News Archive 2001
Archive of News Items from 2001
Please note that this is an archive of past news items and therefore some entries may no longer be accurate.
- December 2001 - HEFCE Consultation 01/66 - Information on Quality and Standards of Teaching and Learning - Proposals for Consultation
- December 2001 - The next edition of Planet will be in your departments in December 2001
- December 2001 - Call for Environmental Sciences Authors
- October 2001 - Special Education Needs and Disabilities Conference
- September 2001 - Quality Assurance in Higher Education - Proposals for Consultation
- September 2001 - Small-scale Project Funding 2002
- September 2001 - Call for papers for the October 2001 issue of CAL-laborate
- June 2001 - discussions on academic review continue
- June 2001 - Issue 2 of Planet is here
- May 2001 - The Resource Discovery Network Virtual Training Suite
- 23rd March 2001 - Academic Review Still Goes Ahead for Disciplines Assessed Under TQA
- 23rd March 2001 - Foot and Mouth and Fieldwork - Latest Position
- 6th March 2001 - URGENT - Foot and Mouth and Fieldwork
HEFCE Consultation 01/66 - Information on Quality and Standards of Teaching and Learning - Proposals for Consultation
This is the latest HEFCE paper on the QAA system. This consultation document sets out proposals on what information on the quality and standards of learning and teaching should be available in each higher education institution, and which elements should be published. The consultation document is available on the HEFCE website (http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2001/01_66.htm)
Comments should be sent to Emma Creasey at the HEFCE by Friday 21 December 2001
The next edition of Planet will be in your departments in December 2001.
The next edition of Planet will be in your departments in December 2001. Also back issues of Planet are available to download including the special editions on Embedding Careers Education in the Curricula of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences and Case Studies in Problem based Learning (PBL) from Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences.
Call for Environmental Sciences Authors
The Subject Centre for Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (LTSN- GEES) is embarking on a new project. The project aims to develop 5 'Guides to Support Learning and Teaching in Earth and Environmental Sciences' and is an extension and adaptation of the excellent Geography Discipline Network (GDN) Guides. The authors of the new guides will be discipline specialists working in close collaboration with the original GDN authors. The plan is to develop guides for teaching staff on the following topics;
1. Learning Outcomes and Assessment in Earth and Environmental Sciences
2. Learning and Teaching with C&IT in Earth and Environmental Sciences
3. Fieldwork in Earth and Environmental Sciences
4. Practical and Laboratory work in Earth and Environmental Sciences
The fifth guide will be discipline-focused skills guide for students to give them a flavour of Earth and Environmental Sciences at university, helping them with the transition into higher education.
We are looking for authors for these Guides from the Earth and Environmental Sciences academic community. Ideally, each Guide will have an author from Environmental Sciences and Earth Sciences and the Senior Subject Advisor for Earth Sciences is also contacting his community. The payment to authors will be £1,500 each if there are two authors and £2,000 if one. We envisage that the Guide to Learning Outcomes and Assessment in Earth and Environmental Sciences will need rather more work and the payment for this one will be £2,000 each if there are two authors and £2,000 if one.
Please could you circulate this information to other colleagues in your Department/School and encourage people to put their names forward. A meeting of the Executive Committee of the Committee of Heads of Environmental Sciences (CHES) will be convened shortly after this date to choose the Environmental Sciences authors and we will let you know early in January.
Please note that the deadlines for these Guides are very tight - we will need a first draft by the end of June 2002 with a final draft by the end of October 2002.
A meeting for prospective authors has been provisionally booked for January
18th 2002 at the Coventry TechnoCentre. At this meeting we will decide on
format, structure and content, building on the work of the original GDN Guides.
On the form you can say whether you will be available for this meeting but
inability to attend will not preclude you
from authorship as we are considering other dates in February.
CHES, in association with LTSN-GEES, are hosting two regional 'Good Learning and Teaching Ideas' Swap Shops for the Earth and Environmental Sciences Academic Communities to gather suitable case studies for inclusion in the Guides. The first one will take place at the TechnoCentre Coventry on Tuesday 26th February 2002 and a similar event will take place in Scotland in the week beginning week April 29th 2002 (exact date and venue to be arranged). Invitations for Swap Shop contributions will go out to the Environmental and Earth Sciences communities in the next two weeks.
Marianne Hall
Quality Assurance in Higher Education - Proposals for Consultation
As many colleagues will be aware, the future of subject-based academic review has been under discussion at national level during the last 2 or 3 months. Following these discussions, a jointly prepared paper has recently been published by HEFCE, UUK, SCOP and the QAA. Please note that this paper relates only to England.
In essence, the proposals in the paper are to develop further the process of institutional level review in such a way that there would in future not be a separate review programme at the subject level. However, the details in the paper are quite complex and there are circumstances in which reviews of individual departments or programmes could be conducted by subject specialists. If you need further information you are strongly advised therefore to read the original document.
The document is being sent for consultation to all Higher Education institutions and HEFCE funded further education colleges and to a wide range of other interested parties in England. It is also being distributed for information to all Higher Education Institutions in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland where separate discussions about future arrangements are in train. It is apparently still the intention to try to retain a UK wide framework as far as possible but at this stage it is by no means certain that this will be achieved.
The period of consultation closes on Friday 26th October 2001. The LTSN Subject Centre will try to keep its three discipline based communities up to date with any further developments in the quality field.
Small-scale Project Funding 2002
The Subject Centre has set aside at least £30, 000 for the calendar year 2002 to support small-scale projects for one year. It is expected that funding for individual projects will normally be in the range £2, 000 - £5, 000. The funding will be awarded by open competition to projects which will enhance student learning and / or enrich the learning and teaching research literature in one or more of the three disciplines.
- The funding may provide one-off or pump priming support for learning and teaching developments, research, and innovations.
- Individuals or groups may bid for funding in any area of learning and teaching in one or more of the three disciplines.
For information on this years funding please click here
Call for papers for the October 2001 issue of CAL-laborate
The international newsletter CAL-laborate focuses on innovative or interesting uses of IT to improve the teaching and learning experience in tertiary level science. There is now a call for papers for the October 2001 issue which will cover Physical Sciences and Geosciences (physics, chemistry, mathematics, statistics, computer science, geology and geography). Articles need to be submitted by mid-October. If you are interested in writing an article for this issue of the "Physical Sciences and Geosciences" CAL-laborate please contact Anne Fernandez (Editor of CAL-laborate).
Anne Fernandez
Educational Technologist
UniServe Science - Science Clearinghouse
Carslaw Building (F07)
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006
Australia
Website: http://science.uniserve.edu.au/
Special Education Needs and Disabilities: Implications of New Legislation and Guidance for HE Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences- A National One-Day Conference
The Special Education Needs and Disability Act (SENDA, 2001) and the QAA Code of Practice on Students with Disabilities will together require some significant changes in Higher Education. These will affect not just the institutions' physical premises but also important aspects of the curriculum and our learning, teaching and asssment methods.
For this reason, the LTSN-GEES Subject Centre is holding a conference on this topic on Friday 19 October in Coventry. The conference is free of charge.
June 2001 - discussions are still continuing on the precise scale and format for the incoming system of academic review in England and Northern Ireland.
Further to David Blunkett's announcement of a lighter touch in QAA academic review, discussions are still continuing on the precise scale and format for the incoming system of academic review in England and Northern Ireland. It seems likely that some form of sampling arrangement will be adopted but the details of how this might work are still under consideration. When further information becomes available, LTSN-GEES News will bring you up to date.
June 2001 - Issue 2 of Planet The Publication of the LTSN Subject Centre for Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
May 2001 - The Resource Discovery Network Virtual Training Suite
Visit The Resource Discovery Network Virtual Training Suite where you can learn how to use the Internet to help with coursework, literature searching, teaching and research. There are two subject specific training sessions "Virtual Earth Scientist" and "Virtual Geographer"
23rd March 2001 - Academic Review Still Goes Ahead for Disciplines Assessed Under TQA
Many of you will be aware of the DfEE 21st March press release (2001/0162) in which David Blunkett announced plans to reduce the burden of higher education quality assessment. Under Blunkett's proposals, departments which have achieved good scores in the current round (at least 3 scores of 3 and 3 scores of 4) will be exempt from external review in the next round. The press release did not make it clear what will happen to those disciplines which were assessed under the original TQA system. (This did not use the current 24 points approach but relied, instead, on three gradings: 'excellent', 'satisfactory', and 'unsatisfactory'.) We have checked this morning with the DfEE and have been told by a ministry official that the early TQA disciplines will not be exempt under the new regime and will still have to go through Academic Review in the next couple of years. This means that geography, earth and environmental sciences will be still be subject to Academic Review. Departments in Scotland are of course already 'enjoying the pleasures' of the new QAA system. Visit http://www.dfee.gov.uk
23rd March 2001 - Foot and Mouth and Fieldwork - Latest Position
The following is a statement posted on the CHUGD website http://www.chugd.ac.uk
Fieldwork and Foot and Mouth Disease (FW/FMD) - A Joint Position Statement by the Committee of Heads of Geoscience Departments in Britain and The Geological Society of London - 16th March 2001
In recognition of the severity of the current FMD outbreak and the need to prevent the spread of infection, CHUGD and the Geological Society of London have recommended to their respective members that all field work on or near agricultural land in the British Isles should be suspended.
Both organisations owe a debt to landowners and tenants whose forbearance makes field work in Britain possible. In return for the privilege of access we urge members to respect all restrictions, and to do their utmost to ensure the protection and isolation of agricultural land. We must be seen by the agricultural community to be sympathetic and fully supportive.
This recommendation includes teaching-related, project-related and research-related visits, and extends to all associated vehicular travel within infected areas. Many institutions will have their own FW/ FMD policies in place that make exceptions for sites such as quarries or beaches where direct access is obtained from well used public highways or urban areas. In practice these areas are few, and we urge the greatest caution in the adoption of any such relaxation. When restrictions start to be lifted we should only work in areas where sanction has been sought and given. Parties should expect to carry and use recommended disinfectants if required to do so.
Restrictions could have a seriously damaging and lasting effect on educational and research programmes. The effect upon accredited degree programmes has been addressed separately by the Geological Society Accreditation Panel, but the implications for Subject Review in the wider academic context are no less severe. Departments and their respective institutions understand the implications of lost field training upon teaching and learning, upon assessment and upon training prerequisites. We recognise that each department/ institution will strike its own balance with regard to these, and will try, wherever possible, to ensure the emplacement of effective alternatives.
Some departments/ members already rely upon locations abroad to complete some of their prescribed coursework and research. Such fieldwork is not included in these recommendations, but if large numbers of field programmes are hastily relocated abroad it could generate local negative feeling. It should be clear that CHUGD/ Geol. Soc. are not recommending this course of action and British geologists have already been asked to respect the precautionary isolation of the Republic of Ireland.
There is currently no way of determining how long our recommendation should remain in force. We should regard the home-based Easter Field programme as now lost, and Departments and members are advised to plan for the possibility of an extended ban on movements that impacts upon the summer field programme as well. A bulletin board and discussion group are available at <chugd.ac.uk> and departments and individuals are urged to use this to post and receive ideas, information and news.
Gordon Walkden, Chair, CHUGD
Chris Wilson, Sec., External and Foreign Relations, Geological Society of London
6th March 2001 - URGENT - Foot and Mouth and Fieldwork
The Committee of Heads of University Geoscience Departments (CHUGD) has set up an on-line notice board to share information on the implications of Foot & Mouth Disease for Fieldwork this Easter. Visit http://www.chugd.ac.uk