After almost 22 years working in a variety of different roles at the University, I’ve made the decision to leave. It’s been a hard decision as there is so much I love about my job but I need a chance to catch up with myself. I’d like to have a bit of time to swot … Read more
As 2025 comes to an end (and yes, I can barely believe it’s nearly 2026) it’s worthwhile to reflect on the past year. It’s been a quite a whirlwind. Not only has news and politics been pretty shocking and horrible this year (again!!!) but news about finances in UK HE institutions has been depressing and … Read more
I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about AI agents/agentic AI. If you don’t know already, AI agents are AI systems which can collect data, make decisions and take autonomous actions to achieve goals (see this helpful description by Amazon). They can do this on your behalf without your intervention. Clearly however, you need to … Read more
I attended the Friday of ALT-C today and I’m glad I did, it was a very interesting and fun day. Some brief highlights from me…. I learned a new term today which I thought was really poignant – ‘lifeload’ – sum of all pressures a student has in their life INCLUDING university – some people … Read more
I wrote a blog post in January 2023 (where did the time go!?!) about the work we’ve been doing on data retention for our services. Work has continued in the background and currently we are almost at the point of: Automating the deletion of courses and users in Learn. Sean has heroically been manually deleting … Read more
My colleagues and I have been doing a lot of work to try and improve digital accessibility across the University. It’s important that we try to make everything we do as accessible as possible – we want all of our students to have the same access to our learning activities, content and systems. We can’t … Read more
This is a blog post that’s been brewing for a while. The landscape is changing so much that every time I go to write it, I’ve heard something new that has changed my perspective. So I’m writing this knowing full well that in a months time I’ll realise it’s a load of nonsense. Please … Read more
My granny used to say, ‘you get nothing for free’. A bit cynical perhaps but from her I learned a few things from her over the years. She lived through the war, was really careful with her money, and would walk miles to get a few pence off something she was buying. She was full of life experience and I … Read more
Despite the fact that I’ve been using our learning and teaching services for years, I occasionally do discover something new about them that surprises me. I’ve had a couple of these moments recently, and I thought I’d share them because, well, it may be useful to someone who reads this. I’ve also written a short … Read more
I’ve been a technologist for more than 20 years now. Although my brain is definitely slower to pick up new technologies now the one thing I do bring to my role is experience. Most often that not, I’ve seen a similar tool or a similar issue or a similar time. What we are currently facing … Read more