What We Do

What We Do

In RTL, we aim to democratize access to both education and research opportunities and to ensure higher education continues to evolve in teaching and research practices that are inclusive, equitable, and accessible.

Recent Initiatives At a Glance

Advancing discovery through data and computing services developed in partnership with the campus research community

Promoting inclusive instruction that creates engaging learning experiences for every student at Berkeley

Fostering equitable learning environments by supporting accessible academic technology tools, classrooms, and course content

  • Lower the barriers to research data and computing technologies through tools such as Open On Demand, Jupyter notebooks -  Introducing new abstractions
  • Maintain Digital Research platforms and services to enable high performance computing, secure computing, research data management,  scalable virtual computing environments, and museum informatics.
  • Engaged in strategic partnership with NASA Ames at Moffett Field in support of research computing as well as advisement on the Berkeley Space Center’s data & computing infrastructure
  • Pursuing new and innovative ways to engage our undergraduate students in the research mission of our campus through access to data together with new computational platforms (e.g., Jupyter Notebooks)
  • Designed, implemented and operationalized the Secure Research Data and Compute platform (SRDC)  for work with highly sensitive data.
  • In collaboration with UCSF, developed an innovative bi-campus computing proposal to support the UCSF/UCB joint degree program, Computational Precision Health.

Review the Research IT website for more information

  • Modeling equitable and inclusive working strategies. In so doing, advance individual and collective understanding of what it means to be an equity-minded educator.
  • Implemented new Online and Hybrid Course Design Institute that will continue to be offered in the future

  • Developing new web resources that promote inclusive instruction:

A Social Justice Approach to Teaching in Difficult Times

Disability Justice In Teaching

Gender Justice in Teaching

  • Developed Teaching Guides as a resource that reflect evidence-based strategies from educational research

  • Designed new resource, Teaching Innovation Showcase, that spotlights creative curricular examples, providing a source of inspiration and practical, actionable resources for educators.                   
  • Leading development of fully online courses and maintaining operations of edX professional learning platform
  • Ensuring all online courses developed meet accessibility standards
  • Assembled a working group to determine how RTL can better support the unique needs of large enrollment courses
  • Piloting a set of custom-built dashboards in bCourses to provide instructors with a high-level view of student grade trends in their own courses

  • Piloting a Peer Learning tool within bCourses that allows students to provide feedback on assignments to their peers

  • Creating learning opportunities through KALX Radio for students that tie in to curriculum (e.g., Journalism, UE Discovery) as well as hands-on opportunities in digital and broadcast platforms

  • Supporting Berkeley student success through our innovative student advising platform deployment of BOA (Berkeley Online Advising) 

  • Developing asynchronous resources that support faculty development at Berkeley, including a video library of 1-2 minute tutorials on commonly asked questions

  • Completed the “Classrooms of the Future” build-out and now developing the next classroom technology standard for small and large classrooms

Current Pilots

RTL actively pilots academic technology to support the teaching and learning mission of UC Berkeley. Learn about some of our current pilots and how you may be able to participate in using them.

Projects & Initiatives

RTL chronicles projects and initiatives to keep users informed of decisions and to share key information with stakeholders and higher ed partners.

Review the latest updates