SRESCon2019

We are excited to announce the inaugural SRES mini-conference: SRESCon2019 on Tuesday 19 November 2019. This event is being jointly organised by the Educational Innovation team from the DVC (Education) Portfolio, and the LA/EDM SIG from the Centre for Research on Learning and Innovation, at the University of Sydney.

190+ delegates
12 institutions
25+ talks, workshops, and demonstrations

This free one-day event will bring together educators from the University of Sydney and other institutions to share good practice around personalising student learning through SRES. Whether you’ve never heard of SRES or are an experienced user, you’ll get something out of hearing how educators are engaging students, fostering positive relationships, and providing timely personalised feedback and support using relevant data.

I used to give students feedback once at the end of 12 weeks. Now with SRES, I give better feedback every week, in half the time.

From in-class grading and feedback to personalised web portals; from peer feedback and self reflection to getting to know your cohort; from fostering positive attendance patterns to identifying and supporting at risk students; from leveraging Canvas data to powerful personalised emails – SRES has something that every educator can use.

Within our faculty, SRES has helped change in how we look at student data and how we can better use it.

Through SRESCon, we hope to help even more educators use the right data the right way to improve students’ learning experiences and outcomes, all while saving time and improving quality. SRES is freely available to institutions other than Sydney.

Key details

Date: Tuesday 19 November 2019 from 9:00 am (registration starts at 8:30 am)

Venue: Merewether Learning Hub, The University of Sydney, main campus.

Cost: Free (registration essential, closes 14 November)

We welcome attendees from any institution. A Zoom option will be made available for remote attendees.

Program

The program is available below.

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Tuesday 19 Nov 2019

8:30 am – 9:00 am Registration

Registration

Check in for SRESCon2019.

Tue 8:30 am – 9:00 am

9:00 am – 9:15 am Welcome

Chair: Samantha Clarke

Welcome and setting the scene

Adam BridgemanLecture Theatre 1

We welcome you to the inaugural SRES mini-conference and give a bit of insight into the innovations we’re about to hear about.

Tue 9:00 am – 9:15 am

9:15 am – 9:45 am Plenary 1

Session chair: Samantha Clarke

Human-centred learning analytics

Natasha ArtharsLecture Theatre 1

Natasha Arthars will share the insights that we have gained from looking at how hundreds of teachers and thousands of students use SRES.

Natasha is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research on Learning and Innovation (CRLI) and a postgraduate fellow with the DVC Education Portfolio. Her PhD project aims to examine cases in higher education where learners work collaboratively in groups to co-construct their epistemic environment while engaging in complex problem solving tasks, while her postgraduate fellowship takes her into the learning analytics space.
Tue 9:15 am – 9:45 am

9:50 am – 11:10 am Parallel sessions 1

These sessions run concurrently in two nearby venues. Please click on each session card to expand its details.

Session chairs: Samantha Clarke (Lecture Theatre 1) and Rebecca Denham (Lecture Theatre 2)

1A: Feedback from outside the classroom

Jennie BrentnallLecture Theatre 1

SRES provides a flexible, accessible (online), platform that I can apply to work with multiple user groups (students, academics, clinical educators, and external site supervisors) and integrate with other tools in a myriad of ways.

  • To efficiently deliver individualised feedback to students following practical exercises (clinical simulation) and vivas
  • To identify students who may require support with developing practical skills throughout the semester, and provide timely notification to the academic staff who can guide the student to support before they fail a barrier exam
  • To coordinate and deliver a combined student self-assessment and educator assessment experience. (And in many other ways that have in common enhancing student learning by efficiently collecting, coordinating, and acting on information in units of study that have multiple learning activities outside classroom settings.)

Students get more frequent, individualised, and consistent feedback. Staff are able to work together in a more coordinated fashion with an organised and manageable workflow. Students can be encouraged to reflect and act specifically on individualised feedback while maintaining a manageable workload on staff.

Tue 9:50 am – 10:10 am

1B: Collaborative intervention and personalised feedback

Tristan Cui and Charanjit Kaur (Monash University)Lecture Theatre 1

We present a case study of the extended use of SRES through the development of a ‘collaborative intervention model’ in a cross-departmental collaborative effort. This model promotes early intervention across 2 core postgraduate units within a single programme. We discuss the framework of the model, the findings and its impact on academic achievement as well mental and emotional well-being of students.

Tue 10:10 am – 10:30 am

1C: Personalisation and support at the University of Melbourne

Jen Palisse (University of Melbourne) & Elsuida Kondo (La Trobe University)Lecture Theatre 1

SRES was first implemented at the University of Melbourne (Faculty of Science), in November 2016. To ensure a sustainable and smooth implementation process, training was provided by the lead developer from Sydney to the academic developer at Melbourne. A train-the-trainers model approach was used to train the academics at Melbourne who expressed an interest to pilot the platform to support student engagement but also aid academics to teach.

Following from over two years of data collection, in 2018, we reviewed how academic staff were using SRES in the Science Faculty. We present some of our findings relating to SRES as both a feedback tool and an intervention tool drawing from interviews with staff as well as student responses to questionnaires. In general, staff found SRES to be a highly effective tool for promoting students’ sense of belonging in large class cohorts but required a much more thoughtful approach from the academic to be used as an intervention tool.

Elsuida has completed a PhD in Applied Science (Metabolomics). With a background in quantitative and qualitative analysis, Elsuida's key research areas include: higher education, statistics & chemistry education. Elsuida has academic experience in lecturing, sessional teaching, research and is a published author of journals, book chapter and conference papers.
Tue 10:30 am – 10:50 am

1D: Personalising teaching at any scale

Maria Ishkova, Mesepa Paul, Anya Johnson, Helena NguyenLecture Theatre 1

SRES is one of the most helpful tools to personalize teaching and learning at any scale – and to grow professionally as an educator.

Amongst other things, we use SRES to provide personalised feedback to 800+ students each semester, and to streamline our unit administration.

We receive many e-mails from students who thank us for the feedback (both anonymously and from student accounts); best of all – we see changes in students individually and on a team/class level.

Tue 10:50 am – 11:10 am

2A: A paperless lab

Shane WilkinsonLecture Theatre 2

We use SRES to automate and process vast quantities of data about our chemistry classes to provide rapid access to information to both teachers and students.

We use SRES to collect, collate and output a series of assessment data (attendance, pre-work, sample marks, oral marks, etc) from our chemistry laboratories. Teachers use this data in assessing students’ completion of the laboratory program. We output these results instantly to students through CANVAS portals in the form of marks and constructive feedback.

For staff, collating results is simplified all into one source which can be exported as spreadsheet for education support to process. Students get instant feedback which allows them to discuss their results with their demonstrator. Students get an indication of how they are progressing and have the opportunity to improve based on feedback.

Tue 9:50 am – 10:10 am
Process transformation

2B: Online engagement with SRES in the age of fragility

Caleb OwensLecture Theatre 2

Developed over five years with more than ten thousands students, this talk charts the evolution of SRES techniques from powerful but confrontational personalised emails, to passive but informative web portals in Introductory Psychology cohorts at the University of Sydney.

Dr Caleb Owens has coordinated large introductory Psychology cohorts at the University of Sydney for more than a decade and has utilised SRES to engage with them for much of that time.
Tue 10:10 am – 10:30 am
Process transformation

2C: Keeping pace with real-time assessment

Jean Meyer, Helen O’Connor & Janelle GiffordLecture Theatre 2

The Faculty of Health Sciences uses SRES for a number of things:

  • Real-time assessment (e.g. electronic Objective Structured Clinical Examinations eOSCEs)
  • Student portal for mark distributions and sign-in/out
  • Attendance recording
  • Peer review
  • and so much more

Tue 10:30 am – 10:50 am
Process transformation

2D: One-Stop Platform to Personalise Student Learning and Explore Research

Ju Li Ng & Kevin LoweLecture Theatre 2

SRES was initially used to deal with a group assessment marking limitation in Canvas which required a group component (i.e. shared marks to be applied to the whole group) feedback and personalised individual feedback. By adapting SRES functionality using the column and multi-entries, multiple tutors were able to simultaneously mark the group presentation of which the personalised feedback was were subsequently published in Canvas.

Based on these learnings, we have now learnt to innovatively adapt SRES functionalities to personalise and enhance students’ learning experience by using SRES as one-stop platform where students can self-assessment, peer-evaluate and self-reflect on their teamwork abilities. This has also simplified the use of technology where all data is being stored in SRES instead of having to employ multiple technological platform or apps.

This session aims to provide learnings of how to incorporate SRES as a teaching, learning and research platform.

Dr Ju Li Ng is a passionate teacher who has received the 2018 Wayne Lonergan nomination that recognises outstanding teaching excellence while Professor Kevin Lowe is an enthusiastic teacher who has received the Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award recognising teaching excellence across the seventeen campus University of North Carolina system and was nominated for a CASE U.S. Professor of the Year Award.
Tue 10:50 am – 11:10 am
Process transformation

11:10 am – 11:30 am Morning tea

Morning tea

Foyer outside Lecture Theatre 1

Tue 11:10 am – 11:30 am

11:30 am – 12:45 pm Parallel sessions 2

These sessions run concurrently in two nearby venues. Please click on each session card to expand its details.

Session chairs: Samantha Clarke (Lecture Theatre 1) and Rebecca Denham (Lecture Theatre 2)

3A: Staying on Track with SRES

Lakia TurnerLecture Theatre 1

Student Support Services uses SRES to provide personalised, relevant advice, tips and referrals to support for students participating in the Staying on Track program.

SRES offers an easy, online questionnaire option that auto-generates personalised and relevant support for a large number of students. Using SRES solves the issue of providing personalised support to a large number (over 3000) students.

Using the SRES to auto-generate relevant support for the large number of students on progression requires far less administrative resourcing which enables me to review and refine program delivery. Feedback from students who have used the SRES Staying on Track questionnaire is positive because it provides them relevant, timely support.

Tue 11:30 am – 11:45 am
Process transformation

3B: Driving interdisciplinary experiences for the Faculty of Medicine and Health

Christie van Diggele & Siddhant NarvekarLecture Theatre 1

The Faculty of Medicine and Health and Faculty of Health Sciences are currently piloting the implementation of an Interprofessional Learning (IPL) ePassport as part of a Graduate Qualities trial. SRES and Canvas form the basis of the ePassport design allowing us to create and maintain a ‘Comprehensive Learner Record’ (CLR) of students’ achievement in the field of IPL, or in the language of the Graduate Qualities ‘Interdisciplinary Effectiveness’.

The IPL Hub also use SRES extensively to manage student data when coordinating large-scale events such as the Health Collaboration Challenge (HCC) which included approximately 1700 students in 2019. SRES is utilised to record student attendance, provide students with information on their room allocations, timeslots, record student assessment results and to track student progress throughout the HCC which takes place over 2-weeks in August annually. SRES is also used to provide students with feedback on their progress and on their assessment tasks with the use of portals and emails.

Christie van Diggele is an Associate Lecturer in Interprofessional Learning in Health for the Faculty of Medicine and Health.
Tue 11:45 am – 12:00 pm
Process transformation

3C: Streamlining marking, feedback, and motivation [SRES in Pharmacy, Part 1]

Andrew BarlettLecture Theatre 1

SRES provides an easy way to mark the roll, link Canvas assignments, keep students accountable. encourage and motivate students, assist with staffing decisions and giving student feedback.

It allows me to give instant student feedback and make oral presentation marking a simple exercise, as well as look at student performance and trends to assist with teaching decisions and workshop organisation.

It has made things easier for demonstrators to mark rolls, presentations. Students like have access to immediate feedback.

Tue 12:00 pm – 12:15 pm
Process transformation

3D: Transforming pharmacy laboratories [SRES in Pharmacy, Part 2]

Ardi MirzaeiLecture Theatre 1

SRES is used record and mark students for their face-to-face learning and assessment. To reduce paper entering and increase seamless feedback to students, we use SRES. Connection are built between Canvas and SRES to help implement this. Furthermore, analytics are presented efficiently to tutors and coordinators to allow for interventions to student needs.

We use SRES for a few solutions:

  • Student attendance
  • Providing feedback to students
  • Recording student progress
  • Reporting analytics of areas of difficulty for students.

Verbal feedback is provided immediately to students, however, a copy is entered on SRES whereby the students can review later to improve for the next class. This allows tutors to monitor if the feedback was utilised by the student. For tutors and coordinators, SRES analytics are generated to see how students are comparing across the grade.

Tue 12:15 pm – 12:30 pm
Process transformation

3E: Nudging a faculty

Jen DowlingLecture Theatre 1

As an educational designer, I use SRES as it is easier to help my academics manage their large classes. It is used for attendance, performance tracking, nudging (because we can do it better than with Canvas), and now peer feedback.

Students appreciate the feedback (especially when it’s encouraging and seen as personal).

After a VERY long time teaching Yiddish language and culture at various universities, Jennifer changed careers to become an Educational Designer in FASS at the University of Sydney and while her research love still revolves around Yiddish and popular culture, her interests have expanded to include innovation and inclusivity in educational technology.
Tue 12:30 pm – 12:45 pm
Process transformation

4A: Connecting with large cohorts

Thea WerkhovenLecture Theatre 2

I use SRES to ‘smarten up’ the use of my time as a lecturer and coordinator by taking attendance and providing students with assessment feedback. I also use it to try and connect with students individually when it is not always possible face to face in a large scale elective. Also, to welcome students to a course and wrap up at the conclusion as well.

It helps to solve:

  • student dissatisfaction with quantity of assessment feedback
  • providing personalised feedback
  • feeling of being unknown in a large group
  • feeling that effort in assessments is underappreciated by educators
  • keeping communication ongoing
  • identifying students at risk of AF grades early on in semester
  • taking attendance for 20-35 concurrent tutorials when paper based rolls would make tutors cry.

Using previous stats from assessment feedback provided directly to SRES, >60% of students appreciate personalised assessment feedback. Taking attendance in tutorials using this system is congruent with students’ love of using technology and they adapt to it very quickly without grisling.

Dr Thea Werkhoven is a lecturer and researcher in nutrition at the University of Sydney who uses SRES to provide students with feedback and to connect with students when teaching groups are large and diverse.
Tue 11:30 am – 11:45 am

4B: Equipping teaching teams with information to support students as individuals

Guien MiaoLecture Theatre 2

I use SRES in my medium-sized civil engineering cohort to help my teaching team (tutors, demonstrators, lab staff) get to know our students and engage with them as individuals. I ask my students to introduce themselves via a SRES portal, posing questions about their studies and a miscellaneous “fun” question to get to know what they are beyond their identities as civil engineers in training. Using SRES to also track attendance, comments from the teaching staff and performance data from Canvas means that my teaching team and I can gain a holistic view of how students are progressing in the course and provide targeted advice via emails or in class.

Guien is an education-focused academic in the School of Civil Engineering who is a keen adopter of technologies such as the SRES to improve interactions with her students, as well as support their development of both technical and non-technical skills.
Tue 11:45 am – 12:00 pm

4C: Powering up personalised feedback

Ben MillerLecture Theatre 2

This talk shows two ways SRES has improved the student experience in WRIT1001: Academic essays, a unit enrolling up to 600 students each semester. First, online rolls are connected to a Canvas survey to streamline attendance tracking and connect tutors with information about student motivation and goals. This builds rapport between students and teachers while allowing the coordinator to quickly identify and reach out to ‘at risk’ students. Second, speedgrader rubrics are used to fast-track marking and tailor feedback delivered to students via SRES-filtered email. This saves time for casual markers working to near-unachievable marking rates of 4500 words/hour while maintaining the delivery of personalised feedback. The positive responses from students, even when receiving negative feedback about attendance or assessment, shows that SRES is capable of efficiently and effectively connecting students with feedback.

Dr Benjamin Miller is a Lecturer in Writing Studies. He was an early adopter of simple functions in SRES and is now working with more complex features such as portals.
Tue 12:00 pm – 12:15 pm

4D: Connecting clinical learning advisors with students

Nicole PappalardoLecture Theatre 2

SRES is a powerful took that helps students and helps the Faculty of Medicine and Health manage their new ‘learning advisor’ process. It is used to help students to understand their progress and reflect on this. Then after discussions with their learning advisor, they can reflect further and plan their future learning.

Tue 12:15 pm – 12:30 pm

4E: Simple and unexpected

Kate EdwardsLecture Theatre 2

I use SRES mostly for the simple features – communication/attendance/feedback, but I find ways it can be unexpectedly useful.

Most recently we abused the ‘feedback’ feature at the end of emails to poll students – far fewer clicks for them than going to a survey / webpage. Worked very well!

Students definitely appreciate the efforts of personalising communication and feedback, for staff it takes time and energy, but always worth it for the reach you get.

Tue 12:30 pm – 12:45 pm

12:45 pm – 1:30 pm Lunch

Lunch

Foyer outside Lecture Theatre 1

Tue 12:45 pm – 1:30 pm

1:30 pm – 2:00 pm Plenary 2

Session chair: Samantha Clarke

SRES: Then, now, and where next?

Danny LiuLecture Theatre 1

We will explore the approach to co-creation that SRES has taken over the last seven years, and look forward to further developments that have been sparked by conversations at SRESCon and elsewhere.

Tue 1:30 pm – 2:00 pm

2:00 pm – 4:30 pm Parallel workshops

Afternoon tea will be available from 3:00 pm until 3:30 pm.

Session chairs: Ruth Weeks and Danny Liu (Learning Sudio 158), Natasha Arthars (Lecture Theatre 1), Rebecca Denham (Lecture Theatre 2)

User demonstrations 1 and 2

Jean Meyer, Shane WilkinsonLearning Studio 158

Existing power users of SRES will host stations where they will share their practical experiences and designs with SRES. This is a chance to take deep dives into the innovations that were presented during the parallel sessions earlier in the day.

The two demonstrations will be held simultaneously, and delegates will rotate around the stations every 30 minutes.

  • Jean Meyer
  • Shane Wilkinson

Afternoon tea will be available at 3:00 pm

Tue 2:00 pm – 4:30 pm
, Process transformation

User demonstrations 3 and 4

Ardi Mirzaei, Andrew Bartlett, Guien MiaoLecture Theatre 1

Existing power users of SRES will host stations where they will share their practical experiences and designs with SRES. This is a chance to take deep dives into the innovations that were presented during the parallel sessions earlier in the day.

The two demonstrations will be held sequentially, taking 30 minutes each.

  • Ardi Mirzaei & Andrew Bartlett
  • Guien Miao

Afternoon tea will be available at 3:00 pm

Tue 2:00 pm – 4:30 pm
, Process transformation

Advanced Masterclass: Increasing efficiencies of support and feedback without losing the personal touch

Danny Liu, Rebecca Denham, Samantha Clarke, Nicole PappalardoLecture Theatre 2

This is a compressed version of the advanced session that we run for experienced users or very curious folk where we will deep dive into some of the more intricate features of SRES, such as:

  • self and peer assessment, feedback, and evaluation
  • in-place data manipulation
  • building web portals
  • advanced data entry methods
  • setting up automated alerts for teachers

Tue 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
, Process transformation

Introductory Workshop

Rebecca Denham, Siddhant Narvekar, Nicole Pappalardo, Samantha ClarkeLecture Theatre 2

This is a compressed version of the introductory workshop which will give you guided hands-on experience in setting up SRES and using it in your unit of study. We will cover basic elements such as class lists, data entry forms, and personalised emails.

Tue 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

Location

SRESCon2019 will be held at the Merewether Learning Hub in the Merewether Building, located on Butlin Ave just off City Rd.
Lecture Theatre 1 is near the main entrance, while Lecture Theatre 2 is further down the hall and Learning Studio 158 is towards the left as you enter.

Organising committee

  • Danny Liu
  • Marianna Koulias
  • Stephanie Barahona Contreras
  • Nicole Pappalardo
  • Rebecca Denham
  • Jean Meyer
  • Samantha Clarke
  • Guien Miao
  • Natasha Arthars
  • Ruth Weeks

Program committee

Get in touch

For more information, please email danny.liu@sydney.edu.au

Award-winning approach

2022 Exemplar in Jisc Principles of good assessment and feedback report
2021
 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Learning Analytics exemplar
2020 Reimagine Education ICT Tools for Learning and Teaching Award Gold Winner
2019 Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning
2019 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Analytics Technology exemplar
2017 Pearson ACODE Award for Innovation in Technology Enhanced Learning
2016 ASCILITE Innovation Award winner
2015 Reimagine Education ICT Tools Awards (Finalist)
2015 ASCILITE Awards for Excellence in Learning Analytics (Finalist)

Made by teachers, with love
We are teachers. We work on the SRES in our spare time, without any funding, because we believe in enhancing teacher-student relationships by using data in a meaningful and context-sensitive way.