The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Digital Badge is the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning open course, designed to support staff in tertiary education to design inclusive and welcoming learning environments and experiences. This course introduces staff to the UDL approach to teaching, learning and assessment and offers an opportunity to explore strategies and tools to apply this approach in practice, including the UDL framework (CAST, 2024)*. Two formats of the badge are available to Irish tertiary professionals each academic year: a national rollout and local rollouts within individual institutions facilitated by locally based colleagues. A concern for facilitators of local-level rollouts at two institutions was the lack of opportunities to engage in discourse around inclusive practice with colleagues beyond their own institution. To address this concern, the facilitators collaborated to deliver the badge simultaneously in February - April 2025 with the aim of enriching participants’ and facilitators’ experiences by providing new opportunities for collaboration and trying new ways of working together.

This practice paper presents the findings from this pilot rollout of the UDL badge and offers insights into the specific collaboration in relation to the UDL digital badge, and, more broadly, for inter-institutional collaborations.

* CAST. (2024). The UDL Guidelines.