Digitalizing an EAP subject for undergraduate students

This presentation shows how a traditional English for Academic Purposes (EAP) style subject for undergraduates has been digitalised to meet the needs of students in the 21st century. The original course was overwhelmingly text based with essays and oral presentations. While changes had been made in recent years (e.g. online essay submission through LMS and originality checking through Turnitin; online submission of oral presentations), in many ways the subject had not changed since the last century. Students were still required to write essays and deliver an oral presentation. The digitalisation of the subject retained these original elements but added new features which are increasingly common in today’s society. For example, rather than only adding citations to the essay, students had to add hyperlinks pointing to the online version of the reference article. Students also integrated multimedia such as images and videos into their essay as supporting evidence, and produced the final version of the essay on an online platform rather than traditional word document. The oral presentation saw fewer changes, although students were encouraged to integrate more multimedia into their presentations. As well as outlining the changes that were made, this presentation also considers the feedback from students and teachers who were taking the subject. This feedback was generally positive, although several suggestions were also made. The presentation ends with recommendations to other course designers who wish to update their own subjects.