Technology-enhanced formative assessments (TEFAs) are widely promoted as mechanisms for improving student engagement, feedback use, and learning in higher education. However, educators often lack practice-facing guidance to support informed design decisions beyond tool selection or generic pedagogical recommendations. Theoretical frameworks can play an important role in helping educators conceptualise and plan pedagogical interventions, including those involving digital technologies. This paper presents the development of a practice-facing theoretical framework, integrating Learning-Oriented Assessment (LOA) (Carless, 2007; Carless et al., 2011) and the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Mishra and Koehler, 2006), to support educator decision-making in the design and implementation of TEFAs.

The framework emerged through a participatory action research study conducted across three iterative cycles within the author’s own teaching practice. Drawing on established action research traditions (Elliott, 1991; Coughlan and Coghlan, 2002), the study examined how theoretical assumptions about formative assessment, feedback, learner agency, and technology were enacted and contested in practice under real institutional conditions. Quantitative engagement data and qualitative student feedback informed cycle-by-cycle refinements to both pedagogical design and the evolving framework. The research formed part of the author’s doctoral study, which explored the role of technology-enhanced formative assessment in supporting student engagement and learning in higher education. Across the cycles, the research revealed persistent tensions between formative intentions and summative assessment structures, uneven patterns of student engagement, and the need for educators to balance pedagogical aims with institutional and technological constraints.

Rather than functioning as a technical or prescriptive model, the resulting LOA–TPACK framework is presented as a decision-making lens that highlights pedagogical intent, learner experience, and feedback processes, while treating technology as an enabling but secondary condition. The framework is explicitly informed by a state of the actual (Selwyn, 2008) account of practice, acknowledging persistent summative assessment dominance, uneven learner engagement, strategic student behaviour, and practical constraints on time and workload.

The paper argues that the value of the framework lies not in claims of optimisation or transformation, but in its capacity to support reflective professional judgement in complex educational contexts. While the framework contributes to the theoretical understandings of technology-enhanced formative assessment, it also offers a practical structure that educators can use to plan and reflect on pedagogical interventions involving digital technologies. By making visible the tensions between formative ideals and institutional realities, the framework contributes a grounded, human-centred approach to TEFA design that aligns with contemporary calls to shift EdTech research from questions of how technologies are implemented to who they meaningfully serve.

Challenges with the teaching, and learning, of Research Methods have been widely documented, including content complexity and abstractness, staff and student diversity in knowledge and experience, emotional and motivational aspects, and bridging methods and practice (Lundahl, 2008). In tandem, research suggests the need for more technological advancement into Research Methods teaching (Mitchell and Rich, 2020), and opportunities exist for AI tools to bridge a gap in this space. However, there is limited research into the perceptions of students and teaching regarding the use of AI tools in teaching and learning Research Methods.

This research explored perceptions about these tools from the perspective of staff and students to inform future development of AI tools for student support in the learning of Research Methods. Fifteen staff and students from an Arts, Humanities and Social Science background were interviewed using a semi-structured approach. Data outputs were analysed via qualitative inductive thematic analysis by two researchers.

Results from student interviews suggested conflicting negative and positive perceptions. Students were concerned about the accuracy and legitimacy of AI tools for research and described the need for cautiousness, critical thinking and human input in their use. They also emphasised the need to learn research skills themselves rather than outsourcing cognitive development to tools. Conversely, students described AI’s usefulness for identifying literature, summarising knowledge, saving time, and exploratory thinking.

Results from staff interviews revealed similar views regarding potential AI over-reliance impoverishing student learning of foundational research skills and practices. As with students, staff were concerned about the accuracy and legitimacy of AI in research, with several mentioning that ill-prepared students miss the superficial nature of AI outputs or take them at face value, and that this concern has already begun to manifest in the quality of some assessment submissions received. Time saving and efficiency were recurring themes that staff considered to be beneficial aspects of AI usage. Overall, staff perceptions of the use of AI in research were largely bimodal, but cautiously optimistic where AI outputs can be guard-railed or used as prompts for reflection, developing critical thinking or helping students speak confidently about research.

Overlapping thematic areas across student and staff centred on three shared concerns: trust in reliability and quality of AI-generated content; the risk of over-reliance or short-cuts preventing students developing foundational research competencies; and the importance of human-in-the-loop oversight to evaluate AI outputs. However, both groups noted practical benefits in efficiency, literature exploration and orientation, and as an ideation support when practicing new methods. Together, these findings indicate a tentative acceptance of AI in research contexts when framed as a cognitive support within critical practice, but such technologies are seen as problematic when positioned as a substitute for disciplinary skill development, with one staff member noting that students can’t bring their toaster (i.e. technology) to a Viva.

Any design of an AI tool for Research Methods learning should consider these concerns and integrate aligned pedagogical approaches (Constructivism, Cognitive Load Theory, Experiential Learning, Self-Efficacy, Dialogic Pedagogy) to scaffold a meaningful learning experience.

This research contributes a novel understanding of the perceptions of AI tools for Research Methods learning and provides a preliminary scaffold for the development of AI tools in this space.

References

Lundahl, B. W. (2008). Teaching research methodology through active learning. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 28(1-2), 273-288. doi:10.1080/08841230802179373

Mitchell, A., & Rich, M. (2020). Business School Teaching of Research Methods–A Review of Literature and Initial Data Collection for Undergraduate Business School Students. Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 18(2), pp100‑114-pp100‑114.

Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, discussions about Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) have dominated the discourse across Higher Education both nationally and internationally. The introduction of any new technology into the teaching space is often a catalyst for substantial changes in practice (McDonald et al., 2025). In the case of Gen AI, much effort has been expended in working to understand the pedagogical implications of its use from various perspectives, including impacts on academic integrity, assessment design, and the need for critical AI literacy for both staff and students.

Pedagogical decision making is challenging given the need to be cognisant of, and to balance the benefits and costs of GenAI use. Positive impacts on students’ creativity and self-efficacy (Wang, Sun, & Chen, 2023), and the potential for personalised learning experiences (Xu et al. 2023) sit (not always comfortably) alongside our still developing knowledge of the potential negative impacts on cognitive skills such as decision making (Heersmink 202).

The ever-growing corpus of research on Gen AI in education spaces has thus focused on impacts on student learning, and, in addition, the ways in which Gen AI is incorporated into curricula. Attention has also been directed towards inherent paradoxes of GenAI use, and the impact of polarising views (Lim et al., 2023). However, as an academic community, the contrasting views, perspectives, and research present a wicked problem. How does an educator accommodate contrasting views on the worth of Gen AI in their own practice, and deal with the inherent cognitive dissonance this may present? If, as the recent HEA National Forum Policy Framework states “it is a set of tools that, regardless of any individual professional or personal perspective, must be integrated thoughtfully into teaching and learning …..” (O’Sullivan et al., 2026, pg3), how is this understood and negotiated by educators in their day-to-day practice?

This study investigates how academics in an Irish HEI narrate their navigation of any perceived tensions in their use of GenAI in teaching, learning and assessment. Adopting a qualitative approach the study utilises the Rich Picture method (Bell, Berg, & Morse, 2016). As the method involves participants creating visual and symbolic representations of their lived experiences, it captures conceptual and emotional aspects relevant to the individual's experience in ways which may uncover the messy complexities inherent in the topic of study. Initial results will be presented focusing on academics from a range of disciplines and levels of experience

Bell, S., Berg, T., & Morse, S. (2016). Rich Pictures: Encouraging Resilient Communities (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315708393

Heersmink, R. (2024). Use of large language models might affect our cognitive skills. Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 805–806. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01859-y

Lim, W. M., Gunasekara, A., Pallant, J. L., Pallant, J. I., & Pechenkina, E. (2023). Generative AI and the future of education: Ragnarök or reformation? A paradoxical perspective from management educators. The International Journal of Management Education, 21(2) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2023.100790

McDonald, N., Johri, A., Ali, A., & Hingle, A. (2024). Generative artificial intelligence in higher education: Evidence from an analysis of institutional policies and guidelines. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2402.01659

O’Sullivan, J., Lowry, C., Woods, R., & Conlon, T. (2025). Generative AI in higher education teaching & learning: Policy framework. Higher Education Authority. https://doi.org/10.82110/073e-hg66

Wang, S., Sun, Z., & Chen, Y. (2023). Effects of higher education institutes’ artificial intelligence capability on students' self-efficacy, creativity and learning performance. Education and Information Technologies, 28(5), 4919–4939. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11443-4

Xu, W., Meng, J., Raja, S. K. S., Priya, M. P., & Kiruthiga Devi, M. (2023). Artificial intelligence in constructing personalized and accurate feedback systems for students. International Journal of Modeling, Simulation, and Scientific Computing, 14(01), https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793962323410015

This study examines the relationship between perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) of artificial intelligence (AI) systems among pre-service teachers and their actual use of AI during school placement. It seeks to challenge dominant narratives of AI inevitability by investigating whether widespread claims about AI’s transformative potential are reflected in everyday professional practice within Initial Teacher Education (ITE).

An exploratory mixed-methods design was employed within one Irish Higher Education Institution. Quantitative survey data were collected from pre-service teachers undertaking school placement. The survey findings were treated as foundational, providing a descriptive mapping of PU, PEOU, and reported AI use. These results informed the design of subsequent semi-structured focus group interviews which constituted the primary analytic component of the study. The focus groups were analysed thematically, guided by Reflexive Thematic Analysis and theoretically informed by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and conceptualisations of AI hype as an external variable shaping technology perceptions.

Three major themes were identified: ‘the actual use gap,’ ‘the human oversight imperative,’ and ‘selective utility.’ The findings indicate a disconnect between pre-service teachers’ positive perceptions of AI and their limited professional use during school placement. Overall, AI hype narratives did not translate into sustained classroom integration; instead, pre-service teachers exercised a ‘cautious but curious’ approach to actual AI use.

Higher education is at a pivotal juncture due to the rapid integration Generative AI (GenAI) into students’ academic practices. Emerging frameworks such as the Council of Europe’s Compass on AI for Education and the Irish Higher Education Authority’s Generative AI in Higher Education in Teaching & Learning Policy Framework provide an important strategic policy foundation for guiding responsible and pedagogically sound GenAI integration into Irish universities. While these frameworks are welcome, they must remain adaptable to rapidly evolving technologies and local student practices.

This study offers a student-informed empirical contribution to support context-sensitive institutional guidance on GenAI use. It explores how undergraduate Finance and Economics students leverage AI to support learning using a cross-sectional study across Years 1–4 at Atlantic Technological University (ATU), Ireland. A convergent parallel mixed methods design combines quantitative survey data with qualitative open-ended responses and focus groups. Ethical approval was sought and granted by the university’s Research Ethics Committee.

Findings show that students use GenAI for research, exam preparation, content summarisation and personalised learning, but face challenges related to equity of access, poor guidance, overreliance, diminished confidence, academic integrity tensions and reliability concerns. These findings suggest several institutional actions. ATU should leverage its existing comprehensive GenAI framework to provide consistent and regular student support. Targeted professional development is required for responsible integration, including assessment design aligned with academic integrity, clear usage expectations and discipline-specific approaches. These findings complement the European and Irish policy frameworks to inform GenAI guidance at ATU with locally grounded, stakeholder-informed governance.

Making Sense of Micro-Credentials: An Emerging Study of Academic Perspectives in Irish Higher Education

Micro-credentials have rapidly emerged as a prominent feature of contemporary higher education policy, frequently positioned as flexible responses to evolving labour market demands, lifelong learning agendas, and the need for rapid upskilling European Commission, 2022; OECD, 2021). Across Europe and beyond, governments and institutions are increasingly investing in micro-credential initiatives designed to support more modular, stackable, and accessible forms of learning. Despite this growing policy momentum, the meaning and role of micro-credentials within universities remain contested and unevenly understood (Ralston, 2021). While much of the existing literature has focused on policy frameworks, design models, and implementation strategies, comparatively little attention has been given to how these developments are interpreted by those responsible for implementing them within institutions (Nguyen Ha Thi Ngoc et al., 2022).

This emerging doctoral study examines how academic managers and lecturing staff make sense of the integration of micro-credentials within Irish higher education institutions. Drawing on Weick’s theory of sensemaking, the research explores how academic actors interpret the purpose, value, and implications of micro-credentials within the context of existing institutional structures and practices (Weick, 1995).

Adopting an interpretive qualitative approach, the study will investigate how academic staff describe the role of micro-credentials, the tensions or ambiguities they encounter when integrating them into existing programmes, and how these interpretations may shape institutional approaches to implementation. As the research is currently in its early stages, the presentation will focus on the conceptual framing of the study, the research design, and the emerging questions that have arisen through engagement with the literature.

By shifting attention from structural and policy considerations to the interpretive processes that shape institutional responses to educational innovation, this work aims to contribute to ongoing conversations about the future of credentialisation in higher education. The session will also invite feedback from the learning technology community on the conceptual framework and research design as the study progresses.

References

European Commission (2022) Council Recommendation of 16 June 2022 on a European approach to micro-credentials for lifelong learning and employability. Official Journal of the European Union, C243, pp. 10–25.

Nguyen Ha Thi Ngoc, M., Spittle, M., Watt, A. and Van Dyke, N. (2022) ‘A systematic literature review of micro-credentials in higher education: a non-zero-sum game’, Higher Education Research & Development. doi:10.1080/07294360.2022.2146061.

OECD (2021) OECD Skills Outlook 2021: Learning for Life. Paris: OECD Publishing.

Ralston, S.J. (2021) ‘Higher education’s microcredentialing craze: a postdigital-Deweyan critique’, Postdigital Science and Education, 3(1), pp. 83–101.

Weick, K.E. (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Student engagement in higher education is strongly associated with persistence and academic success, with engagement closely tied to students’ academic self-efficacy and sense of belonging within their institution (Tinto, 2023). Academic self-efficacy, grounded in Bandura’s (1977) social cognitive theory, influences the effort expended, whether coping strategies are initiated and the degree to which effort is sustained in the face of challenges. Alongside this, students’ social and affective connections with peers and faculty significantly shape progression and engagement (Tinto, 2023; Carrell, 2009). In blended higher education contexts, where interactional patterns differ from traditional face-to-face delivery, these dimensions of self-efficacy and belonging warrant closer examination.

This study explores student self-efficacy within a blended Professional Masters of Education programme in Ireland. In this context, “blended learning” is defined as programme delivery that combines online asynchronous and synchronous components with face-to-face elements. As blended delivery becomes increasingly prevalent in higher education in Ireland and internationally (Wiggers et al., 2023), further research into effective blended design and the measurement of student engagement is needed (Dixson, 2015; Muller et al., 2023). Engagement in blended contexts cannot be assumed; rather, it must be intentionally designed and critically examined (Brujin-Smolders & Prinsen, 2024 Garrison & Vaughan, 2008; Hutchings et al., 2011; Means et al., 2013).

While debates comparing blended and face-to-face modalities are often unproductive (Dyment & Downing, 2020), evidence suggests that blended learning can be as effective as, and sometimes more effective than, traditional delivery (Bernard et al., 2014; Boelens et al., 2017; Means et al., 2013; Strelan et al., 2020). Central to this argument is the notion that blended learning offers “the best of both worlds” (Arbaugh, 2014), particularly when asynchronous elements support flexible knowledge acquisition and synchronous face-to-face sessions facilitate higher-order thinking, application, and rich interaction (Akçayır & Akçayır, 2018; Buhl-Wiggers, 2023; O’Flaherty & Phillips, 2015). However, how students experience this “blend” and how it shapes their academic and social self-efficacy remain underexplored in postgraduate contexts in Ireland.

In this mixed-methods study, quantitative data was collected using the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE; Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) and the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Online Learning (SeQoL; Tsai et al., 2020), the latter of which measures domain-specific self-efficacy related to online academic tasks and social interactions. Descriptive and inferential analyses were conducted to examine levels of self-efficacy across social and academic domains. Qualitative data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of students and analysed thematically to explore lived-experiences of blended teaching, learning, and assessment.

Findings indicate variation across domains of self-efficacy. While many students report confidence in managing academic tasks and independent study, lower levels of confidence are associated with initiating and sustaining peer interaction in online spaces. Students identify structured synchronous small-group sessions, timely peer and faculty feedback and peer support as critical supports for engagement and self-efficacy. Conversely, technical challenges, competing professional and academic commitments, and ambiguity in online communication are perceived as barriers. Importantly, students’ accounts underscore the relational dimension of self-efficacy: feelings of belonging and perceived faculty presence and feedback significantly shape confidence and persistence.

By integrating quantitative measures of self-efficacy with qualitative accounts of student experience, this study contributes nuanced insight into how blended programme design can either support or constrain engagement in higher education. The findings have implications for intentional design of blended programmes that foster both academic competence and social belonging.

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated an unprecedented, system-wide shift to technology-enhanced learning (TEL), compelling higher education institutions (HEIs) to adopt digital tools at speed and scale (Byttebier, 2022), under conditions of necessity rather than choice. In its wake, key changes have emerged, including expanded technical fluency among educators (Damşa et al., 2021), intensified institutional support and professional development (Sia et al., 2023), normalisation of digital teaching practices (Moorhouse et al., 2023), diversification of delivery modes (Imran et al., 2023) and significantly increased workload and stress (Watermeyer et al., 2021). These pandemic-mediated changes have important implications for current TEL adoption models and frameworks because they disrupted the conditions under which technology adoption and use in higher education was previously understood, most notably voluntariness, gradual uptake, and stable teaching environments. This has prompted questions about whether pre-pandemic TEL adoption models and frameworks remain fit for purpose in the post-pandemic context and whether they require extension and modification to reflect fundamentally changed conditions and technology use in higher education, especially in an era of significant disruptive technologies, including Generative AI (Nunez et al., 2026; O'Dea et al., 2024).

Assumptions underpinning pre-pandemic models require re-assessment in light of post-pandemic conditions. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) assume voluntariness, gradual uptake, and stable institutional conditions (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh et al., 2003). Pandemic-enforced TEL adoption was defined by compulsory implementation, compressed timelines, and altered working conditions. The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) and the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) (Puentedura, 2010) models pre-suppose a gradual progression towards an increasingly sophisticated integration of technology in teaching and learning. Yet, in a context where baseline digital competence among teachers has become more widespread (Pérez-Rivero et al., 2023), lower-order stages such as SAMR’s substitution stage are becoming redundant. Furthermore, under pandemic conditions, technology use frequently preceded full knowledge integration and large-scale adoption did not consistently translate into pedagogically meaningful transformation (Rapanta et al., 2021). Similarly, Guskey’s Model of Teacher Change (Guskey, 2002) assumes that changes in practice are preceded by shifts in beliefs and reflective processes but during the pandemic, changes in teaching practice were often enforced rather than internally motivated. Furthermore, existing models and frameworks largely overlook the intensified workload and stress experienced by teachers during and after the transition to TEL, despite the fact that these conditions influence how technology is used in practice, often constraining engagement to more immediate or less pedagogically transformative uses (Gregory & Lodge, 2015).

While the pandemic accelerated pre-pandemic patterns of TEL adoption, it also produced a qualitatively different educational landscape characterised by normalised but uneven practice, where widespread use co-exists with variable pedagogical integration (Mospan, 2023; Scholkmann et al., 2024). This context has prompted renewed questions about the usefulness and contextual adequacy of current TEL adoption models (O'Dea et al., 2024), questions that were already being asked in the pre-pandemic literature, including Kimmons and Hall’s critique of technology integration models (Kimmons & Hall, 2018) and criticism that TPACK is difficult to operationalise in practice (Brantley-Dias & Ertmer, 2013). This paper argues that the post-pandemic TEL landscape cannot be adequately understood through existing models in isolation and instead requires their extension and/or integration to account for compulsory adoption, elevated baseline digital competence, the reduced usefulness of early-stage constructs, and the persistent gap between the breadth of technology use and the depth of educational transformation.

A recent paper on ‘digital humanism’ or how we align technology with our human values indicated a need to revisit theory on Social Identity Theory (Levine & Kordoni, 2026). It also returned attention to Henri Tajfel’s work in the 1970’s and 80’s on Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Here individuals construct an identity when they engage in practice and social interaction - there is a sense of belongingness in this. It can be viewed as a ‘perception of oneness with or belongingness to some human aggregate’ (Ashforth & Mael 1989, pg. 135) and include a student identity (Kaufman 2014, Nielsen, 2017) for example. Much of the reading in this area points to the importance of communal culture (Erik Erikson, 1968) and its influence on identity. To gain an understanding about the navigation of individuals through development of Social Identity a theory was formulated by Tajfel and Turner in the 1970s, namely Social Identity Theory (SIT). According to SIT individuals engage in social classification, which integrates the process of characterising oneself within a social context (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The dangers that this can bring are very obvious today, in our media and in world affairs. The basis of social identity is that individuals engage in cognitive strategies such as evaluating the status of a group (such as healthcare professionals) and making comparisons between the perceived status of various groups. This evaluation is the basis for individuals to align themselves with an in-group. Although the theory stretches back over four decades it is pertinent today, as SIT provides a useful framework for understanding the process of stereotyping (Ferrucci, 2018). As a result of stereotyping, boundaries are formed between in-groups and other out groups which Hotho describes as the ‘fabric of social practice’ (Hotho, 2008, pg. 728). So, individuals ‘categorised themselves’ as group members they began to display in-group favouritism (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). SIT divides the external environment into elements and provides order to this for an individual. Through this process individuals are provided with a means for defining those within the environment and place themselves within in it, so they find their place and define who they are within a social environment (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). This process involves discriminating individuals and their status as well as stereotyping.

Student Identity Theory and Role Identity (RIT)

SIT considers the meanings attributed to membership within a category of society. Role Identity Theory (RIT) (Farmer, 2003, Mlotshwa 2015) and Student Identity Theory (Kaufman 2014, Nielsen, 2017) are a related theories, which considers the meaning individuals associate with a given role e.g. a University Student. Role Identity Theory (RIT) and Student Identity Theory are a more specific forms of Social Identity, which therefore form as a sub-set of Social Identity as depicted in Figure A1 below:

Figure A1

Digital Identity and other types of relevant identities

What has this to do with Digital Identity?

‘The term digital identity indicates the conversion of human identities into machine-readable digital data’ (Masieroa & Bailurb, 2021). Is it too simplistic to view this form of identity as a sub-set of Social Identity and of our Role Identity? Does our lack of control over our digital identity mean that it is not based on how we ‘stereotype’ ourselves, how we present ourselves online or who we social within a digital environment?

There is increasing awareness from universal design for learning (UDL) and teaching for understanding (TfU) frameworks that undergraduate assessments require a diverse array of methodologies to allow students to express learning and demonstrate performances of understanding. In STEM, undergraduate practical laboratory classes provide hands-on training in experimental design, techniques and workflows, development of critical thinking and problem solving, communication and working with peers and building student identity as working scientists. However, despite the myriad of benefits that practical classes can impart, student performances can sometimes be evaluated from over-reliance on traditional written reports, which only effectively evaluate a narrow range of student competencies.

In Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT), we recently modified the assessment strategy of a ‘Biotechnology’ module within a third year BSc (Hons) programme in Biopharmaceutical Science. In our initial study, we altered our assessment strategy away from an emphasis on written reports (3-4 over a semester) to include 3 different modes (Moodle Quiz, Group Presentation and Written Report). We initially hypothesised that this mixture of assessments may not necessarily impact student scores but might positively influence perceptions of different skills that varied assessments allowed students to practice. Over 3 academic years, we found there was no statistical difference in student scores between the Moodle Quiz, Group Presentation and Written Report, and this was consistent each year (2020, n=24 students; 2021, n=13 students; 2022, n=29 students). However, when survey and focus group data was analyzed from these cohorts, it emerged that each assessment allowed students to practice different skill sets and express learning and understanding differently, with some assessments more suited to practicing (and presumably evaluating) specific skills over others. For example presentations were deemed best for communication skills, whereas written reports were effective in allowing deep research and critical thinking (Drumm et al., 2024).

In an expansion of this study, we queried how assessment choice affected practical class assessment scores. We designed a study in the same 3^rd year Biotechnology module over 2 academic years (2023 - 2024), where students performed varied assessments as before (Moodle Quiz, Group Presentation and Written Report), and introduced a 4^th assessment where students had a choice of which of modality they would engage with. We hypothesised that students would choose assessment in which they previously scored highest. We analysed student scores (n=72 students), and found that when asked to choose their final assessment 72.6% chose Moodle Quiz, 16.4% chose Written Report and only 11% chose Presentation. 58% of students chose the assessment in which they previously scored highest. However, almost the same proportion did not, and 29.3% of students even chose the assessment they had previously scored lowest. Interestingly, when individual scores in chosen assessment modality were tracked to scores with the same modality on first attempt, there was no statistical difference (P>0.05, n=72).

These data suggest providing students with a choice in assessment modality for practical classes does not necessarily result in increased scores. We conclude that students appear to select assessment modalities based on factors beyond prior grades. We are now in the process of analysing focus group data from these students to further explore the motivations underlying their decisions.

References

Drumm BT, Bree R, Griffin CS & O'Leary N. (2024). Diversifying laboratory assessment modes broadens engagement with practical competencies in life science students. Adv Physiol Educ 48, 527-546.

This study explores students’ perceptions of choice in assessment and the effectiveness of assignment briefs in communicating such tasks. Increased learner diversification in Ireland has accelerated the adoption of inclusive practices, with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) promising to increase inclusivity in education (Almeqdad et al. 2023). Recently, there has been increased momentum towards adopting the (UDL) framework in higher education (Healy et al. 2024). One UDL principle, student engagement, involves recruiting interest and sustaining effort, with choice as a key strategy (Finlay, Burg, and Wang 2025; Mrachko and Vostal 2020). Indeed, choice has been linked to a sense of inclusion, decreased anxiety, and increased participation and engagement (Fleming 2023). While choice can be enacted through delivery mode, learning activities, technologies, and assessment, this study focuses assessment.

Designing clear and detailed assignment instructions is inherently challenging (Walsh and Knight 2026 under review), and adding choice further complicates this task. For students, a well-designed assignment brief is crucial for optimising engagement and minimising confusion and stress (Walsh 2021). However, explorations on how well-designed assessment briefs can mitigate the complexities of choice remain limited.

Conducted at the University of Limerick, this small-scale study used an online questionnaire to gather qualitative and quantitative data. Respondents were enrolled on three undergraduate modules (n= 61; n= 3; n= 16) and one postgraduate module (n=7). The qualitative data were analysed via thematic analysis and quantitative data were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis.

Findings were mixed, revealing both benefits and challenges associated with choice in assessment. The benefits align with three primary themes: student interest, freedom of choice, and leveraging personal strengths. Interestingly, smaller cohorts also linked choice in assessment to the development of workplace-related critical thinking skills. Two primary challenges emerged in the findings: overwhelm and decision fatigue. Students found that defining the scope of the task exacerbated an already complex task. This complicates the effectiveness of the written assignment brief, as conceptualised by the 5Cs Framework for Effective Assessment Communication (Walsh and Knight 2025).

These findings underscore the pedagogical benefits of choice in assessment while highlighting the importance of clarity in assessment design. For educators, understanding the implications of choice on the communication of assessed tasks is fundamental to effective teaching.

References:

Almeqdad, Qais I., Alodat, Ali M., Alquraan, Mahmoud F., Mohaidat, Mohammad A., & Al-Makhzoomy, Alaa K. (2023). The effectiveness of universal design for learning: A systematic review of the literature and meta-analysis. Cogent Education, 10(1), 2218191. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2218191

Finley, Sara, Burg, Oliva, & Wang, Anqi. (2025). Perception of choice is associated with internal locus of control: implications for Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Educational Psychology, 45(9), 993-1011. https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2025.2546968

Fleming, Erica. C. (2023). ‘UDL for Inclusive Teaching: Offering Choice to Increase Belonging Through Technology’. Journal of teaching and learning with technology, 12(1), 72-90. https://doi.org/10.14434/jotlt.v12i1.36327

Healy, Richard, Ryder, Dara, & Banks, Joanne. (2024). Universal Design for Learning Policy in Tertiary Education in Ireland: Are we Ready to Commit? The All-Ireland Journal of Teaching and learning in Higher Education, 16 (2), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.62707/aishej.v16i2.919

Mrachko, Alicia, & Vostal, Brooks. (2020). Using the “Universal Design for Learning” Framework to Plan for All Students in the Classroom: Engagement through Choice. Elementary STEM Journal, 25(2), 29-31.

Walsh, Elaine. (2021). The role of effective communication on students’ emotional response to assessment: Written assignment brief. La Revue LEeE, 5, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.48325/rleee.005.02

Walsh, Elaine, & Knight, John. (2026). Exploring educators’ views of the challenges of communicating assessed tasks in higher education. [Manuscript under review].

Walsh, Elaine, & Knight, John. (2025). ‘The 5 Cs Framework for Effective Assessment Communication in Higher Education’. International Conference on Education and New Developments. 28-30 June 2025. Budapest, Hungary. (Available

Technology-enabled learning environments offer significant potential to support equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in higher education, particularly within large-scale online and asynchronous modules where traditional assessment design often struggles to accommodate diverse learner needs. However, achieving meaningful inclusion at scale requires more than the adoption of digital tools; it demands intentional pedagogical design (Biggs et al., 2022; Kandlbinder, 2014) that promotes participation, flexibility, and student agency across large and diverse cohorts (Cook-Sather & Loh, 2023; Karen D. Könings & Ramani, 2021; Nahar & Cross, 2020).

This study investigates how the intentional integration of technology, curriculum design, and student co-creation can support EDI outcomes in large-scale online higher education modules. Specifically, it presents the design, implementation, and mixed-methods evaluation of the FACCtS (Formative Assessment Co-Created with Students) framework, which positions students and instructors as partners in the formative assessment design process. Students contribute questions, critique assessment items, and engage with peer-generated content, while instructors act as facilitators providing scaffolding and quality assurance.

The approach was implemented in a large multidisciplinary undergraduate module on data literacy and analytics, delivered in an online asynchronous format to a highly diverse cohort spanning 15 undergraduate programmes, with over 2,000 students enrolled annually (Abgaz, 2026; Abgaz & Dunne, 2023). Drawing on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles (CAST, 2018; Farrell, 2021), formative activities were designed to offer multiple means of engagement and representation: students could engage flexibly in terms of timing (asynchronous, self-paced access), question type (multiple choice, drag-and-drop, fill-in-the-blank, true/false), immediate automated feedback, and student agency through co-creation of assessment content. Crucially, while UDL implementations are typically instructor-designed, the FACCtS framework extends student agency beyond participation into assessment design itself — a contribution to inclusive assessment practice.

The technological infrastructure consisted of Loop (Dublin City University’s Moodle-based VLE), H5P interactive learning tools, and learning analytics. Loop provided the central platform for accessing materials, submitting formative contributions, and engaging with assessment activities. H5P enabled the creation of interactive learning objects — quizzes, scenario-based tasks, and game-like activities — that support immediate feedback and iterative learning (Llerena-Izquierdo & Zamora-Galindo, 2021). Together, these tools enabled highly interactive content while supporting flexible engagement patterns suited to students with varied disciplinary backgrounds and prior knowledge.

A mixed-methods evaluation was conducted across two consecutive academic years. Quantitative data were collected through platform analytics, activity participation metrics, and student surveys, while qualitative data from open-ended survey responses were analysed using thematic analysis. This combination enabled examination of both behavioural engagement patterns and students’ perceptions of the learning experience.

Findings indicate that the FACCtS approach supported inclusive formative assessment practices at scale. Platform analytics showed high rates of student interaction with H5P activities and co-created assessment tasks across the full cohort. Students reported that immediate automated feedback helped them identify misconceptions and reinforce understanding, while flexible asynchronous access was particularly valued by students with varied schedules and prior knowledge levels. Qualitative themes highlight how co-creation of assessment questions supported metacognitive reflection and deepened conceptual understanding, with game-based elements contributing to sustained motivation and engagement.

This study demonstrates how the strategic combination of EdTech platforms, UDL-informed design, and student co-creation can operationalise inclusive formative assessment in large-scale digital higher education environments. The FACCtS framework offers a replicable model for institutions seeking to move beyond surface-level tool adoption towards genuinely participatory and inclusive assessment design.

Key words: Formative assessment, student co-creation, UDL, intentional design, EdTech

References

Abgaz, Y. (2026). An Integrated Framework for Interactive and Inclusive Asynchronous Online Learning at Scale: Data Literacy in Higher Education. Education Sciences, 16(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16040639

And others

University course timetabling is a vital part of any university, directly impacting the engagement and overall learning experience of students (Castineiras et al.). The basic problem involves allocating activities to rooms and timeslots such that no student/lecturer/room is assigned to more than one activity in a given timeslot. The problem is known to be NP-complete which, in simple terms, means it is practically infeasible to solve by brute-force search of all possible allocations.

The problem is further complicated by individual timetabling constraints that vary across institutions, and even across departments within a single institution. In Munster Technological University (MTU) for example, there are various definitions of the problem being solved due to differences in student bodies and resources (e.g. School of Music versus Faculty of Engineering), requiring different software tools due to their specific needs. Many institutions also have room ownership constraints, and therefore cannot be solved in a centralised manner. These restrictions result in rolling over the previous timetable year-to-year, reactively adapting it due to changes in academic staff, student cohort sizes and room infrastructure. In a nutshell, this requires tackling the modelling of the problem as a minimal perturbation problem.

This minimal perturbation approach is also often driven by the short timeframe between all inputs being known and the start of academic year. In particular, the issue is that final cohort sizes are unknown until after Autumn repeat and leaving cert results are released. The latter not only affect allocation for 1st-year cohorts but also have a knock-on impact on the overall solution. However, minimising perturbation year-to-year may also have the untoward effect that, each year, the solution may move further from the initial “good” solution when the timetable was first built from scratch.

Finally, the requirements and preferences of the modern student have changed considerably over the past number of years, with digital enhancements such as hybrid learning being accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, cost-of-living, etc. A separate but equally important concern is sustainability, and the impact of timetabling choices and assumptions as universities aim to move towards green campuses.

Given all these changes, now is an opportune time to revisit the university timetabling problem with fresh eyes and reflect on how these changes could be incorporated. With this in mind, we first sought the perspective of the students on their experiences and preferences with respect to timetabling via a survey with both closed and open -ended questions, with a focus on factors influencing engagement and attendance. Our findings showed that while there are certain commonalities in terms of obstacles to students such as commuting; there were also differences in preferences between science/engineering students and those of the business/humanities offerings in MTU. Further work with Cork School of Music (CSM) illustrated the challenge of generating university-wide timetabling policy. While students of the Science/Engineering/Business departments were mainly in favour of compact schedules (due to commuting, work, etc), students of Arts programmes such as those offered by CSM and those with specific equipment for students, prefer gaps between activities as they get to avail of dedicated on-site facilities.

Together our findings show that the decentralised approach (where departments timetabling somewhat independently), while suboptimal from a room-allocation perspective, is often necessary due to the significant variations in requirements of students across different departments. We discuss the impact this has on the AI tools available for generating solutions to the problem.

Castineiras, I., Grimes, D., & Ozturk, C. (2024, September). Developing a University Timetabling Assistant Tool to Address the Voice of Students. In International Conference on Lean Six Sigma for Higher Education Institutions (pp. 258-266). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.

This presentation highlights a new academic partnership that evolved in 2025 between the Faculty of Business in TU Dublin and Humber Polytechnic in Toronto. The Irish and Canadian HE systems face similar challenges in the development of T&L practices and systems. The project's aim is to reimagine how T&L spaces can enact connections, break-down barriers to participation and active learning and to provide students with agency over the spaces they are learning in, both on-and-off campus. The project explores how tools such as digital twins, virtual reality (VR), and collaborative design platforms can support this reimagining of learning space. There are three themes that the collaborative project is investigating over a 16-month timeframe, focusing on how emerging digital tools support cross-institutional collaboration and learning space design:

• What are the technology tools and processes that most effectively support cross-institutional virtual collaboration in scanning, sharing, and re-imagining physical learning spaces?
• How does engaging in cross-institutional virtual teamwork and co-creation of learning experiences translate to developing employability skills/competencies among students?
• What are the resources, training, and costs (both financial-and time-based) required to implement and sustain the digital-twin + sandbox model at scale?

The presentation provides an overview of the project themes, underpinned by a technology-enhanced connected pedagogical framework which seeks to integrate modern design principles with accessible and purposeful technology. The theoretical foundations from which this project arises are social constructivist in nature and predicated on there being complex interplays between the pedagogical intentions of collaborative learning space designs and the student experience ambitions of the cross-institutions that shape the look, feel and function of those spaces (Finkelstein et al., 2016).

From a University-of-Sydney-Business-School learning spaces project, we are cognisant that the size, shapes and technologies within T&L spaces are '...capable of making learning sessions empowering, inspirational, collaborative events or, on the contrary, a stagnant, tedious endurance' (Power & Supple, 2021, p. 91). Therefore, staff development with emerging technologies is a key component. Educator experiences are shared and recorded by means of relevant collaborative tools (e.g. Miro) for project planning and development. International student co-operation is integral to the work with shared, co-created virtual spaces being central to achieving this. We consider the extent to which such virtual spaces offer a genuine sense of ‘presence’ that can complement current physical space provision (Williams et al., 2025).

Such activities, both from a student and an educator/facilitator perspective, are explored in the context of established frameworks (COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning - Rubin, 2017); key characteristics are investigated including; i) international collaboration, ii) curriculum integration (student co-creation will exist as part of assessed coursework, not as an add-on), iii) online interaction, iv) intercultural competence development and v) co-teaching modules. As such, insights will be uncovered both in terms of the capacity for collaborative, experiential, co-creation amongst students but equally in terms of the potential for multi-disciplinary cross-cultural teams to investigate new methodologies towards rapid prototyping.

Working in multi-disciplinary student teams, exploration of different idea-creation pipelines to optimize virtual and physical learning spaces will be disseminated. Bigger questions for institutions of how to scale-up the design and evaluation of such collaborative activities effectively will be discussed along with jointly identifying key success factors towards quantifying the impact on T&L practice for the future. Presenters will reflect on the emerging design principles and decisions and how they worked towards scaffolding capacities of cross-institutional connected learning, with a view to provision of practical guidance for others seeking to implement similar initiatives. Data collection is scheduled with the collaborating students and staff in both institutions to research the impact of the project, across the three themes highlighted.

In a recent article exploring the mirror as metaphor for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education, Angelos Konstatinidis asks ‘what future…we tacitly normalise through the integration’ of AI. In this research paper, we present recent findings on learner experiences of Higher Education, and speculate on possible futures. We argue that through progressively de-placing and de-temporalising HE via ubiquitous technologies such as Learning Management Systems (LMS) and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), we risk shaping a ‘non-student’. The paper stems from ongoing research on students’ concepts of time as it relates to learning, study and assessment. The work was conceived primarily in response to the ongoing ‘crisis of engagement’ across the HE sector, which is often linked to increasing financial pressures on students, leading to greater investment of time in paid work and in commuting. However, our research reveals interesting and under-researched learner beliefs concerning educational technology as a substitute for on-campus learning.

Drawing on our analysis of qualitative data collected via survey and through student interviews, and employing the concepts of non-place, non-time, and non-things, we invite reflection on how, in an accelerating present, we might (need to) reclaim the ‘realness’ – spatial, temporal, and relational – of university experience.

To illustrate an emerging paradigm of studenthood which our work has identified, we focus here primarily on the example of the LMS. Particularly of interest is the taken-for-grantedness of the LMS in the learner imaginary: while some learners report eminently advisable uses such as preparation for lectures to enable better in-class focus and engagement, a significant proportion of learners conceive of the LMS as a substitute for or an alternative to attendance at scheduled learning events. While this may be largely a function of external financial pressures, for instance, it reveals a complex vision of the present where activities typically considered fundamental to the occupation of being-a-student become subject to negotiation, optional, and potentially even non-valuable.

We explore the impact on this progressive de-placement and de-temporalisation of Higher Education on student identity, arguing that in the non-place, interaction and relationality are limited, artefacts (essentially non-things) substitute for engagement, and neither relational resonance nor cognitive friction are experienced fully. These barriers to individual and collective academic identity-formation are discussed in light of our students’ trade-offs between presence and absence. In short, we ask if by operating under conditions of transience rather than permanence, and strategic rather than assumed presence, our deployment of educational technologies may be contributing to the emergence of the ‘non-student’.

Through this discussion of present student conceptions of technology in education, we invite colleagues to reflect on how the atomised experience of education lived by the theoretical ‘non-student’ might be challenged, improved, or, indeed, accommodated.

Online safety supports in Ireland are largely designed with young people in mind. Existing organisations, such as the Irish Safer Internet Centre, do excellent work to provide children and parents with online safety information, yet there is a significant resource gap for adults over 65 (Bermingham, 2023). Adult digital learners, as well as staff who support them within community centers, libraries, FETs, and ETBs, are rarely centred in the design of cyber safety education, leaving educators struggling to find best practice advice tailored to the needs of their students.

This research first began by asking older adults across Ireland what they wanted to learn about staying safe online. Their responses shaped the following work, funded by Research Ireland as part of the “Our Tech” challenge. Rather than designing a solution and rolling it out to communities, participatory methods were chosen as a relational commitment to include individuals often excluded from conversations surrounding the development of educational technologies. In Phase One of this research, 58 adults aged 65+ participated in a Dot Voting activity to rank their learning priorities: password management, privacy, and avoiding scams (Sheil, 2024). In Phase Two, focus groups with 31 older adult participants from rural and urban communities across Ireland followed, where tailored guidance presentations and leaflets sparked discussion. Participants were seen to be highly aware of cyber threats, while also feeling anxious and sometimes overly cautious. We found this cohort did not want tools imposed on them, but rather support that restored their agency and control.

We began by designing an e-learning course to expand on the chosen topics, but received feedback from older adult participants who largely did not wish to engage in a self-directed e-learning course, preferring information to be relayed by someone they trusted. Interviewing 35 older adult educators showed a need for personalised, accessible guidance for delivering digital skills education (Gruben, 2025). We therefore pivoted to provide a resource for librarians, adult educators, and FET and ETB practitioners, already embedded in positions of trust within communities. A co-informed e-learning course for older adult educators was then developed using diary study feedback from 11 staff, refined, and finally launched free of charge at an online event attended by librarians across Ireland. The course has reached 195 students across Ireland so far.

Robust, inclusive cyber safety education for all members of society is a moving target as the online threat horizon changes, particularly with the advancement of generative artificial intelligence (Jabir et al., 2025). Empowering both individuals and educators to embrace digital citizenship, manage online risks, and build confidence are crucial for a holistic digital strategy, and investing in training is vital for effective digital integration (OECD, 2025). Building on this, we are now co-designing a course specifically for 12–18 year olds, motivated by a post-course survey that revealed that a high number of students (n=72, 36%) enrolled in the course, to learn cybersecurity advice for themselves, and also family and community members they help with day-to-day queries. Focus groups with young people (n=18), supported by information provided by a 5th year youth consultant, are currently shaping content, tone, and format, including gamification of content, personalised learning options, and the option of digital badges and in-person recognition of achievements, aiming for young people to be co-designers and deliverers of cybersafety information. This research offers a lens into what happens when cybersafety research starts not with technology, but with a question about who is missing. Through participatory methods including dot voting, focus group, and diary studies, a relational, community-grounded ripple effect has begun, moving from older adults, to adult educators, to youth.

This study explores how technology is used in digital education through coursework and assessment, it aims to help HE in Ireland understand where students feel confident and where more support may be needed. The integration of emerging technologies such as video production, artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) into digital education has seen a surge in recent scholarly research and practice in the classroom.

As education service providers universities are teaching students and faculty in the use of emerging technologies that can be transformative, disruptive and challenging. AI applications in education are being explored across a multitude of domains, including adaptive learning systems, personalized tutoring, intelligent assessment, and student profiling. A systematic literature review highlighted that AI-enabled adaptive learning can significantly enhance student test results, demonstrating the transformative potential of AI in educational settings (Wang et al, 2024). Applying adaptive learning techniques can further accentuate the teacher or lecturers toolkit and increate the potential to be inclusive, flexible,personalised and engaging for students (Holmes et al., 2019).

Similarly, VR has been investigated for its capacity to support and enhance collaborative learning and where we have limited resources such as labs or where we want students to attain new skills and competencies VR has optimised solutions to offer. Research suggests that VR can effectively increase learner involvement and motivation, while accommodating diverse learning preferences. However, further studies are necessary to establish effective pedagogical strategies for VR integration (van de Meer et al, 2024). ​

Despite the growing body of literature, much of the existing research remains exploratory or focuses on specific case studies. Comprehensive, practice-based studies are still needed to fully understand the long-term impacts and best practices for integrating emerging technology into various educational contexts.​ Thus this research explores the use of emerging technologies such as real-time video development, AI, VR, and innovative assessment models toward a contribution to this body of evidence.

SmartAss explores the perceptions of the students, some who have a dual role as educators (lecturers, tutors, primary and post-primary teachers) in relation to the design, development and assessment in our education landscape. This research gathers data using a mixed method approach that includes a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The initial research design will adopt an iterative approach for data analysis and be guided by Braun and Clarke (2006) thematic analysis. This paper will deliver the preliminary results from phase 1.

Previous works have contributed to Government recommendations on Immersive learning with Eirmersive[1] to accelerate National support in this area and to leverage knowledge across the Education landscape to engage students and educators in teaching and learning in the 21^st century.

We are cognisant that there are assessments where students are expected to use AI tools critically and transparently, demonstrating judgment, evaluation, and awareness of limitations and assessments where students must demonstrate foundational knowledge or professional competency without AI assistance. This paper explores the nuances of this in practice. Our research aims to impact practice such as the redesign of modules, potential creation of new modules/curriculum and policy contributing to DFHERIS Evidence for policy civil servants research network and OECD DECC SDG working group and Dept of Education/IUA Education policy working group.

[1] https://www.eirmersive.com

Experiential learning is essential for practical chemistry laboratory work, yet post-primary schools are increasingly constrained by cost, infrastructure, and safety requirements. We examine whether Virtual Reality (VR) can provide chemistry laboratory learning opportunities that are difficult to execute in everyday school practices through an 11-month, three-phase participatory co-design study involving 137 stakeholders (students, teachers, school leaders, parents, subject experts, and practitioners). In Phase One, we identified the pedagogical and deployment requirements for VR integration. In Phase Two, stakeholders evaluated an initial prototype to inform iterative design refinement. In Phase Three, we assessed an advanced prototype in authentic classroom contexts. Findings indicate significant gains in chemistry knowledge and procedural skills, alongside the development of transferable competencies (e.g., autonomy, critical thinking, and confidence). We further analyse how the use of VR reconfigured the classroom ecology, particularly teacher–student and student–student dynamics, and conclude with deployment lessons to inform a real-world rollout.

Universities are increasingly confronted with rising mental health needs among students and staff. Traditional awareness campaigns and training programmes often lack interactivity, contextualisation, and opportunities to practise supportive responses safely. MINDGUARD addresses this challenge by developing a participatory mental-health prevention framework, an evidence-informed Guide for educators and staff, and an immersive VR platform for training delivery in higher education.

This workshop introduces the MINDGUARD framework and immerses participants in its pedagogical approach. The session begins with a short overview of the project’s objectives: increasing wellness literacy, empowering students and staff to recognise signs of distress, and improving institutional capacity for early intervention and peer-support networks. Participants will explore selected components of the Guide, including strategies for inclusive communication, culturally responsive support, and ethically managing sensitive scenarios.

The presentation equips attendees with practical tools for integrating wellbeing first-aid training into student supports, staff development programmes, and institutional wellbeing strategies. It is suitable for educators, HE wellbeing teams, student-support units, academic developers, and technology-enhanced learning professionals.

Speakers:

• Kathryn Conrad, Professor of English, University of Kansas
• Melanie Dusseau, Associate Professor of English, University of Findlay
• Miriam Reynoldson, PhD candidate and digital learning specialist, RMIT University
• Emily Tucker, Executive Director, Center on Privacy and Technology, Georgetown Law
• Rose Willis, Undergraduate student and freelance illustrator, University of Kansas

This participatory workshop invites delegates to experiment with zine-making as a creative pre-digital technology for expression and connection in an increasingly all-digital education landscape. The workshop hosts are students, teachers, leaders, writers and artists based across various geographies and disciplines, brought together by a shared desire to hear from and be heard by others who object to the incursion of AI technologies in education.

Delegates will explore strategies for individual and collective resistance against the imposition of surveillance technologies, data products and automation in spaces of teaching and learning. The collaborative zine-making exercise will bring delegates into a live exploration of the kind of embodied thinking and relational knowledge-seeking which we argue is necessary to counter the algorithmic logics of edtech. Simultaneously, we will facilitate a conversation about the growing resistance against "AI" in education (Guest et al. 2025; Holmes et al. 2025; Jowsey et al., 2025; McQuillan et al. 2024), and the need for solidarity, flexibility and experimentation as we movement-build across global and institutional contexts.

The group we have begun to build together, the Library of Babel Group (Georgetown Law, n.d.) is one of many communities that actively resist AI adoption in education, academia and research. We currently connect over 500 members across four continents, away from the algorithmic governance of LinkedIn, X, and university enterprise platforms. Our group creates spaces for conversation, strategizing, resource-sharing, collaborative research, and skill building among members. One of the questions that Library of Babel Group members keep coming back to is how to connect our resistance of edtech products to a more fundamental resistance against a model of education that focuses on training students to reliably produce certain kinds of outcomes, as opposed to guiding them toward true intellectual, creative and moral agency.

The workshop will consist of:

• Introductions (10 minutes): An introduction to the workshop hosts, the Library of Babel Group origin story, and our different but intersecting approaches to creative pedagogy and AI resistance.
• The Power of the Zine (10 minutes): A short history of zines as vehicles for voice and connection in resistance and counterculture movements, and as an analog craft technology for raw expression (DAIR, n.d.; Furze, 2026).

Workshop hosts will then alternate between:

• Collaborative Zine-Making and Panel Discussion (30 minutes):
• • Zine Creation. With their tables, delegates use an array of art supplies and scrappy collage materials to bring together a zine page expressing a response to this moment in education technology. Hosts will circulate to support the creation process.
  • Panel Discussion. Hosts will continue to reflect, and to draw out reflections from workshop participants, on the theme of resistance.
• Close (10 minutes): we will bring participants back together to reflect on the process and collect their creations in anticipation of creating a conference session collage zine.

This is a workshop about finding each other; something that, at this moment in history, is what any resistance community hopes to foster: human connection to combat the ubiquitous nature of the rapid implementation of unethical technologies into our classrooms and lives. It is the only way to reckon what we all want: the possibility of greater freedom and justice, and the energy and collective agency necessary to fight for those things.

References

DAIR (n.d.). The DAIR zine library. https://zines.dair-institute.org/

Furze, L. (2026). Artefacts of the AI resistance. https://leonfurze.com/2026/02/04/artefacts-of-the-ai-resistance/

Georgetown Law (n.d.) The Library of Babel Group. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-technology-center/about-us/the-library-of-babel-group/

Guest, O. et al. (2025). Against the uncritical adoption of 'AI' technologies in academia. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17065099

Holmes, W. et al. (2025). Critical studies of artificial intelligence and education: putting a stake in the ground. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5391793

Jowsey, T. et al. (2025). We reject the use of generative artificial intelligence for reflexive qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004251401851

McQuillan, D., Jarke, J. & Pargman, T. C. We are at an extreme point where we have to go all in on what we really believe education should be about (2024). Postdigital Science and Education, 6(1), 360–368 https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-023-00433-5

My doctoral reseach uses narrative inquiry, positioning and valuation theories to explore the ways in which people ascribe value to their lifelong learning practices, when those practices are mediated by a multiplicity of everyday digital techologies. I aim to provide new insights into the value of learning practices which extend beyond but remain entangled with the commodified forms offered through educational qualifications.

Lifelong learning has multiple and contested definitions, shaped by decades of ideological framing by national and international policy bodies. It can be seen as an anticipatory regime (Adams et al., 2009; Amsler & Facer, 2017) in which technologies are understood to be rapidly advancing and learning is required either to defend against technological tyranny (Faure et al., 1972) or to prepare for an anticipated onslaught of oncoming skills needs (Black, 2022; Bound, 2023; OECD, 2021). But lifelong learning is also a lifewide, diverse and deeply personal practice, drawing on and arising from all contexts of life and their learning potential, an ongoing process of re-constructing the meanings by which we live our lives, shaping our understandings of self, world, and their interactions (Alheit, 2022; Jackson, 2011; Jarvis, 2007).

Whatever purpose is ascribed to lifelong learning practices, technology use and advancement are always implicated in their undertaking. I therefore take a postdigital approach, acknowledging and foregrounding the socio-technical role of digital, internet-connected technologies in mediating processes of learning and value creation (Jandrić et al., 2023; Knox, 2019). Broadly I define "lifelong learning" as learning undertaken outside of traditional formal education, by adults across diverse stages and domains of life.

In 2025, I faciltated narrative interviews with ten acquainted pairs of people engaged in a wide range of life phases, from retirement, to early parenting, to the first year out of secondary school. Each participant pair had shared a context of learning and had chosen one another as storytelling partners, enabling the dialogic negotiation of value between them. Participants' stories are rich, diverse and layered, demonstrating pragmatic, critical and creative engagement with a range of technology tools and platforms to pursue valued practices, from finding God to growing daphne, from reading archaic handwriting to mastering trapeze.

Now in the final year of the project, I am in the thick of analysis and write-up. My intent is to examine the evaluative features of each narrative, as well as the roles of the digital infrastructures within them in mediating these valuations. I hope to present my work-in-progress at this doctoral roundtable for advice on:

• Effective, compelling and ethical approaches to representing idiographic education research
• Tools for analysis of digital infrastructures
• Potential opportunities to disseminate this work for impact.

AI-Assisted vs Traditional Self-Assessment: A Multi-Modal Study of Student Processes, Accuracy, and Cognitive-Emotional Impact

Seval Kemal
Supervisors: Ernesto Panadero & Darina Scully

Abstract
Artificial intelligence is rapidly entering higher education assessment, yet its impact on students' self-regulated learning (SRL) processes remains underexplored. This PhD project investigates how AI-assisted self-assessment, Microsoft Copilot alongside a structured rubric, shapes metacognition, cognitive engagement, emotional responses, and accuracy in evaluating writing, compared to rubric-only methods. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) with DCU students contrasts control and intervention conditions on a reflective essay task. Multimodal data include think-aloud protocols (SEFEMO-coded), eye-tracking (Tobii Pro Fusion), electrodermal activity (Shimmer GSR), questionnaires, expert ratings, and self-generated feedback. Data collection ongoing with 33 participants secured.​

Background
SRL drives academic success through cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional processes (Panadero, 2017). Self-assessment, central to SRL, often misaligns with expert judgments, especially among novices (Andrade, 2019). While AI tools like Copilot support feedback, causal SRL effects lack multimodal study. SEFEMO application to AI self-assessment contexts is novel.

Objectives
RQ: How does AI-assisted self-assessment influence SRL processes, cognitive-emotional dynamics, and self-evaluation accuracy vs. traditional methods? Targets: SEFEMO actions; eye-tracking attention; EDA arousal; accuracy/feedback; AI trust.

Methods
Mixed-methods RCT: Students complete 750-word essay, randomized to control (rubric-only, Copilot disabled) or intervention (rubric + Copilot). Data collection: SEFEMO-coded think-alouds (Panadero et al., 2025); Tobii fixation/gaze; Shimmer EDA + cognitive load measures (Boucsein, 2012); blind expert ratings; feedback coding; baseline/AI perception questionnaires. Planned analyses: t-tests/Mann-Whitney, correlations, triangulation (de Mooij et al., 2025).​

Expected Results
AI expected to increase Compare/Redo frequencies and cyclical patterns (vs. linear Read/Recall in control); greater rubric attention; higher arousal (engagement vs. strain); accuracy gains for low-achievers but shallower feedback; mixed AI trust. Clarifies AI as scaffold vs. replacement.​

Significance
Theoretical: First SEFEMO application to AI; multimodal SRL extension. Practical: Evidence for Copilot in formative assessment. Methodological/policy: RCT template for AI-EdTech; informs ethics, autonomy, critical AI literacies.​

Feedback Questions

1. With this multimodal approach (SEFEMO + eye-tracking + EDA), which analyses should I prioritize first?

2. How can we protect student autonomy in AI self-assessment practices?

3. Even offering 15€ vouchers, I am struggling with participant recruitment, especially students uninterested in SRL. What practical strategies work best?​

References

Andrade, H. L. (2019). A critical review of research on student self-assessment. Frontiers in Education, 4, 87. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00087

Boucsein, W. (2012). Electrodermal activity (2nd ed.). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1126-0

de Mooij, S., Lams, J., Lim, L., Järvelä, S., Bannert, M., & Azevedo, R. (2025). A systematic review of self-regulated learning through multimodal data and AI. Educational Psychology Review, 37, Article 54. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-025-10028-0

​Panadero, E. (2017). A review of self-regulated learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, Article 422. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00422

Panadero, E., Pinedo, L., & Fernández Ruiz, J. (2025). Unleashing think-aloud data. Learning and Instruction, 95, Article 102031. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2024.102031

The success of Leaving Certificate Computer Science (LCCS) since its launch in 2018 has depended heavily on out-of-field teachers (OOFT) to teach LCCS. The OOFTs received professional learning (PL) on teaching LCCS; however, it did not address individual teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge gaps in teaching LCCS (Faherty et al. 2023). With the rapid development of generative AI (GenAI), education faces unprecedented opportunities for innovation. Consequently, as GenAI becomes increasingly embedded in educational contexts, understanding its possible role in teachers’ PL is essential. National policy and strategy publications, such as the Guidance on Artificial Intelligence in Schools 2025 and the Digital Strategy for Schools to 2027, promote the integration and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into teaching practices and PL.

This presentation outlines the rationale for exploring the use and impact of GenAI on LCCS teachers' PL and highlights the main research question:

How do LCCS teachers interpret the value and influence of GenAI in their PL?

Sub-questions

1. What is the impact of using GenAI on LCCS teacher PL?
2. What are LCCS teachers' experiences and perceptions of using GenAI for their PL?
3. How do LCCS teachers engage with GenAI to support their PL?

I propose using Garrison's Self-Directed Learning theory (Garrison, 1997) and the AI Competency Framework for Teachers (Miao and Cukurova, 2024) as a lens for examining LCCS teachers' engagement with GenAI.

The proposed research will employ a qualitative study, grounded in a pragmatic worldview. I propose using a qualitative study with triangulation to explore the use of GenAI in LCCS teachers' PL, thereby ensuring the rigour and validity of the findings. Data will be collected through document analysis, written reflections, and semi-structured interviews. Braun and Clarke's Reflexive Thematic Analysis will identify patterns in qualitative data, while descriptive statistics will summarise data without seeking generalised conclusions. The research adheres to ethical principles of informed consent and confidentiality. The findings aim to inform future Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) provisions, contribute to AI integration policies, and support schools in integrating AI technologies.

My proposed research has been informed by papers by ElSayary et al. (2025), Li et al. (2025) and Liu (2025).

I am in the second year of my doctoral studies at DCU and preparing for the research phase of my Ed.D. I would appreciate feedback on the viability of my proposed research methodology.

References

see bibliography

This paper provides a descriptive history of AI chatbots and an overview of current debates surrounding their use in higher education informed by a structured narrative literature review of 50 academic articles. It aligns with the conference’s call for retrospectives, retrocomputing homages and EdTech histories while also contributing to strands related to critical AI literacies, practices and conceptual frames of learning and technology. The paper contributes an informative and impartial briefing for colleagues who hold a wide spectrum of views related to AI in education.

The paper describes the functionality and applications of early AI chatbots in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s such as ELIZA and SCHOLAR before examining debates relating to the visual design elements of chatbots in the 1990s followed by the impact of Generative AI on chatbot design in the 2020s. The paper gives an overview of current definitions and taxonomies relating to AI and chatbots in the GenAI era to provide a foundation for colleagues to understand contemporary discourses. The paper then describes some of the benefits and challenges of AI chatbots through the concept of the pharmakon (an ancient Greek word for something that is both a remedy and a poison) (Wegerif and Casebourne, 2025)¹ to conceptualise the potential impact of AI on education.

The paper also looks at the challenges of developing robust frameworks for evaluating educational AI chatbots due to a lack of empirical studies and issues that arise from using pre-existing approaches such as the Technology Acceptance Model in this domain. The paper concludes by examining Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) chatbots and some of the emerging approaches for evaluating the pedagogical impact of this technology. The accompanying presentation will give an overview of these aspects using clear diagrams, screenshots and historical examples to provide attendees with an engaging and approachable briefing to this field of research.

1. Wegerif, R., & Casebourne, I. (2025). A dialogic theoretical foundation for integrating generative AI into pedagogical design. British Journal of Educational Technology.

The rapid mainstream acceptance of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) creates an opportunity to strengthen student learning in teacher education. By embedding responsible GenAI use within core learning processes, such as receiving and acting on feedback for assignments and tasks, programmes can develop student teachers’ AI literacy while promoting quality learning and feedback literacy (e.g., Prompiengchai et al. 2025). In this presentation, we will present a project, funded by the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Funding in Higher Education, aimed at developing and documenting a GenAI formative feedback agent (RebelBot) to support student teachers’ planning tasks within the professional B.Ed. Physical Education, Sports Studies, and Arts at University College Cork (UCC).

The project, currently underway, adopts a Design-Based Research-inspired (Reeves et al. 2006), multi-phase cycle of co-design, piloting, and refinement of RebelBot. Phase 1 comprised two co-creation workshops with five paid Student Partners (SPs), centring on (i) previous experience with GenAI and desired features for RebelBot and (ii) feedback structure, preferences, and guardrails.

Phase 2 comprises an iterative pilot of RebelBot, created within Microsoft Copilot Studio under UCC licensing and EU Data Boundary controls, using the OpenAI GPT-5 Reasoning model (preview), and following the overall specifications agreed in Phase 1. Four SPs completed three submission cycles of planning artefacts, each followed by a survey collecting insights on usability (User Experience Questionnaire; Schrepp et al.) and structured suggestions to inform iterative refinements. This piloting phase also includes a preliminary reliability and validity study reusing consenting students’ historic planning assignments. This seeks to evaluate (i) test–retest reliability, examining stability of agent outputs when the same artefact is processed on separate occasions under controlled prompting, and (ii) convergent validity, testing alignment between agent outputs and existing criterion-level marking by a human marker.

Phase 3 will provide cohort-wide access for all Year 2 students (n = 52) to support equitable access and will also evaluate pre–post feedback literacy (Feedback Literacy Behaviour Scale; Dawson et al.) and AI ethical learning (AI Literacy Questionnaire; Ng et al.). It will also include a reflexive focus group with lecturers (n = 3) on the perceived value and impact of the agent’s implementation.

Phase 4 will entail the creation and dissemination of materials and tutorials to support the development of similar agents across disciplines and contexts.

This presentation will summarise the design decisions, phased evaluation, and ethical and guardrail structures underpinning RebelBot, offering a transferable methodology for responsible GenAI feedback with students in accredited third-level programmes.

As generative AI tools rapidly enter educational and professional environments, organizations face a critical challenge: how to harness AI to enhance learning and knowledge access while maintaining accuracy, governance and alignment with institutional standards. Recent work has highlighted both the potential and risks of large language models in medical education, particularly regarding reliability, hallucinations, and alignment with evidence-based teaching (Kung et al., 2023; Bobula, 2024). This paper presents the design, deployment and evaluation of a course-specific AI Teaching Assistant (AI TA) as a practical model for responsible, controlled AI adoption with clear relevance for pharmacology teaching to undergraduate medical students.

The project involved the development of an AI TA using OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform, deliberately constrained to operate within a curated and verified knowledge base rather than unrestricted Internet data. The AI TA was trained exclusively using pharmacology course materials and supplementary resources that met explicit inclusion criteria for factual accuracy, licensing compliance, relevance to learning outcomes and pedagogical clarity. This governance-first approach addresses common AI risks such as hallucinations, content drift, and misalignment with instructor or organizational expectations.

The AI TA was piloted with 35 second-year medical students following completion of the pharmacokinetics component of a content-intensive pharmacology module. Student engagement and perceived effectiveness were evaluated using a mixed-methods approach, with 23 participants (65.7%) completing a post-pilot survey that combined quantitative Likert-scale items (100% completion) with an open-ended qualitative feedback question (91.3% response rate). Findings indicate that 66% of respondents reported a positive overall experience, highlighting improved accessibility to complex material, clearer explanations and increased confidence during revision and exam preparation. Students valued the AI TA’s consistency with instructor-provided content and its availability for on-demand clarification, reinforcing trust in the system. Feedback also identified limitations, including occasional inaccuracies in calculation-based responses and performance latency, underscoring the importance of ongoing oversight and refinement.

This paper argues that narrowly scoped, curriculum-aligned AI systems offer a scalable and low-risk blueprint for AI adoption in educational settings.Importantly, the presentation will also outline the practical steps involved in designing, configuring, and governing such a system, including knowledge base curation, prompt structuring, and evaluation strategies, to support replication in other educational contexts. The findings provide actionable insights for legal technology leaders, educators and innovation teams seeking to deploy AI-enabled learning tools while preserving trust, quality and accountability.

References:

1. Kung TH, Cheatham M, Medenilla A, Sillos C, De Leon L, et al. (2023) Performance of ChatGPT on USMLE: Potential for AI-assisted medical education using large language models. PLOS Digital Health 2(2): e0000198. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pdig.0000198

2. Bobula, M. (2024). Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education: a comprehensive review of challenges, opportunities, and implications. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (30). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi30.1137

The rapid emergence of generative AI has prompted widespread concern across higher education about academic integrity, assessment design, and the future role of educators. Institutional responses have often focused on detection technologies, policy restrictions, or tool-specific guidance. While necessary, these responses risk overlooking deeper questions about the values and purposes that should shape the integration of AI into education.

This practitioner paper reflects on the development of the Manifesto for Generative AI in Higher Education, created through the GenAI:N3 network across Irish technological universities. Rather than presenting the manifesto as a policy or prescriptive framework, we position it as a collaborative artefact designed to stimulate dialogue about teaching, learning, ethics, and institutional responsibility in an age of AI.

The manifesto comprises thirty short statements organised across three themes: Rethinking Teaching and Learning, Responsibility, Ethics, and Power, and Imagination, Humanity, and the Future. These statements emerged through conversations with educators, workshops, conference presentations, and iterative reflection across the sector. They are intentionally concise and open-ended, designed to provoke discussion rather than prescribe solutions.

This paper explores the process of creating the manifesto and the role such artefacts can play in fostering critical AI literacy and community dialogue within higher education. We reflect on how manifesto-based approaches can create space for multiple voices, including educators and students, to engage critically with the opportunities and tensions introduced by generative AI.

We argue that participatory artefacts such as manifestos can support the higher education community in moving beyond reactive policy responses towards more reflective, values-driven approaches to educational technology.

Research undertaken in 2022 on the impact of the global pandemic on approaches to curriculum design across the UK higher education (HE) sector (Beetham & MacNeill, 2022) identified a range of factors requiring greater attention in curriculum and learning design practice. These reflected changing student needs and expectations, alongside an increasingly complex and evolving HE landscape across the UK and internationally.

The research highlighted the need to consolidate both perceptions of, and practical understanding around, the benefits and challenges of online learning, alongside the continuing value of place‑based learning, where learners and educators are physically present in the same space. It also emphasised the importance of aligning these perspectives with established research and practice on the effective integration of digital technologies into curriculum design, content creation, and teaching methodologies.

Building on this work, a period of stakeholder and community engagement was undertaken to develop a set of resources that responded to these shifts. This resulted in the creation of an online curriculum and learning design toolkit. Centred on the six pillars ‘beyond blended learning’ model (place, pace, platform, support, flex, and blend), the toolkit comprises a range of open‑licensed resources designed to support both strategic and practice‑based curriculum development.

From October 2024 to July 2026, Jisc is working with 17 higher education providers (17 in phase 1 and 15 in phase 2, from the UK,Ireland, and Australia) in a research pilot programme exploring how these resources can support curriculum and learning design. Pilot teams have been encouraged to use the materials as a starting point for dialogue, enabling shared understanding and clarity around terminology aligned to local contexts. Some institutions have adopted the resources directly, while others have adapted them to develop locally relevant approaches, particularly in relation to curriculum frameworks and wider strategic conversations involving diverse stakeholders.

This presentation provides an overview of the initial research, introduces the toolkit, and shares emerging findings from the pilot projects, (MGill et al, 2025) highlighting implications for future curriculum and learning design in higher education.

References

Beetham, H; MacNeill,S; (2022) Approaches to curriculum and learning design across UK higher education. Jisc

Beetham, H; MacNeill,S, (2023) Beyond Blended. Jisc

McGill, L; MacNeill, S; Beetham, H; Knigh, S; Newall, E, Birkett, S; (2025 )Beyond Blended in Action transforming curriculum and learning design in changing landscape. Jisc.

Behind every successful digital learning resource is a process that brings together pedagogy, design, and technology to support students in reaching their learning objectives.

This presentation showcases a range of digital learning resources developed by the Digital Learning Development team for blended courses at Trinity College Dublin, and offers insight into the collaborative processes behind their design and production.

The team develop fully online courses, MOOCs, CPDs, staff training, and blended resources for the university. This presentation focusses specifically on blended resources created for undergraduate, postgraduate and micro-credential courses, with the aim of sparking discussion about designing innovative digital learning experiences using industry-standard tools. This presentation is structured around people, processes and products, highlighting the roles, workflows and outputs involved in developing blended learning solutions.

People

Central to the development work are Instructional Designers, Multimedia Designers, Learning Technologists and a Video/audio Specialist. While they specialise in specific skills and bring particular strengths as part of their role, many of their skills overlap, resulting in enhanced teamwork and knowledge sharing. The team partner with academic staff to lead the development of multimedia resources and VLE tasks to provide enhanced teaching and learning opportunities. This collaborative model combines pedagogical expertise with high-level technical and creative production skills.

Processes

When developing resources for blended courses, we collaborate with academic staff to discuss delivery modes, structure, and course content to identify opportunities for digital teaching and learning enhancements. Through this collaborative process we design purposeful blended learning activities, to increase variety of learning types, for example, acquisition, investigation or practice, while addressing specific teaching and learning challenges. Defined roles, iterative development phases, structured workflows, reusable templates, embedded accessibility and QA processes streamline development. Keeping the student experience at the centre of the design is core to decision-making, which is underpinned by constructive alignment, cognitive multimedia learning theory, user experience best practice, and accessibility.

Products

Projects span multiple disciplines across the university including Business, Nursing and Midwifery, Engineering, Classics and the Careers Office. Examples of blended elements developed for modules include the following.

- Flipped learning:

• Multimedia presentations
• Instructional videos

- Experiential learning:

• Interactive Interview preparation scenarios
• Interactive Perinatal training scenarios
• Software training simulations

- Reflective learning:

• Interactive skills audit tool

- Gamified learning:

• Climate leadership game

- Knowledge Consolidation:

• Summary infographics
• Interactive quizzes

- Bespoke solutions:

• Ancient-Greek alphabet tool

Insights include that the blended learning resources are effective for learners engaging with UDL principles. Student engagement and feedback from academics are positive. Blended learning provides a valuable opportunity to create bespoke and innovative learning resources and interventions that respond to specific teaching challenges and learner needs.

The development of digital learning experiences within higher education increasingly requires learning technologists to operate across multiple domains, including instructional design, media production, user experience design, and digital learning infrastructure. This paper examines these practices through a case study on the development of a course on dignity and respect in the workplace, focusing on the workflows, tools, and constraints involved in moving from concept to delivery.

The project required translating policy-oriented content into an engaging digital learning experience for staff. Early stages involved requirements gathering and consultation with stakeholders to clarify scope, learning outcomes, and delivery requirements. Learning technologists needed to develop a strong understanding of the nuances of the topic while considering narrative flow, learner prompts, and the sequencing of interactions across the course. The design team used storyboarding techniques to prototype course structure, interactions, and narrative elements before technical implementation began. This approach enabled rapid iteration on learning flows and interaction design prior to development.

The course was authored using Articulate Rise and delivered through the Canvas learning management system. Supporting assets, including voice recordings, visual character imagery, and short video segments, were produced using a range of digital media production tools. This combination of platforms allowed multimedia elements to be integrated while maintaining a structured learning pathway for participants. Generative AI tools were also incorporated during the design and development process. These tools were used during early design stages to support rapid ideation, drafting of dialogue and learner prompts, and experimentation with interaction structures. AI tools were also used to assist with coding native pages within the LMS, but required careful oversight to ensure generated code aligned with accessibility requirements, tone, and institutional context.

The project also highlighted practical constraints associated with contemporary digital learning platforms. While authoring tools such as Articulate Rise enable rapid course development, they can limit interaction design and customisation. Integrating content within an LMS also raises broader considerations around interoperability, accurate reporting and e-learning standards.

By examining the full lifecycle of the project, from requirements gathering and storyboarding through to authoring, asset creation, accessibility considerations, and delivery, the paper highlights the often invisible work involved in designing digital learning experiences. It argues that effective course development increasingly depends on learning technologists navigating a complex ecosystem of platforms, creative production tools, and emerging AI technologies while balancing pedagogical, technical, and accessibility considerations.

In the landscape of Irish higher education, the “how” of technology-enhanced learning, including tools, platforms, dashboards, and analytics, is often foregrounded, while the “who”, namely the programme teams tasked with interpreting and acting on these systems, remains in the periphery. This abstract responds to the EdTech 2026 theme by asking who gets to define educational quality in an era of data-informed decision-making, and how TEL decision-support tools can be designed to sustain, rather than displace, professional judgement (Fawns, 2022).

The support for the collective sense-making required at programme level frequently concedes to current institutional systems that privilege compliance, optimisation, and individual-level analysis. As a result, complex decisions about delivery modality, assessment balance, learner pathways, and alignment with institutional intent are often made implicitly, or retrospectively justified through documentation rather than supported through design-time dialogue. We argue that an overemphasis on the mechanics of “how” educational initiatives are implemented risks narrowing educational judgement and obscuring the relational and contextual nature of programme-level decision-making.

In response, this paper presents a design-based account of an evidence-informed, interoperable ecosystem of programme-level TEL decision-support tools developed within an Irish higher education institute. The ecosystem includes tools for modality selection, assessment mapping, learner pathways mapping, and institutional alignment, all grounded in a shared design philosophy and data structure. The tools were built iteratively, evolving from early Power BI dashboard prototypes into lightweight web-based tools that ingest routinely available programme artefacts (for example, module catalogue exports, assessment plans, and programme structure spreadsheets) via a common schema, producing programme-level visualisations alongside short narrative prompts to support interpretation. Rather than prescribing solutions, the tools use transparent heuristics and visual representations to surface patterns, trade-offs, and tensions, supporting reflective dialogue among programme teams during programme design, review, and enhancement activities. The presentation will draw selectively on illustrative features from across the tool ecosystem to show how specific design choices, particularly in relation to modality selection and programme-level assessment mapping, make educational reasoning visible without automating decision-making (Boelens, De Wever, & Voet, 2017).

Institutional educational frameworks are positioned not as fixed research outcomes, but as design briefs that require interpretation by local academic experts, employing a variety of tools. This paper reflects on how programme teams engage with these tools in practice, the kinds of conversations they enable, and the design decisions taken to avoid compliance-driven or technocratic use. The contribution lies in offering a practice-oriented perspective on how TEL decision-support tools can be designed to centre programme-level judgement, coherence, and educational responsibility.

References
Boelens, R., De Wever, B., & Voet, M. (2017). Four key challenges to the design of blended learning: A systematic literature review. Educational Research Review, 22, 1–18.
Fawns, T. (2022). An entangled pedagogy: Looking beyond the pedagogy–technology dichotomy. Postdigital Science and Education.

For the past nine years, DCU Student Support & Development (SS&D) has implemented a 'think online first' strategy in collaboration with university colleagues. This approach has resulted in the creation of sustainable, accessible, and timely DCU-specific transition and support resources, as well as short courses designed to enhance student success. These resources are housed within LOOP, our Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), enabling students to build digital confidence from the moment they accept their place at DCU. Additionally, it offers a repository of curated and trusted content that academic staff can readily integrate into their courses.

SS&D, with its team of subject matter experts, sought an additional team member possessing an expansive learning design skillset, up-to-date knowledge of emerging sector tools, and a flexible resourcing model to serve as a critical friend. Catalyst IT, recommended for their extensive experience in the Higher Ed sector and proven track record in consulting and supporting similar projects, was the ideal partner.

This paper outlines our co-innovation approach and details how our partnership with Catalyst has delivered robust, scalable, and engaging resources to our students.

ePortfolios are often described as tools that support student reflection, ownership, and the ability to make sense of their learning over time. At their best, they allow learners to bring together evidence, track their progress, and tell their own academic or professional story ((University of Waterloo Centre for Teaching Excellence, 2026). But in practice, the term ‘ePortfolio’ is sometimes applied to tasks that do none of those things.

In this presentation, I reflect on cases where teams describe their assessment as ePortfolio work, but the design gives students little chance to reflect, personalise, or shape their own learning. In some cases, the task involves completing a series of fixed assignments grouped together on a digital platform, but it gives students no real say in how it is put together or what it means. It might tick the submission boxes, but that is not what an ePortfolio is meant to be.

There is real momentum behind using ePortfolios in higher education, and a lot of great work is being done. But there is also a need to pause and ask: do we all mean the same thing when we say ‘ePortfolio’? Does the assessment design align with the purpose of an ePortfolio? If we want students to reflect or take ownership of their learning, the structure has to actually support that. Calling it an ePortfolio does not make it one.

Often, this happens with the best of intentions. Teams want to innovate, meet institutional goals, or engage students in new ways. But without a shared understanding of what an ePortfolio actually is, the result can fall short of what students need (Lewis, 2019).

This presentation is for anyone involved in digital assessment, learning design, or academic development. It is an invitation to take a step back and ask what this tool is for, and whether we are designing in a way that actually supports students to use it well. Because in the end, not everything in a folder is an ePortfolio. And that difference matters.

University of Waterloo Centre for Teaching Excellence. (2026). ePortfolios explained: Theory and practice. Retrieved from https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/catalogs/tip-sheets/eportfolios-explained-theory-and-practice

Lewis, L. (2019). A critical reflection on ePortfolio as a teaching tool. Educational Provocations. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1230237.pdf

In the context of widespread calls for assessment redesign in response to the challenges posed by GenAI tools, universities increasingly recognise ePortfolios as a critical enabler of process-focused and authentic assessment, longitudinal skills development, and graduate employability. However, institution-wide adoption remains challenging due to fragmented practice, limited tool capability, and sustainability concerns. This case study presents the University of Limerick’s (UL) implementation of a centrally supported enterprise ePortfolio service that makes it possible for students to document their personal learning journey across their programme.

Guided by UL’s Teaching, Learning and Assessment Strategy and its Academic Transformation of the Operating Model (ATOM), the initiative addressed the limitations of an unusable native VLE portfolio tool that had resulted in inconsistent local workarounds and increased staff burden. Following institution-wide staff consultation and pilot evaluation, UL implemented Portflow as a secure, assessment-ready ePortfolio, fully integrated with Brightspace and governed through existing VLE structures. The focus was on scalable adoption: standardised templates aligned to graduate attributes and transferable skills were introduced with controlled local flexibility, supported by structured staff development, exemplars, and clear governance.

The paper outlines the strategic, pedagogical, and technical decisions underpinning the transformation, highlighting how treating ePortfolio as core digital infrastructure—rather than an optional add-on—enabled sustainable operation and programme-level coherence. Impact data from the first 18 months of operation demonstrate substantial engagement, with over 4000 active users to date, over 12,000 evidence artefacts, and extensive use of feedback, goal-setting, and controlled sharing for employability and placements.

Key insights include the importance of embedding portfolio activity within assessment design at programme level, the value of centrally governed templates combined with disciplinary autonomy, and the role of early pilots in reducing institutional risk. The case offers a transferable model for institutions seeking to scale ePortfolio practice while aligning assessment, skills development, and employability within long-term curriculum transformation.

Reflective practice is a key component of health professions education, supporting critical thinking, professional identity development, and the integration of theory into teaching practice. At the Postgraduate Diploma in Health Professions Education at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, students traditionally submitted weekly reflective journals via Moodle’s Journal tool. While effective for small cohorts, this approach became increasingly unsustainable as enrolments doubled, and educators faced challenges navigating lengthy submissions, monitoring word counts, and ensuring referencing compliance.

To address these issues, we designed a scalable, human-centred reflective journalling system using Moodle’s Database activity. Each entry included structured fields for title, reflection, and references, with visible word counts. Cohorts were divided into educator-led learning sections, fostering relational engagement. Two viewing modes, list and single-entry, enabled efficient formative review while maintaining depth of feedback. Students could iteratively revise entries before final submission, supporting participatory reflection and learner agency. Complementary tools, including visual progress tracking and bespoke discussion boards, enhanced engagement and accessibility.

As generative AI becomes increasingly embedded in education, reflective activities face new challenges. Even highly personal reflections risk being replaced with AI-generated text, potentially undermining authenticity and professional growth. In response, we are exploring interventions such as AI declaration forms and multimodal reflective formats, including database-supported podcasts, to maintain ethical and meaningful engagement while scaling reflective practice.

This practitioner paper highlights a work-in-progress approach to balancing scale, human connection, and technological affordances in digital learning. It situates reflective journalling as a relational, participatory, and ethically-informed activity, designed with students and educators in mind. By sharing our design decisions, successes, and ongoing challenges, we aim to contribute to discussions about who digital learning technologies serve, how they shape engagement, and how we can preserve authentic professional reflection in the era of AI.

This practitioner paper outlines three ongoing initiatives, from the Learning, Teaching and Assessment (LTA) team at TU Dublin, responding to the ‘GenAI Teaching and Assessment Challenge’. In contrast to regulatory-focused approaches or prescriptive frameworks, these efforts emphasise agency, collaborative partnership, and developing ethical AI literacy for students and staff.

Learner Agency: The NTUTORR-funded ‘AI Driving Licence’ (AIDL) is an interactive, learner-facing resource that uses scenario-based learning to move students beyond compliance toward engaging them as partners in ethical decision-making and upholding integrity. To date, close to 1,000 learners have completed their ‘AI Driving License’, which invites them to adopt a set of 'rules of the road' designed to guide ethical decision-making in their learning and assessments.

Community practice: A SATLE Pathfinder-funded series of ‘Video Vignettes’ and podcast conversations will foreground educators’ candid reflections on redesigning assessment, and teaching practice, in an age of ubiquitous generative AI. Moving beyond polished exemplars, these peer-led case studies surface the tensions between pedagogical innovation, assessment validity, and academic integrity, offering colleagues practical reference points for their own pedagogical work.

Professional Development: A digital badge will provide TU Dublin staff with an asynchronous microlearning pathway to explore practical decision-making around generative AI and assessment. It employs a custom MS Copilot agent to scaffold, not replace, educator judgement, guide them through a decision-flow process to determine the appropriate level of AI accommodation or integration based on their specified learning outcomes, and support them in translating those decisions into clear guidance and policy statements for their learners.

Together, these ongoing initiatives contribute to an ecosystem of support at TU Dublin linking learner agency, community reflection, and professional judgment, addressing the GenAI Teaching and Assessment Challenge in ways that prioritise the human dimension and empower all involved to make ethical, evidence-informed decisions about AI in teaching and learning.

This practitioner paper discusses the use of genAI in a strategy essay-type assignment in a Business School. It explains the nature of the assignment, the preparation provided to students on the use of genAI: design of input prompts, the process of token generation using the transformer architecture of large language models, and evaluation of the output from a genAI. The paper discusses the outcome of the assignment from a learning point of view having examined the student results following the grading process. The paper compares the outcome of this work with the work of students in 2025 when students used genAI to analyse an assigned case. In 2026 an assigned case was not provided and students were allowed select an organization for analysis. The paper also considers the appropriateness of genAI (Grassini, 2023; Lappin, 2024; Lazovsky et al., 2024) for supporting strategic analysis using a variety of tools; it considers whether or not genAI provides better support for certain kinds of tool, e.g. for those tools such as PESTEL analysis that consider themes, patterns and regularities, than it does for other kinds of tools such as financial statement analysis that requires detailed analysis of numbers.

Grassini, S. 2023. Shaping the Future of Education: Exploring the Potential and Consequences of AI and ChatGPT in Educational Settings. Education Sciences, 13(7), 692. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13070692

Lappin, S. Assessing the Strengths and Weaknesses of Large Language Models. J of Log Lang and Inf 33, 9–20 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10849-023-09409-x

Lazovsky, Gal Sasson, Tuval Raz and Yoed Kenett. 2024. The art of creative inquiry – from question answering to prompt engineering. Journal of Creative Behavior, 59(1):1-16 DOI:10.1002/jocb.671

Journal articles, institutional/national/international guidance documents, and LinkedIn posts alike call on staff in higher education to gain, and/or improve their, ‘AI literacies’. The discourse around how to deal with the emergence of this glut of innovative, disruptive, and rapidly evolving technologies centre around: inevitability, in that the technology is already here, the students are already using it, staff should, or even must, accept these technologies and engage with these technologies. Discourse also frequently acknowledges the ethical issues accompanying different AI tools, while in the same breath saying that their use is both unavoidable and desirable. Non-engagement is is now being framed as an extreme, irresponsible position to take; individual responsibility, in that exploring and establishing ways of integrating these technologies into teaching and learning practices falls to each individual as part of their professional responsibilities; limited systemic accountability, in that the role of the institution is limited to generating policy and high level guidance, providing the typically limited degree of training and educational development in teaching and learning, and setting expectations for individual staff to develop their own capacity. As was the case before this particular ed-pocolyse, for example with the pivot to remote teaching during COVID-19, the discourse on AI technologies in higher education is frequently divorced from discussions of existing institutional digital competency frameworks and related, strategic, resourced capacity building for staff and students. Most of the ideas and proposed interventions in this space are doomed to fail as they are constructed on the shaky foundations of existing, dysfunctional dynamics in higher education. This is to say that higher education staff typically do not need to have a particular level of training or expertise in teaching and learning to be hired, and then do not have to attain any particular level when in their role, with their professional development left as a voluntary, individual endeavour. The literature is clear on higher education staff typically having overwhelming workloads, with accompanying high levels of stress and burnout, and therefore do not have a great deal of time to put into professional development, even when so motivated. Career progression pathways typically do not motivate staff to engage in time consuming professional development in the teaching and learning domain, for example, in academic roles promotion processes typically motivate staff to put more attention on the research domain. This presentation proposes an alternative, radically boring approach for how higher education staff can be positioned to be able to approach any technology, including new, innovative, and disruptive technologies, in their teaching and learning work. This approach is grounded in existing models of staff capacity building and a rejection of the nonsensical idea that higher education staff capacity is magically infinite.

Civic education in primary schools increasingly demands approaches that promote active participation, democratic engagement, and community awareness. However, recent studies reveal gaps in how civic learning is delivered to young learners, often due to limited pedagogical models and inadequate digital tools. MetaCivicEdu addresses these gaps by developing metaverse-enriched civic education scenarios, a dedicated XR platform, teacher training pathways, and pilot studies across Ireland, Greece, and Cyprus.

This presentation introduces participants to the project’s pedagogical foundations, which combine experiential civic learning, XR-supported inquiry, and age-appropriate immersive activities. Participants will first explore examples of metaverse-enabled civic scenarios created within MetaCivicEdu, such as virtual town halls, digital citizenship quests, environmental stewardship missions, and simulated community-decision exercises. These scenarios illustrate how immersive environments can make abstract civic concepts—rights, responsibilities, community roles, and democratic processes—accessible to children.

Following a guided demonstration of the platform under development, we will also present preliminary insights from pilot case studies, highlighting how metaverse-enriched civic education impacts student engagement, collaboration, and understanding of civic concepts. Practical considerations—teacher readiness, safety protocols, inclusivity, accessibility, and XR classroom integration—will be discussed openly.

The session is ideal for primary educators, school leaders, XR developers, civic education specialists, and digital-pedagogy researchers.

This research brings together three higher education institutions (HEI) to explore the transformative potential of immersive technologies for higher education with considerable transdisciplinary application in the design and delivery of learning for multiple industries. This collaborative initiative between the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT) and South East Technological University (SETU) aims to empower faculty to integrate Extended Reality (XR) technology into their teaching practices, significantly enhancing student engagement and knowledge retention. This paper outlines preliminary steps upon which the pedagogical lens will contribute to the design and development of the application and the steps toward implementation within the classroom, specifically in relation to educators knowledge and skill and microcredential curriculum design.

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, integrating emerging technologies like XR into education is crucial for enhancing student engagement, improving knowledge retention, and developing future-ready skills. Despite the recognized potential of immersive technologies, their widespread adoption in higher education is limited, often due to high costs, lack of technical expertise, and time-consuming content development.

Recognizing these barriers, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design + Technology (IADT) and South East Technological University (SETU) with the support of HEA launched a collaborative initiative to empower faculty with the skills, resources, and confidence to integrate XR into their teaching practices. Central to the initiative is a co-development model that brings students and faculty together to collaboratively create XR learning content, fostering mutual ownership, innovation, and a stronger connection to the curriculum.

Through intentional shared COIL (collaborative online international learning), professional development, curriculum development, joint teaching activities and practices, are being designed. This paper presents the initial steps that will ensure that the design meets the collaborative vision for inclusive, disruptive progression of pedagogical innovation in higher education.

Higher Education (HE) graduates are expected to demonstrate strong communication skills and apply them with confidence in high-pressure, real-world situations. A central challenge for educators is identifying effective strategies to help students not only practice these skills but also build resilience and confidence in using them.

This presentation will share details of an international project between Ireland and Canada which examines how immersive technologies, specifically virtual reality (VR), can be utilised to enhance the development of communication skills. Guided by the project mentors, academic leaders carried out an action research (AR) project (McNiff, 2013) with their students, capturing their feedback at the end of each action research cycle, to inform the design of the learning experience using VR. Two AR cycles have been completed to date and the presentation will include findings from student surveys, academic leaders' reflective logs and user-generated data available on the VR platforms.

The project is informed by key literature in immersive learning. For example Queiroz et al. (2025), argues that the use of virtual reality to develop communication skills has shown promising results. Noting that virtual reality provides authentic, immersive learning simulations, the study claims that participants’ emotional and behavioural involvement increased as a result of using virtual reality for communication skills training. Helle et al. (2025) conducted a qualitative study with health and social care students to explore the use of virtual reality for individual learning, concluding that VR had significant potential in enhancing professional competencies. The potential of virtual reality to develop nursing students’ communication skills was explored by Shorey et al. (2020), who concluded that VR enhanced student confidence and preparedness for clinical performance. However, the study also noted that challenges were associated with poor speech recognition and conversation flow, which impacted the overall experience for students. These were important considerations for the present study.

Additionally, identifying where immersive learning experiences with VR fit within the curriculum was a key factor in promoting student engagement (McDermott et al., 2024). The presentation will also share considerations from the research on aligning the chosen immersive learning pathway with core competencies required by students, and reflections on using VR as part of an international project team.

Resource constraints in analytical chemistry education often limit students' opportunities to practise with expensive instrumentation. This exploratory study investigated third-year undergraduate chemistry students' perceptions of, and engagement with, a newly developed virtual reality (VR) application—Immersive ChemLab—featuring a digital twin of an Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) instrument implemented as an interactive pre-laboratory preparation activity. The application comprised three mini-modules covering instrument setup, optimisation, and quantitative analysis. Using an explanatory mixed-methods design, we collected student perceptions through two surveys (N=25, N=18) administered after VR training and after completion of the physical laboratory session, supplemented by focus group data (N=10). Quantitative data were analysed using non-parametric statistics, and qualitative data underwent thematic analysis, with integration yielding three overarching themes. Students reported that Immersive ChemLab enhanced their preparedness for the physical laboratory, with perceived benefits including improved understanding of AAS theoretical principles and instrument operation, increased familiarity and confidence, and self-reported efficiency compared to other instruments supported by traditional pre-laboratory materials. Despite technical challenges and limited prior VR experience, students maintained positive attitudes towards VR as a learning tool. Strong correlations emerged between module experiences and perceived learning benefits. However, significant methodological limitations constrain interpretation: reliance on self-reported perceptions without objective performance measures, absence of a control group, and small sample size prevent causal claims about VR effectiveness. The findings suggest potential value for VR-based pre-laboratory preparation, whilst highlighting implementation considerations for chemistry educators. Rigorous controlled studies with objective learning outcome measures are essential to substantiate these exploratory findings.

The capacity to plan, manage, monitor and reflect on one’s learning—i.e. to engage in self-regulated learning (SRL)—is vital to academic success; seminal research identified fourteen SRL strategies and showed that learners’ achievement was strongly predicted by their use of SRL strategies (Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons, 1986); this difference in achievement can be accounted for by strategy presence, frequency and consistency (Nandagopal and Ericsson, 2012). Empirical evaluations indicate that most SRL tools do not demonstrably improve actual SRL behaviour—most studies did not directly measure changes in students’ SRL strategies (Edisherashvili et al., 2022), highlighting a gap in understanding of whether these tools are truly helping students internalise better self-regulatory practices or just providing short-term performance boosts. This talk describes STARS, a co-designed digital tool for mobile and desktop to help bridge this gap. In particular, it supports learners in deploying a set of SRL strategies, helping them to (i) internalise standards (ii) set specific learning goals (iii) self evaluate their work against a standard and (iv) develop a plan to close the gaps between their work and the required standard. We used an action research methodology to evaluate STARS with undergraduate learners across three disciplines: computing, social care, and sustainable community development as well as postgraduate learners in STEM and humanities. We report on results to date including recorded learner behaviour as well as learner reflections. Our findings suggest the need for a means to overcome barriers including the need to integrate digital scaffolds into core assignments to reduce the initial effort barrier and increasing student agency in strategy selection to enhance long-term value.

Problem

Learning content is higher education’s primary teaching medium, yet most of it fails basic accessibility standards. The 2025 WebAIM Million analysis found that 94.8% of the top one million web pages had detectable WCAG failures [1]. Only 18% of disabled adults over 25 hold a bachelor’s degree — half the rate of non-disabled peers. The European Accessibility Act took effect in June 2025 and the US DOJ’s Title II rule requires WCAG 2.1 AA by April 2026 [2], yet most institutions still lack a structured way to address the overlapping layers of content accessibility.

In many institutions that I worked with, accessibility is treated as a single condition — content is either accessible or it is not. But that misses the reality. A lecture recording might be available on the LMS but lack captions or transcript. A handbook may include alt text but still be written in dense, impenetrable language. Even clearly written readings can be locked into fixed-layout formats that cannot resize or reflow. These are different problems, and they need different responses.

Framework and Methodology

The Hierarchy of Effective Learning Content was developed over five years of hands-on work with more than 100 higher education institutions, including accessibility audits, staff training, and content remediation projects. One pattern kept coming up: institutions were investing in higher-level interventions — readability, adaptable formats, UDL — while foundational issues around availability and basic digital accessibility remained unresolved. The framework organises these requirements into five levels arranged as a dependency chain, modelled on Maslow’s hierarchy, where each level creates the conditions for the next.

The five levels are: Availability (can learners reach the content across formats, devices?), Digital Accessibility (does it conform to WCAG [3] for assistive technology users?), Readability (is it written in plain language with clear headings?), Adaptability (can learners resize text, adjust spacing, or use text-to-speech?), and Universal Design for Learning (was it designed from the start for learner variability?). The framework draws on international standards, sector data (WebAIM, Jisc Digital Experience Insights), cognitive load research, and UDL evidence.

Implementation and Impact

Across institutions, one thing was consistently clear: staff are subject matter experts, not accessibility experts, and they should not need to be. The hierarchy gives them a starting point. It is not a checklist — it is a dependency chain. Investing in UDL when students cannot even reach the content is building on a foundation that does not exist. The framework has been developed into a whitepaper, a modular presentation system, and a five-part reflective workshop where teams audit their practices level by level.

The evidence at the top level is strong: a 2025 longitudinal study of 2,473 learners across 87 facilities found full UDL implementation produced a 37.4% increase in overall performance and 42.8% for previously disengaged learners [4]. But those gains depend on the lower levels being in place. Learner variability is the norm, not the exception. The hierarchy exists to help institutions design for that reality, from the foundation up.

This session will present inclusive practices embedded in an online class. Specific practices that deal with course structure, visual and multiple modes of learning, and assessment can make a course more accessible, understandable, and welcoming to students, as noted in the CAST UDL Guidelines (2024).

In terms of course structure, we revised a course so that the names and sequences of learning activities mirror main course concepts and processes. The course, whose topic of experiential learning is new and difficult for many students, frames the learning activities in terms of the experiential learning cycle and also explains this structure directly to students as they move through, to make the abstract concept of experiential learning concrete.

In terms of visual and multiple modes of learning, the course includes strategic visuals that enhance key concepts, providing alternatives to text. A key aspect that supports visual learning and inclusiveness is a course map that uses an appropriate metaphor to show how the course progresses. The course map highlights the pieces of the course and how they fit together; it helps students see how different learning activities contribute to the purpose and focus of the course. Videos and AI interactive activities offer students additional ways to engage with information.

In terms of assessment, the course uses a labor-based rubric, something which has been shown to create a more supportive environment less focused on grades and more focused on student effort and instructor feedback. In a processed-based course in which students need to go through stages and incorporate feedback, assuring a passing grade based on student engagement helps to create a more equitable experience for students, one in which they can focus more fully on exploring their learning. Additionally, the labor-based rubric is explained using student-friendly content and language, as suggested by Pacansky-Brock et.al. (2020).

Although we will illustrate these practices using examples from a course on credit for prior learning, the practices are applicable to many fields and can be used to promote inclusion and support students by making learning activities transparent.

Key findings have been positive. As a result of embedded inclusive practices, students are engaging in course learning activities more quickly with better results.

CAST (2024). CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org

Pacansky-Brock, M., Smedshammer, M., & Vincent-Layton, K. (2020, June 18). “Shaping the Futures of Learning in the Digital Age: Humanizing Online Teaching to Equitize Higher Education.” Current Issues in Education. https://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/article/view/1905/870

The aim of the presentation is to explore a problem of practice in Higher Education regarding Assistive Technology (AT) for Students with disabilities (SWD). AT has a powerful voice internationally in inclusion, as the UNCRPD, the SDGs, and UDL advocate for the role of AT in inclusive Education. One way SWDs are supported in Education is through the provision of recording tools that help them supplement their notes. This 'reasonable accommodation' that our Irish Disability law supports, so SWDs can have the right to these recording tools, has now advanced with the introduction of AI. Each Irish University has an AI recording tool that embeds AI in various ways, depending on the tool, and offers new ways to support neurodiverse and sensory-impaired students. AI can convert recordings into transcripts and generate quizzes from recordings, for example, both useful ways to engage with information and to self-evaluate their learning. In light of AI's progress in enhancing AT in education, there is concern about AI and how it uses and stores information. With the introduction of AI, does this remove learning effort from our students? How do we gauge if AT is enabling or doing too much? The presentation will explore these questions.

This workshop would look at the development of advanced interactive material within Moodle which aligns to assessment at all QQI levels. It would be based on the work carried out under QQI Aniversary Bursary call where a large suite of new Moodle questions were developed using the Formula plugin. Features included complex grading schema, enhanced feedback, data analytics to drive practical class pedagogy. Many of these features make this question type particularly suitable for use in the AI era.

The workshop would cover:

Intro to formula type questions. Exploring the basic functions and generating advanced question types. Understanding your own grading schema and translating them into computable statements. Giving feedback and advanced feedback design and using student generated data in quiz questions.

People who attended the workshop would expect to have some knowledge of writing quiz questions in Moodle but no experience in the Formulas plugin is necessary. After attending they would have a question bank of questions to build from as well as an understanding of how they might be suitable to enhance their own teaching practice.

Equipment:

Participants should bring a laptop or other device with them to the workshop to participate in workshop activities.

Digital change in education is often thought of in terms of platforms, systems, and innovation – but people are at the heart of change. This interactive workshop explores how, as leaders of change in digital education, we can facilitate transformation whilst bringing people (staff and students) with us on the journey.

At the centre of the workshop is Jisc’s Leading for Change question set, (part of the Discovery tool). Participants will have the opportunity to work through self-evaluation questions and consider on the results together. The questions are designed to help reflect on their capability to envision, plan, and facilitate organisational digital transformation. At the same time, participants will gain an understanding of the Discovery tool and the role it plays in supporting transformation.

Participants will use the questions to explore:

• How they currently understand and enact digital leadership in their role
• What strengths they bring to digital transformation initiatives
• What development opportunities could enhance their ability to lead change

The session will include collaborative discussion, and guided individual reflection. Participants will:

• Review their own digital leadership
• Begin shaping personal development plans, identifying next steps and resources
• Reflect on digital mindset and digital change readiness
• Explore some strategies for working with others, including the fearful or reluctant

Throughout the workshop, participants will be encouraged to recognise that digital transformation is not only about adopting technologies—it is about reshaping cultures, roles, and relationships. Effective digital leaders help colleagues navigate uncertainty, advocate for inclusivity, and create conditions where innovation can flourish. The discovery tool supports leaders in helping others make the changes in themselves and the organisations they work for.

Requirements:

Participants should bring a mobile device or laptop to engage with the DIscovery tool during this workhop.

My doctoral research focuses on how municipal-level digital education strategies support teachers’ professional learning and the development of digipedagogical competence in Finnish basic education. In Finland’s decentralized education system, municipalities play a central role in translating national curriculum goals into practice. My first PhD substudy draws on longitudinal survey data (2021–2023, N = 1,121) and examines how teachers assess and develop their digipedagogical competence. The study identifies different teacher profiles based on their engagement with digital pedagogy and explores how these profiles change. The findings suggest that while the profiles remain relatively stable, there are small shifts, which highlight the need for sustained and differentiated support for teachers.

By the time of the EdTech 2026 conference, I will be at the early stages of my second study. At the moment, I am trying to better understand how to connect the structural perspective (municipal strategy and its implementation) with the individual perspective (teachers’ experiences, agency, and professional learning) in a meaningful and coherent way across my dissertation. Defining the scope and focus of this next study still feels quite open, and I am focusing on how to best position it in relation to my first study.

Alongside these research-related questions, I have also been reflecting on the nature of doctoral work more generally. Working as a full-time doctoral researcher has required a high level of independence and self-direction, and the long-term nature of the process can at times feel overwhelming. Especially in this early phase, much of the responsibility for structuring the work and maintaining progress comes from oneself, which can make the process feel quite solitary. At the same time, I have found peer support to be extremely important, and discussions with others in similar situations have been a key source of motivation and perspective.

In the roundtable, I would particularly appreciate elaborative feedback and discussion, for example on the following questions:

• How can I meaningfully connect my first study and my second study so that they form a coherent whole?
• What are effective ways to combine structural (strategy-level) and individual (teacher-level) perspectives within one study or dissertation?
• How have others dealt with stress, pressure, uncertainty, and self-doubt during the doctoral process?
• What kinds of practices have helped you maintain a sense of balance and self-compassion while continuing to make progress in your work?

I see this roundtable as an opportunity to both clarify the direction of my research and to reflect on the broader experience of doing a PhD, together with others who are going through similar processes.

This paper examines the role of technology-enhanced pedagogies in fostering responsible and competency based entrepreneurship learning with a focus on Science, Technology, and Engineering Entrepreneurship (STEE) contexts. It draws from several peer reviewed academic studies to investigate the use of virtual learning environments, blended learning, and AI tools – including large language models (LLMs) and generative AI – to support the development of entrepreneurial competencies such as opportunity recognition, creativity, business modelling, and ethical and sustainable thinking. The analysis includes diverse contexts, such as project-based technology entrepreneurship, immersive virtual simulations, and AI-supported business modelling. The findings demonstrate that these technologies can enhance learner engagement and entrepreneurial intention, while also bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application. In addition to this, the findings emphasise key considerations around access, reliability, and the ethical use of AI and digital platforms. Building on these insights, the paper develops a theoretically grounded framework that integrates technology-enabled learning and competency based entrepreneurial models. Through this analysis, design principles and teaching strategies for STEE entrepreneurship education are proposed. The study offers guidance for educators seeking to integrate immersive and AI tools responsibly, which in turn supports students in developing practical and ethically aware entrepreneurial capabilities suited to uncertain and digitally mediated environments.

Online learning environments generate a large amount of data about how students interact with platforms, resources, and learning activities. However, this information is often spread across multiple institutional systems and rarely brought together in ways that meaningfully support the student experience. This paper introduces the development of a Student Engagement Dashboard designed to bring these engagement signals together and provide a clearer, more holistic picture of how students are participating in digital learning environments.
In 2020, the establishment of an Online Engagement Advisor role marked a strategic shift toward fostering connection and belonging in the virtual public sphere aligning with principles of community in online learning environments (Garrison et at., 2000; Swan, 2002). Since then, a framework for digital community building has been developed incorporating light touch engagement strategies such as emoji based pulse surveys and structured opportunities for peer interaction. These initiatives prioritise student voice, digital wellbeing, and relational presence in online education.
Building on this work, the current project focuses on bringing engagement data from different institutional systems into a single dashboard. Rather than focusing on academic performance or predictive analytics linked to grades, the dashboard highlights non-academic indicators of participation. These include interaction with tuition materials, participation in digital learning spaces, assessment related activity data, and patterns of time spent engaging within the learning environment. The approach is informed by critical perspectives on learning analytics that emphasise ethical responsibility, student agency and transparency (Slade and Prinsloo, 2013). The aim is not to monitor performance but to highlight signals that may indicate opportunities for supportive, student centred engagement with students.

This practitioner paper shares the rationale for the dashboard, key design decisions, and early insights from its development. It also reflects on practical considerations such as ethical data use, transparency with students, and the role of digital learning professionals working with engagement data. Early reflections suggest that bringing together these signals can help identify opportunities for timely outreach and strengthen students’ sense of connection, belonging, and digital wellbeing in online learning environments.

We often describe educational innovation as a strategic process aligned with institutional goals. In practice, it unfolds organically. My PhD began in that space, with a focus on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The study developed into a cross-national exploration of how higher education institutions in Ireland and Britain understood why and how MOOCs were developed and what their future might look like.

I interviewed lecturers, instructional designers and senior leaders navigating the space between institutional ambition and operational reality. Using Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006), I stayed close to their accounts of negotiation, uncertainty and competing priorities. Rather than consensus, the accounts revealed contradiction. Those tensions shaped the story of MOOCs.

As the dataset grew, so did its volume and complexity. The challenge was to synthesise competing positions without reducing them to tidy themes. Faced with an extensive qualitative dataset, I needed a way to hold contradictions without flattening them. Instead of producing a conventional findings chapter, I developed the analysis through six composite narratives organised around three institutional roles expressed through contrasting positions.

Inspired by how true crime documentaries allow multiple accounts to sit in tension rather than resolving them into a single narrative, the contrast functioned as both a narrative form and an analytic strategy. Presenting the findings through composite narratives and thick description (McElhinney and Kennedy, 2022; Patton, 2015) kept the study grounded in participant accounts while acknowledging my insider position as an instructional designer. This interpretive lens brings into view a perspective central to institutional innovation work yet less frequently foregrounded in research. By presenting findings as character-driven narratives rather than abstract categories, the research makes institutional tensions visible and open to discussion. The conclusion brings these strands together and offers practical recommendations for institutions seeking to align MOOC activity with strategic purpose and internal capacity.

This practitioner presentation is less about MOOCs themselves and more about researching in conditions of uncertainty. It reflects on what happens when institutional voices remain in tension and considers how narrative approaches can help those working in educational innovation engage complexity without prematurely resolving it.

Charmaz, K. (2006) Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Sage.

McElhinney, Z. and Kennedy, C. (2022) ‘Enhancing the collective, protecting the personal: The valuable role of composite narratives in medical education research’, Perspectives on Medical Education, 11, pp. 220–227.

Patton, M.Q. (2015) Qualitative research and evaluation methods. 4th edn. Sage.

The National Digital Leadership Network (NDLN) is an initiative originally established under the N-TUTORR programme -- with support from NextGenerationEU funding -- to support digital leadership across Ireland’s Technological Higher Education sector. Formally launched in November 2024, the NDLN provides a forum and platform for collaboration, strategic alignment, and knowledge exchange among digital leaders, policymakers, and practitioners. Now operating beyond the lifetime of the N-TUTORR programme, the network continues to drive a shared vision of values-led, sustainable digital transformation and development.

The NDLN was originally established following extensive sectoral consultation, which highlighted clear needs: more opportunities for collaboration, better recognition of informal digital leadership, and stronger avenues for sharing practice. These discussions also surfaced familiar challenges: limited time and resources, uneven digital capacity across and within institutions, barriers to innovation and mainstreaming, inconsistent support structures and the ongoing impact of merger processes in each of the sector’s technological universities.

A key output of the network to this point has been a series of horizon-scanning strategic reports authored by leading national and international experts. Covering topics such as generative AI, hybrid and post-digital models of learning, data-informed decision-making, academic integrity, and financial sustainability, these reports provide clear actionable insights for higher education leaders navigating change. Further work is underway, including new commissioned reports, follow-up publications, and plans for a national webinar series modelled on MTU’s Generative AI Seminar Series.
This paper outlines the development and impact of the NDLN to date and reflects on its potential role as a support for and driver of digital leadership, equity, and innovation across the technological university sector. It also considers the network’s future direction, arguing for sustained national support and formalised structures to ensure that the NDLN continues to shape a resilient, inclusive, and forward-looking digital future for Irish higher education.

This paper explores how the adoption of Team-Based Learning (TBL) is responding to sector-wide challenges around student engagement, belonging, critical thinking, academic integrity and the accelerating impact of artificial intelligence. TBL is a structured, student-centred pedagogical approach that focuses on readiness checks, team accountability and applied, real-world problem-solving. It supports a deeper approach to learning and helps students strengthen transversal skills such as communication, critical thinking, and teamwork, which are becoming increasingly significant given the rapid developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and evolving graduate attributes.

Key initiatives to support TBL integration include adopting a dedicated Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) that enables seamless integration of TBL and other teaching strategies to support active and collaborative learning across face-to-face, online, and hybrid environments. An overview of LAMS will be presented, including features such as focused tracking, AI-enabled lesson development, real-time analysis of student work, instant feedback to the lecturer, and peer review. In addition, to support professional development, TUS has developed a Certificate in Team-Based Learning (15 ECTS at level 9). This is supplemented by the creation of open-access resources and a TBL101 workshop.

National Forum Pathfinder funding has led to a partnership approach between the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) and South East Technological University (SETU), laying the groundwork for a scalable, future-focused ecosystem of Team-Based Learning (TBL) in Irish higher education. The project team has conducted a cross-institutional scoping process to assess staff readiness for large-scale pedagogical change. A pivotal moment involved bringing academic leaders from TUS and SETU to the National TBL Hub at the University of Manchester, where they observed a mature, institution-wide TBL ecosystem in action. Introductory TBL workshops and the integration of LAMS software have enabled staff across both universities to experience how TBL can be delivered consistently and seamlessly.

Meaningful pedagogical transformation requires relational, sustained, ecosystem-level academic development rather than one-off interventions. This paper concludes by outlining a shared ambition to collaboratively develop national support structures that enable active learning at scale and prepare graduates for a world where human collaboration and critical reasoning matter more than ever.

Project work or essay work is a vital way in which our students learn. Gen AI can now successfully complete most of this work with little assistance and potentially almost no learning by learners. Removing these assessments in favour of exams removes a vital component of learning. Interviewing students about their work does enable their understanding to be evaluated; however, it is extremely time consuming for the lecturers rendering it unviable in most courses.

We have piloted a novel approach to this problem:

1. A student submits their project work / essay work.

2. We develop a standard with a set of exemplars of what good questions look like to test the understanding of their individual work.

3. From each individual piece of work, we generate (with a local LLM) a set of basic and advanced versions of these questions (with answers).

4. In a locked down environment (other websites cannot be accessed), each student answers their personalised questions.

5. The lecturers can use a selection of the answers to help evaluate the understanding of the student and be used as a component of their project/essay grade (at its most extreme, where very limited understanding is demonstrated - indicating that little of the work is the student’s own work - a project which would otherwise have done well will fail).

We also explored using this for formative assessment - our approach is intended to support learners to use AI tools in ways that enhance learning and understanding rather than undermine it. We piloted this across two diverse student cohorts (computing and psychology) this semester. In this talk we show the details of the process and present the lessons we learned. We also surveyed learners and educators as the first steps towards codesign of the next iteration of this work.

Technology-enhanced formative assessments (TEFAs) are widely used by educators to support formative learning and feedback, and are frequently associated with positive student perceptions of engagement and learning. However, less attention has been paid to the relationship between students’ perceived value of such assessments and their actual patterns of use over time. This paper examines this relationship through an empirical study of student engagement with TEFAs within the author’s own higher education teaching practice.

Informed by formative assessment literature (Black and Wiliam, 1998; Nicol and Macfarlane‐Dick, 2006; Carless, 2007) and drawing on participatory action research traditions (Elliott, 1991; Coughlan and Coghlan, 2002), the study combined quantitative learning analytics data with qualitative student feedback to explore how students engaged with TEFAs across a semester. While students consistently reported that TEFAs were useful for understanding content, identifying knowledge gaps and supporting exam preparation, engagement data revealed uneven and highly strategic patterns of use.

Findings indicate that students’ engagement with TEFAs was strongly shaped by summative assessment structures, with activity peaking in the period immediately preceding final examinations. Sustained or regular engagement was limited, despite positive perceptions of value. This disconnect highlights the influence of assessment culture and learner priorities in shaping engagement with formative assessment technologies. This challenges assumptions that positive feedback alone leads to consistent formative use.

The paper argues that student engagement with TEFAs is best understood as situated and conditional, rather than as a straightforward indicator of effectiveness. By highlighting the tension between perceived value and actual engagement behaviour, the study contributes a state of the actual (Selwyn, 2008) account of TEFA use that complicates dominant narratives of engagement in EdTech research. The paper concludes by discussing implications for educators designing and evaluating TEFAs, emphasising the need to align formative assessment intentions with the realities of summative-driven learning environments.

Join National College of Ireland for a real-world look at how attendance data is helping drive earlier, more effective student support. Karen Mooney, Head of Student Support & Welfare, and Stephen Cleary, Student Engagement & Retention Officer, will share how NCI is using a centralised attendance and engagement system to streamline processes, improve visibility across student participation, and identify signs of disengagement earlier, enabling more proactive interventions and better student outcomes at scale.

Classroom response systems (CRS) are frequently introduced in classes and live sessions as tools to increase participation (Kay & LeSage, 2009). However, staff adoption is often hindered by time constraints and a lack of structured, sustained support beyond introductory demonstrations.

This paper presents a SATLE-funded initiative, From Zero to Vevox Hero, designed to move from one-off exposure to long-term capability building in the use of Vevox. Central to the project was the design and development of a bespoke, self-paced online course (built in Articulate RISE), created to support staff at different stages of confidence and experience. The course was intentionally structured as an on-demand resource, enabling learning at the point of need. Rather than relying solely on attendance at a single workshop, participants can revisit concise demonstrations, feature walkthroughs, and practical examples whenever they are preparing a session or experimenting with new functionality.

This asynchronous foundation was complemented by a series of live, hands-on workshops delivered across campuses and online. A key design principle underpinning the initiative was intentionality (Bennett et al., 2018). Recognising that staff are time-poor and often leave technology sessions feeling overwhelmed, the workshops were deliberately structured as participant-led, practice-based experiences. Rather than just observing a demonstration, participants designed, created, and facilitated their own Vevox sessions within the workshop environment. By the conclusion of the session, participants had developed and run a live activity, shifting the experience from passive exposure to active competence and emerging confidence.

The presentation will outline the design rationale behind integrating asynchronous and synchronous supports, offering a replicable model for institutions seeking to scaffold staff development and support meaningful pedagogical integration of educational technologies.

References

Kay, R. H., & LeSage, A. (2009). Examining the benefits and challenges of using audience response systems. Computers & Education, 53(3), 819–827.

Bennett, S., Lockyer, L. and Agostinho, S. (2018), Towards sustainable technology-enhanced innovation in higher education: Advancing learning design by understanding and supporting teacher design practice. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49: 1014-1026.

With the rapid developments in GenAI, academic writing and academic integrity have come under the microscope and have led to confusion for educational organisations, their staff, and students, and have created a "low-trust environment" (O'Sullivan, J, Higher Education Authority, 2025). With the absence of GenAI policies in some cases, this has led to uncertainty for all involved. “Academic Integrity ​is the​ cornerstone ​of higher education​” (Oldham, 2025), and products such as Turnitin have provided a platform to address both academic Integrity and academic writing skills issues in higher education.

This practitioner paper examines the roadmap of Turnitin as it has evolved through various iterations of products from Feedback Studio to Draft Coach and Clarity, and how these platforms are used in the classroom for student engagement with referencing, paraphrasing, and addressing academic integrity issues, along with the support infrastructure for staff and students.

Turnitin Clarity and Draft Coach are new writing and academic integrity tools that provide students with a transparent space to draft their assignments, access AI‑guided feedback (when permitted), and build confidence in the originality and authenticity of their work. For educators, Clarity enables clear visibility of a student’s writing process through version playback, flagged points of interest, originality insights, and configurable AI‑use settings. Students will benefit from clearer expectations, transparent drafting processes, and improved writing confidence. The pilot also provides a student-centered approach to academic writing and moves the perception away from Turnitin as ​“a punitive mechanism for detecting plagiarism rather than as a​ ​pedagogical tool to support academic writing development​”. (Oldham, 2025) The project supports SETU’s priorities and strategies related to digital transformation, assessment enhancement, and academic integrity.

This practitioner paper presents a Semester 2 pilot of Turnitin Clarity and Draft Coach across selected programmes at SETU to evaluate its potential to strengthen academic integrity, promote responsible AI engagement, and streamline assessment workflows and redesign. The project aligns directly with SATLE themes of Digital Transformation, Assessment Enhancement, and Academic Integrity, as well as SETU’s institutional priorities on responsible AI, student success, and equitable assessment.

The staff and student feedback of the pilot project will be presented along with the SETU Turnitin product roadmap.

The Reusable Learning Resources (RLR) initiative was launched in 2023 by the Department of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) at Munster Technological University (MTU). It is an award winning initiative, funded by the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Funding in Higher Education (SATLE). Designed and developed to support the creation of high-quality, media-rich open educational resources (OER), the initiative aims to deepen relationships across disciplines, as well as creating awareness and embedding the ethics of open education across MTU (Swain and Pathak, 2024)

In the 2024/2025 cycle of the initiative the TEL team supported the Department of Computer Science in realising their vision of developing gamified cybersecurity learning through the development of Capture The Flag (CTF) challenges for cybersecurity knowledge and skill development (Ken et al, 2025). These CTF challenges, replicating real-world scenarios would then be remixed and reused to enhance traditional course delivery and support active experiential learning. In keeping with the ethos of the RLR initiative, the CTF’s would be openly licensed so they could be adapted across modules, disciplines and learner levels.

One of the aims of the gamified cybersecurity project was the inclusion of MTU students as core partners who would work with staff experienced in CTF development. The project used an agile approach for simultaneous work on different stages. Stage one included research, hardware procurement, industry partner identification and student recruitment. The second phase involved CTF challenge and scenario development and the final phase was a CTF showcase development.

This presentation reflects on the successful development of the gamified cybersecurity project including the collaboration of the TEL team with the Department of Computer Science, the recruitment of students to take part and their experience of working on the project, the challenges faced along the way and the final outputs. Finally, we will reflect on lessons learned and final dissemination of the project outputs as open educational resources.

References

Swain, B.K., & Pathak, R.K. (2024). Benefits and challenges of using OER in higher education: A pragmatic review. Discover Education, 3 (81). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44217-024-00142-6

Ken, C. L., Juremi, J., Alizadeh, S., & Sulaiman, S. (2025). Enhancing cybersecurity education through gamified learning and Capture the Flag (CTF) platform. Learning Technology for Education Challenges, 2551, 69–82. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-98003-9_6

This practitioner paper explores the evolution of library digital learning supports from stand-alone resources to an integrated suite embedded within Moodle. Previously, information literacy (IL) supports were developed to supplement face-to-face teaching as well as distance education students. However, their stand-alone nature often reduced their impact and limited student engagement.

Aligning with the conference theme, this presentation details how DCU Library repositioned its digital presence to focus on the student. By re-designing IL tutorials and hosting them directly within the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), the library moved closer to the “who”. The tutorial design is grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles (CAST, 2024) to ensure that digital supports are accessible and inclusive for all learners. The current model leverages H5P software for interactive content development and the Moodle subcourse feature to provide greater flexibility and learning analytics. Central to the success of this integrated approach was collaboration with Learning Technologists in DCU’s Teaching Enhancement Unit as well as academic staff. The subsequent development of tools, such as MyReadingList, further demonstrates the library’s role as a key partner in enhancing the digital learning environment.

Attendees will gain practical insights into implementing embedded library supports that foster student engagement and provide opportunities for digital literacy skills development. It will also highlight the importance of collaboration and partnership in creating an equitable and inclusive student experience (Saunders and Corning, 2020).

References

CAST (2024). CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Available at: https://udlguidelines.cast.org (Accessed: 5 March 2026).

Saunders, L. and Corning, S. (2020) ‘From cooperation to collaboration: Toward a framework for deepening library partnerships’, Journal of Library Administration, 60(5), pp. 453–469. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2020.1729623.

Using Learning Technology effectively and intelligently has become mission critical in Higher Education and beyond. AI might be getting all the headlines, yet no matter just how shiny new tools might be gleaming, the digital business as usual has to continue, from maintaining infrastructure to running the VLE and from creating learning resources to assessment.

Over the past two decades we have seen how open source technologies and open approaches to EdTech can offer benefits for the institution as well as educators and most importantly, students. Yet one of the recurring challenges with open source software in education is advocating for open source not only as a solution for testing out innovations, but as an enterprise service. For open educators and learning technologists this presents an ongoing issue, balancing the requirements of institutional IT and purchasing policies with the needs of educators and students. With cyber security, responsible use of AI and accessibility all increasingly important, is there any room left for open solutions and services alongside an institution's core digital estate?

Inspired by the conference theme “Digital Learning From How to Who” this session will focus on who wins hearts and minds when it comes to Open EdTech advocacy. We will showcase several new Open EdTech case studies (based on interviews conducted with teams of instructional designers over the past 2 years) that show who and how institutions who are at the forefront of Open EdTech adoption develop, scale and deploy open source educational services, including Stanford University, Princeton University and SUNY Oneonta.

Hear how Ed Beck, and his colleagues at the State University of New York at Oneonta, took an open-source software from proof-of-concept experiment in open software to a scaled-up service that supports high-impact teaching and experiential learning for the faculty and students (Commons In A Box OpenLab this is the technology that powers the SUNY Oneonta OpenLab. CBOX OpenLab is a free open-source software that provides an infrastructure that encourages discussion, collaboration, and sharing).

We’ll also show how Cody Carvel, Digital Scholarship Technologist, at the Center for Digital Scholarship at Brown University Library, supports a growing community with diverse needs through digital projects including the African Poetry Digital Portal and an Inscription research tool. At the heart of this case study is making space for creativity in Digital Scholarship and innovative use of technology underpinned by digital literacies for faculty and students.

At a time when openness in education and on the web is more contested than ever before, these case studies offer practical advice for learning designers and learning technologists, as well as strategic insights for anyone navigating funding and procurement processes for open source technologies and looking for practica

This paper outlines our collective approach to the design and development of a new Open Course, “Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP)”, recently funded by the HEA National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Building on previously established open education initiatives, such as the “Using OER and OEP for Teaching and Learning” resource, this project mobilises a wide collective of open, inclusive, and digitally-critical practitioners who aim to develop a professional development course for those who aspire to more sustainable educational futures.

Responding to the 2025 call for a pre-specified course in Open Education, the course will support participants across Irish higher education to develop their capacity in using Open Educational Resources (OER) and enacting Open Educational Practices (OEP). Participants will develop a clear understanding of OER and OEP and their relevance to quality, equity, and sustainability, while critically evaluating open approaches for teaching, learning, and assessment, including social justice, accessibility and emerging technology (e.g., GenAI) considerations. The target audience includes academic staff, librarians, instructional designers, learning technologists, and programme administrators—recognising that sustainable openness requires cross-functional collaboration and shared leadership. The course will both model and support participants to integrate openness strategically into their own contexts and to contribute to a culture of critical openness, using a social-justice lens, to advance institutional and sectoral practice and initiatives. While the development of both OER and OEP rely on digital tools and platforms for development and dissemination, our approach also assesses the inequalities exacerbated by the digital divide and wider global crises (Affouneh & Khlaif, 2020; Bali et al., 2020; Hodgkinson-Williams & Trotter, 2018).

Leveraging a previously adapted ABC Learning Design approach, underpinned by Universal Design for learning, the design process will be informed by our collective experience in developing and facilitating Open Courses and staff development initiatives more broadly (Gormley, C., Lowney, R., & Stone, S. 2023). The team utilised a systematic mapping process to match appropriate content and activities to the intended learning outcomes using appropriate frameworks such as DigComp 3.0, the Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu), and the Dubai Declaration on Open Educational Resources (OER).

The first facilitated national rollout will commence in October 2026, and it is the aim of the development team to create both a self-study offering, and low-bandwidth options that can easily be translated or remixed for wider uptake and culturally-relevant sustainability.

Educational institutions often waste significant resources rebuilding foundational course materials that already exist elsewhere. This session, led by Sander Renes (TU Delft), advocates for a strategic shift from isolated development toward a model of collaborative reuse powered by Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Grasple platform. By leveraging Grasple’s open ecosystem, educators can share and scale high-quality materials across institutions, drastically reducing the maintenance burden. Drawing on TU Delft’s experience and Grasple’s student engagement data, we demonstrate how structured overviews drive actual student interaction rather than just content production. We will also explore how new technologies make this transition seamless. Participants will learn how Grasple’s Content AI digitizes existing materials in seconds, while LLM-driven syllabus comparison identifies curriculum overlaps and gaps instantly. These tools ensure that adopting OER is a fast, intelligent process rather than an administrative hurdle, allowing educators to focus on pedagogical impact over manual content creation.

This paper presents a collaborative project between the Access Office and the E-Learning Development Services Unit (EDSU) examining how students navigate and engage with support within the institutional virtual learning environment. As digital learning environments become increasingly central to the student experience, the clarity, navigability, and accessibility of institutional platforms play a critical role in enabling equitable participation. Recognising that accessibility must be shaped by those it is intended to support, the project adopted a co design methodology that positioned students as active partners in the redesign process.

Student partnership activities, including structured feedback and iterative review, identified key barriers within the existing Canvas environment. These included unclear pathways to support, inconsistent terminology, and navigation challenges for students using assistive technologies. This insight was integrated with established accessibility standards, Universal Design for Learning principles, and user interface and user experience design practices to inform the redesign.

The resulting changes led to clearer navigation, improved organisation of support information, and more intuitive access to services and resources. More significantly, the project highlighted how institutional terminology, structure, and assumptions can unintentionally shape digital exclusion. The work demonstrates how co design can surface issues that are often overlooked in staff led development processes and can generate solutions that better reflect the diversity of student needs.

This paper outlines the project’s methodology, key insights, and practical outcomes, and considers the wider implications for inclusive digital learning environments. It argues that accessibility must be embedded within the design of institutional digital systems rather than addressed through retrospective accommodation. The project offers a transferable model for cross unit collaboration and student partnership in the development of more inclusive, navigable, and responsive virtual learning environments across higher education.

References

Bovill, C. (2020). Co‑creation in learning and teaching: The case for a whole‑class approach in higher education. Higher Education, 79(6), 1023–1037. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00453-w

CAST. (2018). Universal Design for Learning guidelines version 2.2. CAST. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Contemporary definitions consider mobile learning “..a learning approach that leverages mobile devices to enable learning across contexts through social and content interactions” (Garzón, et al., 2024). Mobile learning can provide learners with flexibility, enhance revision opportunities and support interaction (Asabere, 2013), and in doing so foster inclusion and reduce barriers to learning. However, challenges with mobile technology, such as its reliability and consistency, remain present (Kyslova, et al., 2025). A key mobile technology at Dublin City University (DCU) is the branded mobile app of the university’s virtual learning environment, Moodle. This app has been available to Apple and Android users for 10 years and has had a wide range of adoption across the student population. Given its presence in the DCU technology ecosystem for 10 years, the learning technologies team sought to evaluate students’ experiences of using the mobile app in early 2026. Drawing on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) theory (Venkatesh, et al., 2003), the team sought to understand students’ perceptions of the app’s performance, its ease of use, their expectations of it, the social influence exerted on them to use it, the support available to them, and more. Survey results were very mixed. Whilst most students had positive experiences of the app, a major contingent did not. They noted performance issues with the app, navigation issues, and challenges with how lecturers presented learning content and activities. Such issues present a danger to the inclusion and flexibility which mobile learning purports to offer. This paper will present the student views from the survey, as well as concrete next steps to address student challenges, and serves as a reminder to conference delegates of the importance of ensuring learning technology reliability for our students.

References:

Asabere, N. Y. (2013). Benefits and challenges of mobile learning implementation: Story of developing nations. International Journal of Computer Applications, 73(1), 23-27.

Garzón, J., Kinshuk, Burgos, D. and Tlili, A. (2024) ‘Advantages and challenges associated with mobile learning in education: a systematic literature review’. Journal of Computers in Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-024-00342-x.

Kyslova, M.A., Semerikov, S.O. and Slovak, K.I. (2025) ‘Mobile learning evolution: a decade of developments (2014-2023)’, Educational Technology Quarterly, 2025(2), pp. 186–208. doi: 10.55056/etq.25.

Venkatesh, V., Morris, M.G., Davis, G.B. and Davis, F.D. (2003) ‘User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view’, MIS Quarterly, 27(3), pp. 425–478. doi: 10.2307/30036540

Digital well-being has become a critical priority as European evidence (OECD, WHO) highlights declining well-being among adolescents and teachers alongside growing digital misuse. PERMA-Digital responds by developing a scalable whole-school framework that integrates Positive Psychology’s PERMA model with DigComp, LifeComp, and the SELFIE self-reflection tool to promote healthier, more purposeful engagement with digital technologies in schools across Europe.

This presentation provides educators and school leaders with a practical introduction to applying the PERMA-Digital framework in real settings. Participants begin by examining how Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment can be translated into digital-education contexts.

Preliminary multi-country research insights from 20 schools (CY, GR, FI, IE) will be discussed to illustrate real-world impact, challenges, and the potential for policy influence at national and EU levels.

Participants leave with practical tools, a draft action plan, and a clear understanding of how PERMA-Digital can be adapted for schoolwide implementation and strategic planning.

The MTU eLearning Development Services Unit (EDSU) has designed two workshops focused on enhancing Digital Wellness for a first-year cohort of 33 students. These sessions introduce students to the concept of digital identity—what it is, how it develops, and how it shapes digital reputation. This component draws on the work of Masiero & Bailur (2021), encouraging students to reflect critically on the ways their online presence is constructed and perceived. Building on this foundation, participants explore key elements of digital wellbeing, understood as the impact that digital devices, tools, services, and systems have on individuals. This section is informed by Feerrar (2020) and Laffier (2025), who highlight the importance of intentional, reflective engagement with technology. A central theme across both workshops is the need for self‑awareness, emotional regulation, socio‑emotional learning, and mental health literacy as essential components of a balanced digital experience for third‑level students. The conceptual framework developed by Laffier, Rehman, & Westley (2025), alongside the Digital Flourishing Model from the Digital Wellness Institute, provides a structured lens through which students can examine their own habits and behaviours. Participants also gain insight into the significant effects of excessive digital consumption, including its impact on concentration, wellbeing, and lifestyle. The workshops address both the benefits and the potential downsides of digital engagement, helping students develop strategies to manage their digital lives more effectively. Finally, the sessions introduce practical skills for healthy technology use, including the responsible use of AI‑enabled tools. Research by Blankson (2018) and Zhen, Liu, Hong et al. (2019) demonstrates how intentional digital practices can transform personal technology use. Students are also introduced to a range of digital applications that can positively support and enhance digital health and wellbeing.

Recent research in the domain of social robotics suggests that there is potential to support students in their learning and well-being, within a tertiary education context, through engagement with a social robot.  For example, a review by Youssef et al (2023) presents a variety of applications for social robotics in education, noting the potential of social robots for learning assistance and language learning. The use of social robotics as conversation catalysts in discussed in Huili (2025), while Johal et al. (2022) identified personalized learning as a key area for future research, noting that the affective nature of the robot was considered important for learner interaction. Popular robots such as Pepper© and Nao© are frequently chosen for research in social robotics, because of their expressive body movements and personality traits, (see Velentza et al. (2021) and Belpaeme and Tanaka (2021) for examples). However, robots such as these are quite expensive, therefore social robots such as Zenbo© and Buddy© are more accessible and often used to explore how social robotics could support students through task-based scenarios and affective interactions. This presentation will provide an overview of a research project involving senior faculty from the disciplines of Engineering, Education and Social Sciences, who introduced a social robot (Buddy©) to students on campus, inviting them to interact with the robot to complete specific tasks. The presentation will also share feedback from students, gathered via an anonymous questionnaire to capture key insights into students perceptions of and reactions to social robots as a tool to support learning and student well-being.

In the light of platformisation, datafication and surveillance within everyday interactions on university educational spaces (Macgilchrist et al., 2022), this practitioner paper is based on survey research of teachers’ experiences and digital fatigue in teaching online, in an Irish higher education institution. It adopts a practitioner focus in problematising this dilemma, and in light of survey responses, looks towards what actions might exist, and what responses might negate some of these perceived ill effects. As higher education becomes increasingly digital, teachers’ roles and forms of academic labour are being reshaped. Successive waves of technological change are impacting on classroom dynamics and reconfiguring relationships between students and staff who teach. In this context, we examine how digitally mediated pedagogy affects teachers’ wellbeing in various ways.

Our preliminary findings indicate that digital fatigue is a common experience among teaching staff. Over 27% of respondents reported experiencing digital fatigue frequently or very frequently, while 50% reported experiencing it occasionally when teaching. The primary contributors to digital fatigue were increased and prolonged screen time. Additional contributing factors included time spent preparing digital teaching materials and managing high volumes of online messages and queries, along with juggling grading and feedback workloads. To support their wellbeing, strategies such as taking regular breaks from screens, setting clear boundaries around work, and seeking peer support were reported.

We reflect upon potential responses to this, with a focus on practical down-to-earth actions (after Birhane, 2021) that are relational and go beyond technical solutions. We invite the audience to participate, (after Benjamin, 2024; Brazier, 2024), to validate some of our explorations and dream a little.

References

Benjamin, Ruha. (2024). Imagination: a manifesto. W. W. Norton & Company.

Birhane, Abeba. (2021). Algorithmic injustice: a relational ethics approach. Patterns, 2(2), 100205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100205

Brazier, Ariana. (2024). The Imagination Playbook. https://www.imaginationplaybook.com/question-game

Macgilchrist, Felicitas, Potter, John, & Williamson, Ben. (2022). Reading internationally: if citing is a political practice, who are we reading and who are we citing? Learning, Media and Technology, 47(4), 407-412. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2022.2140673

Conference Themes addressed: Partnerships and collaborations, Open educational resources, Student engagement and belonging in digital education

The Student as Partners in Teaching and Learning initiative aims to create a student-centred culture and partnership approach to teaching and learning development and enhancement. “Students as Partners” in higher education re-envisions students and staff as active collaborators in teaching and learning.

This workshop will explore the rationale for involving Student As Partners (SAP) in day to day practice within Higher Education, focusing on the strategic design, support and implementation of such projects.

The aim of this workshop is to explore opportunities for faculty/student collaboration, to promote and foster student engagement, to engender a sense of student belonging within their institution, to facilitate creative engagement, and the development of open digital resources.

This workshop will offer a guiding framework for SAP[1].

By the end of this workshop participants will be able to:

- Identify opportunities for SAP projects

• Participants will be guided utilising digital concept maps to capture ideas/themes and opportunities

- Explore strategies for engagement and support

• Participants will be presented with case studies to explore and adapt for their own purpose e.g.
  • CS 1. Podcasts: Student/Staff/Expert Dialog
  • CS 2. Webinar: Focus Group/Panel Discussion
  • CS 3. Resource Creation/Literature Review [GenAI]
  • CS3.1Infographic, Video
  • CS 4. Reflective Practice

- Devise an action plan for future deployment

• Participants will be provided with a digital planning tool to support their own endeavours.

This workshop shall be co-facilitated by faculty and students.

[1] One that articulates the aims and principles of the initiative and offers guidance for future practice.

Note: This Masters research was completed through the generous funding and institutional support provided by the national N-TUTORR project.

Conference Theme Alignment: EdTech You: Digital Learning From How to Who (Specifically targeting: Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning, Digital wellbeing, and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion).

Introduction and Context As the educational landscape shifts to accommodate Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), the narrative must move beyond concerns of academic integrity to explore the profound psychological benefits this technology offers our most vulnerable students. Backed by a mixed-methods study of 282 survey respondents and 15 interviewees across four Irish Technological Universities, this workshop centres the lived experiences of students with Additional Learner Needs (ALNs). The research reveals a powerful, alternative use-case for GenAI: not merely as a content generator, but as a critical psychological scaffold and accessibility tool.

The Concept: GenAI as an Assistive Technology Quantitative findings from the study reveal that 63.1% of students agree GenAI significantly improves educational accessibility. Qualitatively, students report using GenAI to overcome profound personal and educational barriers. The research highlights how GenAI functions as a highly individualised "ADHD assistant," helping neurodivergent students manage workloads, set schedules, and overcome "starting paralysis". Furthermore, it serves as an adaptive tool for dyslexic students to alter text for readability, and provides a crucial, judgement-free space for autistic or shy students to ask questions and clarify complex concepts without the anxiety of human interaction. By acting as a supplementary mentor, GenAI actively boosts student confidence and self-efficacy, reducing academic stress and fostering greater independence.

Workshop Activity: Designing for Deep Support While many students intuitively use GenAI for these purposes, there remains a critical need for educators to formalise and guide this process. This interactive, hands-on workshop will empower educators to intentionally design GenAI interactions that target Personal Development, Behaviours, and Attitudes (PDBA) rather than just academic output.

During the session, participants will work collaboratively to:

1. Map Learner Journeys: Identify common cognitive and psychological friction points for neurodivergent learners within traditional assessment structures.
2. Create "GenAI Personas": Design targeted prompt templates that instruct GenAI to act as a supportive scaffold (e.g., a "Socratic mentor" for overcoming task paralysis or a "Plain English translator" for cognitive overload).
3. Develop UDL Workflows: Formulate actionable workflows that educators can integrate into their modules, teaching students how to harness GenAI to boost their own confidence and self-regulation.

Takeaways Participants will leave this workshop with a toolkit of custom-designed, ALN-focused prompt templates and a renewed perspective on GenAI. By reframing GenAI as an epistemic partner and accessibility aid, educators can actively narrow the digital divide and foster a more equitable, joyous, and inclusive digital learning environment.

Universities in Ireland strive to be places where every learner can engage fully, confidently and independently. During my Cooperative Education placement with the Centre for Transformative Learning (CTL), I have been supporting staff across the University of Limerick (UL) to make this vision real.

My position was created through Path 4 funding Programme for Access to Higher Education | Policy | Higher Education Authority, to support the Universal Design & Inclusive Practice Committee at UL to develop a systematic approach to the provision of digitally accessible educational materials. My work focuses on helping academic and professional staff create more accessible, inclusive, and student-centred learning materials. This includes developing clear, practical guides on digital accessibility, demonstrating tools such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint accessibility checkers and aligning with (UDL) Universal Design for Learning principles & creating resources that staff can reuse and adapt, ensuring accessibility becomes embedded rather than an afterthought.

I also collaborate with the Students with Disabilities Advisory Group at AHEAD to bring student voice and lived experience into institutional decision making. This work has shaped my understanding of inclusive education.

This Gasta will share insights from my placement, and show how small changes can make learning more accessible.

The proliferation of various VR and AR applications in education in recent years brought about the popularisation of realistic, high-definition 3d models, In particular, the fields of medicine, biology, engineering and architecture experienced an increased use of such models due to their ability to provide a realistic visualisation of objects that may not be suitably portrayed with illustrations and static images. However, these models, and their application in various teaching and learning scenarios, are no longer limited to expensive VR/AR headsets and advanced programming skills. With the help of open-source technologies, it is now possible to render 3d models in the browser. This talk will introduce participants to a basic workflow using Three.js - an open source JavaScript library used to render 3d models on a webpage, or any of the most popular VLEs, offering learners the opportunity to interact with them on a wide range of devices. During the talk, participants will have access to several Codepens featuring working exemplars and be able to test and interact with the models as well as see the underlying code in real-time. The talk will be particularily useful to learning technologists, multimedia designers and instructional designers working in HE.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping teaching and learning, offering opportunities to reduce teacher workload, enhance well-being, and improve student outcomes. Framed by sociocultural learning theory, extended mind theory, and the TPACK framework (Vygotsky; Clark & Chalmers; Mishra & Koehler), this GASTA presentation examines how AI transforms teaching through automation, augmentation, and personalized instructional practice. AI enabled tools such as automated grading, intelligent tutoring systems, adaptive learning platforms, attendance automation, and content generation assistants redistribute routine administrative and cognitive labor, enabling teachers to reclaim time for pedagogical judgment, reflection in action, and student interaction. Grounded in research on teacher burnout and well-being (Maslach), these efficiencies support reduced stress, mitigated exhaustion, and improved work-life balance.

Beyond workload relief, AI supports professional growth through real-time feedback, curated pedagogical resources, and data-informed insights that strengthen instructional quality and foster integrated technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. Emerging technologies such as chatbots, virtual reality, and generative AI enhance creativity in lesson design and engagement for diverse learners. While challenges remain, including data privacy, algorithmic bias, teacher preparation, and over reliance on automated systems, this presentation argues for responsible, human centered AI integration that positions AI as supportive intelligent help and cultivates healthier, sustainable learning environments.

Forecasting trends in educational technology is similar to predicting the weather. Both rely on observing cycles, seeing patterns from signals and making informed projections about what is likely to surface next. Over the past decade, EdTech conference themes have consistently reflected the conversations emerging from the daily realities of technology-based teaching and learning within Irish HEIs. The team in the eLearning Development Services Unit (EDSU) within MTU are particularly interested in IT lifecycles and the cultural challenges that can come about from them. In our Gasta, we will examine these evolving themes and offer forecasts around the directions future conferences may take. To explain this process we will show some previous technology cycles, the patterns they produced and compare them to some current cycles in motion.

In parallel with EDSU’s research, we consider the work of Martinez‑Garcia et al. (2023), whose analysis of trends from 2010 to 2022 highlight dominant topics such as blended learning, e‑learning, m‑learning, higher education, ICT, assessment, MOOCs, online learning, learning analytics, the impact of COVID‑19, medical education, artificial intelligence, server capacity and security, cognitive engagement, and self‑instruction. Additional areas of interest include LMS development, institutional mergers, digital transformation, strategic planning, resilience, and reflective practice.

What's an ethical educational technologist to do when a harmful technology is implemented and forced upon students? This was the dilemma many of us faced when AI-mediated remote proctoring software exploded in use during the COVID-19 pandemic. I followed my values. I shared everything I knew about how the technology worked and why it was harmful. I urged my communities to listen to students.

This Gasta talk is a sequel to 2019's "Protecting Our Values in the Shadow of Tech Giants" from ETUG 25 (available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG_uvL7pvG8). I will share the story of being sued by Proctorio for 7 critical tweets and the lessons I learned.

After five years, the ordeal is finally over. I never backed down. Knowing that there would be only one chance to stop the advance of academic surveillance software, I continued to criticize Proctorio at great personal risk.

I have a message for all ethical educational technologists seeking to change the future of EdTech in the face of tech giants who would sue in order to silence.

The Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI), founded in 1973 as a voluntary, cross-sectoral community of practice, was a 2024 recipient of the Digital Repository of Ireland's Community Archive Scheme. CESI has long held the ambition to digitally preserve and share fifty years of newsletters, conference programmes, and ephemera, assigning each item a DOI and Creative Commons license. The DRI's support has catalysed this work, providing training, infrastructure, and stability for our voluntary organisation whose records could otherwise remain at risk of loss.

Against the unrelenting GenAI discourse, this project invites us to pause and reflect on the people that shaped technology adoption in Irish education. We are ingesting materials from the 1980s through the early 2010s, documenting technological advancements, national events, and professional development in Irish education. Creating metadata has provided an opportunity to recognise "openness as a living project" — honouring the volunteers who have sustained this community (Bozkurt et al., 2023).

This Gasta shares practical lessons from the archiving process, highlighting the value of capturing "fleeting, ephemeral moments to give them permanency and lasting purpose" for future educators and researchers by preserving the history of technology in Irish education (Molloy et al., 2025, pp. 1135).