Learning and Teaching Institute (LTI) annual report 2008/9
Introduction
The LTI was established in September 2007 with a remit to:
• Support the development of the University of Hertfordshire’s (UH’s) capacity in the research,
knowledge and skills required for Learning and Teaching excellence in a business facing
University
• Develop a leading edge profile in Learning, Teaching and Assessment locally, nationally and
internationally
2008/9 saw the first full year of operation with the new team: Jon Alltree (Director of Learning and
Teaching), Peter Bullen (Director of the Blended Learning Unit (BLU)), Helen Barefoot (Deputy Head
of the LTI) and Mark Russell (Deputy Director of the BLU) are supported by a small number of
professional staff, 19 seconded teachers from around the institution (typically each on 0.4fte) and 2
research assistants (supporting funded projects). The secondment arrangements have worked very
well and the benefits envisaged by drawing upon the skill of some of the University’s highly
experienced teachers have been realised. The secondment model is designed to bring benefits to the
LTI, the secondees and their host Schools/departments. This unsolicited email is from a secondee
who completed their time with LTI this summer:
“It remains for me to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with LTI/BLU. It has been
very much a privilege to work with a unit which has had such an evident impact across the
university.... and to bring the results and practices back into ....
On a professional level my own self development has gone through the roof... Furthering my
skills within this area has positively contributed towards my future career.”
The following members of staff completed their secondments this year: Maria Banks, Sally Bunce,
Eric Dell, Martina Doolan, Sally Graham, Andy Oliver, Amanda Relph and Heather Thornton. Ruth
Hyde completed her research assistant post and our two placement students, Lauren Anderson and
Elizabeth Terry, returned to their final year studies in the UH Business School (UHBS). I would like to
wish all well in the future. For the forthcoming year we are joined by secondees Steve Bennett, Debra
Fearns, Jenny Lorimer and Fang Lou. Sarah Flynn has joined the core team and we have a new
placement student, Alex Bracq. I would like to acknowledge the work of the whole of the LTI team and
thank them for their considerable efforts. The staff lists for 2008/9 and 2009/10 are shown in
Appendix 1.
From an internal perspective, the operational distinction between the BLU and the rest of the LTI has
been minimised. The LTI concentrated on four overlapping areas of activity: Strategy; Continuing
Professional Development (CPD); Curriculum Design and Innovation (CDI); and Scholarship,
Research and Evaluation (SRE). The CDI activity is essentially congruent with the BLU remit.
This report highlights some of the main activities undertaken this year. It does not distinguish BLU
activity from that of the rest of the LTI and is aligned with the primary aspects of the Institute’s remit:
Capacity developing activities – essentially internally facing activities
Profile raising activities – essentially externally facing activities and funded projects and
awards
Selected internally facing activities
The Continuing Professional Academic Development (CPAD) programme continued to
support the professional development of academic and professional staff. One hundred and
seven people completed CPAD1, including 24 from the Consortium Colleges. Those that did
not proceed to the Postgraduate (PG) Certificate are eligible to become Associates of the
Higher Education Academy (HEA). Forty-three completed the PG Certificate and are eligible
for Fellowship of the HEA. Seven completed the PG Diploma and eight achieved Master of
Art awards.
Eight colleagues from IST Athens have completed their PG certificate in Learning and
Teaching in Higher Education following our ‘fly in faculty’ iteration of the CPAD programme
over the past two years.
Forty-six members of staff were mentored in the HEA Fellowship application process in order
to help Schools towards the University’s target of 50% of its staff achieving Fellowship status
by 2011/2012. To date, 21 on those staff have successfully completed the process.
In June 2009 the LTI launched a new electronic journal: Blended Learning in Practice. BLiP
promotes scholarship in Learning and Teaching and is focussed on the needs of practitioners.
It will be published twice per year. See http://www.herts.ac.uk/fms/documents/teaching-and-
learning/e-learning_journal/EJournalFinal2.pdf.
The LTI ran the Annual Learning and Teaching conference in May 2009. Mary Fran Breiling,
from San Jose State University, gave the keynote presentation which was very well received.
The conference was attended by 200 staff and this year involved activities on both College
Lane and De Havilland campuses so that staff could see and experience a range discipline
specific teaching accommodation. Overall feedback was excellent.
The LTI ran a series of development workshops, seminars and meetings for UH staff and also
for LTI group. In total there were over 600 attendances at the 19 workshops, 20 seminars and
8 LTI group meetings.
In November 2008 a day long ‘Technology in Blended Learning’ seminar was run jointly by
the Learning Technology Development Unit (LTDU) and the LTI. Eighty-five members of UH
took part in 151 separate session attendances.
The CABLE (Change Academy for Blended Learning Enhancement) project ran for the third
year. Five teams took part in CABLE 3.0 – the Schools of Continuing Education, Education,
Health and Emergency Professions, Life Sciences and Nursing and Midwifery. Substantial
curriculum developments will be implemented this session for the benefit of students and
staff.
The CDI team have continued to develop the electronic resources that support key
institutional curriculum priorities.
LTI continued to work with Graduate Futures on the embedding of work experience across
the institution.
The LTI worked with LTDU to implement and develop the new on-line assignment handler.
The project continues in 2009/10.
Working with the Fit Student team, LTI conducted research into the Fit Student initiative.
Focus groups provided valuable insights into why this computer-based personal development
module was such a success.
Learning Information Services completed the BLU funded project to wirelessly enable all UH
teaching accommodation (with the exception of the Prince Edward Hall).
The LTI conducted the Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy Equality Impact
Assessment and will complete the associated CPD and curriculum development assessments
in the forthcoming year.
The e-learning Benchmarking activity we undertook in 2006 is being repeated as part of the
BLU evaluation. In 2008/9 we met with most Heads of School part of the process to determine
the progress the University has made in the past three years. Further data collection will take
place in 2009/10.
Selected externally facing activities
The 4 International Blended Learning conference, ‘Engaging students in the curriculum’, ran
th
in June 2009. The two-day conference attracted 282 delegates from across the globe and
involved live link-ups with The University of Calgary and the University of Queensland. It
attracted over 100 abstract submissions. Eighty-three UH staff attended the conference.
LTI staff have a leading role in the HEA/Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
Podcasting for Pedagogic Purposes Special Interest Group and contribute to the Evaluation
of learner experiences of e-learning and academic quality enhancement special interest
groups.
LTI supported a JISC commissioned project on the use of web 2.0 technologies in learning
and teaching and provided case studies on e-learning. They also contributed to the
forthcoming HEA publication on the benchmarking and pathfinder project.
Five members of LTI are invited members of the JISC e-learning Pedagogy Special Interest
Group.
The CABLE team worked with colleagues from the following universities, disseminating the
CABLE process for them to use in their own institutions: Bolton, Bristol, Coventry, Derby,
Greenwich, Leicester, London South Bank, Middlesex, Northampton, the OU, Warwick and
Worcester. Much of this engagement was supported by grants from the HEA and the
Enhancement Academy. Work is planned with Northumbria, Robert Gordon University, Leeds
Metropolitan and Goldsmiths in 2009/10.
The LTI and UHBS jointly hosted HEA Business, Management, Accounting and Finance
Subject Centre workshop.
As well as supporting UK conferences such as the HEA conference and Association of
Learning Technologists Conference (ALT-C), LTI staff presented their work in Berlin, Cyprus,
Hawaii, Lisbon, Paris, Pennsylvania, Toronto and Vienna.
Reflecting its international engagement, LTI welcomed visitors from universities in Australia,
Canada, Malaysia and the USA.
Two members of the team made a substantial contribution to the JISC Learners’ Experience
group.
Funded projects and awards
LTI supported Penny Wiggins’ successful application for a National Teaching Fellowship.
th
Penny, an LTI associate and former BLU teacher became the 10 member of UH staff to
secure this prestigious title. UH continues to have one of the best records in the sector.
LTI secured 200K GBP in competitive bidding from JISC for the ESCAPE (Embedding
Sustainable Change in Assessment Practices and Experiences) project. The ESCAPE team
is working with the Business School and the School of Life Sciences on assessment focused
curriculum development.
The LTI, in conjunction with the Equality Unit, the Director of Academic Quality and
Enhancement and the Business School, successfully bid to take part in the HEA Black and
Minority Ethnic summit. Business School and central initiatives are supporting this important
agenda. The summit concludes in 2010.
The University won a Centre of Excellence award from Elluminate for its use of this
technology. See http://www.elluminate.com/community/best-in-class-2009/university-
hertfordshire.jsp. For example, LTI supported Jay Ragoo (Nursing and Midwifery) with his Fire
and Ice project promoting malaria treatment and prevention to colleagues in Burkina Faso.
We worked with Information Hertfordshire on a project to embed virtual classroom facilities
within StudyNet. This work will continue in 2009/10.
The JISC funded STROLL (STtudent Reflections On Lifelong e-Learning) and ASEL (Audio
Supported Enhanced Learning) projects concluded. Both have attracted considerable interest
in the sector.
Dr Jon Alltree, Director of Learning and Teaching
October 2009
Appendix 1
LTI STAFF 2008/9
Dr Jon Alltree (Director of Learning and Teaching, Head of the LTI, co-director of the BLU)
Irene Anderson (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Nursing and Midwifery)
Lauren Anderson (UH Placement student)
Maria Banks (0.2fte LTI/BLU teacher and Business School)
Dr Helen Barefoot (Deputy Head of the LTI)
Lesley Bodman (LTI administrator)
Prof Peter Bullen (0.5fte Director of the BLU)
Sally Bunce (0.2fte LTI/BLU teacher and Business School)
Marija Cubric (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and Business School)
Eric Dell (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Education)
Martina A Doolan (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Computer Science)
Sarah Flynn (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Continuing Education)
Dr William Fisher (CPAD Programme Tutor)
Yoeri Goosens (BLU student consultant)
Sally Graham (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Education)
Angela Hammond (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Combined Studies)
Alan Hilliard (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Health and Emergency Professions)
Ruth Hyde (STROLL Research Assistant)
Amanda Jefferies (0.8fte BLU evaluation coordinator and School of Computer Science)
Liz Mellor (0.8fte BLU administrator)
Helen Miller (0.5fte Marketing Executive)
Dr Areles Molleman (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Life Sciences)
Dr Andy Oliver (0.2fte LTI/BLU teacher and LTDU)
Dr Phil Porter (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Life Sciences)
Amanda Relph (0.2fte LTI/BLU teacher and Business School)
Mark Russell (0.8fte Deputy Director of the BLU and School of Aerospace, Automotive and Design
Engineering)
Guy Saward (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Computer Science)
Joanna Teague (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Education)
Elizabeth Terry (UH Placement student)
Heather Thornton (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Health and Emergency Professions)
Janet Webber (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Health and Emergency Professions)**
LTI STAFF 2009/10
Dr Jon Alltree (Director of Learning and Teaching, Head of the LTI, co-director of the BLU)
Irene Anderson (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Nursing and Midwifery)
Dr Helen Barefoot (Deputy Head of the LTI)
Steve Bennett (0.2fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Computer Science)
Lesley Bodman (Administrator)
Alex Bracq (UH placement student)
Prof Peter Bullen (0.5fte Co-director of the BLU)
Dominic Bygate (ESCAPE project coordinator)
Marija Cubric (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and Business School)
Debra Fearns (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Nursing and Midwifery)
Sarah Flynn (LTI/BLU teacher)
Yoeri Goosens (Research assistant)
Angela Hammond (0.6fte LTI/BLU teacher)
Alan Hilliard (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher)
Amanda Jefferies (0.2fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Computer Science)
Fang Lou (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Life Sciences)
Liz Mellor (0.95fte Administrator and marketing executive)
Dr Areles Molleman (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Life Sciences)
Dr Phil Porter (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Life Sciences)
Mark Russell (0.8fte Deputy Director of the BLU and 0.2fte Director of the ESCAPE project)
Dr Guy Saward (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Computer Science)
Jenny Lorimer (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Health and Emergency Professions)
Janet Webber (0.4fte LTI/BLU teacher and School of Health and Emergency Professions)