An additional €44,000 for DkIT-N-TUTORR projects

Delighted to announce that a further four proposals we submitted to the N-TUTORR programme management office were approved by the HEA. These four proposals will continue to support DkIT in embedding N-TUTORR related goals and ensure future success for our staff, students and campus. The proposals will support the following being implemented in DkIT (further details to follow);

• Sustainable solar powered benches with wi-fi and environmental sensors
• A ’Smart’ digital lightboard
• Meeting room upgrades
• Wellbeing furniture for the library

Autumn Lecture series

On Tuesday Nov 12th, DkIT hosted the N-TUTORR Autumn Lecture on the theme of employability. Opened by our President, Dr. Diarmuid O’Callaghan, our keynote speaker Dr. Angela Short went on to present her lecture on the N-TUTORR theme of employability. Many congratulations to Angela on an excellent lecture. You can read more about the event here: https://www.dkit.ie/news/n-tutorr-hosts-sectoral-employability-lecture-at-dkit.html . Dr. Ronan Bree closed the event reflecting on Angela’s lecture, acknowledging all involved, and outlining how impactful we are as an institution in terms of employability. It’s worth noting that our event had the highest in-person attendance from across all the Lecture Series (174) - and across all seven N-TUTORR HEIs. Well done DkIT!!!

Second AdvanceHE Fellowship support session

The N-TURORR project in DkIT continues to support our 33 staff who are preparing their AdvanceHE Fellowship applications. Lisa Donaldson visited our campus for a second time to help guide our staff with approaches to support success. 

Launch of academic integrity chatbot

In collaboration with the Registrar’s office, CELT, Student Services and IT, members of the N-TUTORR team have working on the development of an Academic Integrity chatbot for DkIT students - which you can now find on the Moodle student support hub dashboard. We look forward to formally launching this in the near future. Thanks to Eugene Stewart, Angela Magennis, Orla Hughes and Dr. Moira Maguire who joined Dr. Ronan Bree on the working group for this initiative. This was carried out as a pilot, working in collaboration with ATU colleagues (who developed a chatbot around exams in their Institution).

Launch of Panopto

To support DkIT staff with video use in a streamlined way, N-TUTORR has provided support for the development of a video management system in DkIT. Integrated into Moodle, the Panopto platform provides a way to develop, record, edit video content in a user-friendly way, in addition to having a means to embed quizzes into videos and provide accessibility supports. Our colleagues in CELT have hosted some kick off training already, and there is a dedicated Panopto staff module on Moodle to assist also. Thanks to members of the N-TUTORR (Eugene, Ronan), CELT (Gerry, Orla) and IT (James, Gareth) teams who greatly assisted this implementation.

Carroll’s furniture installation

In the PJ Carrolls building’s ‘Bright Room’, a set of new furniture has been installed. These fit the space really well, and provide a place to sit, learn, engage with digital devices, and connect with the campus. The install includes an accessible space, and the uptake and feedback has been positive so far. Thanks to the many people who were consulted and supported this work. 

Employability focused events

The work of N-TUTORR has six key themes, and recently supported events around one of those – Employability, whereby there was a focus on transversal skill development, Linkedin Learning, and more.  Of course, we also had our National Autumn Lecture Series on this topic where we saw Dr. Angela Short’s excellent overview, in addition to several references to the Employability toolkit developed by our Careers and Employability team.

N-TUTORR future vision strategy meeting

Dundalk was the venue for a national ‘looking to the future’ strategy workshop where several members from across N-TUTORR partners came together as a team to reflect and review. Facilitated by Michael Donnelly, the 40 attendees worked to reflect on N-TUTORR learnings and experiences, to map out potential future directions. From DkIT, this was attended by Dr.s Diarmuid O’Callaghan, Edel Healy, Moira Maguire, Arjan van Rossum and Ronan Bree.

PowerBI exploration workshops

A series of scoping workshops took place around how Microsoft’s PowerBI could meet local needs in terms of data engagement and analysis. Thanks to stakeholders across DkIT who attended. We look forward to receiving the final report from the external consultants in early December. Stefanie Ratzky continues to work in the space of data analysis for DkIT, and is also exploring means to determine the potential of PowerBI.

Ethics platform support for IREC

N-TUTORR will be providing a digitally enabled process to support our Institute’s research ethics committee in their review of applications. This will provide a more streamlined process that will assist committee members with their workflow, as well as support metrics, analytics and reporting. We look forward to the completion of this work in the near future.

DkIT Sustainability Council

With the establishment of the Sustainability Council across DkIT, N-TUTORR is delighted to be supporting many of the goals and practices. Representing N-TUTORR, Dr. Ronan Bree sits on the council, and the project itself has been able to develop and support various training courses and materials, in addition to providing curriculum supports for the key theme of Sustainability. We look forward to continuing this work on several fronts.

N-TUTORR National Showcase 

On November 26th, N-TUTORR hosted its National Showcase event. MC’d by Matt Cooper, with keynote speaker Pamela Uba, the event brought together success from right across the project. Dublin’s convention centre hosted the event, which had three parallel sessions, an exhibition zone showcasing the technologies invested in, a Presidents’ Panel, and a final plenary. All in all, a wonderful day for N-TUTORR - and DkIT.  There were many speakers and events including DkIT staff and student champions.  DkIT shined a light on how impactful N-TUTORR can be. Thanks to all of the local N-TUTORR team, and our marketing department, for their incredible support in the organising, planning and roll-out of the event. Ciara O’Shea and Eugene Stewart represented DkIT on various organising committees - thank you for all this work. We would like to acknowledge our President, Dr. Diarmuid O’Callaghan and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Registrar, Dr. Sheila Flanagan for playing such active roles on various panel events during the day. Equally, thanks to all who took time to come to the Convention centre to celebrate the success of N-TUTORR - and showcase their own success too.

External evaluations

As N-TUTORR comes to an end, an external facilitator team has been appointed to review progress and impact (Sheila MacNeill and Dr. Helen Beetham). To support this body of work, workshops were organised nationally with members of all the various N-TUTORR teams invited to attend.  Interviews were also carried out with Institutional Leads, Stream Leads, and Presidents. Thanks to all who attended these evaluation sessions, we look forward to receiving the outcome of this work soon.

N-TUTORR local events

N-TUTORR continues to support local events championing excellences across our staff and students. As Fellowship projects come to an end, some final events are still taking place. These have been such a success story for DkIT – as well as the concept of staff and students working together in meaningful partnership. Congratulations to all our fellowship leads, staff and student team members as well as Student champions, who are working hard to enhance what N-TUTORR can offer DkIT – thank you all.

Ongoing national masterclasses

N-TUTORR continued its Masterclass series, with the most recent focusing on the theme of Artificial Intelligence (we had over 400 registrations!). Speakers included Prof. Mike Sharples, Dr. Hazel Farrell, and Dr. Tom Farrelly.

N-TUTORR GenAI N3 AI Play workshops in DkIT

Jacqueline Toal and JJ Quinlan facilitated two ‘AI Play’ workshops for DkIT staff, in addition to an ‘AI hackathon’ for staff and students.  These events brought people together to further explore AI tools and practices, with the aim of finding solutions and building confidence on the use of AI. Many thanks to Jacqueline and JJ for their excellent work in this area, as well as representing DkIT on the national GenAI N-TUTORR network.

Recent N-TUTORR steering boards take place at MTU and DkIT

The N-TUTORR steering board met in MTU in October, and DkIT (Nov) to review plans and progress. In DkIT, the meeting was formally opened by Dr. Sheila Flanagan and during the day, we gave the board a tour of our recent digitally upgraded Slieve Foye room in the library. Thanks to Eugene Stewart for his excellent technology demonstration, Claire Fox for her ongoing work, and to Frank Brady and the library team for their continued support. Claire is developing staff user guides which will assist engaging with the technologies in place.

EDEN & N-TUTORR DELA

In November, Orla Hughes and Dr. Ronan Bree represented DkIT at the EDEN Digital Learning Europe and N-TUTORR ‘Digital Education Leadership Academy’ hosted by the Open University of Catalonia.  Orla and Ronan both received diplomas for completing the academy. Ronan was involved in organising this event in collaboration with a national working group, and colleagues at EDEN.

Student partnership meeting hosted in Dublin

From DkIT, Angela Magennis and Dr. Moira Maguire organised and attended a Dublin based workshop around student partnership. This was facilitated and led by Alison Cook-Sather, an international expert in this area. Well done to Angela, and Dr. Moira Maguire for their continued leadership and support for the student empowerment stream 1 of the N-TUTORR project.