EdTechLab

Sky · An EdTechLab product

For UK higher education

The active-education baseline operating system for UK higher education.

Sky turns Jisc Beyond Blended, Laurillard's ABC Learning Design, OfS B1/B2 expectations, and local AI and accessibility policy into a working, auditable system at module level. It installs into your existing VLE via LTI 1.3. No rip-and-replace.

Try Sky in the Lecturer Sandbox Talk to us about institutional access
  • LTI 1.3 Advantage Complete
  • Cyber Essentials Plus
  • WCAG 2.2 AA + EN 301 549
  • UK GDPR + DPA 2018
  • EU AI Act · high-risk ready
  • ISO 27001 · SOA
Sky's three integrated layers: Design at the top (Module Canvas, ABC palette, Live Preview, Inline AI Co-pilot), Engagement in the middle (disengagement model, staff-approved nudges, Student AI Tutor with guardrails), and Assurance at the bottom (Compliance Scoreboard, Audit Ledger, OfS B1/B2 Evidence Pack, Heat-Map).
Three horizontal layers stacked top to bottom representing Sky's architecture: Design, Engagement, and Assurance, each with surface descriptions and a brand-coloured gradient.

Why Sky is different

The HE technology stack is fragmented by layer. Sky integrates it.

Universities buy an authoring tool, an analytics dashboard, a compliance suite, and a VLE. Each is good at one thing and blind to the others. Sky is the first product that closes the loop around one canonical schema and one signed audit ledger.

Comparison diagram. Left column: four single-layer products (authoring tools, engagement analytics, compliance suites, VLE) each tagged with only one of D/E/A layers. Right column: a single Sky tile showing all three Design, Engagement and Assurance bands integrated, feeding one Evidence Trail covering OfS, GDPR, AI Act, WCAG and Cyber Essentials Plus.
Sky integrates Design, Engagement and Assurance into one signed evidence trail; single-layer products only cover one of the three.

The problem

Evidence is reconstructed at year-end by humans from screenshots, spreadsheets and emails.

The shift

Evidence is emitted continuously as a by-product of teaching, signed at source.

The result

Audits, TEF submissions, GDPR SARs and AI Act records all draw from one ledger.

Three integrated layers

One platform that closes the loop: Design to Engagement to Assurance.

Most products solve one layer. Sky is the only system that connects all three around the institution's own baseline, sharing one canonical schema and one signed audit ledger.

Closed-loop diagram with a central signed Audit Ledger surrounded by three layer nodes: Design (top) builds the module, Engagement (bottom right) acts on signals, Assurance (bottom left) emits evidence. Directional arrows connect them in a continuous cycle.
Sky's three layers arranged around a central audit ledger with arrows showing the continuous flow from Design through Engagement to Assurance and back.
Layer 1

Design

The baseline as a default scaffold, not a checklist.

  • Module Canvas with drag-sequenced activities and six-colour ABC palette.
  • Live preview pane: edit and view together, no save round-trips.
  • Inline AI co-pilot drafting welcome scripts, induction tasks, formative items.
  • Accessibility-checked shell pre-wired with Ally, Panopto, MS Forms, OneNote.
Layer 2

Engagement

Act on analytics inside the week, not at end of term.

  • Real-time analytics ingest via LTI Advantage NRPS + AGS.
  • Disengagement model + staff-approved personalised nudges.
  • Student AI tutor with per-assessment policy guardrails.
  • Hybrid participation: in-class polling, captioned recordings, breakout matching.
Layer 3

Assurance

Evidence as a by-product, not a project.

  • Live Compliance Scoreboard per module, avoiding the end-of-term scramble.
  • Signed Audit Ledger covering every state change, AI interaction and nudge.
  • OfS B1/B2 Evidence Pack exports (PDF, DOCX, structured JSON).
  • Institutional Heat-Map for QA Directors at portfolio scale.

The Module Canvas

One screen replaces every settings page, configuration form, and content modal.

Drag activities from a six-coloured palette. Each colour maps to a Laurillard ABC learning type. The compliance scoreboard ticks up as the canvas changes. There is no save button; saves are optimistic and silent.

The Sky Module Canvas. Top bar shows module EDU 201 Inclusive Pedagogy with a baseline scoreboard at 31 percent. Left rail shows weeks 1 to 5 with week 2 selected. Centre canvas shows three activity cards colour-coded by ABC type: a slate-blue acquisition reading, an amber discussion seminar, and a lavender practice quiz with the AI co-pilot drafting in place, plus an empty drop target for the next activity. A right palette shows the six ABC types as coloured circles.
Sky Module Canvas with week navigation, ABC-coloured activity cards, an inline AI co-pilot drafting a quiz, and the compliance scoreboard in the top right.

Aligned learning design

Activities are mapped to ABC types and Jisc Beyond Blended pillars automatically as you build.

Inline AI co-pilot

AI drafts welcome scripts, briefs and formative items in place. Tab to accept, Esc to dismiss.

Live preview, no round-trips

The student-facing view renders within 200ms of any edit. Desktop, mobile and screen-reader modes built-in.

Compliance updates live

A single number plus a segmented bar shows baseline coverage in real time. No popups. Just movement.

VLE integration

Sky lives inside your VLE, not next to it.

Module leaders launch Sky from the same Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle or Brightspace tile they already use. Students never leave their VLE. Roster, deep linking and grade passback are handled by LTI 1.3 Advantage Complete.

Diagram showing four UK higher-education VLEs (Blackboard Ultra, Canvas, Moodle, Brightspace) on the left, connected via an LTI 1.3 Advantage middleware column (Deep Linking, NRPS Roster, AGS Grades, SAML/OIDC SSO, Analytics ingest) into the Sky platform on the right, with its four layer surfaces.
Horizontal integration diagram with VLEs on the left, an LTI 1.3 Advantage Complete middleware column in the middle, and the Sky platform on the right.

Install time

< 10 min

From LTI registration to a working Sky tile inside your VLE sandbox.

Student onboarding

0 clicks

SSO via your institutional IdP. Students never see a Sky login screen.

Data residency

eu-west-2

UK-region cloud, with a signed DPA and 30-day SAR workflow per tenant.

Speed and scale

Engineered for institutional pace, not pilot pace.

Sky is fast where it counts — under the cursor, behind the canvas, and at procurement.

Preview latency

<200 ms

Student-facing render after any canvas edit. No save round-trip.

VLE install

<10 min

From LTI registration to a working Sky tile inside your sandbox.

Student onboarding

0 clicks

SSO via your IdP. Students never see a Sky login screen.

Evidence pack export

<30 sec

From canvas to a signed PDF/DOCX/JSON pack for OfS or TEF.

Heat-map scale

280 modules / tenant

QA-director view, all rendered in < 1.2s.

Ledger durability

7-year retention

Immutable, signed, non-repudiable events.

Data residency

eu-west-2

UK region, signed DPA per tenant.

Compliance choreography

One canvas edit. Six frameworks ticked.

Sky is not retro-fitted compliance. Every state change in the Module Canvas emits to the audit ledger and fans out to every regulator simultaneously. Evidence becomes a side-effect of teaching, not a year-end reconstruction project.

A central Sky canvas event tile ('Activity added: UDL reading') signed in the audit ledger, with six rays radiating to surrounding framework tiles that each show a green tick: OfS B1+B2 (scoreboard tick), WCAG 2.2 AA (a11y blocker queued), EU AI Act (policy hash logged), UK GDPR (lawful basis tag), Cyber Essentials Plus (change-log entry) and HECVAT (supplier answer).
One Sky canvas event triggers ticks across six UK higher-education compliance frameworks in parallel.

UK higher-education readiness

Designed to clear every UK regulatory bar and arrive with a procurement pack that is ready to review.

Sky stacks the certifications and frameworks UK institutions actually evaluate against. Not minimum compliance, with a procurement pack that arrives ready to sign.

A central Sky shield surrounded by six regulatory and certification badges: OfS B1+B2, UK GDPR, WCAG 2.2 AA, Cyber Essentials Plus, AI Act readiness, HECVAT evidence.
Sky's regulatory readiness stack arranged around a central protective shield.

Sector + data

OfS · UK GDPR · DUAA 2025

B1/B2 indicators mapped to every activity. Pseudonymised IDs, per-tenant DPIA, 30-day SAR, 72-hour breach notification, region-locked in eu-west-2.

B1 + B2 UK GDPR eu-west-2

AI + accessibility

AI Act · WCAG 2.2 AA · UDL

High-risk obligations from Article 6 / Annex III built in. axe-core blocking in CI, weekly manual audits, UDL as a first-class tag on every activity (exceeding PSBAR scope).

EU AI Act WCAG 2.2 AA UDL

Security + procurement

CE+ · ISO 27001 · HECVAT

Cyber Essentials Plus v3.3 (all SaaS in scope, MFA mandated). ISO 27001:2022 SOA. CREST pen tests. Pre-filled HECVAT 4.1.5, UCISA IST + NCSC CSP alignment. Listed on CCS, N/SUPC.

CE+ v3.3 ISO 27001 HECVAT 4.1.5

Built once, evidenced everywhere

One signed audit ledger. Every state change. Seven-year retention.

Every framework Sky meets is satisfied by the same underlying ledger, so an OfS audit, a TEF submission, an annual programme monitoring report and a GDPR SAR all draw from one source of truth.

  • · Per-assessment GenAI policy enforced as code
  • · Three-layer AI guardrail enforcement
  • · Immutable, signed, non-repudiable events
  • · Evidence Pack exports in < 30 seconds
  • · Heat-Map at 280-module institutional scale

Lecturer Sandbox

Try Sky in your browser for free, with no institutional contract.

Any academic with a UK .ac.uk address can sign in to the Sandbox. Synthetic data only. No real student PII, no institutional connection, just the product.

Four-step journey through the Lecturer Sandbox: 1) sign in with an .ac.uk email, 2) drag activity cards to build a synthetic module, 3) try the inline AI co-pilot drafting a welcome script, 4) refer a colleague to climb the priority list.
Four sequential steps showing how an academic gets value from the Lecturer Sandbox.

What you'll see in the first ten minutes

  • Build a complete sample module unaided in under 30 minutes.
  • Watch the compliance scoreboard tick up against a representative UK HE baseline.
  • Try the inline AI co-pilot drafting a welcome script, brief, or formative quiz.
  • Switch to the student view and feel what your learners experience.
  • Refer colleagues to climb the priority list. Top referrers get named credit.

For institutions evaluating Sky

Each institution signs a Letter of Intent then runs a structured six-week Acquisition Testing Phase against its own VLE, with three nominated module leaders, a student preview, a red-team test against the institution's own GenAI policy, and a sample Evidence Pack export reviewed by QA.

Talk to us about institutional access

Request access

Tell us where you teach and we'll send you a Sandbox magic link. No spam, only what you need to get going.

.ac.uk required. Institutional addresses outside the UK can email us directly.

We will only contact you about Sky access. Sky uses your details under the EdTechLab privacy policy. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Frequently asked

How can I try Sky?

Any UK academic with a .ac.uk address can request Sandbox access from the form above. You'll get a magic link to a synthetic module with no real student data, no institutional connection, and the full Design Layer.

Which VLEs does Sky support?

Blackboard Ultra and Canvas via LTI 1.3 with LTI Advantage Complete certification (covers ~70% of UK HE). Moodle and Brightspace integrations follow.

How does Sky handle GenAI in assessments?

Every assessment carries a reference to the institution's GenAI ethics policy. The student AI tutor and staff co-pilot enforce that policy as code with three layers of guardrails. Every interaction is logged to a signed, non-repudiable audit ledger.

How can institutions evaluate Sky?

Each institution signs a Letter of Intent then runs a six-week Acquisition Testing Phase against its own VLE sandbox, with three module leaders, a student preview, an AI tutor red-team against the institution's own GenAI policy, and a sample Evidence Pack export reviewed by QA. The trial concludes with a written remediation list and a commercial proposal.

What regulations does Sky meet?

OfS Conditions B1/B2 (plus surfacing of Indicators of Concern), UK GDPR with Data Protection Act 2018, the EU AI Act high-risk obligations, WCAG 2.2 AA per PSBAR 2018, Cyber Essentials Plus v3.3, and ISO 27001 Statement of Applicability. Sky pre-fills HECVAT 4.1.5 and aligns with the UCISA Information Security Toolkit.