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Facilitating the provision of detailed, deep and useful feedback is an important design feature of any educational programme. Here we evaluate feedback provided to medical students completing short transferable skills projects. Feedback quantity and depth were evaluated before and after a simple intervention to change the structure of the feedback-provision form from a blank free-text feedback form to a structured proforma that asked a pair of short questions for each of the six domains being assessed. Each pair of questions consisted of asking the marker 'what was done well?' and 'what changes would improve the assignment?' Changing the form was associated with a significant increase in the quantity of the feedback and in the amount and quality of feedback provided to students. We also observed that, for these double-marked projects, the marker designated as 'marker 1' consistently wrote more feedback than the marker designated 'marker 2'.

"The Learning to Teach Online (LTTO) MOOC is based upon the multi award winning open educational resource of the same name, developed by Simon McIntyre and Karin Watson. We have built upon these resources in this MOOC, supporting them with a course structure that puts them into a supportive framework for you all to help you find and connect with each other to share your own experiences in the Discussion Forums. This course is not intended as a comprehensive manual for online teaching. Rather, it is intended as a starting point to help you develop your understanding of the principles involved; a place where you can get advice about strategies you might try; and a means from which you can begin to build your confidence and capacity to continue the learning journey in your own contexts and practice"

"Academics often treat students' discipline-specific literacy as unproblematic. In doing so they may underestimate the difficulties for university students as they move between subjects of study that may involve different disciplines, language genres and academic practices. This paper describes an initiative aimed at supporting students in reading academic articles in preparation for completing an essay for an assessment task. This initiative involved a structured and collaborative two-week tutorial exercise that provided students with practice in using a framework to extract the main ideas from academic readings. Students were surveyed after this exercise, and their reflections of its value are described in this paper. The findings of this study will inform further stages of the project which aim to develop and investigate practical ways to develop student's academic literacy across several business disciplines."

Open learning and new technology are about to smash the structure of the modern university - and higher education is too distracted by its funding problems to notice

Blackboard's e-learning system dominates the online learning software market. In this essay the author critically examines the structure of Blackboard's two online learning delivery systems, Blackboard 8.0 and Blackboard CE6. The author identifies ways in

A 21st-century corporation needs a different kind of organisational structure from the old command and control mechanisms that built the world's biggest companies. Peter Day finds out how people can create learning organisations without commanding and con

"In this paper, we explore the benefits of using social media in an online educational setting, with a particular focus on the use of Facebook and Twitter by participants in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) developed to enable educators to learn about the Carpe Diem learning design process. We define social media as digital social tools and environments located outside of the provision of a formal university-provided Learning Management System. We use data collected via interviews and surveys with the MOOC participants as well as social media postings made by the participants throughout the MOOC to offer insights into how participants' usage and perception of social media in their online learning experiences differed and why. We identified that, although some participants benefitted from social media by crediting it, for example, with networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities, others objected or refused to engage with social media, perceiving it as a waste of their time. We make recommendations for the usage of social media for educational purposes within MOOCs and formal digital learning environments."

"You might not want to pin your hopes on nanotechnology, genetic engineering, or miracle drugs, says Michael Huesemann, author of Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won't Save Us Or the Environment. As much as we'd like to believe that technological innovation will let us magically continue our lifestyle and prevent social, economic, and environmental collapse, Huesemann shows that most technological solutions are ineffective-and, in the presence of continued economic growth, modern technology does not promote sustainability, but hastens collapse."