Following conversations at a recent DisAbility Network Event, we recognised a real need for a student-friendly digital resource to support university students with intellectual disabilities and neurodiversities. This practitioner paper presentation shares the early stages of a collaborative project at South East Technological University (SETU), where we are working to build an inclusive and accessible resource that helps students feel confident, informed, and connected as they move through university life. Our work is rooted in the theme of Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and also reflects the values of Students as Partners, Online Learning, and Innovative and Creative Practices in Teaching and Learning.

We are partnering with the Intellectual Disability Programme in SETU to ensure that the resource truly reflects their voices, needs, and ideas. Together, we are exploring what kinds of tools and information would make university more welcoming and easier to navigate. Some early ideas include simple, visual IT guides, “social stories” that explain everyday university experiences (like going to the library or joining a lecture), and easy-to-use campus maps and support contacts.

The resource will be available online, firstl through our LMS, so that students can access it easily on their phones, laptops, or tablets. It will use clear language, visuals, and flexible formats to suit everyone. We also hope it will be useful not only for students, but for staff and peers who want to better understand how to support inclusive learning.

Right now, we are in the planning stage—gathering ideas, building relationships, and listening closely to requirements. In this presentation, we’ll share our vision and progress so far, and we’re reaching out to colleagues who may have insights, examples, or advice to help us create something that truly makes a difference at SETU and beyond.

AI is ready to tell you what to learn next. The question is, should you listen? Professional development might feel productive but there is a chance it is procrastination in disguise. From an early age, we enter a school system guided by a curriculum designed by experts; however, it leaves little room for us to develop self-direction or take ownership of our own learning. We then move into our professional careers and attend webinars, complete modules, and add badges to our profiles. In a sector under constant pressure to stay current, it is easy to get swept up, yet we rarely stop to ask why. LMS AI is developing in the direction of suggesting what training we should be taking. Self-directed learning is a process we learn through osmosis. We sign up for training when opportunities arise that interest us or when we are required to take it, but we rarely step back to see if this training is moving us in the direction that we want to move in.
This talk will look at whether we are moving in the direction we want to go in, or if we are being taken by the current of learning trends in a direction that might not be where we want to go.

We explore this through the lens of Heutagogy, learner-determined learning, which foregrounds agency in deciding what, when, and even whether to engage. We will explore what it means to choose not only what to learn, but when to say no. In line with the conference’s theme, we invite reflection on the maturity of our response to AI in education. Are we leading the change, or being led without realising it?

In fully online programmes, emotional isolation and limited peer interaction can undermine learner engagement and retention. This paper explores the use of emoji-based surveys - short, visual check-ins embedded in a coaching-informed Slack channel—as a strategy to foster emotional connection, visibility, and community among adult learners. Grounded in life coaching principles such as emotional intelligence and self-reflection, emoji surveys offer a low-barrier, inclusive way for students to share how they are feeling without needing to articulate complex emotions in text. These lightweight interventions encourage self-awareness, normalize vulnerability, and invite empathetic responses from peers and staff.

By surfacing collective emotional states and prompting informal dialogue, emoji surveys contribute to a culture of care and co-regulation, aligned with the goals of holistic adult education. In this case study from a two-year ICT conversion programme, emoji surveys are part of a broader strategy to support the “whole learner” through intentional, dialogic design. The findings show that even simple, visual tools—when grounded in relational pedagogy—can play a meaningful role in building trust, belonging, and emotional support in asynchronous online spaces.

Contract cheating in Irish academia involves students outsourcing their assignments or exams to third-party services, often called "essay mills," which threatens the integrity and reputation of higher education institutions. Over the past few years, at least 1000 students across Irish universities have been reported for cheating, including contract cheating, plagiarism, and exam breaches. Ireland is among the few countries with legislation (Section 43A of the 2019 Qualifications and Quality Assurance Act) that criminalizes facilitating, advertising, or promoting contract cheating, with penalties including fines up to €100,000 and imprisonment up to five years.

Universities in Ireland are adopting a multifaceted approach to managing contract cheating. This includes developing clear academic integrity policies aligned with national frameworks, improving detection and investigation processes, engaging students as partners in integrity initiatives, and collaborating with national bodies like the National Academic Integrity Network and QQI for enforcement and education.

Specifically, the platform WIROO, developed by Macquarie University, Australia, is recognized as an innovative tool to combat contract cheating. WIRRO uses large-scale data analytics and "non-learning analytics" to detect suspicious behaviours and potential breaches of academic integrity at scale. It analyses patterns such as shared IP addresses, unusual submission behaviours, and geographic anomalies (e.g., submissions from unexpected locations like Kenya) to generate risk scores for students, helping institutions identify and investigate contract cheating more efficiently. Other platforms that co-exist with Platforms such as WIROO are Turnitin Authorship, which tool designed to help educators and academic institutions detect and investigate potential cases of contract cheating. Turnitin Authorship provides a comprehensive solution by analysing a student’s writing style over time and comparing it with their submitted work to identify inconsistencies.

This presentation will outline the start of the journey in using WIROO, funded under N-TUTORR and the #NextGenerationEU scheme. For us, this is a pilot project for us here at SETU