It was my joy, once again to celebrate this day with a room opening. Naming spaces on campus after women is crucial for several reasons: Recognition of Achievements: It honors the achievements of women in STEM and other fields, despite the challenges they faced. Historical Context: It provides a historical context to the University’s history, highlighting the contributions of women throughout history. Promotion of Diversity: It promotes diversity and inclusion …
Author: mhighton
End of an Era
After 10 years of tenancy in Argyle House , we reach the end of an era as University of Edinburgh Information Services Group move out and find a new home. We have been through a lot in that space, most notably pandemics and floods. Our move to open plan working in 2016 was part of …
Athena Swan win
The panel is satisfied that the application adequately addresses the award criteria and is pleased to confer a Bronze Athena Swan award. The panel commends the leadership and senior buy-in which is evident in several ways, including: · the strong letter of endorsement from the Director which communicates a solid organisational commitment to Athena Swan …
Joanna Highton
I have spent the last few years caring for my mother who, back in the day, was a bit of a lifelong learning radical herself. You can read about her work on this blog Oh WOW! Women at Work in the 1980s – Diverse Collections which may give some insights into what has influenced my …
find lifelong learning at Edinburgh
Our short courses catalogue, which launched in May of this year, continues to grow, attracting visitors and over 1,800 enrolments to courses from engaged learners looking to learn something new, upskill or enhance their knowledge. In the month of July there were over 800 enrolments to courses, an increase of 5% compared to June. Active …
Digital skills training for scientists and engineers
Building on previous research analysis on who attends training, in what mode: We know from our research that men in College of Science and Engineering (CSE) are less likely to access digital skills training than women. This highlights a risk that they may get left behind. My Digital Skills Training Team conducted a mapping exercise, …
staff satisfaction in 2025
The Staff Engagement Survey’s latest iteration was run in February-March 2025. I am pleased that Learning, Teaching and Web (LTW) had a survey response rate of 77%, higher than in 2023 (63%). This is also a much better response rate than the overall University (42%), and higher than ISG as a whole (75%). Overall, the …
revisiting playful engagement
You may have seen a recent WonkHE article about playful leadership The case for playful leadership | Wonkhe It announces a new research project called Re:PLAY * and I am pleased to say that ISG University of Edinburgh is a partner in this research. It was interesting to me that when the ISG directors had …
Re-Opening the Eleanor Ormerod Room
I was very pleased to add another space named for inspirational women in STEM to our collection. Celebrating the re-opening of the Eleanor Ormerod Training room in the University of Edinburgh’s Main Library was fairly simple since Eleanor’s info board was already in this room, The LST team have refitted the room and installed lovely …
nice weather for ducks
On some of the hottest days of the year this week, I ventured southwards for two conferences, both featuring birds and both styled in hot pink. EchoExperience25 at the University of Nottingham https://info.echo360.com/attendee-hub-echoexperience-emea and UCISA Women in Technology in Liverpool WiT25 – UCISA At WiT Katie and I spoke about what works in our …
A Field Guide to Working in Higher Education
I am pleased to get my hands of a copy of this new book A Field Guide to Working in Higher Education The book is designed to support new lecturers who are joining HE from a background in a professional area or career rather than a career in academia. These new teachers draw on different …
how does your garden grow online?
I was delighted to be invited as to National College of Ireland to speak as part of their ‘Assuring Quality in Fully Online Programme Delivery’ event last week. A lovely excuse to visit Dublin again. I chose a gardening theme which enabled me to talk about the time it takes to grow online learning and …