitation

This is an open invitation to people from third level institutions that are considering submitting proposals to the recently announced Call for Proposals to the Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund for Building Digital Capacity in Irish Higher Education. In this inaugural call, €2 million is available for applications that follow a collaborative approach focused around the relevant actionable steps. Submissions are due by 5th September 2014.

More information about the Fund is available from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning Website. There is a link to a recorded webinar with some useful slides explaining the Call for Proposals, although it would appear there may be an issue with the sound.

In response to the Call for Proposals, the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) will be hosting a Networking Event on Wednesday 16th July from 1:00pm to 4:00pm in room Q303/304 at the DCU Business School.

The purpose of this event is to help identify and discuss potential proposals and broker collaboration between partner institutions. During the meeting we will review the scope of the fund and selection criteria, with the aim of better understanding the requirements for successful applications. The NIDL will outline some of the digital learning initiatives that it has identified as potentially suitable for developing as formal submissions. There will also be an opportunity to brainstorm other projects that might help build digital capacity for higher education in Ireland, and for people from other institutions to share their initial ideas about potential submissions.

In summary, the Networking Event has three intended outcomes: (i) to help participants understand the types of projects that appear to fit the selection criteria: (ii) to identify potential project proposals and help tease out their focus, methodology, deliverables, and so on; and (iii) to assist people and institutions to connect with suitable collaborative partners.

Please do not hesitate to contact Professor Mark Brown if you have any comments and/or questions in advance of the meeting. We may record and/or stream the event for those who cannot attend but at this stage our preference is to host people in person so that we can ‘workshop’ potential projects.

For catering purposes, and further instructions on the venue, please register your interest in attending the event by emailing:

madeleine.patton@dcu.ie

PS We apologise for the short notice but with the summer break we decided that it was important to get discussions underway as soon as possible so there is enough time to prepare collaborative funding submissions.

Successful Student Laptop Loan Scheme

The success of Dublin City University’s Student Laptop Loan Scheme may be of wider interest to the sector. In October of 2013, as part of DCU’s commitment to innovation, digital learning and an inclusive student experience, Information Systems & Services (ISS)  in conjunction with the Library and Quality Promotion Office launched the Student Self-Service Laptop Loan Scheme. The scheme  allows students to take a loan of one of 24 laptops on offer for use in the Library for 3 hours per time. DCU was the first organisation in Ireland to introduce a self-service laptop loan service and this was done through Lapsafe.

This scheme has been hugely popular with students over the academic year from October 2013 to May 2014 as the following figures demonstrate:

  • Number of times laptops loaned – over 9000
  • Over 4500 loans per semester
  • Average loans per month – 1500
  • Hours of laptop use – over 23,000
  • Individual laptop loan per month – between 60 & 70 times

The demand for this service, evidenced by the above data, demonstrates how digital learning has increasingly become a core feature of the learning experience and that institutions need to plan for ways of ensuring that all students have access to appropriate enabling technologies. Well done to the DCU team for initiating and maintaining such a valuable scheme.