Resources

This guide explores what is meant by Academic Integrity; highlights students’ role in understanding and demonstrating academic integrity in their assessments, including agreeing to a UCD Honesty Code (statement); emphasises the importance of communicating to students their permitted access to resources during the assessment; presents some strategies for both preventing and detecting academic dishonesty.

This web page examines the idea of students academic integrity. Topics include: academic integrity; plagiarism; education; prevention and detection.

This web page provides a brief introduction to the concept of assessment.

This web page explores how to assess students. It includes looking at your students’ assessment journey; aligning your assessment; using diverse methods; empowering students in the assessment process; not overloading students or yourself.

This six page Case Study, by Dr Patricia Kennedy, describes how she redesigned her 1st year 'Introduction to Theories and Concepts' 2012-2103 module in the Social Science Degree. She introduced in-class concept maps and removed the examination. This increased in-class discussion and reduce correction time.

This page is a good starting point when considering your assessment and feedback approaches. It sets out some of the purposes, initial terminology and underlying principles of assessment and feedback. It addresses the question: Why do we assess students?

This 78 page comprehensive resource presents the approach to giving students a choice from two assessments within their module. It is an assessment choice for all students, i.e. an inclusive assessment approach. The resource gives an overview of the approach, sets out steps to implement it, and describes its implementation in seven UCD case studies across different disciplines.

This 8-item evaluation tool, validated in a research study (O'Neill, 2017), aims to specifically measure students' perceived equity (fairness) between the choices of assessment methods in their module, when they experienced this approach.

This template aims to both a) assist staff in designing equity between a choice of assessment methods in a module and b) support students in making an informed choice between their given choices.

This evaluation tool aims to measure students’ views on their experience of choice of assessment methods in their module, including perceptions of equity, anxiety, support, empowerment and diversity.

This four page guide highlights the role of both staff and students in giving and engaging in feedback. It sets out six broad feedback strategies that align with those in UCD's module descriptor. It suggests ideas for developing feedback across the programme.

This page introduces the concept of feedback and how one might design and implement it in an effective manner.

This web page explores is meant by the term feedback? It presents UCDs feedback strategies. It also explores how to give feedback to students and ideas to support incremental development of feedback.

This animation gives some useful advice on how staff can give more constructive and actionable feedback to their students. It defines the term feedback, explains different feedback phases, gives some do's and don'ts around giving feedback and highlights students' emotional responses to feedback.

This animation, produced by students for students, aims to help students improve the feedback that they give to their peers. It gives some ideas on how the feedback can be more constructive and actionable. 'Peer review' is one of UCD's feedback strategies.

This six page resource highlights six feedback strategies on students’ assessment. It encompasses feedback given from staff to students and where students self-monitor, review and critically evaluate their own and/or their peers’ work, it sets outs different technologies to support these strategies.

This is an episode of a podcast in which Dr Geraldine O'Neill looks at how we can rethink our definition of feedback, moving away from a retrospective approach, to an approach which develops students' own judgment and self-monitoring skills. It is ten minutes in length.

This document provides a snapshot of in-class assessment opportunities, i.e. primarily formative assessment (those that are denoted ‘assessment FOR and AS learning’). A brief description of each method is provided so that one might consider how to implement within their own practice. Audience: Faculty, Tutors, Demonstrators, those that support learning and students.

The laboratory notebook exercise has been perceived by some students of the Physiology module to be a "colouring competition" and those without artistic abilities were at a disadvantage. Although not so, we decided to modify the assessment on foot of that feedback.

Professor Sally Jordan, UK Open University, presented this webinar on “Getting Started with Designing Online Quizzes” to UCD staff on 4th November 2021. It explores how to write online quiz questions and how quizzes can be incorporated into broader teaching, learning and assessment strategies.

Professor Sally Jordan, UK Open University, presented this webinar on “Improving the Design and Use of your Online Quizzes” to UCD staff on 16th November 2021. It explores how to improve online quiz design and how quizzes can be incorporated into broader teaching, learning and assessment strategies.

This practical resource is created to help you design and implement assessment in the online and in-person environments, providing an overview of key assessment types used in UCD.

This study set out over three academic years to determine whether the negatively-marked first-year biology MCQ exams were biased or not against female students.

peerScholar is an online tool which supports peer review/assessment on individual, group or case study assignment types. Through a three step approach (create, assess, reflect) it enables students to provide constructive and anonymous feedback on each other's work and facilitates critical reflection on how they might improve their own work.

This 13 page guide provides an introduction on how to design multiple choice questions. It offers some simple and effective components that will aid faculty in the production of MCQs. It also has some example questions that one may review.

This six page resource examines the purposes and definitions of concept maps. It presents steps in designing a concept map and some established criteria for their assessment.

In this practice exchange Ms Liz Greene, School of Nursing Midwifery and Health Systems overviews video OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) which utilised 'Bongo' video assignment software, performance checklists and a grading rubric. Virtual clinical placements enabled students to ongoing learning opportunities with physiotherapists and patients in remote practice sites.

In this practice exchange talk Dr Monica Gorman, UCD School of Agriculture & Food Science outlines how self and peer assessment are becoming increasingly important in formative assessment in higher education. She shares experience and lessons learned from using peerScholar for peer and self assessment with postgraduate students.

This page presents three different examples of assessment and feedback principles. These can help guide your decision making when choosing assessment and feedback approaches.

This one page Quickguide sets out a table of some initial ideas for programme assessment and feedback approaches. It is organised under the headings of: diverse assessment, integrated assessment and space for reduced assessment.

This page looks specifically at the grading aspect of assessment. Topics include: grading; what approaches to use; improving your grading; developing assessment standards in your module.

This five page PDF resource highlights the consequences of assessment overload. It presents some examples from different institutions on how they estimate the equivalence of student effort in different assessment methods. For example, using weighting, word-counts and/or estimated student effort hours.

This page presents the terminology related to Technology Enhanced Learning and provides guidance on the systematic process of designing blended and online learning through the following subsections: Introduction, Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation.

The goal for the delivery of this module was to develop a reusable learning object which would present the key messages of the module topic in a visually attractive and engaging fashion within the virtual learning environment.

In this practice exchange talk Dr. Jennifer Keenahan, UCD School of Civil Engineering presents a range of ideas, activities and educational technology tools which she used to engage students online with particular emphasis on group activities.

This resource overviews quiz design considerations and introduces how quizzes can be created, managed and graded in Brightspace.

This resource outlines the core functionality of the assignment tool in Brightspace and the online assessment and submission types which it enables.

This resource overviews the different ways to communicate with your students by using tools such as Announcements, Email and FAQs forums in Brightspace.

This resource outlines what discussion forums are used for, how to create them in Brightspace and how to manage and moderate them.

This web page introduces ePortfolios and looks at why one would use them. It also outlines some of the benefits and challenges of using ePortfolio and briefly outlines how to set them up in Brightspace.

This web page introduces rubric and looks at why one would use them. It also outlines the types of rubrics that are available and provides step by step guidance on how to create a rubric in Brightspace.

This web page provides guidance to assist module coordinators to design or redesign modules to present them via Brightspace in a contextualised format. With regard to designing and structuring modules in Brightspace the following key components are outlined: Module Homepage, My Learning, Learning Materials and Module Builder.

This resource highlights some efficient ways of providing feedback in Brightspace. It outlines the process of providing various feedback formats using the built-in feedback tools available within Brightspace.

In this practice exchange talk Dr Emma O’Neill, UCD School of Veterinary Medicine, and Dr Crystal Fulton, UCD School of Information and Communication Studies outlines In this TEL ways to personalise the student experience and enhance engagement by creating a more interactive, responsive virtual learning environment.

In this practice exchange talk Dr Annunziata Esposito Amideo, UCD Quinn School of Business outlines how using templates in Brightspace enhances module design. It offers tips and tricks in using templates to streamline module layout and reduce student queries.

Checklists are primarily used as a tool for students to help them to track their progress within a module. Checklists are used to support learners in completing learning activities, assessments and also for assignment preparation. This resource outlines when and how to use checklists in Brightspace.

This four page document provides an overview of the use of the Brightspace Portfolio tool within a module. It highlights the cohorts' particular requirements and provides a brief guide as to how the tool was deployed.

This case study is about replacing a mostly-by-rote exercise and instead encouraging engagement of students through planned active-learning before they arrived to the lab.

This showcase is about the use of digital badges on a 10 credit clinical module in Psychiatry which students take in stage five of their medical degree course.

This case study highlights a peer-learning approach, taken in a large group to encourage critical thinking. Introduction to Applied Psychology is a large general elective module taken by approximately 520 students each year. It is run in both semesters, with half of the students in each offering. The module was designed to encourage students to think critically about the strengths and limitations of research findings in psychology and other human sciences

How can you help first-year students to understand the practical applications of computer science from the start of the programme, expose them to research in the field and improve social interaction amongst the class? Watch this video for approaches to all three.

Here is an in-class peer approach that helps stage one students to overcome the anxiety that they can feel about asking questions, about uncertainty and about being judged by their peers and about getting it wrong. It also gives the teacher an idea about how the content is being received.

"Le Tour de France" is a fun way for students to learn using their own devices in class. The real-time graphical display of results provides performance information for the teacher and rapid feedback for the students.

The use of blogs, and to a lesser extent Twitter, was explored to see how student engagement with assessments and the module in general could be improved.

This six page resource will guide you through a process for dealing with student feedback including; prioritising student comments, establishing which are relevant and constructive and considering possible responses.

This document provides a one page overview to the design, planning, implementation and review of student feedback, utilising the standardised UCD system.

This four page case study outlines a trial to provide Audio feedback to students for two online short essay submissions instead of usual extensive typed feedback stapled to their corrected work. Each student got some online corrections (on-screen edits), but also got an audio file within Brightspace with personalised feedback on their assignment.

This 10 page resource highlights UCD design principles for first year modules. It then presents five UCD case studies and how they addressed some or all of these first year module design principles.

This six page case study, by Dr Patricia Kennedy, describes how she redesigned her first year 'Introduction to Theories and Concepts' 2012-2103 module in the Social Science Degree. She introduced in-class concept maps and removed the examination. This increased in-class discussion and reduce correction time.

This five page resource identifies the principals of feedback and provides some examples of how to integrate them into practice.

This is a showcase about a joint teaching module set up for engineers and architects with a view to producing graduates who are better able to work together, with experience of working together as part of their formal training. The development of effective team-working skills is one of the goals of the approach.

Structures-related civil engineering subjects requires a maturation time in the student’s mind before being fully understood. This project aims to develop highly efficient group activities that will help students to meet their learning outcomes in traditionally difficult subjects.

This 14 page guide gives an overview of the assessment of group work. It explores how you can assess the process and/or the product of group work. In addition group work can be assessed by student's individual and/or group contribution. It is valuable to consider how you incrementally develop students group work skills throughout a programme. Advice is given on how to support students in the face to face and online group work.

This four page Case study, by Dr Naomi McAreavey and Dr Niamh Pattwell, describes their experience of introducing a group project to a large class of Stage 1 English students. Overall, they were satisfied that the group project does important work in facilitating social learning – a process through which students learn from each other and deepen their engagement with the module.

A group project approach has been taken in a second year Sociolinguistics module to help students with the challenging learning curve and socially sensitive subject matter.

This one page guide offers top ten tips for students when engaged in group work - ideally suited as a resource provided by faculty for their learners.

This two page resource, developed by UCD Access & Lifelong Learning provides a quick reference guide for integrating 'inclusive' design into module development.

This section offers guidance to support you to embed culturally-responsive teaching, learning and assessment into the curriculum including principles of good practice.

Dr Stephanie Doscher and Dr Hilary Landorf from Florida International University come together in conversation to focus on intercultural learning in UCD.

This Internationalising the Curriculum Self-Assessment Exercise provides specific questions to help review your current curriculum.

An Introduction to Horticulture, Forestry & Land Use and Environment is a core module taken by all UCD/ South China Agricultural University (SCAU) students. It introduces the major global issues in horticulture and forestry in conjunction with other interactions between human beings and their environment. The challenges relate to delivery, the nature of the material and the differences in lecture/tutor-student interactions.

This short video highlights the perspective of UCD students on Intercultural Learning. The students talk about what they believe they can gain from learning from people from different cultures.

This section provides an introduction to the key features of intercultural learning including an overview of topics and terminology.

This page offers some insights on differing approaches to engage large groups from the lecturer and learner perspective.

The Centre for Distance Learning has developed two academic skills modules which form part of the Diploma in Business Studies (DBS) programme. The modules, Induction and Returning to Learning and Developing Learning Competencies, are a core part of year one of the programme

Honey bee colonies were established as part of a programme of staff-student projects aimed at enhancing university and community life. Students have an opportunity to handle bee colonies in the apiary and experience at first hand bee activities and behaviour within the hive environment on campus. Bees play a vital role in the food chain.

This showcase is about how use of a Research Expo has brought research to life for UCD undergraduate business students who, as part-time students, have particularly benefited from the community developed.

This web page highlights the importance of coherent learning approaches.

The challenge for the students is to develop a learning aid to teach the fundamentals of organ specific toxicology. They are encouraged to be creative and are free to work in any media.

This nine page resource gives guidance on the different taxonomies of learning. Taxonomies are catagories that describe different levels of learning and suggest verbs that could be useful to use in learning outcomes.

This module was designed to give first year science students the basic tools to think about their ideas in a rigorous statistical manner and to understand that this is not a dry subject which requires strong mathematical ability, but rather a necessity of life which can be of huge benefit to all.

A class of 320 first year students of UCD Mechanical and Materials Engineering have been set a challenge to build a one meter tall paper tower that will hold one kilogram. The students work in teams and use only paper in the construction. In the video the students and the lecturer, Professor Michael Gilchrist talk about the positive impact of this learning approach.

The capacity of students to recall and understand material covered in the latter parts of lectures is shown in educational literature to be low. The role of the active learning environment is to re-engage students at points in lectures where concentration levels are seen to be in waning.

This ten page book chapter by Geraldine O'Neill and Tim McMahon provides an overview of the concept of Student Centred Learning and offers a guide as to how one might enact this in their teaching.

Feargal Murphy, a lecturer in the UCD College of Arts and Celtic Studies talks about a module he developed for the Humanities to teach Study Skills for University Learning.

This page offers an introduction to common theoretical concepts and how they may impact the learning, teaching and assessment practice.

This document offers a snapshot of a range of techniques and methods that enable and promote ‘active’ participation in teaching and learning. A brief description of each is provided, followed by some pertinent suggestions. Audience: Faculty, Tutors, Demonstrators and those that support learning.

Students learnt about real-world application and communication of complex consumer law information through poster design and Twitter.

This page provides a number of simple guidelines in establishing a rapport with ones' audience and delivering an effective lecture.

The module "Food Diet and Health" was moved online to increase capacity in line with growing demand. This showcase is about the development and teaching of the online version.

This web page addresses key questions to be asked when evaluating a module.

This web page provides module coordinators with a step-by-step guide to the module design process.

This page provides guidance on module design and enhancement.

In this practice exchange talk Dr. Julie Byrne, UCD Smurfit Graduate Business School discusses the triumphs, the pitfalls and the lessons learned when modules are delivered and assessed fully online. Dr Byrne presents her teaching methods and learning strategies. A clear organisational module structure and availability of one-on-one lecturer and tutor time, as well as tutorial recordings are well received by students, however, technology sometimes fails.

This 12 page introduction paper explains key terms associated with the peer observation process and provides an overview of the UCD Peer observation process. It offers a simple five point guide to the preparation, planning, gathering of feedback and evidence and designing of an action plan to enhance ones' teaching and learning.

This one page poster outlines UCD Teaching and Learning's five-stage model of "Genuine Peer Observation of Teaching", which can be used both for reflective practice, and to generate validated evidence of excellence in teaching.

This nine page PDF resource highlights, written for students producing a poster, gives detailed information on how to design a poster presentation, including the poster size, font and use of colours. It discusses accessibility and graphics issues and suggests some different software.

This ten page guide offers some simple design principles with which to create posters. The focus is on how to integrate them into teaching practice from a research-based point of view. The guide may also be offered to students as a basic resource.

This 54 page guide gives detailed UCD case studies including sample problems used and student feedback.

This one page Quickguide sets out a table of some initial ideas for programme assessment and feedback approaches. It is organised under the headings of: diverse assessment, integrated assessment and space for reduced assessment.

This document gives you practical guidance on writing a vision and values statement.

This web page highlights the importance of coherent learning approaches.

This 189 page eBook by Dr Geraldine O'Neill, provides a comprehensive overview of curriculum design in higher education. It covers: educational philosophies, curriculum models, programme aims, teaching and learning strategies, evaluation cycles and more.

This web page gives ideas and resources for doing curriculum research.

This web page encourages module designers to clarify their specific curriculum design challenge.

This web page addresses key questions of curriculum implementation.

This activity contains some questions about assessment and feedback for a programme team to discuss as part of a light review.

This exercise really gets you to think about graduate attributes.

This web page provides key questions to be asked when doing a needs analysis at the start of the module design process.

This web page explains how to do a curriculum outline.

This web page gives guidance and resources on writing programme aims and objectives design

This web page provides information on a range of programme assessment and feedback strategies

This web page gives an overview of programme approaches to assessment.

This web page gives guidance and tools on curriculum mapping

This document provides specific questions that you can use for group discussion of the curriculum map.

Questions to Prompt Thinking and Development of Programme Outcomes by Programme Teams

This 13 page guide helps you to engage in important conversations about a programme.

This web page gives guidance and resources on the vision and values stage of the programme design process

In this 19 page comprehensive resource, Dr Jennifer Moon gives an overview of the difference between learning journals and logs. She highlights the purposes and forms of the reflective writing used in these approaches. She presents some exercises and explores how to assess them, giving some disciplinary examples.

Reflecting on your teaching encompasses taking a step back from your teaching, evaluating it, and extracting meaning from it in order to make positive change. During this process, we can learn more about how we teach and the impact it has on student learning. This six page guide "Reflective Practice Models" provides an overview of just some of the practical models that have been developed to support you in this process.

There are many ways that you can review and share your teaching, from reflecting in private to sharing your teaching in public. This is not a static process and occurs informally as well as formally. This reflective journey affords you the opportunity to discover more about yourself as a teacher and it will help you to more easily make changes in your practice. Here you will find information and resources about aspects of the reviewing and sharing journey in teaching and learning.

This three page case study template is a great way of distilling down an initiative you have introduced or an approach you have taken in your teaching into its main components for sharing with UCD colleagues.

If you are thinking about exploring your teaching at a deeper level through research, this section provides information and resources about researching and publishing your teaching, including beginning the research process, deciding on your focus and research questions, considering ethical questions, and other aspects of getting your research published. It also provides information on ways that you can share your findings with others (conference presentation, case study, or journal articles, etc

This four page document is a sample information leaflet for interview/focus group participants (students). You can edit it to your requirements.

This two page guide provides some useful examples of different approaches for incorporating research into teaching.

This guide provides an important insight into the impact of research-teaching linkages on the Undergraduate student experience in UCD and the understandings and perceptions of the importance and relevance of research-teaching linkages amongst faculty.

This showcase demonstrates the multiple uses of rubrics for individual assessment components in modules with large students numbers and includes a sample rubric and a student guide to using rubrics.

This 10 page resource gives a definition of holistic and analytic rubrics. It explores the three key purposes of rubrics. It steps out the benefits and challenges of rubrics and highlights the different components and steps required when designing rubrics.

This one-page TEL quick-guide introduces pre-recorded lectures and screencasts, presents possible uses in teaching and learning, relevant educational technologies and getting started guidelines.

In this two page PDF resource, Dr Charo Hernandez gives a quick overview of the benefits and challenges of using self and peer assessment.

This page establishes how one may manage small group interactions to the best possible advantage of the learner.

This five page case study highlights how staff in the BSc in Social Science programme came together to support more space for engagement in the curriculum. Week 8 of the first semester was ring-fenced as an opportunity for first year students to step back, reflect on, and ensure they were on target with all of their learning activities following their first few weeks in University.

This four page case study, by Prof Paul Rouse, describes how the staff in the School of History introduced ten (in place of the typical 5) credit modules. This was to allow students pursue a deeper engagement with particular aspects of History at Level 3. Staff and students were positive about the move to larger modules.

This page provides an overview of the Poll Everywhere student response system. Student Response Systems are educational technologies most often used for the purpose of making lectures interactive by engaging students in real-time activities. Typically during class the lecturer would pose a question or poll which students would respond to instantly via their own device such as a smartphone, tablet or laptop.

This six page guide explores some of the core concepts one needs to employ when devising a teaching session.

Professor Anne Drummond, UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, shares her teaching strategies for success with the UCD Community

Professor Danielle Clarke, Professor of English Renaissance Language and Literature shares strategies she has been using for many years to engage and teach students, particularly in humanities and literature-based subjects. Danielle says: "Teaching should be objective-led, student-focused and discussion-driven."

Professor Gavin Barrett, Jean Monnet Professor of European Constitutional and Economic Law shares a number of strategies including enabling students to think independently, engaging them with the subject matter, trying innovative approaches and focusing on teaching itself

Professor Pat Gibbons, Jefferson Smurfit Professor of Strategic Management shares his Teaching Strategies for Success. Pat predominately teaches strategic management to graduate business students. He follows a participant-centered approach, where students are co-creators of knowledge. Pat talks about the detailed information he provides to students in order to set clear expectations and he talks about his own process for improving his teaching strategies.

This five page document offers up a simple framework one might use to design effective questions that shall enable learners to understand and develop their own autonomous critical thinking. Audience: Faculty, Tutors, Demonstrators, those that support learning and students.

This 10 page guide introduces one to the concept of a teaching philosophy and how to set about creating a reflection of one's own conceptions about teaching and learning. It provides an introduction to some models of reflective practice and offers a series of exercises to help frame your own philosophy.

This module discusses the concepts and specific skills related to electronic marketing (eMarketing), Social Networking & Web2.0. This practical oriental module requires students to design and implement an online marketing strategy for a small or medium sized organisation as part of an international online marketing challenge organized by Google

This resource outlines key netiquette guidelines to consider for online learning. It provides fundamental principles of netiquette and more specific netiquette guidelines for the virtual classroom/online meetings, discussion forums/chat and email.

This resource presents the multifaceted role of the lecturer through the various stages of Teaching Online. In the context of each stage of delivery it provides guidelines and advice on supporting online learners and examples of tools/technologies that can assist with this.

This web page outlines the UCD core educational technologies i.e. Virtual Learning Environment (Brightspace), Virtual Classroom (Zoom), G Suite for Education and others and our support relating to same.

The introduction of the smartphone into a lecture theatre with 100+ first year students seemed risky but so far the response has been very positive. The students were given deliberately ambiguous sentences to translate together using the dictionaries, ranging from excerpts from Harry Potter to pieces on nautical terminology and trade unionism.

This 32 page guide provides a broad overview of teaching and learning approaches and methodologies. It includes a series of activities to help one prepare, design and implement small group teaching sessions.

Mechanics for Engineers is a core module taken by every engineering student in semester one of first year. It is one of the first modules that some 320 students take upon entering university and is traditionally regarded by students as one of their most difficult stage one modules.

This nine page resource offers an overview of the Zoom video conferencing tool that is now integrated into UCD's virtual learning environment Brightspace. It offers guidance on how best to facilitate an active and engaging session, making the most of Zoom's in-built tools.

This six page resource offers lecturers guidance on how to manage zoom breakout rooms effectively so students will engage in focused and productive learning activities. It presents a series of practical considerations which lecturers should consider before, during and after a breakout room session.

This five page document sets out the institutionally approved guidelines for faculty on use of the virtual classroom.

This four page document sets out the institutionally approved guidelines for students on use of the virtual classroom.

This module, BMGT3002D Undergraduate Dissertation, is a core module on the Bachelor of Business Studies (BBS) part-time programme at UCD Lochlann Quinn School of Business.

The process of selecting a suitable project topic can be a daunting one for undergraduate students. The wiki enables students to share ideas and to make suggestions to each other assisting in refining their topic focus.

The goals of this assessment, the second of three, were to help to (a) develop group skills; (b) demonstrate effective reading and (c) develop effective writing and communication skills. Students had been exploring the impact of renaissance planning ideas on European cities.