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Through a celebration of ways to inspire, empower and boost confidence in doctoral supervision and assessment, collaboration and engagement, mentoring, publishing and seeking funding.

The world of doctoral researcher, supervision and assessment is rapidly changing, presenting new and exciting challenges.  Whether you are a doctoral researcher, supervisor, researcher developer and/or supporter of researchers, we are all striving to add value to our research communities and to the greater society through mentoring, publishing, collaborating and engaging with a wide range of people, seeking funding to undertake new research and through supervising and assessing the new generation of researchers.

The presenters recognise the challenges inherent in the complex, multi-modal research world but, at the same time, they are also passionate about highlighting the considerable benefits, both professional and personal, of engaging with these activities.  This passion has spurred them to compile interactive and practical new books in the Success in Research series, packed with ideas, reflections, activities and tips for good practice to support researchers whatever their HE role. These authors and contributors offer you a fun and interactive day, bringing to life the ideas and activities within these books by presenting key points, activities and excerpts. You will be able to sample them in a supportive, positive environment in the company of fellow researchers to aid you in creating impactful research and research outputs, while finding joy in the process.

The programme, which includes lunch and refreshment breaks, will incorporate short interactive sessions for each book topic. All workshop participants are invited to stay on after the session to join in a celebratory book launch.

Book titles:

Supervising to Inspire Doctoral Researchers         Publishing for Impact

Delivering Inspiring Doctoral Assessment              Navigating Research Funding with                                                                                             confidence

Mentoring to Empower Researchers                       Inspiring Collaboration and Engagement

Participants should arrive between 9.30 and 10.00 for pre-workshop refreshments

The programme will commence at 10.00 am, the workshop activities will be completed by 4.00 when the corks will be popped! If you are unable to attend the workshop, but would like to join us for the launch, please RSVP by emailing srhe@srhe.ac.uk.

Presenters: Pam Denicolo, Dawn Duke, Julie Reeves, Marcela Acuna Rivera, Sue Starbuck, Alison Yeung and a range of expert contributors.

An example of a review of one of the books:
This engaging and inclusive book provides supervisors and examiners with a complete guide to assessment in the doctoral process. It provides invaluable insights into the role of assessment and assessors from the early stages of a PhD to the final assessment and beyond. The book’s highly collegial tone is built upon the authors’ rich understanding of doctoral assessment. Anyone who is supervising or examining a PhD will benefit greatly from its wisdom and candour.

Professor Paul Ashwin, Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University.

Problem statement

Are you bored by your own classroom delivery?

Feel locked in to an old-fashioned sage-on-the-stage pedagogy?

Have your attempts to innovate, such as a flipped classroom, just flopped?
 

Flow of session

This full-day co-creational workshop (11:00-16:00) is designed to practically explore the challenges and opportunities faced by instructors attempting to innovate their pedagogy.  A number of interactive learning approaches are used, to build a circle of trust and encourage active participation, before the group identifies their biggest teaching innovation challenges.  An experiential show and shine structure will then be used to explore a range of contemporary techniques including; naked teaching, discovery learning, open space learning, Lego team building and extraordinary seminars. 

Target audience

The session will be of interest to new and established teachers who are interested in innovating their pedagogy. The session is designed to be highly interactive and exploratory, and it is hoped that participants will feel inspired and liberated to share their experiences throughout the workshop.  

About the facilitator

Justin O’Brien is a Senior Lecturer in Strategy and Marketing at the School of Business and Management at Royal Holloway University of London.  He is Co-Director for Student Experience and leads the pedagogic scholarship research theme ‘Management Education’, having also served as the MBA Director.  Justin teaches digital marketing and entrepreneurship and guest lectures at Stockholm, Toulouse and Kaplan Singapore business schools.  He started out working in international marketing in the aviation industry before a case study on McDonald’s glocalisation ushered a move into teaching. He has a very innovative, experiential and practice oriented pedagogic approach and has published more than a dozen case studies, many of which show case his innovations.

Objectives

•  To share challenges and opportunities faced when attempting to innovate their pedagogy

•  To establish a community of practice amongst a number of likeminded Higher Education innovators

•  To inspire participants to experiment with new teaching approaches

Learning outcomes
By the end of the session, participants should be able to

• Understand common problems faced by instructors keen to try new approaches
• Confidently implement innovative pedagogic approaches more effectively in the classroom

This Webinar is part of Share your Research: A programme of Online Webinars. This series is intended to facilitate the sharing of cutting edge and innovative research, globally. These webinars enable lively debate and constructive feedback from interested peers. These sessions are open and free for all to attend.

Chair: Dr Emily Henderson, University of Warwick

1.The Risks within Doctoral Scholarship and Practices Kwong Nui Sim, Victoria University of Wellington

Information communication technologies (ICT) is a ubiquitous aspect of higher education. At the level of doctoral education, current evidence-based studies are limited, with only a few examining student practices (e.g., Oliver, 2011). An interpretivist research approach (Erickson, 1998) framed this study to explore perceptions about ICT use to support doctoral supervision and study in two New Zealand universities. Data was collected as part of a 3-tier participative drawing process (Wetton & McWhirter, 1998), which included a series of two/three discussions, along with participant-made drawings that formed the focus of the discussions. An iterative and inductive approach (Thomas, 2006) which involved thematic analysis (Silverman, 2011) and the capture of major common ideas (Mayring, 2000) expressed by participants about how ICT is perceived and used in doctoral research processes was adopted. The key finding revealed that both doctoral supervisors and students hold individual assumptions and expectations of ICT use where the use is determined by those assumptions and expectations. Each assumption and expectation are accompanied by a risk element: risk to quality of work (e.g., if the ICT use makes a difference to the end-product, the thesis); efficiency and effectiveness of the doctoral research processes (e.g., the time pressure for thesis submission); and risk for a change or a challenge (e.g., whether learning to adapt ICT use is worthwhile). The nature of each risk is qualitatively different and they informed the doctoral supervisors’ and students’ ICT practices. There are complex human factors, including attitudes and conceptions about doctoral education, influencing and determining perceptions of how ICT is incorporated into doctoral research processes. In summary, this study raises questions for further discussions with respect to the nature of doctoral scholarship and practices, particularly the roles of ICT in supporting and enhancing doctoral research processes.

2.       Divergence between practice and perspectives on conferences as learning sites for doctoral students:  Findings from a multinational project Labake Fakunle, University of Edinburgh, Joyceline Allah-Mensah, University of Nottingham,

This webinar presents findings from a mixed-method exploratory multinational project funded by Universities 21. We will discuss differences between current practice on conference participation for doctoral students at Schools of Education in four research intensive universities in Scotland, England, Australia and the United States. We also present findings related to students’ perspectives on attending conferences at different stages of their candidature (year 1 - 4 and beyond). We will discuss the implications of our findings for universities and conference organisers, in relation to doctoral education in a 21st century internationalised HE.

This seminar will consider ways in which feedback literacy can be understood and developed further within institutions and across the disciplines, and will explore how staff and students can work together to enhance assessment and feedback practices. Feedback can be an invaluable part of the learning process, and feedback given to students on their work has been shown to have the greatest potential influence on their learning (Hattie 2009). However, feedback remains a challenging area of higher education policy and practice, and recurrent dissatisfaction expressed by students with feedback via measures such as the National Student Survey (NSS) in England and Wales means that institutions are under increasing pressure to improve practice within this area. This seminar seeks to explore an increasing move within the sector towards conceptualising and developing students’ feedback literacy via a learning-focused approach. We will discuss understandings of feedback literacy as well as the shift towards improving students’ engagement with feedback, in order to move away from previous transmission-focused models of feedback.

Presenters and Facilitators:

Dr Kieran Balloo is a Lecturer in the Department of Higher Education at the University of Surrey where he is part of the Surrey Assessment and Learning Lab. His research interests broadly concentrate on exploring and unpacking the ‘student experience’ through examining: students’ transitions into and through university; how students regulate their own and others’ learning; and assessment and feedback practices.

Dr Edd Pitt is the Programme Director for the Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education and Senior Lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice at the University of Kent, UK. Edd is also a Visiting Fellow at Deakin University, Australia within the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE). His principle research field is assessment and feedback with a particular focus upon staff and student's emotional processing during feedback. In his most recent research he has been collaborating with academics in the UK and Australia to further understand how staff and students develop feedback literacy.

Dr Teresa McConlogue is a Principal Teaching Fellow at UCL. Her main area of interest is assessment, especially ways of bridging the gap between theory and practice. She is interested in what teachers and students learn from involvement in peer and collaborative assessment.

Dr Alex Standen is a Principal Teaching Fellow at UCL. She oversees the academic development of early career and probationary staff, doctoral supervisors and personal tutors. Her research interests include postgraduate research student development and student-supervisor relationships.

Abstracts

Keynote: Dr Edd Pitt, University of Kent

Towards the Development of Student Feedback Literacy: Tackling the Big Issues of Student Satisfaction, Transmission and Passive Recipience of Feedback

The assessment and feedback literature has recently explored the conceptual elements of feedback literacy, with a particular focus upon how students might develop the ‘understandings, capacities and dispositions needed to make sense of information and use it to enhance work or learning strategies’ (Carless and Boud 2018, 1315). In this keynote I will explore how shifting practice towards student-centred models of feedback demands a better understanding of how educators view their own and their students’ responsibilities. I will suggest that making merely changes to the delivery of feedback is aligned with an outdated, transmission-focused model of feedback, rather than a more contemporary learning-focused approach where emphasis is placed on student engagement with feedback and the resulting impact (Pitt, Winstone & Nash, under review, Winstone & Carless, 2019). The keynote will also explore the NSS Assessment and feedback questions in light of their dominant place in the discourse surrounding assessment and feedback. In particular I will discuss how universities often respond by making changes to the promptness, quality, and utility of feedback, without really knowing whether these initiatives are likely to lead to higher satisfaction, and perhaps more importantly, enhance students’ learning (Winstone & Pitt, 2017).

Case Study 1: Dr Kieran Balloo, University of Surrey

A Framework for Embedding the Development of Feedback Literacy into Subject Content Across Disciplines

Feedback literacy can be viewed as a core graduate attribute that supports students’ future work capacities, so there is a case for embedding the development of student feedback literacy within the core curriculum. Drawing on Carless and Boud’s (2018) feedback literacy framework, we coded a sample of qualifications frameworks for evidence of concepts pertaining to feedback literacy in graduate or threshold outcomes. We found that most frameworks incorporate the development of feedback literacy skills related to ‘making judgements based on feedback’. However, frameworks lack a focus on developing attributes related to ‘appreciating feedback’ and ‘taking action based on feedback’. Furthermore, skills related to ‘managing the affective challenges of feedback’ are most prevalent in frameworks for ‘applied’ disciplines. Based on these findings and consultation with subject-matter experts, we have identified elements of subject content that may have relevance to learning about feedback literacy across disciplines.

Case Study 2: Dr Alex Standen and Dr Teresa McConlogue, University College London

Changing Feedback Practices Across an Institution

Changing educational practices across an institution is problematic (Bloxham 2016, Forsyth et al. 2015). At UCL, we are exploring the use of saturation Continuing Professional Development (CPD) as a way of stimulating change around feedback practices. We focussed on feedback as the timing, quality, consistency and usefulness of feedback is frequently commented on in student satisfaction surveys, student consultative committees and student focus groups. The vehicle for change is a two hour workshop. In this SRHE Network session we will give a brief overview of the workshop and discuss what we have learnt from subsequent evaluation data; participants will then have a chance to explore the resources used in the workshop. We will also be joined by a UCL student who will present the work they have undertaken as part of our ChangeMakers initiative to enhance assessment and feedback practices.

Research impact is linked to the ability to engage others with it. Indeed, peer review, publication and presentation are core academic standards but so is public/stakeholder engagement - formal and informal. Importantly, and as researchers, we need to be able to communicate our research effectively so our work can inform future activities be these continued research, linked activities or contextual application.

This workshop will be delivered in partnership with academics and artists who specialise in illustration. Specifically, it will explore the medium of message and the development of visual communication. This will include the use of illustration, presentations, posters, and the psychology of communication/visual impact. The workshop will be hands-on and participants will engage in creative activities.

To get the most out of this workshop, participants are asked to bring a piece of their research they would like to work on. This could be an abstract, poster, presentation, paper or other output. They are also asked to bring a laptop.

Outcomes:

By the end of the workshop, successful participants will be able to:

1.     Articulate the necessary elements for impactful visual communication;

2.     Construct a visual presentation for a named piece of research;

3.     Critically analyse visual research communication to discern elements of good and poor practice;

4.     Explore the role of creativity in research communication.

Facilitators:

Dr Mark J.P. Kerrigan; Ben Wright; Bridgette Ashton, Plymouth College of Art

There is widespread agreement that universities are undergoing a profound transformation but much less agreement on what these changes mean and how we should characterise them. The Digital University Network has stressed the role of new technologies in transforming practice within the university. The Accelerated Academy has presented the tempo and rhythm of academic life as an analytical lens through which we can productively examine these changes. The Platform University network has explored the cultural political economy and organisational sociology of the digital platforms which are increasingly ubiquitous within higher education. In this symposium we bring together leading figures from the latter two networks in order to explore their intersections with our own work, as well as how they relate to each other.

Speakers and topics:

Assetization and the future of value in the digitalized higher education industry

Janja Komljenovic, Lancaster University
Dr Janja Komljenovic is a Lecturer of Higher Education at Lancaster University. She is interested in the diversity and complexity of markets in and around universities, including the variety of actors that have entered the sector, their strategies, ways of working, and consequences for higher education and societies at large. She is studying the relation between the digital economy and higher education and how they might affect each other. She is published internationally on higher education policy, governance, and markets. She teaches PhD courses on higher education policy and research methodology.

Regimes of Sight and Optical Illusions in the Platform University

Susan Robertson, University of Cambridge

Susan Robertson is a Professor of Sociology of Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, where her research focuses on education in a political context, including how education has developed to help service the economy, the commercialisation of education, and the role of for-profit companies in the education sector. Her research has been funded by a variety of bodies, including the ESRC, the European Commission, and Open Society Foundations, and she was senior expert advisor for the European Commission's DG Education and Culture.

Filip Vostal, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Filip Vostal received PhD in sociology from the University of Bristol in 2013. He works as senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He is editorial board member of Time & Society and author of Accelerating Academia: The Changing Structure of Academic Time (Palgrave, 2016). Currently he runs a project that examines temporality of knowledge production in x-ray free electron laser experiments and explores the epistemic role of speed in new methods of investigation in molecular biophysics: “single particle imagining” and “serial femtosecond crystallography”. He teaches several courses associated with STS at Charles University.

In light of the UCU strike of the 20th February, this seminar will now take place on Wednesday 19th February, 14:00 - 15:30.

Higher education is transforming into an industry consisting of diverse, multiple and variegated markets in which universities are both sellers and buyers of products and services. There is also an emergence of new types and forms of partnerships, or long-term cooperation between public universities and private companies. Such partnerships and collaboration are especially relevant in supporting the digitalisation of university operations spanning from distance courses to learning and business analytics, or even smart campuses.

This talk will focus on the intersection of marketisation and digitalisation of universities. I will argue that we cannot separate the education technology and higher education industries, and thus the digitalisation and marketisation of universities. Universities collect unprecedented amounts of personal digital data, which may be used to develop new digital products and services. These have the potential to be monetised in different ways and by different actors, including universities, companies, state agencies, or their combination. The commonality is a business model different from selling a commodity, in which case, there would be a one-off payment for the transfer of ownership rights. I will argue that these digital products and services are better described as assets than commodities. I will address essential differences between commodities and assets in the contemporary digital economy; and will conceptualise emerging digital products and services in higher education. The distinction has significant consequences of how we analyse the evolution of higher education in terms of scholarly work; as well as how we govern the sector in terms of the policy. Implications for universities, students, and societies at large will be presented.

Dr Janja Komljenovic is the Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation and Director of the Doctoral Programme in Educational Research and Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of  Lancaster. She is interested in the diversity and complexity of markets in and around universities, including the variety of actors that have entered the sector, their strategies, ways of working, and consequences for higher education and societies at large. She is especially focusing on the relation between the digital economy and higher education and how these might affect each other. She has published internationally on higher education policy, governance, and markets. She teaches PhD courses on higher education policy and research methodology.

This event is free to attend. Refreshments will be served before the seminar at 15.30

This seminar will consider ways in which feedback literacy can be understood and developed further within institutions and across the disciplines, and will explore how staff and students can work together to enhance assessment and feedback practices. Feedback can be an invaluable part of the learning process, and feedback given to students on their work has been shown to have the greatest potential influence on their learning (Hattie 2009). However, feedback remains a challenging area of higher education policy and practice, and recurrent dissatisfaction expressed by students with feedback via measures such as the National Student Survey (NSS) in England and Wales means that institutions are under increasing pressure to improve practice within this area. This seminar seeks to explore an increasing move within the sector towards conceptualising and developing students’ feedback literacy via a learning-focused approach. We will discuss understandings of feedback literacy as well as the shift towards improving students’ engagement with feedback, in order to move away from previous transmission-focused models of feedback.

Presenters and Facilitators:

Dr Kieran Balloo is a Lecturer in the Department of Higher Education at the University of Surrey where he is part of the Surrey Assessment and Learning Lab. His research interests broadly concentrate on exploring and unpacking the ‘student experience’ through examining: students’ transitions into and through university; how students regulate their own and others’ learning; and assessment and feedback practices.

Dr Edd Pitt is the Programme Director for the Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education and Senior Lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice at the University of Kent, UK. Edd is also a Visiting Fellow at Deakin University, Australia within the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE). His principle research field is assessment and feedback with a particular focus upon staff and student's emotional processing during feedback. In his most recent research he has been collaborating with academics in the UK and Australia to further understand how staff and students develop feedback literacy.

Dr Teresa McConlogue is a Principal Teaching Fellow at UCL. Her main area of interest is assessment, especially ways of bridging the gap between theory and practice. She is interested in what teachers and students learn from involvement in peer and collaborative assessment.

Dr Alex Standen is a Principal Teaching Fellow at UCL. She oversees the academic development of early career and probationary staff, doctoral supervisors and personal tutors. Her research interests include postgraduate research student development and student-supervisor relationships.

Dr Francesa Perruzo holds a PhD in Sociology of Education and Critical Disability Studies at the UCL Institute of Education and is Associate Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is currently a Senior Post-Graduate Teaching Assistant at the UCL - Institute of Education and her interests lie in sociological approaches to disability policies and practices in higher education. Her doctoral research challenges ableism in higher education, investigating the production of disability discourses, their impact of students' subjectivities, and their implications for inclusive policies and practices and equity in opportunities in academic contexts.

Abstracts

Keynote: Dr Edd Pitt, University of Kent

Towards the Development of Student Feedback Literacy: Tackling the Big Issues of Student Satisfaction, Transmission and Passive Recipience of Feedback

The assessment and feedback literature has recently explored the conceptual elements of feedback literacy, with a particular focus upon how students might develop the ‘understandings, capacities and dispositions needed to make sense of information and use it to enhance work or learning strategies’ (Carless and Boud 2018, 1315). In this keynote I will explore how shifting practice towards student-centred models of feedback demands a better understanding of how educators view their own and their students’ responsibilities. I will suggest that making merely changes to the delivery of feedback is aligned with an outdated, transmission-focused model of feedback, rather than a more contemporary learning-focused approach where emphasis is placed on student engagement with feedback and the resulting impact (Pitt, Winstone & Nash, under review, Winstone & Carless, 2019). The keynote will also explore the NSS Assessment and feedback questions in light of their dominant place in the discourse surrounding assessment and feedback. In particular I will discuss how universities often respond by making changes to the promptness, quality, and utility of feedback, without really knowing whether these initiatives are likely to lead to higher satisfaction, and perhaps more importantly, enhance students’ learning (Winstone & Pitt, 2017).

Case Study 1: Dr Kieran Balloo, University of Surrey

A Framework for Embedding the Development of Feedback Literacy into Subject Content Across Disciplines

Feedback literacy can be viewed as a core graduate attribute that supports students’ future work capacities, so there is a case for embedding the development of student feedback literacy within the core curriculum. Drawing on Carless and Boud’s (2018) feedback literacy framework, we coded a sample of qualifications frameworks for evidence of concepts pertaining to feedback literacy in graduate or threshold outcomes. We found that most frameworks incorporate the development of feedback literacy skills related to ‘making judgements based on feedback’. However, frameworks lack a focus on developing attributes related to ‘appreciating feedback’ and ‘taking action based on feedback’. Furthermore, skills related to ‘managing the affective challenges of feedback’ are most prevalent in frameworks for ‘applied’ disciplines. Based on these findings and consultation with subject-matter experts, we have identified elements of subject content that may have relevance to learning about feedback literacy across disciplines.

Case Study 2: Dr Alex Standen, Dr Teresa McConlogue and Dr Francesa Perruzo, University College London

Changing Feedback Practices Across an Institution

Changing educational practices across an institution is problematic (Bloxham 2016, Forsyth et al. 2015). At UCL, we are exploring the use of saturation Continuing Professional Development (CPD) as a way of stimulating change around feedback practices. We focussed on feedback as the timing, quality, consistency and usefulness of feedback is frequently commented on in student satisfaction surveys, student consultative committees and student focus groups. The vehicle for change is a two hour workshop. In this SRHE Network session we will give a brief overview of the workshop and discuss what we have learnt from subsequent evaluation data; participants will then have a chance to explore the resources used in the workshop. We will also be joined by a UCL student who will present the work they have undertaken as part of our ChangeMakers initiative to enhance assessment and feedback practices.

Facilitators:  
Professor Pam Denicolo, Universities of Reading and Surrey
Dr Dawn Duke, University of Surrey

This workshop aims to clarify the different approaches to research to aid in the selection of methodology, design and techniques appropriate to given research problems. It covers:

•Choice of overarching paradigm or philosophy, and how this might be determined by discipline;

•How this determines research questions or hypotheses;
•The range of possible research designs, building in strength to combat inevitable weaknesses;
•The selection of appropriate and coherent techniques;
•A review of different data types and their implications;
•When and what to consider about analysing your data.

There will be a particular emphasis on interpretative (qualitative) approaches and methods, though other methods producing quantitative data will be reviewed and considered in the light of participants’ interests.

Participants are requested to provide on signing up a short paragraph (about 200 words) describing what they would like to research or have begun looking into. They should expect to contribute within an active workshop designed to help them formulate plans for their own research.

Biographies:

Pam is an Emeritus Professor of Professional and Postgraduate Education at the University of Reading and a Consultant Professor of Researcher Education and Training at the University of Surrey. Having previously published widely in academic journals and produced a range of books and SRHE Guides on teaching, learning and research, Pam now co-edits and writes for a book series with Sage, Success in Research, aimed at supporting early career researchers in their endeavours, and a series with Sense, Critical Issues in the Future of Learning and Teaching aimed at supporting educators across all sectors but especially those in Higher, Further and Professional Education.

Dawn is the Researcher Training and Development Officer. She has a BS in Psychology from Western Michigan University, a MS in Behavioural Neuroscience from Rutgers University and completed her PhD in Neuropathology at Imperial College London. Dawn is responsible for workshop design and delivery within the Postgraduate Skills Development Programme (PGSDP) of the Doctoral College at Surrey University and authors/edits books in the Success in Research Series.

There is widespread agreement that universities are undergoing a profound transformation but much less agreement on what these changes mean and how we should characterise them. The Digital University Network has stressed the role of new technologies in transforming practice within the university. The Accelerated Academy has presented the tempo and rhythm of academic life as an analytical lens through which we can productively examine these changes. The Platform University network has explored the cultural political economy and organisational sociology of the digital platforms which are increasingly ubiquitous within higher education. In this symposium we bring together leading figures from the latter two networks in order to explore their intersections with our own work, as well as how they relate to each other. 

Speakers and topics:

Assetization and the future of value in the digitalized higher education industry
Janja Komljenovic, Lancaster University

Dr Janja Komljenovic is a Lecturer of Higher Education at Lancaster University. She is interested in the diversity and complexity of markets in and around universities, including the variety of actors that have entered the sector, their strategies, ways of working, and consequences for higher education and societies at large. She is studying the relation between the digital economy and higher education and how they might affect each other. She is published internationally on higher education policy, governance, and markets. She teaches PhD courses on higher education policy and research methodology.

Regimes of Sight and Optical Illusions in the Platform University
Susan Robertson, University of Cambridge

Susan Robertson is a Professor of Sociology of Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, where her research focuses on education in a political context, including how education has developed to help service the economy, the commercialisation of education, and the role of for-profit companies in the education sector. Her research has been funded by a variety of bodies, including the ESRC, the European Commission, and Open Society Foundations, and she was senior expert advisor for the European Commission's DG Education and Culture.

Filip Vostal, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Filip Vostal received PhD in sociology from the University of Bristol in 2013. He works as senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He is editorial board member of Time & Society and author of Accelerating Academia: The Changing Structure of Academic Time (Palgrave, 2016). Currently he runs a project that examines temporality of knowledge production in x-ray free electron laser experiments and explores the epistemic role of speed in new methods of investigation in molecular biophysics: “single particle imagining” and “serial femtosecond crystallography”. He teaches several courses associated with STS at Charles University.

Facilitators: Dr Gill Houston & Professor Pam Denicolo

This workshop is intended for experienced, new and aspiring doctoral examiners. It provides an opportunity to share best practice as well as any reservations/ trepidations/caveats and success stories you may have in relation to the challenges that arise when assessing progress or during the final examination (thesis and viva).
The workshop will take the form of a guided tour of the process and procedures of assessment at doctoral level, including the confirmation/ upgrading process, examining the thesis and the candidate during the viva, using a range of case studies and vignettes drawn from our experience and that of others. This will include presenting you with some challenging situations to raise issues and aid discussion.

Presentations by the organisers will be kept to a minimum since the main discussion points will be determined by the participants who are invited to send in advance any facets, dilemmas or anonymised challenges they have faced or heard of, that they would like to have aired. Some of those might include but are not restricted to: different expectations in different institutions; chairing and examiner roles; working with co-examiners with different viewpoints and/or different status; interference or neglect by supervisors; candidates unable to cope with the tension; making the process humane and fair. Where possible we will, with enough notice, turn these into case studies written to disguise origins!

Please send to Pam: p.m.denicolo@reading.ac.uk a note by March 15th at the very latest of any topics you would like discussed, with enough detail to identify the main points of the situation, so that a case study can be compiled if we have time.

Doctoral researchers frequently take on significant roles in teaching and play a considerable part in the educational experience of students.  For undergraduates, doctoral researchers are often among the first academics they encounter, which confirms the important role postgraduates perform in enabling the transition to University life.  Undergraduates may, also, find doctoral researchers more approachable and less intimidating than senior teaching staff; so, in addition to educational support they become vital protagonists in student wellbeing.  Despite the key contribution doctoral researchers make to education, national survey data from the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) shows little change since 2015 with only 60% of respondents reporting they have received ‘appropriate support and guidance’ for their teaching.  Moreover, postgraduates need to find ways of managing their teaching alongside their research, all of which present a new set of challenges that conventional teacher training courses may not address.  This day event will explore some of the innovative ways that institutions are supporting doctoral researchers in their teaching roles and why appropriate support matters.

The event is for doctoral researchers, supervisors, researcher and educational developers, and anyone with an interest in the teacher training of doctoral researchers. As the contributors to this event illustrate, there is excellent practice that is impacting on doctoral researchers; providing them with the level of support they need and deserve in the educator role.  Speakers will explore current trends and challenges and the contemporary context of teacher training provision for doctoral researchers.  They will offer a variety of inspired approaches for participants to reflect on including; the use of blended learning, Lego, action learning sets and self-efficacy.  Considering why new approaches to teacher training matter, leads us to the voices of doctoral researchers themselves and to narratives about their experience.  Speakers include:

Dr Jo Collins, University of Kent.  Jo is a Postgraduate Development Advisor in the Graduate School. With a PhD in English Literature and over 10 years’ university teaching experience, Jo leads on the development of new postgraduate training initiatives for the Graduate School.  She delivers the “Kick-start your PhD” workshops for all new first year doctoral students at Kent. Jo has been working with a colleague and using Lego with international doctoral researchers for teacher training and will share her experience of this approach.

Dr Erika Corradini, University of Southampton.  Erika is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Academic Development in the Centre for Higher Education Practice (CHEP).  Erika’s background is in education and staff development in the areas of languages and linguistics.  She leads the PGCert in Academic Practice for educational staff at Southampton and also leads the Orientation to Teaching and Demonstrating (OTD) modules for postgraduate researchers. OTD combines an online module with face-to-face training.  Erika will present on this blended learning approach to teacher training, what the impact of the programme has been and how disciplinary variation affects delivery.

Sarah Moore, University of Sheffield.  Sarah is an Academic Professional Development Manager for Learning and Teaching in the Academic Practice and Skills Development (APSD) team.  In addition to her work with programme leaders, she teaches on the PG Cert in Teaching for Learning in Higher Education and is the Director of the Foundation Pathway to AFHEA recognition. Sarah is currently studying for a Doctorate in Education at Sheffield, exploring the ways in which those new to teaching enact their developing professional identities in the classroom.  In her research she uses a ‘fictional narrative approach’ to obtain a rich understanding of individual agency and identity.  Sarah’s presentation will provide insights into the experiences of doctoral researchers and her research.

Dr Eli Rudinow Saetnan, University of Liverpool.  Eli is a Senior Academic Developer with a remit to support the development of scholarship informed practice across the institution. She has a personal interest in developing the scholarly evidence base for Academic Development practice as well as supporting academic colleagues to underpin their own teaching practice with scholarship and pedagogic research. As someone who has made the transition from biological sciences to pedagogic research, she is also interested in developing scholarship across disciplinary boundaries and supporting the development of trans-disciplinary authorship. She teaches on the PG Cert for Academic Practice and supports those new to teaching to gain recognition as Associate Fellows of the HEA.  She has used the concept of ‘self-efficacy’ as an approach to teacher training with doctoral researchers, which she will present on.

Dr Claire Stocks, University of Central Lancashire. Claire is a Principal Lecturer and Academic Development Lead in the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT). She joined UCLan in 2017, after working in academic and researcher development at Liverpool, Manchester and Oxford Universities. Claire has a PhD in American Literature, a PGCert in Learning and Teaching in HE and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her research interests are primarily in using work-based learning approaches in academic development and in supporting and assessing reflective practice.  Claire will provide insights into her experience of using action learning sets as an approach to teacher training for doctoral researchers.

Dr Ruth Windscheffel, City, University of London.  Ruth is a  Senior Lecturer in Educational Development at City , and her education and research interests include: inclusive practice and personalised learning; academic and professional identities; emotion, compassion and the affective domain in higher education; student support and personal tutoring. Ruth’s recent research has been exploring the challenges postgraduate/early career researchers face in developing an integrated approach to the ‘research- teaching nexus’. Ruth’s presentation will enable us to put teacher training into context.

Launching SRHE’s new Student Access and Experience Network, this event highlights how we aim to focus on key issues around the whole student lifecycle. Starting with questions around access and the history of university outreach programmes, the event will outline the contentions around theory and practice in targeting interventions to specific groups of students. The seminar then extends this conversation into issues of student participation and success and the role of higher education institutions within that. Finally, the event provides an opportunity to explore inequalities in graduate outcomes.

Abstracts and biographies

Tensions, Contradictions and Perpetual Loose Ends - 'Widening Participation' in HE Policy

Dr Julian Crockford, PhD. University of Sheffield Widening Participation Research and Evaluation Unit Manager

Social mobility and fair access is an area that no Government can afford not to address, at least in terms of providing lipservice (Bowl 2019). In this session, Julian will provide an overview of the tensions and contradictions that emerge for HE providers when attempting to respond to HE policy approaches to widening participation and fair access.

Julian's research interests are multiple and wide-ranging, but focus primarily on how widening participation and student success policies are implemented at an institutional level and how this intersects with forms of institutional and tacit knowledge, issues of effective and meaningful evaluation and how ‘impact’ can be defined and understood in this context, and the role of evaluation in policy discourse.

From Cinderella to Queen Bee: Student Experience Research

Dr Camille Kandiko Howson, PhD. Imperial College London, Associate Professor of Education in the Centre for Higher Education Research & Scholarship (CHERS).

This talk will reflect on the previous 10 years of the SRHE Student Experience Network events, and the extent to which they represent changing views about students in higher education. The changing agency of students through research about/with/for/on students in higher education research is explored, as well as the political framing of students within and beyond higher education. The future of research on “the student experience” and the shift to “students’ experiences” is debated and the political context for linking student access, participation and completion/success analysed.

Camille is an international expert in higher education research with a focus on student engagement; student outcomes and learning gain; quality, performance and accountability; and gender and prestige in academic work. She is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Vice-Chair of the SRHE Research & Development Committee and formerly was convenor of the Student Experience Network.

‘Talent-spotting’ or ‘social magic’? Inequality, cultural sorting and constructions of the ideal graduate in elite professions

Professor Nicola Ingram, Sheffield Hallam University, Professor of Sociology of Education in Sheffield Institute of Education

Dr Kim Allen, University of Leeds, University Academic Fellow in School of Sociology and Social Policy

This talk will concentrate on graduate outcomes – including rates of employment and earnings – as marked by persistent inequalities related to social class, as well as gender, ethnicity and institution, despite national policy agendas related to social mobility and ‘fair access to the professions’. Kim and Nicola will explain what the trends are, how they are reproduced, and provide indications of what needs to change in order to improve equity around graduate outcomes.

Nicola is broadly interested in social inequalities and education from secondary schooling to higher education and into the labour market in different national contexts.  Nicola has published widely reflecting on various aspects of these interests.

Kim’s research interests span a range of areas including youth studies, education, social class, celebrity studies and the sociology of media and popular culture. A feminist researcher, her work is informed by a commitment to social justice.

Through a celebration of ways to inspire, empower and boost confidence in doctoral supervision and assessment, collaboration and engagement, mentoring, publishing and seeking funding.

The world of doctoral researcher, supervision and assessment is rapidly changing, presenting new and exciting challenges.  Whether you are a doctoral researcher, supervisor, researcher developer and/or supporter of researchers, we are all striving to add value to our research communities and to the greater society through mentoring, publishing, collaborating and engaging with a wide range of people, seeking funding to undertake new research and through supervising and assessing the new generation of researchers.

The presenters recognise the challenges inherent in the complex, multi-modal research world but, at the same time, they are also passionate about highlighting the considerable benefits, both professional and personal, of engaging with these activities.  This passion has spurred them to compile interactive and practical new books in the Success in Research series, packed with ideas, reflections, activities and tips for good practice to support researchers whatever their HE role. These authors and contributors offer you a fun and interactive day, bringing to life the ideas and activities within these books by presenting key points, activities and excerpts. You will be able to sample them in a supportive, positive environment in the company of fellow researchers to aid you in creating impactful research and research outputs, while finding joy in the process.

The programme, which includes lunch and refreshment breaks, will incorporate short interactive sessions for each book topic. All workshop participants are invited to stay on after the session to join in a celebratory book launch.

Contributors – There will be a range of expert contributors including:
Pam Denicolo, Dawn Duke Head of the Researcher Development Programme, University of Surrey;  Julie Reeves Researcher Developer, University of Southampton;  Marcela Acuna Rivera, Research Development Manager,  Royal Holloway, University of London; Sue Starbuck, Head of Research Services, Royal Holloway, University of London;  Alison Yeung, Teaching Fellow in Postgraduate Researcher Writing Skills,  University of Surrey

Book titles:

Supervising to Inspire Doctoral Researchers         Publishing for Impact

Delivering Inspiring Doctoral Assessment              Navigating Research Funding with confidence

Mentoring to Empower Researchers                       Inspiring Collaboration and Engagement

Participants should arrive between 9.30 and 10.00 for pre-workshop refreshments

The programme will commence at 10.00 am, the workshop activities will be completed by 4.00 when the corks will be popped! If you are unable to attend the workshop, but would like to join us for the launch, please RSVP by emailing srhe@srhe.ac.uk.

Provisional Programme
9.30   Registration and Refreshments

10.00 Introductions, to each other, the authors and editors and to the Series – its origins and nourishment

10. 20 Supervision to Inspire Staff and their Researchers

11.00 The Value of Collaboration and Engagement

11.40 Refreshment Break & Questions

12.00 Navigating the Quirky World of Funding

12.40 Making an Impact through a Range of Publications

13.20 Lunch & Questions

14.00 The Empowering World of Mentoring

14.40 Refreshment Break & Questions

15.00 Doctoral Assessment should be Empowering

15.40 Questions and Round up

16.00 Celebratory Book Launch

Phenomenography explores variation in the ways individuals experience and understand phenomena in higher education. In this workshop, you will be introduced to the historical development of phenomenography and examine its position within the wider qualitative paradigm. You will become familiar with phenomenographic approaches to generating and analysing data. You will then be invited to work in groups to undertake your own analysis of interview data. Finally, participants will discuss how the results of phenomenographic studies might contribute to more meaningful engagement in higher education.  

Facilitator: Mike Mimirinis is an Associate Professor in Education at the University of West London.

At all career stages, working with a mentor is a tried and tested way of developing and enhancing your career. Mentoring can also bring benefits for your confidence at work, both as a mentee and as a mentor - enabling you to develop the essential skills to support and empower junior colleagues and students. This workshop focuses on the benefits of mentoring, and how to access them, and is for anyone who would like to:

• Consider the value that mentoring conversations can bring for career development and set some development objectives (whatever your career aim)for working with a mentor;
• Learn how to find, approach and work with a mentor productively;
• Discuss, critique and embed the skills of mentoring, gaining new ideas for working one to one with colleagues, that will also benefit you as a tutor and supervisor.

In order to tailor the value of attending for each participant, this will be a workshop format where participants are supported to engage with real mentoring conversations. You conversations in the workshop will remain confidential, and the tone of the workshop will be positive, non-judgemental, and future focused. 

Dr Kay Guccione, is a Senior Lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University and specialises in mentoring for academic development. Her research and blog investigate the doctoral student experience and supervisory practice, and she has published on trust and supervision, the ‘value’ of the doctorate, and on supporting research writing through mentoring.

Higher education is transforming into an industry consisting of diverse, multiple and variegated markets in which universities are both sellers and buyers of products and services. There is also an emergence of new types and forms of partnerships, or long-term cooperation between public universities and private companies. Such partnerships and collaboration are especially relevant in supporting the digitalisation of university operations spanning from distance courses to learning and business analytics, or even smart campuses.

This talk will focus on the intersection of marketisation and digitalisation of universities. I will argue that we cannot separate the education technology and higher education industries, and thus the digitalisation and marketisation of universities. Universities collect unprecedented amounts of personal digital data, which may be used to develop new digital products and services. These have the potential to be monetised in different ways and by different actors, including universities, companies, state agencies, or their combination. The commonality is a business model different from selling a commodity, in which case, there would be a one-off payment for the transfer of ownership rights. I will argue that these digital products and services are better described as assets than commodities. I will address essential differences between commodities and assets in the contemporary digital economy; and will conceptualise emerging digital products and services in higher education. The distinction has significant consequences of how we analyse the evolution of higher education in terms of scholarly work; as well as how we govern the sector in terms of the policy. Implications for universities, students, and societies at large will be presented.

Dr Janja Komljenovic is the Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation and Director of the Doctoral Programme in Educational Research and Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of  Lancaster. She is interested in the diversity and complexity of markets in and around universities, including the variety of actors that have entered the sector, their strategies, ways of working, and consequences for higher education and societies at large. She is especially focusing on the relation between the digital economy and higher education and how these might affect each other. She has published internationally on higher education policy, governance, and markets. She teaches PhD courses on higher education policy and research methodology.

This event is free to attend. Refreshments will be served before the seminar at 15.30

Facilitators:

Professor Pam Denicolo, Universities of Reading and Surrey

Dr Dawn Duke, University of Surrey

The purpose of this workshop is to examine the doctoral viva process and experience in order to help doctoral researchers with their preparation for it.

‘Success’ in a doctoral viva is the product not only of writing a good thesis, but also of being well prepared for the viva.  The doctoral viva can, however, be shrouded in mystery. The workshop will aim to demystify the viva by exploring the range of purposes served by the viva, how the viva works procedurally and the criteria generally imposed by institutions and those used by examiners. Some insights into the examiners’ perspectives will be provided to further shed light on the process.

Advice will be provided about intellectual preparation, practical preparation and emotional preparation, including how to respond productively to the range of possible outcomes. Participants will be expected to engage in activities that will help them prepare for this special occasion so should come prepared to discuss their research with a lay but intelligent audience.

Biographies:

Pam is an Emeritus Professor of Professional and Postgraduate Education at the University of Reading and a Consultant Professor of Researcher Education and Training at the University of Surrey. Having previously published widely in academic journals and produced a range of books and SRHE Guides on teaching, learning and research, Pam now co-edits and writes for a book series with Sage, Success in Research, aimed at supporting early career researchers in their endeavours, and a series with Sense, Critical Issues in the Future of Learning and Teaching aimed at supporting educators across all sectors but especially those in Higher, Further and Professional Education.

Dawn is the Researcher Training and Development Officer. She has a BS in Psychology from Western Michigan University, a MS in Behavioural Neuroscience from Rutgers University and completed her PhD in Neuropathology at Imperial College London. Dawn is responsible for workshop design and delivery within the Postgraduate Skills Development Programme (PGSDP) of the Doctoral College at Surrey University and authors/edits books in the Success in Research Series.

This SRHE Postgraduate Issues Network event continues to examine the roots of structural racism that limit social mobility and equality for Black and ethicised students and academics in its inherently white Higher Education institutions. It brings together established academics in the fields of Race and Education to explore what institutional racism in British Higher Education looks like in colour-blind ‘post-race’ times, when racism is deemed to be ‘off the political agenda’. Keeping pace with our rapidly changing global universities, this event will pose difficult and challenging questions. As the presenters powerfully argue, it is only by dismantling the invisible architecture of post-colonial white privilege that the 21st century struggle for a truly decolonised academy can begin.

Paper: Can racism in Higher Education be dismantled whilst whiteness remains invisible?

Dorrie Chetty – Education Consultant, UK

Universities state the importance of diversity in their prospectus and their equality policy.  They are keen to highlight the diversity of their student body in their promotional material and on open days, for example by including students who are visibly identifiable as belonging to an ethnic minority group, through the colour of their skin or their dress.  I contend that the high visibility of multiculturalism in promotional material can serve to obfuscate further the continued operations of white power.

This paper explores the extent to which racism can be dismantled while white privilege remains embedded within dominant structures of Higher Education (HE). Through the voices of eight individuals at one institution, it discusses the ways in which some committed individuals have engaged with the project of decolonization in HE.  The findings indicate that, in contrast to individual efforts and ‘pockets’ of work carried out by individual lecturers or researchers, there appears to be a lack of critical engagement and strategic thinking with regards to dismantling racism in a significantly transformative way. Challenging the myriad of ways in which whiteness operates and remains invisible in HE can lead to awkward and sometimes defensive reactions.  I contend that, unless we are brave enough to have the discomfort of difficult conversations and debates, we may be complicit in upholding dominant structures that uphold white privilege and power.

Dorrie Chetty is an experienced academic who worked as a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Westminster.  She is now an independent academic, researching in issues of diversity, race and education. She is currently working on projects that relate to decolonizing the curriculum in higher education.  As Dorrie is concerned with migrant identities and social inclusion, she also works closely with migrant organisations and has contributed to public debates on this topic, including on BBC Radio.  She is the author of ‘Using Diversity to Advance Multicultural Dialogues in Higher Education’, in: Race R. (ed) Advancing Multicultural Dialogues in Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018): https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-60558-6_3

PAPER: Access and Inclusion for Gypsy and Traveller Students in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy

Dr. Kate D’Arcy, University of Bedfordshire, UK

This research seeks to draw attention to the longer-term educational consequences of poor inclusion and access in primary and secondary schooling for Gypsy and Traveller pupils. In this presentation, research data suggests ways in which barriers in primary and secondary school affect access and inclusion in Higher Education as these issues are not often explored within the literature. Indeed, this area continues to be under researched as a result of the assumption that Travellers do not access post-compulsory education, or do not admit to their ethnicity if they do. This work has been informed by empirical research and explores the perceptions, perceived barriers and opportunities for Gypsy and Traveller students. Findings suggest that access and inclusion in Higher Education is desired but complex, and there is limited information reaching Traveller students about the processes to access and enrol. In addition, there is an urgent need to explain these complexities to teaching staff and policy makers to make amendments and ensure that widening participation agendas include those from all marginalised communities. This presentation therefore has important messages for all marginalized students in Higher Education.

Dr. Kate D'Arcy worked as Acting Principal Lecturer in Applied Social Sciences at the University of Bedfordshire. She now works for a Charity One25 which support vulnerable women in Bristol. She completed her Doctorate in Education in 2012 at the University of Sheffield and her thesis focused upon: Elective Home Education and Traveller families. She interviewed Traveller families about their experiences of school and home education and reported on worrying issues of educational inequality. Kate has extensive experience of undertaking research with marginalised groups. She evaluated the national ELAMP pilot for the University of Sheffield. She manager two practitioner-led research projects for CWDC to improve inclusion and education for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children.

PAPER: The Underrepresentation of Black female professors: Does Higher Education really care?

Professor Uvanney Maylor, University of Bedfordshire, UK.

Black female academics are underrepresented in UK higher education and especially in senior leadership roles (HESA 2018; Arday and Mirza 2018). Recently I was interviewed by the media as part of celebrating Black history month and their desire to explore the reasons why there are very few Black women professors in UK higher education. Two areas were suggested to me as pertinent reasons: an absence of Black female role models in higher education and a lack of aspirations by Black women to undertake senior roles. Then I was asked what I had done to achieve a senior position? Thus the onus in all three aspects was laid at the door of the Black female academic. The interview caused me to re-think the role and responsibility of higher education in promoting race equality in senior educational leadership and offering a more ethnically diverse professoriate.

The paper explores whether such a state is desirable and achievable in twenty-first century Britain particularly at a time when greater emphasis is given by universities to student (rather than staff) experience and NSS scores/league tables which promote student experience, and conducting race equality impact assessments are no longer compulsorily required. Many institutions do not have a race equality charter to govern their activities. The emphasis on student experience and the BAME attainment gap (Higher Education Policy Institute, 2019) means that AdvanceHE is working with HE institutions who seek their support to develop strategies for embedding equality, diversity and inclusion in the curriculum. In the midst of this however, while all eyes are on students, Black academics are being ignored. In light of this, the paper explores the implications for higher education in facilitating diverse but equitable senior leadership/professoriate from a social justice perspective.

Uvanney Maylor is Professor of Education and was Director of the Institute for Research in Education at the University of Bedfordshire (2013-2017). She is former director of Multiverse and was a member of the Higher Education funding Council for England Research Excellence Framework (2014) Education sub-panel. Her research interests are in the areas of race, ethnicity, diversity, culture and equity in education.

PAPER: Promoting race equality and supporting ethnic diversity in the Academy: The UK experience over 2 decades.

Professor Andrew Pilkington, University of Northampton, UK

This paper employs a macro perspective to examine the role of the state in the UK in promoting race equality in higher education. While the dominant policy discourse has periodically drawn attention to the need to combat racial disadvantage, the only serious race equality strategy which made a difference, was short lived and in the last decade race equality has virtually fallen off the policy agenda. And yet over the same period, research evidence accumulates to demonstrate that BME staff and students continue to experience considerable disadvantage. Reflecting on the emergence and demise of the strategy which sought to support racial inclusion and ethnic diversity in the academy, it is suggested that universities are remarkably complacent. Such complacency partly stems from the dominance in the academy and indeed of much of society of a liberal as opposed to radical perspective on equality. Universities typically see themselves as liberal and believe existing policies ensure fairness; they thus ignore adverse outcomes and do not see combating racial inequalities as a priority. Such inertia will remain intact unless significant pressure is placed on universities to change. The paper concludes by outlining two ideal typical approaches to the promotion of race equality (mandatory vis a vis optional) and suggests that the period has witnessed the transition from an approach close to the first ideal type to an approach close to the second approach. In this context, universities are urged to have no truck with a deficit model and to see it as their responsibility to take action to ensure more equitable outcomes.

Andrew Pilkington is Professor of Sociology at The University of Northampton and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His research has especially focused on issues relating to race and ethnicity, and he has published widely in this area, including 'Racial Disadvantage and Ethnic Diversity in Britain' (Palgrave, 2003) and, with Shirin Housee and Kevin Hylton, an edited collection, ‘Race(ing) Forward: Transitions in Theorising Race in Education’ (HEA, 2009). A particularly influential book is ‘Institutional Racism in the Academy: A Case Study’ (Trentham, 2011) in which he compares the response of universities and the police to legislative measures and policy initiatives designed to promote equality.

Aims
To provide dedicated writing time and develop productive writing practices and discussions around writing-in-progress.

Audience
PhD students and active researchers.

Format
This structured retreat uses the ‘typing pool’ model. Writers are all in the same room, writing in scheduled time slots, using goal-setting, peer monitoring and warm up activities to progress writing projects. Because everyone is writing in the same room, there can be brief discussions at the start and end of the day (of 10 or 15 minutes), to set goals and take stock, but almost all of this retreat time will be writing time.

Preparing for retreat
Choose a writing project to work on – e.g. journal article, thesis chapter or grant proposal. Do the necessary reading and research on journal/publisher/funder and on the topic before the retreat and arrive ready to write. The Writing for Publication workshop on the day before this retreat will introduce strategies that will help participants make best use of this retreat, but it is not a pre-requisite

The Facilitator

Dr Marcella Sutcliffe is Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Education (UCL). Having worked as supervisor within the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge, she subsequently trained as Academic Writing Retreat Facilitator, largely adopting Rowena Murray’s writing retreat model. Since 2017 she has been organising and facilitating residential writing retreats, delivered to academics and postgraduate students from a number of UK HE institutions, mostly based in the North of England and Ireland. Trained as a cultural historian, she has published a monograph (Royal Historical Society), has written numerous journal articles and book chapters on the history of education, and has been guest editor of the History of Education journal.

This workshop will provide a comprehensive overview of the use of questionnaires within the research process, from generating initial ideas through to the analysis of data collected. Interactive exercises will be used at each stage to give practical experience as well as theoretical background.

Topics covered will include:

·         different methods of data collection with questionnaires

·         ethical issues in questionnaire design

·         developing questions and items

·         considering open and closed responses

·         designing categorical responses

·         critical thinking within questionnaire design

·         thinking ahead to questionnaire data: reliability, validity, and qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis

Workshop Facilitator:

Dr Samuel Fairlamb is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. He primarily teaches Research Methods and Social Psychology to undergraduate and postgraduate students. His research is formed of two main interests: (1) the need for self-esteem and meaning to buffer from existential-based concerns, and how this can be applied to a variety of human phenomena, including why humans struggle to peacefully co-exist; (2) how the need for self-esteem can lead to counter-productive outcomes to effective learning in an educational-based environment. Sam is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

This seminar proposes belonging as a theoretical lens to better understand the experiences of doctoral students, particularly those from marginalised groups. Though the concept of belonging has been utilised in relation to undergraduate students (see Hughes, 2010; Thomas, 2018), despite connections between feelings of isolation and retention (Ali and Kohun, 2007; Lovitts, 2001), there has been little consideration of how doctoral students do, or do not experience belonging in higher education. The concept of belonging is used to explore the unique position of doctoral students within the academy, who often act as proto-academics, engaging in core academic activities but without the recognition or remuneration afforded to academics.

Inequalities relating to race and gender can compound doctoral students’ experiences of marginalisation within the academy, challenging individuals’ ability to develop a sense of belonging. Yet the consequences of not belonging as a doctoral student are considerable, affecting wellbeing during the doctorate as well as having longer-term career implications. Negative experiences during the doctorate shape career aspirations, in some cases discouraging individuals from pursuing an academic career; this is particularly the case for doctoral students from ethnic minorities (Arday, 2017; Fazackerley, 2019) and women doctoral students (Guest, Sharma and Song, 2011; Wellcome Trust, 2013). This has clear implications for who can progress in the academy (see Rollock, 2019; Vaughn et al., 2019).

This seminar examines the position of doctoral students within academic hierarchies and draws attention to how structural factors such as racial and gender discrimination act as barriers to belonging for particular groups of doctoral students. It draws on discourses of academic identity and neoliberalism to highlight the challenges that doctoral students face in trying to establish feelings of belonging within academic cultures, and considers the implications of this for individuals, institutions, and the higher education sector.

Professor Gina Wisker is Professor of Higher Education and Contemporary Literature at the University of Brighton, and Director of Brighton's Centre for Learning and Teaching. Gina has been teaching literature courses at ICE since 1980 and has taught in Adult and Higher Education on literature and education courses for over 30 years. She teaches literature and supervises PhD students at the University of Brighton. She has worked in educational development for over 25 years, and in 2005 was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for her work in learning support. She is the author of The Postgraduate Research Handbook and The Good Supervisor and Getting Published.

Dr Jason Arday is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at Durham University in the Department of Sociology. Jason is a Visiting Research Fellow at The Ohio State University in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, a Research Associate at Nelson Mandela University in the Centre for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation and a Trustee of the Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading Race Equality Thinktank. Jason sits on the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) National Advisory Panel and is a School Governor at Shaftesbury Park Primary School in London. Jason is the author of the following titles: Considering Racialized Contexts in Education: Using Reflective Practice and Peer-Mentoring to support Black and Ethnic Minority educators (Routledge); Being Young, Black and Male: Challenging the dominant discourse (Palgrave); and Exploring Cool Britannia and Multi-Ethnic Britain: Uncorking the Champagne Supernova (Routledge). He is the Co-Editor of the highly acclaimed Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy (Palgrave) with Professor Heidi Mirza (Goldsmiths, University of London).

Dr Rachel Handforth is a higher education researcher with interests in gender, doctoral education and doctoral graduates’ career destinations. She currently works with Vitae and the Careers Research and Advisory Centre as their Research and Evaluation Project Manager, engaging in commissioned research and evaluation projects within the higher education sector. Prior to this she worked as a Research Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University. Her doctorate explores the career aspirations of women doctoral students across disciplines. Rachel’s book, Belonging, Gender and Identity in Early Career Academia: Across Theory and Space will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2021.

Research impact is linked to the ability to engage others with it. Indeed, peer review, publication and presentation are core academic standards but so is public/stakeholder engagement - formal and informal. Importantly, and as researchers, we need to be able to communicate our research effectively so our work can inform future activities be these continued research, linked activities or contextual application.

This workshop will be delivered in partnership with academics and artists who specialise in illustration. Specifically, it will explore the medium of message and the development of visual communication. This will include the use of illustration, presentations, posters, and the psychology of communication/visual impact. The workshop will be hands-on and participants will engage in creative activities.

To get the most out of this workshop, participants are asked to bring a piece of their research they would like to work on. This could be an abstract, poster, presentation, paper or other output. They are also asked to bring a laptop.

Outcomes:

By the end of the workshop, successful participants will be able to:

1.     Articulate the necessary elements for impactful visual communication;

2.     Construct a visual presentation for a named piece of research;

3.     Critically analyse visual research communication to discern elements of good and poor practice;

4.     Explore the role of creativity in research communication.

Facilitators:

Dr Mark J.P. Kerrigan; Ben Wright; Bridgette Ashton, Plymouth College of Art

This workshop is provided as a forum for experienced, new and aspiring doctoral supervisors to share best practice as well as any reservations/trepidations/triumphs/joys they have in relation to the dilemmas and challenges that arise when supervising doctoral candidates.

The workshop will take the form of a guided tour of the process and procedures of the doctoral process, from recruitment through support and training to the viva and finally completion, using one or two case studies and vignettes drawn from our experience and that of our colleagues across the sector to raise issues and aid discussion. We will deliberately try to keep participation numbers small enough so that you can join in the debates, so sign up quickly if interested in joining us.

Presentations by the organisers will be kept to a minimum since the main discussion points will be determined by the participants who are invited to share their experiences on the day and to send in advance any dilemmas or challenges they have faced or heard of, that they would like to have aired and debated. Some of those might include but are not restricted to: different expectations between supervisors and doc researchers; building rapport while supervising remotely; working with co-supervisors with different viewpoints; supervising colleagues; ethical challenges; candidates unable to cope with the work; ensuring on-time completions; making the process humane and survivable, nay enjoyable for all parties.

Please send to Pam Denicolo: p.m.denicolo@reading.ac.uk a note by 6th July at latest of any topics you would like discussed, with enough detail to identify the main points of the situation, so that we can introduce the topic appropriately but anonymously.

This webinar, hosted by the International Research and Researchers Network at SRHE, tackles the topic of the marketing of higher education in an international - and internationalized - higher education sector. Mainstream norms surrounding the marketing of higher education are challenged from different perspectives in this event. Following on from the IRR network's ongoing agenda to question and critique dominant discourses in the international/ised higher education sector, this event is positioned in the burgeoning field of critical marketing studies.

The event comprises three presentations from researchers who have researched the marketing on international/ised higher education from different angles, followed by a response from a discussant, with opportunities to ask questions during the event.

The first presentation is from Lee Rensimer, who will present research he conducted while at University of Wisconsin-Madison on the marketing of Britishness and the UK higher education brand in the international branch campuses of the UAE.

The second presenter is Kamna Patel (University College London), who will present on her SRHE-funded study on the marketing of Development Studies programmes.

The last presentation is from Emmanuel Mogaji (University of Greenwich) who will discuss the marketing of higher education in Africa, and the associated emerging challenges and opportunities.

Finally the discussant for the event, Chris Chapleo (Bournemouth), and expert in higher education marketing, will provide a response to the papers. 

10:00-10:05 Welcome and introduction to IRR

10:05-10:35 Lee Rensimer (presentation and Q&A)

10:35-11:05 Kamna Patel (presentation and Q&A)

11:05-11:10 Comfort break

11:10-11:40 Emmanuel Mogaji (presentation and Q&A)

11:40-11:55 Chris Chapleo (discussant)

11:55-12:00 Final points and close

This online conference by the Society for Research into Higher Education's Digital University Network inquires into the 'new normal' we face in higher education, as well as the role which digital technology has and will play in bringing it about. It is clear that digital technology will be essential to teaching, research and administration under these conditions but it is far less obvious what this will look like in practice. Furthermore, the online pivot is being undertaken at such speed and under such difficult conditions that strategic considerations risk being subordinated to the imperative of keeping the university operating at a distance.

This online conference brings together political, sociological and technological questions which speak to our uncertain moment and the many questions which face us as we move forward. It includes panels on university futures, the online pivot, pandemic pedagogy and comparative perspectives.

Keynote: Dr. Ben Williamson, Chancellor's Fellow at the Centre for Research in Digital Education and the Edinburgh Futures Institute at University of Edinburgh (title TBC)

This webinar, hosted by the International Research and Researchers (IRR) Network at SRHE, discusses theme of Internationalisation of the HE Curriculum.
The topic is strongly linked to the IRR network's ongoing agenda to question and critique practices and ideas in international higher education. It should be of value to faculty and other professional staff colleagues who (1) design curricula, (2) teach international students, (3) support international students. We would also like to encourage critically engaged international students to attend as well as all who are concerned about the diversity of curriculum and ideas in higher education.
The event comprises three presentations from teams of researchers and professionals who both research and also enact and engage with the issues of internationalization of the curriculum.

The presentations will present different perspectives using different datasets including reflections on practice, systematic reviews of the literature, and bibliometric analyses. The presentations are linked together by a group discussion at the conclusion. There will be opportunities to ask questions throughout the webinar.

The presentations are:
Dely Eliot and Gayle Pringle Barns from the University of Glasgow speak about the findings in Dely's new book* 'The Hidden Curriculum' and the support practices for international postgraduate students at the University of Glasgow.
Zhuo Min Huang and Miguel Antonio Lim from the University of Manchester speak about the use of Chinese reference sources in student essays and the implications for the design of reading lists and curricula.
Sylvie Lomer and Jenna Mittelmeier from the University of Manchester share findings from their SRHE funded project: 'Cash Cows or Pedagogic Partners? Mapping pedagogic practices for and with international students'.

Schedule
10:00-10:05 Welcome and introduction to IRR
10:05-10:35 Dely Eliot and Gayle Pringle Barns (presentation and Q&A)
10:35-11:05 Zhuo Min Huang and Miguel Antonio Lim (presentation and Q&A)
11:05-11:10 Comfort break
11:10-11:40 Sylvie Lomer and Jenna Mittelmeier (presentation and Q&A)
11:40-11:55 Group discussion (with participation of international students)
11:55-12:00 Final points and close

*with colleagues S. Bengtsen, K. Guccione & S. Kobayashi

The university workforce is changing.  Teichler et.al  (2013) identify clear trends internationally, further evidenced by Bosanquet et al (2017) concerning increasingly casualised employment in Australian universities and the relatively small proportion of doctoral students who gain a permanent academic role. Locke et al (2016) and Whitchurch (2012) identify people embarking on a second (or parallel) career as an HE educator after (or combined with) a first career e.g. industry, performing arts or social work. These dual/blended professionals are experts in their field, yet novices in their new environment.
Dual/blended professionals' experience is immensely valuable.  It exposes students to workplace expertise, promoting the integration of workplace-like approaches into the curriculum.  It responds to value-for-money discourse about degrees e.g. Belfield et al (2018), scrutiny of graduates' job-readiness e.g. Moore and Morton (2017); Tomlinson (2017), and helps bridge ' the disparity between industry needs and higher education provision' (Jackson 2013: 778).

Early career educators' different educational, cultural and life experiences influence their approach to learning about the nature of academic life and work (Fanghanel 2011; Teichler et al. 2013; Wohrer 2014).  Those coming from workplaces with different beliefs and practices may experience bemusement, disconnection or disorientation in a university setting, or anxiety about their legitimacy.    Institutions need to be creative in supporting these individuals as they simultaneously attempt to make sense of their HE educator's role, maintain legitimacy in their professional one and address the creative challenges of reframing their identity.

Are institutions and individuals prepared to be that creative?  What helps or hinders individuals grappling with the complexities of identity?   What are the lived experiences of these staff and the implications for those who support them? 
The discussion draws on research undertaken in 18 UK universities across a range of disciplines.  We begin with a brief overview of the policy context leading to the emergence of dual professionals, followed by papers exploring different aspects of these challenges for dual professionals.  These papers collectively offer new insights into how institutions can celebrate the expertise of these staff and ensure professional development enables creative links, integrating practice and HE.

PROGRAMME
10.30 -11.00  Arrival, coffee and tea

11.00-11.15:  Welcome and context of the day. 

11.15-11.45:  'The policy context: the increasing importance of the blended professional in Higher Education.'
Dr Emily McIntosh, Middlesex University, London

11.45 - 12.15: 'Transitions in Higher Education: professionalism and professional identity'.
Dr Julia Hope, University of Kent

12.15 - 12.45  Reflection, comments, small-group discussion
Implications for institutions

12.45 - 1.30: Lunch

1.30-2.00:   Performing Arts to Academia: from creativity to conformity?
Dr Pauline Miller Judd, Edinburgh Napier University

2.00 - 2.45:  Communities of practice, trajectories and identities.
Fran Beaton, University of Kent

2.45 - 3.15:  Reflection, comments and small-group discussion
Next steps: implications for academic practice and development

3.15- 3.45:  Closing panel discussion

3.45   Close

Fran Beaton is senior lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice at the University of Kent, with research interests around academic identity and staff transitions into higher education.
Julia Hope is a lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice at the University of Kent, with research interests around the transition of staff and students into higher education.
Pauline Miller Judd is an Associate Professor working in the areas of leadership and creative industries at Edinburgh Napier University, with research interests in identity in academia and creative arts.
Emily McIntosh is Director of Learning, Teaching and Student Experience at Middlesex University, London, with research interests in academic identity, third space professionals, academic/personal tutoring and student success in higher education.

Purpose

To help academics and researchers from all disciplines understand the challenges specific to pedagogic research and design ethical pedagogic research studies.

Target audience

Academics, lecturers and researchers in all disciplines who are already working in, or who wish to start working in, the field of pedagogic research.

Overview

Pedagogic research, sometimes called the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, explores the nature, purpose, experience, and impact of various approaches to teaching, learning and assessment. It is a valuable way of exploring and understanding your own teaching practice and your students' learning, and also feeds into to the wider fields of educational research and policy.

This workshop will explore the particular challenges of doing research with (or about, or on) people, and in particular the tensions inherent in doing research with (or about, or on) your own students. It will highlight common ethical issues and challenges that surface in ethics applications, and look at how to resolve or mitigate these in order to successfully obtain ethics clearance for the research. More importantly, it will consider how to protect your research participants, your institution, and yourself as a researcher, and how these principles contribute to sound and successful pedagogic research.

Content

Participants will learn about    

• the ethics of doing research about people, their experiences, and their feelings
• ethical issues specific to doing research with students, from inadvertent coercion to personal data leakage
• strategies for mitigating or addressing these risks and writing successful ethics applications

Activities

• Discussion: What is a research participant (and what do we owe them)? [10 mins]
• Small group work: World's most rigorous Research Ethics Board [35 mins]

Intended learning outcomes

Participants will take away

1.      A broad understanding of ethical issues and responsibilities regarding research into people

2.      Awareness of the specific challenges and tensions presented by the power differential between lecturer and student

3.      Familiarity with some of the main ethical issues and risks of pedagogic research, as perceived by Research Ethics Boards

4.      Insights into personal data storage and safety

Facilitator

Emma Coonan is an author and independent researcher with a background in academic, information and digital literacies. Until May 2020 she was a research fellow at Anglia Ruskin University's Centre for Innovation in Higher Education, conducting individual and collaborative research into design thinking in teaching and learning, pedagogies of inclusion, and research methods and ethics. She is a member of Cambridge University's Higher Education Research Ethics Committee.

Hosted by the Society for Research in Higher Education South West Network, the International Centre for Higher Education Management (University of Bath), and the Chair for Critical Higher Education Transformation (Nelson Mandela University, South Africa).

Global protests in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police have refocused attention on racism around the world. The Black Lives Matter movement, highlighting how the lives of black people are jeopardised by racism and calling for the sustained transformation of our communities, has gained international momentum and intersectional solidarity. Racial and other inequalities are also replicated within universities. This seminar focuses on the ways in which higher education contributes to racial and other injustices and the possibilities for universities to contribute to social justice through decolonising and transforming the university. The seminar will be chaired by Professor Rajani Naidoo who will open the seminar after the two presentations to questions and further discussion.

Presenter Abstracts
Decolonising the Neoliberal University: Is it Possible?
Foluke Ifejola Adebisi
Decolonising the university?entails?identifying, unveiling and interrupting persistent remnants of empire, racism and coloniality within academic practices?and structures. Decolonisation repositions colonialism (which erases the historical and geographic constituents embedded in epistemology) as?foundational to?the current state and study of the world. By acknowledging these epistemic?absences, decolonisation offers alternative ways to think about the effects of power differentials in knowledge production, transmission and exchange and the potential to disrupt racialized, epistemic hegemonies.??This presentation argues that within a neoliberal university, attempts at decolonisation run the?risk of being co-opted for performative tick-boxing and numbers-based?diversity schemes that maintain and entrench the status quo. A neoliberal university is signified by: regular inspections and auditing according to un-decolonised criteria; fees and migratory structures that keep out citizens of the Global South except for the extremely advantaged; empty promises of social mobility to internal disadvantaged populations; competitive research frameworks that privilege research ratings over the actual?global?value of the research; treating students as consumers and degrees as individual investments. Considering the impossibility of the master's tools dismantling the master's house, the presentation questions whether it is appropriate to look for alternatives to hegemonic knowledge practices outside or within the neoliberal university for truly disruptive decolonisation.?

Racism's Knowledge, Critical Hope and the Transformation of the University
Andre Keet
Reflecting on the work of the recently established Research Chair on Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation to support the change agenda of Nelson Mandela University, this presentation focuses on critical hope and the possibilities for transformation resident in the conversation between Africanisation and decolonisation. These deliberations link up with the Chair's mandate to frame its work within the concept of an African-purposed curriculum in view of the current debates about the decolonisation of the university in South Africa. This is a daunting project because the very terms of Africanisation and decolonisation appear to be prefigured in knowledge that belongs to racism which steers not only our socio-economic reality; but also our epistemic imaginations. Against the backdrop of the current focus on racism across the world and the racialised impact of COVID-19, this talk also reflects on the production of racism in the academy through the prism of racism's knowledge.

Presenter Biographies
Dr Foluke Ifejola Adebisi is a Senior Lecturer at the Law School, University of Bristol whose scholarship focuses on decolonial thought in legal education. She is also co-designer of a Law and Race unit, one of the very few of its kind in the UK. She convened the first 'Decolonisation and the Law' conference at the University of Bristol. Her decolonial scholarship, which is pedagogical as well as jurisprudential, examines what happens at the intersection of legal education, law, society and a history of changing ideas of what it means to be human. Foluke is particularly interested in academic concerns that arise from ensuring equality, inclusion and diversity within teaching practice in law and how these intersect with environmental degradation, global inequality and the potential for imagining an egalitarian future for humanity. In recognition of her work, in October 2018, Foluke was included in the Bristol BAME Powerlist 2018 - A list of Bristol''s 100 most inspiring people from BAME backgrounds. An emerging though leader, she is also the founder of Forever Africa Conference and Events (FACE), a Pan-African interdisciplinary conference hosted in Bristol. She blogs about her scholarship, pedagogy and interrelated ideas on her website 'Foluke's African Skies' at?https://FolukeAfrica.com

Professor Andr? Keet is Research Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation at Nelson Mandela University; and is the Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Engagement and Transformation Portfolio of the University. He is a former Visiting Professor at the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality, Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University, UK and the 2018 Marsha Lilien Gladstein Visiting Professor of Human Rights at the University of Connecticut. Andre is the current Chairperson of the Ministerial Oversight Committee on Higher Education Transformation in South Africa and has served as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the South African Human Rights Commission and as Commissioner on the Commission for Gender Equality. He is a former member of the Council on Higher Education and the Higher Education Quality Committee. His research focuses on four areas: critical university studies; higher education transformation; social justice and education; and human rights, democracy and citizenship education.

This event is part of the SRHE's South West  network, which is convened by Professor  Rajani Naidoo (University of Bath) and Dr Lisa Lucas  (University of Bristol) in collaboration with the International Centre for Higher Education Management (University of Bath) and  the Chair for Critical Higher Education Transformation (Nelson Mandela University, South Africa

Speaker: Dr Janja Komljenovic, Lecturer in Higher Education: Lancaster University
Profile: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/educational-research/people/janja-komljenovic

This talk will focus on proprietary digital platforms in and around higher education. Specifically, it will examine how the political economy of digital data extracted by platforms might impact notions of 'graduate' employability. The literature identified unbundling as one of the key impacts of platforms in higher education in that educational provision and student experience are cut into smaller parts, and possibly re-bundled back together into different entities (McCowan, 2017; Robertson & Komljenovic, 2016; Swinnerton et al., 2019). I propose that in parallel to unbundling, we might also witness de-institutionalisation of higher education with the rise of micro-credentials and similar alternative training opportunities. Majority of venture capital investment goes into platforms that target consumers directly, i.e. students and staff (a B-2-C approach); or that target corporations for staff development training (a B-2-B approach). These two areas receive more than double investment in comparison to platforms targeting schools and universities (Brighteye Ventures, 2020). Many education technology (EdTech) investors are now specialising in the future of education and work, thus bringing together digital labour platforms and education & training platforms. On the one hand, there are initiatives to include micro-credentials and short e-learning courses into national qualification frameworks, as well as the European qualification framework, thus legitimating such skills verification and putting them on an equal footing as skills, which are institutionally achieved. On the other hand, automated skills matching and just-in-time training are promoted as new disruptive solutions for the skills gap, labour market needs, and the future of work. This brings challenges for how universities deal with employability, and their role in society more generally.

The capacity for UK Higher Education (HE) careers and employability services to collect and analyse career thinking and employability enhancing experience data - Careers Registration data - has provided unprecedented insight into levels of student career planning, (work) experience gained, and sectors of interest (Cobb, 2019, Winter, 2018).  This webinar reflects on the findings from the national careers registration learning gain project, to identify the ways in which careers and employability delivery has fundamentally changed since the introduction of Careers Registration (Gilworth and Thambar, 2013), and the 'data explosion' (Long & Siemens, 2011) faced by higher education institutions.  Drawing from the final research report, this session will unpack the key trends and findings from the learning gain pilot and consider the impact for stakeholder engagement and graduate employability, and consider the current Covid-19 context increasing the reliance on and importance of digital platforms to support and track employability development in a virtual learning context. 

Keynote address:

Fiona Cobb, Research Co-ordinator, The Careers Group, University of London

Fiona Cobb is an experienced social researcher, offering research support and guidance to higher education (HE) Careers and Employability staff using research to enhance their practice. Fiona is the global expert in Careers Registration, and successfully led a three-year OfS Learning Gain project, investigating the use of Careers Registration as a measure of learning gain in relation to career readiness.  Fiona continues to develop the Careers Registration support model for the Careers Group and the wider HE sector both in the UK and internationally.  Fiona chairs the AGCAS Data Insights On-course data sub group, whose purpose is to support and share best practice in the processing and interpretation of student data.  Previous experience includes working on mixed methodology HE research projects, focusing on retention, widening participation, and inclusion in higher education.

Facilitators: Dr Dawn Duke & Professor Pam Denicolo

This free online webinar is intended for experienced, new and aspiring doctoral examiners. It provides an opportunity to share best practice as well as any reservations/ trepidations/caveats and success stories you may have in relation to the challenges that arise when assessing progress or during the final examination (thesis and viva).
The workshop will take the form of a guided tour of the process and procedures of assessment at doctoral level, including the confirmation/ upgrading process, examining the thesis and the candidate during the viva, using a range of case studies and vignettes drawn from our experience and that of others. This will include presenting you with some challenging situations to raise issues and aid discussion.

Programme:

11.00                         Welcome and introduction to webinar

Guided tour of the process and procedures of assessment at doctoral level

Expectations: students -Academics

Rules & Regulations - Progress Reviews

Transfers/Upgrades/Confirmations

                      Final examination

Critical Importance of Feedback

                                  During and self

                                  Formal assessment - good and bad news

11.45                         BREAK to consider questions and refresh

12.00                         Addressing issues sent in by participants

                                             How to qualify as an examiner

                                             Further Questions from participants

12.40                         Close and where we go next. Who would like at attend the next face to face workshop at SRHE in the Autumn?

12.45                         Close

This webinar draws on three pieces of research to look at the transitions of students with equivalent qualifications to, and through higher education. It will, on the one hand, look at who the students taking Business and Technology Education Council qualifications (BTEC) are, discussing their rates of university access and progression. On the other hand, the webinar will discuss inclusive learning and teaching cultures, the importance of belonging, and the diversity of transitions as mediated by pedagogical regimes.

10.00-10.10 Welcome & Introduction

10.10-10.40 Does prior qualification affect degree outcomes? Pallavi Banerjee

10.40-11.10 'But you did this in A-level': The impact of learning and teaching cultures on BTEC holders' sense of belonging in a research intensive institution, Zoe Baker

11.10-11.15 Break

11.15-11.45 Reframing Higher Education transitions: The role of capitals, knowledge and pedagogy, Eugenia Katartzi

11.45-12.00  Summary and Q&A



Dr Pallavi Banerjee - University of Exeter

Does prior qualification affect degree outcomes?

Successive research reports have flagged differential patterns of progression and outcomes for students based on background indicators such as social class, ethnicity, type of school attended, age etc. In this talk I will focus on the trajectories of students with vocational qualifications, principally the Business and Technology Education Council qualifications (BTEC). Which students take up vocational routes? What does access, attainment, continuation and progression of these students in undergraduate courses look like and how does it compare with their peers from other entry qualification routes?

Dr Pallavi Banerjee's research interests are in the area of educational effectiveness and improvement. She is currently working on two research projects: her ESRC funded project evaluates the fairness of admissions in the UK higher education sector, and her OfS funded research examines differential outcomes for BTEC students at the university. For further details pleases see my university webpage here: http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/education/staff/profile/index.php?web_id=Pallavi_Amitava_Banerjee


Dr Zoe Baker - Sheffield Hallam University

'But you did this in A-level': The impact of learning and teaching cultures on BTEC holders' sense of belonging in a research intensive institution.

Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) qualifications holders have been contributing to an expanding HE population in England (Katartzi and Hayward, 2019). Yet, studies have highlighted a relationship between vocational education backgrounds and lower rates of retention (Ertl et al. 2010). This extends to institution type, with BTEC students having the lowest degree completion rates in research intensive institutions (Kelly, 2017; Shields and Masardo, 2017). Drawing on findings from a qualitative case study exploring the academic experiences of students holding BTEC qualifications at a research intensive institution, this paper will illustrate and discuss how departmental cultures and epistemic assumptions can exert a pronounced influence on students' perceptions of their own academic abilities and sense of belonging throughout their journeys into, and through, HE. This highlights the power of inclusive learning and teaching cultures in having the potential to ensure more equitable academic experiences for these students, and in making a contribution towards a reduction in the reproduction of inequalities in the HE landscape more broadly.

Dr Zoe Baker is a Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Development and Research in Education (CDARE) at Sheffield Hallam University. She has conducted research projects in the areas of widening participation, inequalities in higher education, social justice, and the sociology of education. Her past research has specifically focussed on how complex structural constraints can restrict access to higher education, and the relationship between institutional cultures and students'' sense of belonging. More recently, Zoe has been exploring the factors that affect higher education access, retention, and graduate outcomes for care-experienced and estranged students in the UK.


Dr Eugenia Katartzi - University of Nottingham

Reframing Higher Education transitions: The role of capitals, knowledge and pedagogy

Based upon a mixed-method, ESRC-funded project, the paper's goal is to provide a framework for conceptualising transitions from Vocational Education and Training (VET) programmes to Higher Education (HE). Bourdieu's and Bernstein's theoretical approaches are brought together to reframe transitions by attending to the capital basis and to the side-lined epistemic and pedagogical parameters thereof. First, the Bourdieusian tools of field and capital are utilised to capture the relational, material and cultural aspects of the educational transitions. Then a Bernsteinian lens is used to theorise how students acquire differentially valorised knowledges, and dialogically develop their sense of themselves as hierarchically positioned knowers. The metaphor of transitional frictions is utilised to capture the ongoing struggles that students with a VET background experience as they make the transition to HE, which are mediated by pedagogical regimes, with distinct organisational logics. The paper concludes by arguing for the need of widening epistemic access and putting in place enabling pedagogies that can ease these transitional frictions, thereby potentially increasing the chances of successful HE participation and completion.

Dr Eugenia Katartzi is an Assistant Professor at Nottingham University with an expertise in sociology of education and psychosocial studies of childhood, youth and migration. She has worked for major European and national research projects in the areas of HE transitions, education policy and interculturalism. Her work has featured in the journals British Journal of Sociology of Education, Studies in Higher Education, International Studies in Sociology of Education, Intercultural Education, Childhood, Children and Society and Young. She is currently co-authoring a book on Transitions from Vocational to Higher Education.

This session is intended to support colleagues through the challenges of supervising and examining doctorates online. Two key presenters, Dr Gill Houston, Chair of the UKCGE and Dr Matthew Sillence, Lecturer in Postgraduate Education and Training, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of East Anglia, will lead the discussions.  Gill will give a short overview of suggestions for conducting vivas remotely, while Matthew will share experiences of and thoughts on supervising at a distance. This will be followed by questions from participants to the panel, which includes Dr Julie Reeves, Dr Martin Gough and Prof Pam Denicolo with Gill and Matthew.

For the panel discussion it will be most useful if prospective participants send questions in advance, and/or indicate if there are any issues you would like addressed, particularly if there are any sensitive issues that you would prefer were dealt with anonymously during the session.  Please email any questions or concerns to katie.tindle@srhe.ac.uk by June 1st.

Particpants are requested to read the following article https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2018.1532405

Programme
Start - 11.00
Introductions to Zoom, the ethos of the meeting and an overview by Pam, Julie and Martin of their experiences in this field and recent literature.
11.15 - Dr Matthew Sillence on supervising online
11.45 - Dr Gill Houston on examining through an online viva.
12.15 - Panel Q&A

This event is cohosted by the SRHE International Research and Researchers (IRR) and Student Access and Experience (SAEN) Networks.

Rationale

Whilst debates about the impact of Covid-19 on European Higher Education seem to gravitate around decreased international student mobility and associated operational and financial disruptions faced by universities, evidence as to how the pandemic has impacted on the experience and wellbeing of internationally mobile students is only just emerging.

This event, jointly hosted by the SRHE IRR and SAE Networks, presents three pieces of research with international students conducted during the early stages of the Covid-19 outbreak in Europe in spring and summer 2020. It is explored how the crisis has affected student's emotional, social and educational experiences and the challenges they have faced in view of health and safety concerns, educational attainment, the discomforts of 'being stuck', or the exposure to discrimination and racism.        

Schedule

10:00-10:05 - Welcome and introduction to IRR & SAE Networks

10:05-10:30 - Erasmus Student Network Findings on the Impact of Covid-19 on Student Exchanges (Wim Gabriels, Erasmus Student Network), Q&A

10:30-10:55 - Covid-related racism towards Chinese international students on social media (Jenna Mittlemeier, University of Manchester), Q&A

10:55-11:00 - Comfort break

11:00 -11:25 - How Coronavirus has impacted international students studying in the UK - understanding their specific needs and challenges (Jo Stanton and Lynsey Owens, NUS Insights), Q&A

11:25 - 11:50 - Panel discussion: Ying Yang, Researcher from UoM; and Students Union International Officers, Iuri Montenegro from TUoS and Franks Feng from UL

11:50 - 12:00 - Closing remarks from presenters

OVERVIEW

The purpose of this event is to provide an opportunity to discuss the role of often neglected concepts in university teaching - namely 'care' and 'compassion'. These concepts do not appear to have dominant roles in discourses of the neoliberal university, that can at times appear to be both uncaring and unhealthy. The presenters here will give an introduction to the ways in which care and compassion may be brought into the discussion about staff and student wellbeing particularly in relation to learning and teaching. The session will be facilitated by Dr Patrick Baughan, Dr Karen Gravett and Dr Namrata Rao, the conveners for this network, and managed by colleagues at SRHE.

PROGRAMME

10.00-10.05       Introduction and Virtual Housekeeping Points

10.10 - 10.35     Guest Paper 1 - Care as a concept in teaching    - Professor Ian Kinchin

10.40- 11.05      Guest Paper 2 -The cognitive aspects of compassion in group work    - Dr Theo Gilbert

11.05 - 11.25     Online Q&A and Discussion (Speakers and Delegates)

11.25 to 11.30    Concluding thoughts

PAPER DETAILS

Guest Paper 1. Care as a concept in teaching - Professor Ian Kinchin

Key objective: To offer a consideration of care and its role in developing the becoming teacher.

Overview: As a starting point for this presentation, care is considered as an essential component of the wider teaching assemblage within the context of the 'becoming teacher'. The development of care is seen to include care-giving, care-receiving and caring for oneself. Care (for teaching and teachers) is also seen to be inextricably entangled with the pedagogic health of the institution and the sense of coherence generated by the discourses of teaching in higher education. A heuristic for supporting the development of the 'becoming-caring-teacher' will be presented for discussion.

Guest Paper 2.  The cognitive aspects of Compassion in group work - Dr Theo Gilbert

Key objective:   To equip colleagues to teach and assess (reward) compassion (as a cognitive skill) for healthier, more just, and higher achieving group/teamwork.

Overview:

Higher Education is currently looking poised to look at the past 15 years of empirical studies - in neuroscience, clinical psychology and other disciplines too - on what compassion is.  Not an emotion in itself, compassion can instead be understood, in evolutionary terms, as a  psychobiological system that can be trained, cognitively, to reorganise the human brain towards noticing, not normalising,  one's own or others'  distress and/or disadvantaging; then acting, wisely  to reduce or prevent that  (The Compassionate Mind Foundation: https://www.compassionatemind.co.uk/about-us ). On this basis, teaching and assessing compassion as a distinct, cognitive component in group work has been found (in mixed methods studies of around 500 students across disciplines) by Gilbert and colleagues, to have surprising implications for student and staff wellbeing and, unexpectedly too,  for the BAME achievement gap, according to independent statisticians in three UK universities. The requirement for compassion in group work - including in online group work - is now part of University of Hertfordshire's five-year strategic plan. This presentation will explore what teaching compassion, as defined above, means in the most practical sense, with easy strategies to try. Participants will be able to consider compassionate communications for group work that are quick and effective to teach and assess.

SPEAKER DETAILS

Professor Ian Kinchin

Ian Kinchin is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Surrey. His research interests are focussed on the development of teaching quality at university and the application of the model of pedagogic health. This work has been developed through the visualisation of knowledge structures through the application of Novakian concept mapping. He has published on aspects of science education and academic development.

Dr Theo Gilbert

An Associate Professor in Teaching and Learning, at the University of Hertfordshire, Theo Gilbert's  research translates rich, current scholarship on the psychobiological model of compassion into evidence-based, practical micro-skills of compassion for group-work that can be taught, supported and assessed (i.e. credit-bearing) on the modern University degree. He develops HE educators from both STEM and social sciences in this approach, and is networking and supporting staff in, so far, 60 universities. He is creator of the free Compassion in HE website of practical resources for compassion-focused educators: https://compassioninhe.wordpress.com/ and was recipient of the Times Higher Education's/Advance HE's award: Most Innovative Teacher, 2018.  His applied research is published in a number of journals and book chapters.

Related publications

Gilbert, T., Martina Doolan, N. T. F., Beka, S., Spencer, N., Crotta, M. & Davari, S. (2018). Compassion on university degree programmes at a UK university. The neuroscience of effective Group work. Special Issue.  Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, 11 (1), 4-21. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JRIT-09-2017-0020/full/html

Kinchin, I.M. (2019) Care as a threshold concept for teaching in the salutogenic university. Teaching in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1704726

Speaker: Dr Janja Komljenovic, Lecturer in Higher Education: Lancaster University
Profile: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/educational-research/people/janja-komljenovic

This talk will focus on proprietary digital platforms in and around higher education. Specifically, it will examine how the political economy of digital data extracted by platforms might impact notions of 'graduate' employability. The literature identified unbundling as one of the key impacts of platforms in higher education in that educational provision and student experience are cut into smaller parts, and possibly re-bundled back together into different entities (McCowan, 2017; Robertson & Komljenovic, 2016; Swinnerton et al., 2019). I propose that in parallel to unbundling, we might also witness de-institutionalisation of higher education with the rise of micro-credentials and similar alternative training opportunities. Majority of venture capital investment goes into platforms that target consumers directly, i.e. students and staff (a B-2-C approach); or that target corporations for staff development training (a B-2-B approach). These two areas receive more than double investment in comparison to platforms targeting schools and universities (Brighteye Ventures, 2020). Many education technology (EdTech) investors are now specialising in the future of education and work, thus bringing together digital labour platforms and education & training platforms. On the one hand, there are initiatives to include micro-credentials and short e-learning courses into national qualification frameworks, as well as the European qualification framework, thus legitimating such skills verification and putting them on an equal footing as skills, which are institutionally achieved. On the other hand, automated skills matching and just-in-time training are promoted as new disruptive solutions for the skills gap, labour market needs, and the future of work. This brings challenges for how universities deal with employability, and their role in society more generally.

The purpose of this event is to provide an opportunity to discuss innovative and creative learning and teaching approaches relevant to the current times we are all living, working and learning in - the Covid-19 pandemic. The event will feature two expert speakers, Professor Alison James and Dr Chrissi Nerantzi, each of whom will provide short papers, and these will be followed with a question and answer (Q&A) session. Delegates will leave invigorated and armed with some new ideas relevant to the learning and teaching they will be undertaking 'at distance' in their roles. The session will be facilitated by Dr Patrick Baughan, Dr Karen Gravett and Dr Namrata Rao, the conveners for this network, and managed by colleagues at SRHE.

Guest Paper 1. Is it time for the ludic turn? Professor Alison James
Key objective: To revisit the work of Brian Sutton Smith and other key play theorists with regard to the use and value of play in higher education.

Guest Paper 2.  Is adversity the real mother of invention? Dr Chrissi Nerantzi

Key objective: To reflect on our personal resourcefulness and explore how we can utilise curiosity, imagination and creativity to make novel connections in emergency teaching situations as a strategy that maximise engagement and stimulate learning and also boost our personal and collective wellbeing.

There is widespread agreement that universities are undergoing a profound transformation but much less agreement on what these changes mean and how we should characterise them. The Digital University Network has stressed the role of new technologies in transforming practice within the university. The Accelerated Academy has presented the tempo and rhythm of academic life as an analytical lens through which we can productively examine these changes. The Platform University network has explored the cultural political economy and organisational sociology of the digital platforms which are increasingly ubiquitous within higher education. In this symposium we bring together leading figures from the latter two networks in order to explore their intersections with our own work, as well as how they relate to each other.

Speakers and topics:

Assetization and the future of value in the digitalized higher education industry

Janja Komljenovic, Lancaster University
Dr Janja Komljenovic is a Lecturer of Higher Education at Lancaster University. She is interested in the diversity and complexity of markets in and around universities, including the variety of actors that have entered the sector, their strategies, ways of working, and consequences for higher education and societies at large. She is studying the relation between the digital economy and higher education and how they might affect each other. She is published internationally on higher education policy, governance, and markets. She teaches PhD courses on higher education policy and research methodology.

Regimes of Sight and Optical Illusions in the Platform University

Susan Robertson, University of Cambridge

Susan Robertson is a Professor of Sociology of Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, where her research focuses on education in a political context, including how education has developed to help service the economy, the commercialisation of education, and the role of for-profit companies in the education sector. Her research has been funded by a variety of bodies, including the ESRC, the European Commission, and Open Society Foundations, and she was senior expert advisor for the European Commission''s DG Education and Culture.

Filip Vostal, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Filip Vostal received PhD in sociology from the University of Bristol in 2013. He works as senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He is editorial board member of Time & Society and author of Accelerating Academia: The Changing Structure of Academic Time (Palgrave, 2016). Currently he runs a project that examines temporality of knowledge production in x-ray free electron laser experiments and explores the epistemic role of speed in new methods of investigation in molecular biophysics: "single particle imagining" and "serial femtosecond crystallography". He teaches several courses associated with STS at Charles University.

This Webinar is aimed to help support those interested in applying for the SRHE Newer Researcher Award in 2021. Three awards of ?3,000 GBP will be available to those ''new'' to the field of higher education research. Full details on the criteria and eligibility for these awards, plus the application form are available from https://srhe.ac.uk/research/SRHE_newer_researchers.asp

The Webinar will provide a brief introduction to the awards, including guidance from a member of the Society''s Research & Development Committee that oversees the development of these awards and reviews the applications received. It will include the perspectives of two recent award winners in terms of their experience of applying, receiving and completing the awards process, plus how these awards have led to further opportunities. 

There will also be some time for questions on their experiences, and indeed on any aspect of the Newer Researcher Award scheme itself.

Outline programme:

1530: Introduction & overview: Rob Gresham, SRHE Manager: Operations and Finance
1535: Committee view: Advice on preparing and planning your NR Award Proposal Dr Neil Harrison, Deputy Director, Rees Centre, Department of Education, University of Oxford, and member of the SRHE Research & Development Committee

1545: View from a recent Award Winner 1: Dr Emily Danvers, University of Sussex

1600: View from a recent Award Winner 2: Dr Mike Mimirinis, University of West London

1615: Summary, Top Tips & Q& A:  Panel of Neil, Emily, Mike, & Rob

1645:  Close

The webinar is free to all participants, members and non-members. Simply register below and a link will be circulated by 9th December (in advance of the Webinar on Thursday 10th December).

Facilitators: Dr Dawn Duke & Professor Pam Denicolo

This workshop is intended for experienced, new and aspiring doctoral examiners. It provides an opportunity to share best practice as well as any reservations/ trepidations/caveats and success stories you may have in relation to the challenges that arise when assessing progress or during the final examination (thesis and viva).
The workshop will take the form of a guided tour of the process and procedures of assessment at doctoral level, including the confirmation/ upgrading process, examining the thesis and the candidate during the viva, using a range of case studies and vignettes drawn from our experience and that of others. This will include presenting you with some challenging situations to raise issues and aid discussion.

Presentations by the organisers will be kept to a minimum since the main discussion points will be determined by the participants who are invited to send in advance any facets, dilemmas or anonymised challenges they have faced or heard of, that they would like to have aired. Some of those might include but are not restricted to: different expectations in different institutions; chairing and examiner roles; working with co-examiners with different viewpoints and/or different status; interference or neglect by supervisors; candidates unable to cope with the tension; making the process humane and fair. Where possible we will, with enough notice, turn these into case studies written to disguise origins!

Please send to Pam: p.m.denicolo@reading.ac.uk a note by March 15th at the very latest of any topics you would like discussed, with enough detail to identify the main points of the situation, so that a case study can be compiled, time permitting.

Formed in 2018, this Group focuses on sharing ideas and existing practice around supporting BTEC students. It also provides a platform for research being undertaken in this space, with a view to implementing a more joined up approach across the sector.  Over the past year, we have developed a set of 'Guiding Principles' for academics and outreach practitioners working with BTEC learners at each stage of the 'Student Lifecycle' as detailed below:

Alex Blower - Southern Universities Network - 'Championing fair admissions practices for BTEC students'

Abstract

One of the guiding tenets of the NEON 'Supporting BTEC Students Working Group' is to champion fair admissions practices by universities. The group contends that BTEC students, who are often first in their family to attend university, should not have to dig for information pertaining to course entry requirements or face additional barriers. It argues that BTEC qualifications should feature as prominently as A levels in prospectuses, and websites, as they are the second most common qualification used for university entrance in the UK.

The group campaigns to make entry requirements/eligibility criteria clear and accessible to BTEC students at all UK Higher Education Providers, including Russell Group institutions and those with higher entry tariffs. BTEC learners should be able to establish their eligibility for an undergraduate degree quickly and easily, without the need for them to make further enquiries. If BTEC qualifications aren't accepted due to course content, the group argues that this should be clearly indicated. The group believes that uniformity and transparency in admissions practices across the sector is a prerequisite to equitable access to Higher Education for BTEC students.

Biography

Alex Blower is currently an employee within the outreach team at the University of Portsmouth. Having spent the last 10 years working in widening participation, Alex has worked for numerous universities and Uni Connect partnerships across the UK. In 2016, Alex began his doctoral research, which focuses on the development of white working-class males' expectations toward their future in education and work. Prior to his role at the University of Portsmouth, Alex worked as a Further Education Project Leader for the Southern Universities Network, managing a team of 10 Progression Mentors working in Colleges of Further Education across Hampshire and Dorset. Alex is a regular blogger and vlogger, hosting the Edu Detective YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/edudetective), and writing blogs on issues relating to education and inequality for organisations such as WonkHE and the Higher Education Policy Institute.

Becky Foster - University of East Anglia - 'Conducting meaningful outreach activity with BTEC students in schools and colleges'

Abstract

One of the biggest barriers to vocational students entering higher education is that pre-entry activity run by Recruitment and Outreach professionals is targeted towards A level students, rather than being focused on their needs. The pre-entry guiding principle champions the need for staff working with student's pre-entry to be inclusive of vocational learners.

This is especially important as learners studying vocational qualifications are often from the most underrepresented backgrounds in Higher Education (HE).  Therefore, an inclusive approach is paramount, especially from a Widening Participation perspective.

Through raising awareness of the important nuances between BTEC and A level learners such as curriculum, learning style, learner identity and learning environment, important changes in promotional language, bespoke events and CPD for college staff can be put in place. The group hopes this will culminate in more vocational learners being aware of HE as an opportunity to them and for practitioners to be equipped to provide appropriate advice and guidance to support their progression.

Biography

Rebecca has worked in Widening Participation (WP) for the past 4 years. Working firstly in a mentoring position with students from WP backgrounds, then within an advisory capacity in a college and finally as on Outreach Officer. Most of these roles have been working for the University of East Anglia to improve social mobility within the Norfolk and Suffolk regions.

Due to her work predominantly with BTEC/Vocational learners in her advisory role in the college, Rebecca now specialises in working with BTEC students in colleges to help them to progress to Higher Education and advising internal members of staff on how to improve opportunities for vocational learners to aid transition when they attend the university. Rebecca has been a Vice-Chair of NEON's 'Supporting BTEC students' Working Group since 2019.

Becca Sykes - University of Leeds - 'Supporting the transition and student success of BTEC students at university'

Abstract

Research findings show that BTEC students entering university are more likely to be from a widening participation background, have lower progression and retention rates, be at different starting points in terms of academic preparedness and understanding assessment expectations in HE, and that a sense of belonging is one of the biggest challenges facing this cohort.

Our third guiding principle, focusing on transition, attainment and retention, uses the core principles of identify, evaluate, share and embed, to create an environment where BTEC students succeed during their studies and beyond.

Valuable, informative and engaging conversations in the group meetings and across conference sessions, has allowed open discussions about the barriers facing this cohort of students, enabling us to recognise how practitioners can be instrumental in their own institutions to help overcome these challenges.

Biography

Becca Sykes has worked in practitioner and management roles in Higher Education since 2001, starting her career at Leeds Beckett University and moving to the University of Huddersfield to lead and implement the Aimhigher West Yorkshire Associates Scheme. Since 2012, Becca has worked at the University of Leeds, where she has management responsibility for leading outreach teams to deliver and achieve on the University's Access and Participation Plan and the Access and Student Success Strategy; she also leads on the non-continuation strand of the Student Success remit.

Becca is an active member of the NEON 'Supporting BTEC students' Working Group and has co-facilitated workshops to raise the profile of the group, encourage discussion around the BTEC agenda and share best practice amongst fellow practitioners.

Chris Bayes - Lancaster University - 'Understanding the needs of BTEC students through engagement with research'

Abstract

There is a lack of effective knowledge exchange between policy makers, practitioners and researchers active in the field of widening participation (WP).  With reference to the progression, retention and success of students accessing university via a BTEC pathway, we have identified gaps in terms of knowledge transfer between practitioners and teachers working with applicants prior to university, and academics working with these students when they are at university.

Some traditional universities have been guilty of reinforcing a deficit model perception of BTEC students. For many degree programmes, BTEC students' prior learning has better prepared them for the progression into HE.   By supporting the development of reflective practitioners across the sector, our Working Group is ensuring that staff are able to support today's increasingly diverse student population, regardless of their prior academic background.

Biography

Chris has worked in the field of Widening Participation (WP) since 2007; holding practitioner and managerial roles in WP teams at a number of universities and previously led a number collaborative partnerships based within NW England.  Chris is a research active practitioner and his research paper 'Blurred Boundaries - Encouraging greater dialogue between Student Recruitment & Widening Participation' appeared in the Forum for Access & Continuing Education (FACE)'s 2019 Conference publication.

Chris has been an Executive Board member of the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) since 2015 and has acted as Chair of NEON's 'Supporting BTEC students' Working Group since this was established in 2018.


Our session will provide an overview of each 'Guiding Principle' with some case-study examples to illustrate how these can aid academics and practitioners in supporting BTEC students at each stage of their educational journey.

This one day workshop will provide a practical and hands-on introduction to using SPSS for data analysis. During the day, we will cover:

-          How to enter data into and use SPSS

-          What are descriptive statistics, and what is significance testing all about?

-          Creating descriptive statistics and understanding variability in data

-          Testing for significant differences (t tests and ANOVA)

-          Testing for significant relationships (correlation and regression)

Location:

The workshop will take place in one of the IT suites at Royal Holloway, University of London , Egham, Surrey

Egham is just off Junction 13 of the M25, and 40 minutes by train from London

Waterloo: https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/aboutus/ourcampus/location/findus.aspx

Accommodation is available on campus at The Hub B&B: https://www.venue.royalholloway.ac.uk/bed-and-breakfast-accommodation/year-round-the-hub/

Workshop Facilitators: 

Dr Samuel Fairlamb is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. He primarily teaches Research Methods and Social Psychology to undergraduate and postgraduate students. His research is formed of two main interests: (1) the need for self-esteem and meaning to buffer from existential-based concerns, and how this can be applied to a variety of human phenomena, including why humans struggle to peacefully co-exist; (2) how the need for self-esteem can lead to counter-productive outcomes to effective learning in an educational-based environment. Sam is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Dr. Karl Wereszczynski and Vanita Chamdal are both teaching demonstrators in the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, where they primarily teach research methods and statistics to undergraduate students. They will be assisting with the running of the SPSS workshop.