Learning in a Digital Environment
What responsibilities do you have as a student when learning in a digital environment?
Digital Education is the innovative use of digital tools and technologies during the teaching, learning, assessment and feedback process to enhance and transform your experience. These technologies will be integrated in different ways for different purposes by your lecturers. Regardless of how they choose to integrate them, it is your responsibility to:
- Engage fully with module content, activities and assessments etc., as advised by your lecturers
- Ensure that you have access to any technologies and digital services that are required to engage fully with module content, activities and assessments etc. (Access to technologies and digital services can be facilitated through the TU Dublin library and support services)
- Abide by the basic rules of online etiquette; adhere to policy statements in TU Dublin’s Acceptable Usage Policy; and commit to honest and moral behaviour regarding academic assessments as set out in the Declaration of Academic Integrity
What do the different modes of module delivery mean?
Four modes of module delivery have been approved at TU Dublin. This means that each of your modules must align to one of those four modes. So, any one of your modules could be:
- an In-Person, On-Campus, Technology-Enabled module
- a Blended Learning module
- an Online module
- or a HyFlex module
Click below for a description of each mode.
If your module is an In-Person, On-Campus, Technology-Enabled module, that means that all of the students enrolled on that module attend all scheduled lectures, tutorials, and labs etc. in-person and on-campus only. No live instruction is delivered online but academic staff employ a range of different digital learning technologies before, during, and/or after the in-person on-campus activities to deliver an engaging technology-enabled teaching, learning and assessment experience. Academic staff will provide clear communications to you on this mode of delivery in advance of the module start date. This mode of delivery will be adhered to consistently over the duration of the module.
In a Blended Learning module, lecturers plan, blend and sequence face-to-face and online teaching, learning and assessment experiences over the duration of the module. There can be varying degrees of in-person on-campus versus online teaching, learning and assessment experiences designed and delivered from module to module. Students cannot choose their modality, rather each experience is offered in one mode only and all of the students engage with each scheduled experience together. Academic staff will provide clear communications to you on this mode of delivery in advance of the module start date. This mode of delivery will be adhered to consistently over the duration of the module.
If your module is an online module, then all teaching, learning and assessment experiences are delivered in the online context only. Students and academic staff never meet in-person on-campus. The term ‘online module’ covers everything from a module where 100% of the instruction takes place in real time (synchronous) to a module where 100% of the instruction is pre-recorded and accessed by students at a time of their choosing (asynchronous), and every possible mix of synchronous and asynchronous teaching, learning and assessment experiences in-between. Academic staff will provide clear communications to you on this mode of delivery in advance of the module start date. This mode of delivery will be adhered to consistently over the duration of the module.
A HyFlex module is offered in-person on-campus; synchronously online; and asynchronously online, at the same time. Students are usually* free to choose their modality from week to week or topic to topic, therefore a student can choose to be an in-person on-campus learner only, a synchronous remote learner only, an asynchronous remote learner only, or a flexible learner who exercises a degree of choice of modality each week or topic. All teaching, learning and assessment experiences are designed and delivered in an equitable manner. Academic staff will provide clear communications to you on this mode of delivery in advance of the module start date. This mode of delivery will be adhered to consistently over the duration of the module.
*There may be individual module requirements to attend mandated practical sessions as appropriate.