Review of Reflective Practices in Programmes for New Academic Staff

There is a website for another of the HEA funded research reviews, namely Review of Reflective Practices in Programmes for New Academic Staff, based the the University of Manchester. It is a practitioner-based collaborative review. "The review is focused into 6 sub-areas within the context of programme for new academic staff: Outcomes and purposes of reflection; Approaches to reflection stressing the personal dimension; Approaches to reflection stressing the social dimension; Feedback and assessment in reflection; Pedagogic strategies to promote reflection; and finally a separate element of the review will look at the state of practice within the field." Suggestions for items to include are welcomed via an online form. http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/tlao/reflectivepractice/

Photo by S. Webber: Wall, Hathersage.

Undergraduate experience of blended learning approaches

I mentioned in an earlier post that there we were one of 5 groups being funded by the Higher Education Academy to carry out a review. There is some information on the web about one of them, Review of the research literature on the undergraduate experience of blended learning approaches. The core team consists of: Dr. Rhona Sharpe, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development; Greg Benfield, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development; Richard Francis, Head of Media Workshop, Oxford Brookes University; George Roberts, Director for Off-Campus Learning, Oxford Brookes University. See http://www.brookes.ac.uk/virtual/news/ and select the relevant heading.

Conference on evaluation of libraries' impact

We won't be posting alerts about relevant information literacy material on this blog, on the whole, since those are covered in the Information Literacy weblog at http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/ However, the area of "impact of libraries" isn't dealt with there, so relevant alerts will be posted here. The first of these is a conference evaluating academic libraries on 2nd March 2006 in Wolverhampton, UK. "An event for HE and HE library staff.
Speakers from a variety of academic libraries will describe self-evaluation activities, including participation in projects such as e-valued." See http://www.ebase.uce.ac.uk/LibraryConference.htm for more information.

Brochure

There is now a brochure with more information about the project at http://dis.shef.ac.uk/literacy/hea-flyer-nov.pdf

(Photo by S. Webber: York in the rain)

Database of HEA research

I just received an email announcing that details of our project have been added to the Higher Education Academy's project database listing "over 1000 centrally funded learning and teaching projects focused around both generic and discipline-specific themes". It has both current and completed projects. The database can be accessed at
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/connects

(Photo by S. Webber: York city walls, November 2005. York is where the HEA is based)

Meeting of review teams

There are four other research reviews which have been commissioned by the Higher Education Academy, namely:

• Undergraduate student experience of blended learning approaches: Dr Rhona Sharpe, Oxford Brookes
• The first year experience: Professor Lee Harvey, Sheffield Hallam University
• The impact of working context and support on the postgraduate research student learning: Professor Diana Leonard and Dr Janet Metcalfe, Institute of Education and UK GRAD
• The role and critical analysis of the effectiveness of reflective practice in programmes for new academic staff: Dr Peter Khan, University of Manchester.

The call for these reviews went out earlier than the one we responded to, and the review teams have just started work (whereas we don't start until January 2006.)
There is a little more information at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/3386.htm

Yesterday (Wednesday 26th October) there was an inaugural meeting for the teams, which was extremely useful: finding out more about people's approaches to the review, and also identifying some common concerns (e.g. database formats). The meeting was held at the Higher Education Academy HQ, which is in York. After the meeting I spent a couple of hours in York, which I enjoyed despite the fact that it was tipping down with rain (see photo, above, taken by the river).

What this blog is about

This blog has been set up to report progress on a Review of Research Literature that will be undertaken, January-June 2006, with funding from the UK's Higher Education Academy, in conjunction with the Society of College, National and University Libraries.

The aim is to inform practitioners, policy makers and researchers in UK Higher Education (HE) by illuminating key concepts, evidence and issues concerned with information literacy in students’ experience of learning in HE. This will include a focus on approaches to teaching and support of information literacy, and on the impact of information literacy and libraries as regards the student learning experience.

The team is led by Sheila Webber (Department of Information Studies (DIS) University of Sheffield, and the rest of the team consists of:

–Professor Sheila Corrall, DIS
–Bill Johnston, Centre for Academic Practice & Learning Enhancement, Strathclyde University
–Dr Philippa Levy, Director, Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences, & DIS
–Sharon Markless, Institute of Learning and Teaching, King’s College, University of London
–David Streatfield, Information Management Associates.