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News Archive 2006

Archive of News Items from 2006

Please note that this is an archive of past news items and therefore some entries may no longer be accurate.

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GEES Subject Centre email delivery disruption

From the afternoon of Tuesday the 12th of December to the morning of Tuesday 19th of December the GEES subject Centre was unable to receive email. We have been informed by our host University that most incoming email will have been stored during the disruption and this has now been received by the staff at the Subject Centre. That said, if you have sent something urgent to the Subject Centre in the past week it might be a good idea to send it again.

Apologies for any problems caused by this disruption.

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GISRUK 2007 - First Call for Papers

NUI Maynooth, Ireland - 11th to 13th April 2007

Papers are invited on ANY ASPECT of the theory, development and practical application of Geographic Information Science and Systems and related fields, including GIS and Education.

Abstracts deadline Friday 22nd December 2006

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GEES Subject Centre student-focused publication focus group - 27 November, Plymouth

We are currently producing a student-focused publication to be distributed UK-wide next year. The articles will be written by students or be about them e.g. research into student behaviour. This will allow staff to better understand students and if needed adapt their methods accordingly. Simultaneously, by reading about others who are going, or have been, through similar situations alongside advice and information it will support students and help improve their learning experience.

We are holding a student and staff discussion group linked with this project. It is aimed at improving staff and students working relations by talking about the differences between each group and highlighting misunderstandings between them. This will also allow staff to target their teaching and curriculum more effectively. It is being held on the 27th November 2006 on Plymouth University Campus from 11am to approximately 4pm. We understand that this may be quite a long way for you to travel so all travel expenses will be reimbursed and a complimentary lunch will be provided.

We are also looking for students to attend this event so we would be very grateful if you could pass on the details.

More information can be found on the student focused publication and staff and student discussion group web pages.

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Job Vacancy - Dissemination Co-ordinator at the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES)

Job Title: Dissemination Co-ordinator
Ref: 6862/SCI
Salary: £27,193 to £31,525 pa plus benefits
Date posted: 7 Nov 2006

Working full-time, you will support the work of the UK-wide Subject Centre for GEES. The Subject Centre has become a major national and international hub in the exchange of knowledge on learning and teaching across the three disciplines, and you will play a key role in contributing to its success.

Responsibilities will include organisation and support of national conferences, seminars and workshops, responsibility for collating articles and preparing the bi-annual publication, PLANET, and liaison with other Subject Centre staff and colleagues elsewhere in the UK and overseas.

With a degree or equivalent, preferably in Geography, Earth Science, Environmental Sciences or a related discipline and experience in higher education or in the work place, you will also possess excellent IT, communication and interpersonal skills.

You should be prepared to travel occasionally and have flexible working hours. This position is funded full-time until 31 July 2009 and it is anticipated that additional funding will be forthcoming to support the Subject Centre and this post in the longer term.

Closing date: 12 noon, Friday 24 November 2006.

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Subject benchmark statements - Earth sciences, environmental sciences and environmental studies - Draft for consultation

You might be aware that the QAA subject benchmark statements for Geography and for ES3 (Earth Science, Environmental Science and Environmental Studies) have recently been revised. The deadline for consultation and feedback on these proposed revisions is Tuesday 31st October 2006. We would strongly encourage you to have a look to see whether there are any aspects of these that you would like to comment on.

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National Teaching Fellowship Scheme: call for project proposals

The call for bids for the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) Projects strand is now open. Teams led by higher education institutions in England will be able to bid for funding of up to £200,000 for projects which will be expected to bring substantial benefits to student learning experiences in the HE sector.

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Public consultation on BS 8848: a new British Standard for the provision of adventurous activities, expeditions, visits and fieldwork, undertaken for educational, training or recreational purposes outside the UK

If you are a provider of adventurous activities, fieldwork or expeditions to destinations outside the UK, or regularly take part in such activities, we would be very grateful if you could take the time to comment on a document outlining a British Standard to benchmark good practice in safety management systems that will enable these activities to flourish. This is potentially a significant document which could perhaps have important implications for higher education fieldwork. Please circulate it widely amongst colleagues. The final date for written comments is the 31st October. You may well wish to make an individual or departmental submission.

Download a copy of the draft standard BS 8848.

The first two pages are very important as they gives information about the period of validity of this draft; how comments should be submitted; to whom they should be sent; and the deadline for submission of comments.

The document has been produced by the RGS-IBG together with the British Standards Institution (BSI) and a wide range of other organisations - ‘venture providers’ – including schools and universities. The period of public consultation will culminate in a gathering for interested parties at the RGS-IBG on Thursday 26th October 2006. It is anticipated that this will produce a number of observations that the BSI Technical Panel will then need to consider in producing the final version of the specification ready for launch as a Standard in early 2007.

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Survey into the role of a national Internet search and training service for UK universities and colleges

JISC is conducting a review of the role of its national Internet search and training service for UK universities and colleges. In the GEES disciplines you may be familiar with the Resource Discovery Network gateways such as GEsource, PSIgate, SOSIG and the Virtual Training Suite (all these resources can now be found in Intute).

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GEES in the top 5 rated subjects in the latest National Student Survey

See the National Student Survey tables, results by institution, subject, and highest and lowest-scoring courses.

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GEES Student Essay Competition 2006 Winners

Thank you to all those students who took the time to write an essay for the competition. All the entrants had something really valuable to say. Here is the winning entry from Llinos Jenkins, Marine Geography student at the University of Cardiff and the runner-up entry from Elizabeth Lezemore, Landscape Architecture student at the University of Gloucestershire.

The winners and runners up essays for 2006

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National Teaching Fellowships awarded

The Higher Education Academy has announced the latest awards in the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme which includes colleagues from the GEES disciplines:

Overall 50 winners were chosen from a record 242 nominations submitted by higher education institutions across England and Northern Ireland, and each receive awards of £10,000 to support their learning and teaching.

More information the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme.

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The GEES Subject Centre operational plan 2006-07

For 2006-07, the GEES Subject Centre's operational plan will continue to be based on a solid platform of tried and tested activities including national events, departmental workshops, small-scale project funding, publications and networks. We will continue to liaise and collaborate with existing contacts and organizations (including Academy York, other Subject Centres, discipline-based professional bodies, generic educational developers, our host institution, CETLs and other learning and teaching related initiatives) and to maintain our pro-active/responsive approach through horizon scanning and intelligence gathering.. Following consultation and discussions, there will be a focus in our key activities on two main themes: education for sustainable development (ESD) and recruitment, transition and retention. Three new approaches are also to be piloted this year: working with students, enhanced departmental activity and a more strategic approach to travel.

GEES Subject Centre operational plan 2006-07 (350kb Word Document)

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Capturing good practice in the integration of sustainability on courses

The Higher Education Academy is exploring education for sustainable development (ESD) so as to assist those institutions and academic colleagues who want to make it part of their teaching provision. Building on the initial findings of previous research, principally the Dawe et al. report, the Higher Education Academy would like to take the integration of sustainability further and has commissioned Forum for the Future, the UK’s leading sustainable development charity*, to carry out a baseline study with the aim of identifying existing good practice across all subjects. The end result of this research will be a summary of the findings which will then be distilled into a web-based good practice resource for lecturers and HEI’s wanting to develop sustainability literacy within their curricula.

Request: We would really value finding out if and how you/colleagues incorporate sustainability into your courses. We are looking to capture the type of curriculum material and teaching approaches you have developed. We are also interested in understanding any barriers to or opportunities for, embedding sustainability into your courses. A short questionnaire has been designed to aid capture.

If you would like a bit more information or examples to help you complete it, do get in touch. We want to promote the sharing of good practice but if you wish to remain anonymous then leave the ‘submitted by’ blank.

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Call for Papers, international science newsletter CAL-laborate

Dear Geoscience Colleagues

CAL-laborate is a non-refereed journal that disseminates, in an international context, experiences and opinions about e-learning and the use of Information Technology in university science teaching. Since 1997, UniServe Science, in collaboration with the Higher Education Academy in the United Kingdom and until recently the Centre for the renewal of Higher Education in Sweden, has published the international journal CAL-laborate with two issues a year, one in the Physical Sciences and Geosciences and one in the Life Sciences.

In response to the needs of science academics, we are putting in place the organisation necessary to make CAL-laborate a referred journal covering all areas of science education. Our plan is to commence publication of the refereed journal in early 2007. We would be happy to hear from any academic who would be interested in being involved either on the editorial committee or as a referee for articles.

In August 2006, we will publish ONE issue of CAL-laborate, a combined issue covering all the sciences. The deadline for submission of articles for this issue is 28 July, 2006. Please note that contributions for this issue will not be refereed.

Articles should be in MS Word, but we are very flexible with regard to length of the article and inclusion of graphs or graphics. Formatting will be done by the publisher.

Past issues of CAL-laborate

Please contact Kaye with any questions or an expression of interest at or send articles to BioSciCH@mail.usyd.edu.au.

Kaye Placing
Educational Technologist, UniServe Science - Science Clearinghouse
Carslaw Building (F07), The University of Sydney, NSW 2006/

http://science.uniserve.edu.au/
Tel: +61 2 9351 2960 Fax: +61 2 9351 2175

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Student Placement based at the University of Plymouth

Update:

The deadline for applications for the GEES Student Placement has been brought forward to Friday 23rd June (was Friday 28th July) to allow for interviews before students depart for the summer (and to give the students plenty of time to make other plans if they are not selected).

A formal interview process will take place in the last week of June (face-to-face or by phone depending on student availability).

I would be grateful if you could forward this message to any students you may have previously contacted about this post and amend the publicity poster I circulated. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Original post:

A student placement is available with the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences, based at the University of Plymouth, for one year starting September 2006 (start and end dates negotiable).

The main function of the job will be to support the UK-wide, GEES Subject Centre’s links with students and the media. This will include compiling and producing a student-focused publication on geography, earth & environmental sciences higher education across the UK, and writing regular updates on GEES Subject Centre activities for relevant media (e.g. professional body magazines and journals).

It is expected that the post holder will be currently undertaking a degree in geography, earth or environmental sciences or other cognate discipline (e.g. life or physical sciences). Applicants must have excellent writing and interpersonal skills. Experience in writing for the media and / or editing magazines would be desirable and an interest in enhancing higher education would be advantageous. The post-holder will be given a thorough introduction to the GEES Subject Centre and will be supported in their UK-wide networking activities.

Deadline for applications: Friday 23rd June (was Friday 28th July) 2006

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e-Tutor of the Year competition 2006.

The deadline for receipt of entries is 9 June 2006.

The e-Tutor of the Year competition has grown in importance with the quality and number of entries increasing year on year. To reflect the growing interest in developing tools to support e-learning there are now two strands to the competition: e-Tutoring and e-Tools.

e-Tutoring Strand

Individually or as part of a team, are you using e-learning or blended learning in a novel way to improve your students' learning experience? Does e-learning play an important part of your curriculum design? Are you being innovative in your use of e-tutoring and ICT to support your teaching?

e-Tool Strand

Are you or your team developing e-learning tools (or exploiting underlying services) in a novel way to improve student learning? Are you exploring a novel application of an existing technology or service in the context of student learning in higher education?

What can I win?

e-Tutoring strand - the first prize is £1000 and is awarded by the Times Higher Education Supplement. There is a runner-up prize of £250 in book tokens awarded by the Higher Education Academy.

e-Tools strand - the first prize is a Tablet PC awarded by Toshiba. There is a runner-up prize of £250 in book tokens awarded by the Higher Education Academy.

The Association for Learning Technology will provide free entry to their conference in the autumn to both winners and runners-up.

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Call for contributions and registration for Innovations in Field Teaching: a meeting in SE Spain, 3rd to 7th September 2006.

This meeting will take place from Sunday 3rd to Thursday 7th September 2006, at the Urra Field Study Centre, Sorbas, Almería, Spain. It will take the form of field-based workshop sessions with opportunities for formal and informal discussion in the evenings.

The focus is very much on how we use the area for teaching and learning, innovative approaches, ideal field sites for particular activities etc. as well as the more mundane issues of site access and permissions. We have had several offers of contributions, which we now need to firm up, but there is still room for a few more. Offers so far have included – field exposures, 3D visual models, Sorbas/Tabernas basin evolution and water-landuse change.

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Environmental Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Workshop:

Learning and Teaching Enterprise and Entrepreneurship in GEES

Tuesday May 9th, Inter-disciplinary Ethics Applied CETL, University of Leeds

This free workshop is being run as part of a GEES-funded small-scale project in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. Places are limited so book early to avoid disappointment!

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Assessment in the Earth Sciences& Environmental Sciences and Environmental Studies - Peter Hughes and Alan Boyle

Download Assessment in the Earth Sciences& Environmental Sciences and Environmental Studies (464 kb pdf)

To obtain a printed copy of this publication please email susie.bissell@plymouth.ac.uk

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The 5th International Geoscience Education Conference ( GeoSciEd)

Bayreuth, Germany - 18th to 21st September 2006.

The philosophy of this meeting is to provide a venue for earth science and teaching professionals to meet and discuss matters of mutual interest. The conference will be of interest to those who teach earth science at any level from primary to university and also to those who develop and deliver outreach programs in the earth sciences. The program will embrace the entire learning community and will examine all aspects of earth science education.

More information on the GeoSciEd V

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Spatial Literacy in Teaching Forum

The spatial literacy in teaching forum is for the discussion of spatial literacy in education.

You can join the forum by clicking the “Join or leave list” link on the The spatial literacy in teaching forum page (here you can also elect to receive a digest of postings rather than individual postings). Alternatively simply email Mike Sanders at masanders@plymouth.ac.uk, with your name, to be added to the list.

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GEES Support Staff Enhancement Fund: Phase II

For 2006, the GEES Subject Centre is offering grants to enhance the professional development of support staff in the GEES disciplines in the UK. We have 20 grants available of £500 each. The aims of the fund are to:

The deadline for the receipt of applications is Tuesday 28th February 2006.

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GEES Student Essay Competition 2006

Well now's your chance!

The Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Geography, Earth & Environmenal Sciences (GEES) is offering you the chance to share your opinions and experiences in a 1000 word essay. This opportunity is open to anyone studying these subjects as part of their HE course.

Although we welcome a well-written account, don't be put off if you feel your English writing skills are not perfect. We are more interested in your ability to capture and express your views and relate them to your current course and student expectations.

The winning essay will be put on the GEES Subject Centre website, will be featured in our publication ‘Planet’ and will give you the opportunity of going to the HE Academy Conference, all expenses paid. There you will have the chance to become the overall winner attracting a top prize of a Toshiba laptop.

So, get writing - and share your thoughts in the field of geography, earth or environmental sciences!
NB: We reserve editorial rights for any essays we choose to publish.

Deadline for submission: 17th February 2006.

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The Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences,
Buckland House, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA
Email: info@gees.ac.uk Tel: ++44 1752 584529 Fax: ++44 1752 584880