Digital Learning Platform: Minimum Standards and Expectations Policy

An effective Digital Learning Platform (DLP) is essential for student learning in the 21^st Century, and has a wide range of benefits to all students, including promoting accessibility for, and engagement with learning, in a fully inclusive approach.

As well as the implementation of a new DLP, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has shifted Swansea University to an even more flexible approach to curriculum delivery, personalised learning and student experience. Therefore, the enhancement of the Minimum Standards and Expectations for our Digital Learning Platform is timely.

Students say their priorities for an effective DLP are that navigation is consistent and simple, information and materials are easy to find, and resources are accessible, organised and designed to support their learning. Moreover, internal survey results indicate that students highly value the availability and accessibility of both learning materials in advance of teaching sessions, and recordings after teaching sessions through video capture.

Swansea University has had a minimum content policy since 2012 (updated 2013, 2015 and 2018). The 2020-21 update is designed to further evolve the use of DLP, in the learning experience and enhance student engagement in-line with the numerous, ambitious projects taking place across the institution.

Why do we have a minimum standards and expectations policy?

To provide an easy-to-use and predictable user experience for students and all other stakeholders.
To support colleagues in the delivery of teaching provisions in both ‘business as usual’ and unpredicted circumstances.
To enhance the information provided to students and encourage their active participation in their own learning.
To ensure that materials provided to students are available in advance and designed to be inclusive from the outset.
To provide a solid foundation from which colleagues can go on to develop online and blended learning courses to promote, and enhance, student engagement.
To assist in providing a parity of experience for those learning in either English or Welsh.

Who are these standards for?

Students
Academic staff
Professional Services staff
External users

Core Principles

Each course should have a clearly defined, accessible and consistent structure within the Digital Learning Platform (relevant to the effective delivery of the learning outcomes).
All students should be able to access all relevant information on the Digital Learning Platform equally at any time (inclusive practice).
All students should expect to find the minimum standards and content for all modules within the Digital Learning Platform (see implementation checklist).
Detailed information relating to the specific assessments and feedback should be included in all academic Canvas course (module) sites.
When the option is available to study in either Welsh or English or both languages all students should expect to find the minimum standards and content for their modules provided in their chosen language of study within the Digital Learning Platform.

Implementation Checklist

The following table details information which module coordinators/lecturers are required to include within the standard Canvas course (module) template:

Course Item	Content	Source	Comment	Responsible
Course Navigation Menu	Home (Page) Modules Assignments Reading List Announcements	These are created and imported into new courses by a Blueprint template within Canvas.	Additions to course navigation will be based on course specific requirements and made within the relevant Faculty/School.	Module Co-ordinator / Lecturer
Home Page	Customisable title/banner Welcome message Course Overview Course Content Course Discussions Course Assessment & Feedback	These are created and imported into new courses by a Blueprint template within Canvas when they are automatically created. Include text informing students that if they encounter any accessibility problems with content or resources who (lecturer name and details) they should contact for support.	The academic course blueprint template is based on staff and student User Experience (UX) testing and will be evaluated periodically. Staff should customise the text below content headers.	Module Co-ordinator / Lecturer
Course Navigation Menu: Modules	Course Overview	Module/course information including synopsis, syllabus, delivery, contact, hours and learning outcomes needs to link to the module catalogue via the course overview page. Provide details of what will be available / delivered in Welsh. It is recommended that assessment and feedback information is included on this page, including a reminder that work can be submitted in Welsh.	Modules should be updated annually via module maintenance. The DLP module information should be automatically updated when saved. This section, is designed to provide relevant information to students and manage their expectations and increase engagement. A link should be provided for the module timetable.	Module Co-ordinator / Lecturer
Modules	About your Instructor: Contact Details	Details of core staff teaching on the module, contact information and office hours.	Staff should personalise their contact details, and office hours. The staff list for team taught modules should highlight which staff member(s) will be delivering in Welsh and supporting students studying in Welsh medium. It is recommended that information detailing where to get School/Department/Programme help is also included in this section.	Module Co-ordinator / Lecturer
Modules	Course Question Board	Created as part of the Blueprint template	A pre-created discussion board that can be used to collect and answer student questions.	Module Co-ordinator / Lecturer
Modules	Library Guides	Created as part of the Blueprint template	This provides a link to the University Library Guides webpages.	Created as part of the Blueprint template
Modules	Assignment Survival Kit: ASK	Created as part of the Blueprint template	This provides a link to ASK interactive tool.	Created as part of the Blueprint template
Modules Course Content	*Week 1 (Title/Theme): Sub-sections:* Weekly Overview Overview/To-do List Presentation Supplementary resources Weekly activities: Individual assignment Group discussion Quiz Weekly Review Wrap-up and Looking Ahead	The headings are created and imported into new courses by a Blueprint template within Canvas. The weekly headings and sub headings are a result of student and user testing, 86% preference for weekly layouts, but they can be personalised to the individual course delivery.**	The module structure should be copied for subsequent weeks to aid consistency and familiarity in the DLP. Aims/objectives/expected outcomes for each teaching session. Learning materials for each session available at least 2 working days in advance in an accessible format. Accessible lecture recorded videos available within 2 working days of the session. Further reading relating to each session in advance. Student expectations – how students are expected to use the DLP for each module/session.	Module Co-ordinator / Lecturer It is the staff responsibility to check all the content is accessible and appropriately attributed prior to publishing. Guidance can be found in the links at the end of the document.
Course Navigation: Assignments	Assignments	A central place where students can view their assessment submission points. Academi Hywel Teifi can provide guidance on Welsh/bilingual assessment best practice, including information on assessment and the Welsh Language Standards.	It is strongly recommended that a summary of assessment and feedback (formative and summative) is provided to students in the Course Overview page. Areas to cover include: · Calendar of deadlines · Academic integrity advice & guidance · Referencing · Remind students work can be submitted in Welsh regardless of the module’s language of delivery · Detail of individual assessment: o Marking criteria/rubric o Assessment Task o Submission instructions & submission points o Weighting	Module Co-ordinator / Lecturer
Course Navigation: Reading List	Reading List	Reading List is a 3^rd party tool, and is an automatic feed from iFind Reading service embedded into the navigation menu.	Amendments to the reading list must be made in the iFind Reading service and can be actioned through contact with relevant colleagues in the library. Subject librarians can support Faculties/Schools with this. For reading materials, outside of core text, staff should use the ‘supplementary resources’ page within the weekly folders.	Module Co-ordinator / Lecturer
Course Navigation: Announcements	Announcements	A space for staff to post course announcements to students.	Announcements should be made in the language of delivery for the module, and bilingually for modules taught in Welsh and English.	Module Co-ordinator / Lecturer

As with all policy, Subject areas which exceed the minimum criteria or deliver them in a more advanced way are still deemed to meet the criteria and should not be required to reduce the standard of provision.

Support and Guidance

Canvas Essentials CPD course

SALT Website

Digital accessibility regulations

SAILS Website

Academi Hywel Teifi’s Guidelines for DLP and teaching in Welsh

Setting the course interface language

Technical Support

ServiceNow (service-now.com)

Canvas Help - Accessed in the Global navigation menu when logged into Canvas

Canvas Accessibility Checker

Canvas setting usage rights

Compliance and Monitoring

Staff must ensure they meet the University’s commitment to the Welsh Language Standards in respect to content they make available on the platform. The University’s Welsh Language Policy Office: welshlanguageoffice@swansea.ac.uk are able to offer advice on this.

Each Subject Area/Board of Studies is responsible, with student representatives, for auditing their implementation of the minimum standards and expectations.

All Module Co-ordinators and Programme Directors will be required to reflect on their DLP provision through Annual Programme Review (notably Annual Module Review). Directors of Learning and Teaching will oversee a consistent approach to auditing and monitoring DLP provision, and ensuring that this is embedded in standard review processes (N.B. we would expect Faculties/Schools to implement a monitoring approach which works within the subject areas, rather than expecting the Director of Learning and Teaching to review each site).

DLP sites will also be sampled and audited on an annual random basis. SALT will devise, undertake and disseminate the results towards the end of each academic year.

All audit reports, including relevant aspects of Annual Programme Review analysis, will be submitted to Faculty/School Education Committees and the University’s Education Committee for monitoring after each review point.

Guidelines on Welsh-language content and delivery on the Digital Learning Platform (DLP)

Background

This document is intended as a supporting document to the University’s DLP Minimum Standards and Expectations Policy (20-21 update) and to provide further guidance to Swansea University’s academic and administrative staff delivering or supporting content either in Welsh or bilingually.
The aim of these guidelines is to outline clearly the expectations for content on the DLP to support the student’s language choice of study. HEFCW and the Coleg Cymraeg measures the activity of students in Welsh by credits, with 5 credits, 40 credits and 80 credits of a degree used as target thresholds. This document aims to ensure students receive a parity of experience when studying in Welsh across the disciplines and that their working environment within the DLP is sufficiently provided in Welsh or bilingually to match their chosen language of study.

All Core Principles and guidelines provided by the University’s current DLP Minimum Standards and Expectations Policy will apply to those teaching and studying in Welsh, with the following providing greater detail on expectations. Swansea University’s current DLP provider is Canvas and these guidelines address the terminology or facilities available via this particular DLP.

The following table: Welsh modes of delivery outlines the various modes of delivery according to language that are available within the provision offered at Swansea. The provision ranges from modules taught wholly in Welsh through to those that are predominantly taught in English with some support available in Welsh. Module co-ordinators are invited to consider the guidelines that are most appropriate for the type of delivery for each of their modules.

Further guidelines are outlined below on preparing various course elements to support students learning in Welsh:

Course Element	Further information	Responsible
DLP Interface Language	There is Canvas guidance on how to set the language preference of a course here: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-change-the-language-preference-in- my-user-account-as-a/ta-p/436 However, if a staff member sets a language preference for their course it overrides the language preference of the user. It is therefore advised in most cases for modules taught bilingually that the module coordinator should not set the language preference and to leave it as “Not set (user configurable defaults to English UK)”. This will enable students to choose their interface language. Further guidelines here: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-change-the- language-preference-for-a-course/ta-p/1246	Module Co-ordinator
Cross-listing modules on DLP (parent/child)	Cross-listing courses enable a module coordinator to post content in one shell which then reaches more than one cohort of students registered to particular module codes. Whilst this enables module co-ordinators to ensure the same access to materials for all students, brings cohorts together to share a teaching experience and eases staff workload to a degree, it is important that the student experience of all remains a key consideration and that the use of one language does not over-ride the other. Requests for courses to be cross-listed should be made via a service desk ticket as soon as course shells are available to the member of staff on Canvas, and prior to any content being created within the shells. Cross-listing should be done while courses are unpublished. Coursework is retained with the course, not with the section enrolments, so if a published course is cross-listed, all cross-listed enrolments will lose any associated assignment submissions and grades.	Module Co-ordinator
Canvas Course Overview	Module/course information including synopsis, syllabus, delivery, contact, hours and learning outcomes needs to link to the module catalogue (SITS) via the course overview page. To enable the information to appear in Welsh on Canvas, the information needs to be in Welsh on SITS.	Module Co-ordinator
Team Taught Modules	All modules that are team taught and are not 100% taught in Welsh should list the module contributors, and in particular the member of staff who will be the contact for those students studying in Welsh. The teaching team is encouraged to include a short video of each member in order to introduce themselves, the topics they’ll be teaching on the course, and their research interests. These should be done in Welsh or bilingually by staff who are teaching in Welsh on a course.	Module Co-ordinator & Lecturer(s)
Assessment in Welsh	A separate area within Course Overview should be created to outline clearly in both Welsh and English what the assessment requirements are. The statement should also make clear to students that they can submit in either Welsh or English and provide information on the process involved in informing the department of their choice. Further details of the procedure are available: https://myuni.swansea.ac.uk/academic-life/academic-regulations/assessment-and- progress/assessment-in-welsh-another-language/ Any assignment questions, instructions or guidelines, or marking matrix etc for each assessment component should be available in both Welsh and English. Quizzes requiring free text answers should be set separately in Welsh and English whereas quizzes with multiple choice answers can be set bilingually with questions and answers provided in both languages simultaneously. Module co-ordinators should take care not to set prerequisites for students to complete a quiz in one language which might prevent progression on the test if it isn’t completed in the other language also. SALT can advise on settings to avoid this situation.	Module Co-ordinator
Canvas Discussion Boards	Whilst discussion boards are there to enable students to engage with their module content, their lecturers or fellow students in their language of choice, module co-ordinators and lecturers should consider how best to promote posting in either or both languages by users.	Module Co-ordinator
Library Guides	Module contributors should ensure relevant Welsh-medium sources are included in the library guides. Signposting and directions for accessing relevant resources on Y Porth (the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol’s national Welsh-language Digital Learning Platform) should be included. Bear in mind that there will be resources available in Welsh on Y Porth for students to access even though a particular topic or course might not be taught in Welsh.	Module Co-ordinator & Lecturer(s)
Accessibility	Making your resources accessible for some, in particular those with specific learning difficulties and/or disabilities, improves accessibility for all and will reduce the number of individual adjustments you need to make. By following the guidance below you can start making reasonable adjustments to the teaching and learning materials you provide to students, regardless of language choice, before a specific need arises. Please use the University’s Guide to Accessibility for Teaching and Learning Resources created by SAILS.	Module Co-ordinator & Lecturer(s)
Turnitin	Instructions on how to submit each assessment component via Turnitin should be made available in both languages on the Canvas site when the module is delivered bilingually, and in Welsh only when the module is 100% taught in Welsh.	Faculty Assessment teams/Module Co-ordinator
Module registration	Programmes should ensure that the students are registered on the correct module code according to language choice. The University cannot accurately reflect its students’ learning experience in Welsh through HESA data if the student is not registered on a module code which records Welsh-language content. Please make sure that students who are studying in Welsh are not registered on the English language version of the module as they will then be invisible to our data collection.	Faculty student support teams/Module Co-ordinator