Radboud University

Challenge

Navigating digital learning with professional development

Radboud University is one of the best traditional, general universities in the Netherlands, serving over 24,000 students across 38 bachelor’s and 71 master’s programs. The university had been using D2L Brightspace since 2018 and found success using Brightspace to provide an engaging student experience. Thus, it sought to enhance its educational offerings by providing teachers with accessible, self-paced online courses on various didactic subjects.

When we had a tender for a new Learning Management System, I became involved in the university-wide team and had been working with Brightspace since day one. We are still quite pleased with Brightspace and our cooperation with D2L. The swift but smooth transition from Blackboard to Brightspace in six months exemplifies the ease of use, and Brightspace features make it easy for teachers to create effective digital courses.

Steven Trooster, educational advisor, Radboud University

When Brightspace was first adopted, the university quickly ventured into professional development for teachers with the launch of basic Brightspace Training, a self-paced online course to develop effective online teaching and distance learning practices. However, the manual administrative tasks of sending emails for enrolment made it challenging to engage new teachers.

Trooster comments: “We want to create a seamless, engaging experience for teachers to participate in professional development at their convenience. Given their busy schedules, our courses needed to be compact, applicable and easily accessible without any thresholds.”

Solution

Streamlining course enrolment for teachers

Education support for the seven faculties at the university consists of the Teaching Information Point, which acts as first-line support for ICT and educational solutions like Brightspace. The second line of support consists of functional administrators. Through regular meetings between the two teams to exchange ideas and discuss upcoming Brightspace releases, the university is better equipped to adopt Brightspace functionality and reimagine self-study modules.

With more knowledge of Brightspace and comprehensive support for teachers, Radboud University utilised the Discover tool to streamline the enrolment process, allowing more flexibility and control for teachers in searching for available courses and self-enrolment.

“With the Discover tool, we could make courses accessible to teachers without hassle. The goal was to give teachers the opportunity to choose what, when, at what pace and with what intensity they want to learn. Moreover, we want to showcase what a good Brightspace course can look like,” comments Trooster.

Inspiring new teaching practices

Using Brightspace HTML templates and H5P allows for a consistent learning experience, featuring standardised schema and course structure, including:

• The Basics: An interactive introduction to the subject
• Getting Started: Step-by-step instructions and practical guides to instantly start using within a course
• Good Practice: Showcase of examples from colleagues
• Reference Materials: In-depth information, manuals and articles
• Discussion Board: Forum to share experiences with other teachers

Furthermore, using a tile-like user interface of the Announcements functionality provides a direct course overview on the homepage.

This approach enables the development and distribution of a range of courses designed not only to educate but also to inspire teachers to incorporate new methodologies and technologies in their own courses.

“We are at a phase where we can push teachers a bit further, so course materials aren’t just being uploaded to Brightspace without a clear structure for students,” adds Trooster. “It’s important we are leading by example, and providing applicable tools that can be used to improve their own courses right away.”

For instance, the team innovatively redesigned the ‘Better Brightspace’ training module, integrating rubrics aligned with seven subject frameworks to enable instructors to self-assess and immediately enhance their courses based on actionable feedback.

Result

Reimagining professional development

Since the launch of their first course in December 2022, the Educational Advisor and Teacher Development team designed six additional courses and had 50 enrolments in each course.

Courses developed include topics such as Peer Feedback, Learning Objectives, Portflow and Inclusive Education, amongst others. These offerings were made available in both Dutch and English, ensuring broad accessibility for Radboud’s diverse teaching staff.

“We appreciate Brightspace’s LTI capabilities to facilitate a wide array of learning experiences, including peer feedback, portfolio assessments and the use of knowledge clips. The deep integration with other educational tools such as Virtual Classroom and Kaltura expands our online ecosystem to better serve our needs,” remarks Trooster. “Portfolio learning will play a large part in diversifying learning experiences at Radboud University. With the integration of Portflow for Brightspace, teachers can own and make visible their learning progress towards their goals.”

Centralising teacher resources

Looking ahead, a pivotal aspect of Radboud’s educational enhancement is the complete overhaul of the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ) track with topics such as starting to teach, course design, lesson planning, coaching and thesis supervision. Teachers are supported in a personalised learning progression through practical assignments, appropriate course offerings and supervision from their faculty.

This redesign includes reimagining in-person delivery and providing comprehensive guidance on background materials, instructions, assignments and assessments to complete their UTQ over two years.

“Brightspace is going to be central in our complete redesign of our University Teaching Qualification track for teachers. Besides digital courses we’ve developed to support in-person delivery, we’ve created ‘communities’ for each faculty, offering a centralised hub for all UTQ-related resources,” said Trooster.

The introduction of communities within Brightspace allows teachers to easily access instructional materials and assignments and navigate the UTQ process with clarity and support.

These initiatives are a significant step forward in fostering a culture of lifelong learning and teaching excellence at Radboud University. Through the thoughtful integration of technology and pedagogy, Radboud University is charting a course towards a more engaged, effective and inclusive educational future.