I-SEED-FL
Implementing Student and Employer Engagement in Developing Flexible Learning
More about our HEA Individual Teaching Development Grant funded project.
You can read an introduction to this project in this blog post and find out more on this page.
The project proposal
Below is a summary of the background, purpose and aims of this project.
Project aims
The engagement of students, prospective students and employers is crucial for ensuring that educational provision is appropriately aligned to employer and professional requirements and to career aspirations, and to ensure that learning outcomes are matched to work-related objectives and employer needs (Outram, 2011).
This I-SEED-FL project (Implementing Student and Employer Engagement in Developing Flexible Learning) aims to produce a set of practical and generic protocols and case examples that will guide the process of student and employer engagement in curriculum development and design for flexible learning. Protocols will be based on best practice and designed to ensure high quality and scalability, in terms of both accessing markets and recognising the need for efficiency in academic workloads.
The HEA Evaluation of the HEFCE-funded Flexible Learning Pathfinder projects (Outram, 2011) stresses the importance of learner empowerment and identifies the importance of locating flexible learning development within wider institutional learning strategies. This will be ensured through locating this project within a strategic initiative at the University, the Flexible Learning Project (FLP), which has the aim of repositioning Bath’s postgraduate provision, in an uncertain and competitive climate, in order to widen participation to students not able to access traditionally taught programmes.
A complementary report (Stinson, 2010) confirms the need for approaches that are truly student-centred but also stresses the importance of capturing the ‘hearts and minds’ of teaching staff and the need for staff development activities to support such changes. This aspect will be assured as a result of additional funding, recently awarded to the FLP under the JISC Transformations initiative, for the FLeXchange project, which will provide the necessary resources for developing academic staff capability.
The specific objectives for this HEA funded I-SEED-FL project are to investigate:
- What factors and approaches lead to successful outcomes as defined by the stakeholders (and what outcomes do different stakeholders define)?
- What benefits accrue from the involvement of key stakeholders in the development of the curriculum in terms of:
– the quality, credibility and relevance of the curriculum
– how well it meets student and employer needs
– stakeholder/ organisational learning?
It will explore business change processes that address the expectations of future students whilst improving efficiency, and reducing unit costs, of programme redesign and delivery.
Student engagement
Student engagement is fundamental to this project. Students, prospective students, alumni and employers will participate directly both in advising upon, and contributing to, models of flexible learning that are relevant and appropriate to their needs as practitioners. Project funding will allow their direct contribution to the creation of case examples and learning resources of generic applicability.
The provision of postgraduate training at The University of Bath, both taught and research, has followed fairly traditional lines in terms of delivery and flexibility. Some pockets of expertise in health, education and engineering have resulted in some impressive innovations, leading to successful flexible provision through, as examples, distance and e-learning, but their widespread adoption across the University has been limited.
The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) attracts the largest number of postgraduate students and also contains departments with expertise in flexible delivery, namely health and education, as well as departments with experience of only traditional modes of provision. The FLP sits within the Faculty and has the potential to radically alter the Faculty’s postgraduate portfolio whilst at the same time enhancing the student experience and contributing to increased efficiencies in terms of costs of delivery, both for students and institutionally.
Whilst the FLP will include the ‘student voice’, this HEA funded project will facilitate the systematic involvement of the beneficiaries of higher education in a unique opportunity alongside the development of academic capability within the JISC funded sister FLeXchange project.
Benefit beyond host HEI
The HEA Evaluation of the HEFCE-funded Flexible Learning Pathfinder projects (Outram, 2011) identified the major barriers to flexible learning development as ‘institutional working practices and processes structured around traditional provision’.
This is particularly true in ‘research-intensive’ universities, such as Bath, and presents a difficult and frustrating challenge to colleagues wishing to encourage innovative teaching developments that relevantly address changing student expectations. However even in more teaching-focused institutions similar difficulties arise; one such university quoting in its final Pathfinder report (2007) ‘A particular challenge for the learning and teaching network is the wider engagement of colleagues in the innovative provision necessary for the delivery of a curriculum fit for the future’.
Because most professional and role-related learning requires a multi-disciplinary approach the project has selected an area for investigation that is cross-disciplinary, and one in which we have already demonstrated a market demand. It will also allow better opportunities for generalisation.
Thus this project will be of benefit across the whole sector and to all disciplines faced with adapting their postgraduate programmes to meet changing circumstances.
Stinson M (2010), Flexible Learning Developments in Leeds Metropolitan University, Supplementary report submitted to HEFCE, Leeds Metropolitan University, unpublished.
FLeXchange 