The first “Team F” CAMEL meeting took place at Kingston University during September. Each institution presented its project progress to date. The value of planning ahead for journal articles based on the project was noted and Betty volunteered to help the teams in planning and coordinating their efforts for this, as well as in planning for the reports that HEA will require. The Helga social networking environment was also discussed, along with the timing of the project (it is not aligned with the academic year).
Then came our first Steering Group meeting, where discussion focused on the first HEA interim report. Work to date was presented by members of the core project team: the literature review, planned data collection (questionnaires, student and staff interviews) and staff training were discussed. Talk then centred on:
- The value of video streaming for students: a mini-project is being undertaken with the Peninsula School of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD), which aims to evaluate the impact of video-streaming of lectures on undergraduate learning. Early analysis of use by PCMD suggests benefit to student learning, though it is not yet used by other academic schools.
- There has been high demand this year for staff ‘training’ sessions, to prepare them for delivering lectures by videoconference. Availability of suitable training spaces to run these kinds of sessions has caused some problems, as have staff changes during the recent restructure of Academic Services, though in most cases sessions have been able to be re-scheduled.
During September the VC project team collected a huge amount of data from new undergraduate students across Exeter and Cornwall campuses. 501 questionnaires were completed by new students in Geography, History, Politics, Law and Biosciences (a 75% return). We also carried out two focus groups with ten students from the Department of English. Both the focus groups and questionnaire enabled us to gain valuable insights into students’ expectations/perceptions about the use of videoconferencing in the context of their programme.
In October we received our first visit from our critical friend, Betty Collis. Betty met with the core project team and others associated with the project, including participants from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry and the School of Education and Lifelong Learning, the Dean of Undergraduate Studies and the newly appointed Head of the Education Enhancement Unit’s e-Learning team, Matt Newcombe. Preliminary results from new student questionnaires and staff interviews were presented by Research Fellow Ruolan Wang. Betty then visited one of the lecture theatres equipped for video conferencing and we discussed in more detail the VC for Learning and Teaching workshop that, to date, around 50 staff have participated in. Betty and the core project team then discussed possible publications, reports, potential directions for the project and general reflections from the day. Please see Betty’s notes.
We’ve benefitted enormously from Betty’s visit. On her recommendation we have reviewed our overarching research question, and this will have some impact on the kind of questions we cover in staff interviews in particular. We’ve also been asked to present at the RSC’s regional conference in Bristol next spring, but that still seems a long way off! Still so much to do!
