As a consequence of increasing pressures to enhance assessment and feedback in response to the National Student Satisfaction (NSS) and Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), universities continue to invest significant time and resources in making improvements to this area of practice. Since 2013 the University of Greenwich has adapted, enhanced and implemented an approach called TESTA (Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment). This case study offers a unique and sustained institutional perspective of the landscape of assessment and feedback. It examines the results from the analysis of 157 programmes over 5 years categorised as a top ten set of challenges. Through an examination of programme documentation and module evaluation by staff, the paper highlights some findings of facilitators, barriers and impact at institutional, faculty, departmental, programme and module levels. Its ultimate aim is to explore the real impact of TESTA and to contribute to an understanding of the conditions required for making and disseminating changes and spreading good practice across an HE institution.

Student attrition is a pressing issue that universities across the world are attempting to solve. More recently, there has been a focus on retaining students from so-called ‘hard to reach’ groups. This paper proposes a methodology that investigates potential predictors of retention within the context of a particular institution, with the aim of defining who our ‘hard to reach’ students might be. It includes TESTA, a feedback and assessment enhancement process, as an independent variable to determine whether this particular enhancement initiative had any positive effects on retention. The authors use a statistical technique that permits a comparison of retention within the same programmes, pre- versus post-TESTA, relative to background changes in retention in programmes without TESTA over the same timescale. The results of our analysis revealed that of the 10 predictors selected, the following were statistically significant: age group; gender; ethnicity; highest qualification on entry; academic session. These form the basis of our definition of who are ‘hard to reach’ students at our university. Whilst TESTA had no statistically significant impact on retention, several important implications for making specific interventions through TESTA in relation to assessment design and delivery to increase retention are discussed.

The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design arose from a 2012 meeting of experts in Larnaca, Cyprus who sought to provide a new theoretical foundation for the field of Learning Design, based on a synthesis of research and practice in the field to date. It begins by acknowledging the vast benefits that would arise from wider sharing of effective teaching practices, and it uses an analogy from the history of music notation to identify the need for a representational framework for describing teaching and learning ideas. It provides a range of examples of learning designs and different representational systems to illustrate the need for a “Learning Design Framework” (LD-F). It then acknowledges the wider educational context and its impact on design decisions by educators, and provides a “Learning Design Conceptual Map” (LD-CM) to identify contextual components and their interactions in design decisions. It concludes by discussing the philosophical and practical challenges of identifying and sharing effective teaching and learning ideas under the heading “Learning Design Practice” (LD-P).

The reliability and importance of business school rankings has long been debated, however most of the discussion has centred on research rankings. With the introduction of the National Student Survey (NSS) the spotlight has been shone on student satisfaction with teaching. With a rumoured teaching excellence framework on the horizon, it is pertinent to analyse the variables correlated with higher NSS satisfaction scores. This paper finds that the variable significantly correlated with higher NSS satisfaction scores in the subject group of Management, Marketing, Business Studies and Human Resource Management is the value added by a higher education institution. The level of learning resources in business schools do not significantly explain any of the variation between student satisfaction levels. The percentage of staff who are an A on the REF is not significantly correlated with NSS scores, nor is spend per student. While not removing all concerns, these findings should at least help quell some misgivings around the appropriateness of using NSS data as a measure of the quality of teaching in business schools.

The University of Greenwich embarked on an innovative and ambitious strategic process to implement an institution-wide vision for learning innovation. At the heart of this vision was an aspiration to enhance the connectedness of learners at a curricula and teaching and learning level. Critical to its success was the use of learner generated and produced content, shared openly through social media. This paper seeks to explore and understand the resistances and challenges of implementing the openness agenda of Greenwich Connect in the first year, and reflect more widely on the issues that impacted on the success of the initiative in achieving its goals. We argue that whilst many of the activities and projects that were part of the implementation of Greenwich Connect change were perceived as disruptors and destructors, the development of these digital age practices and skills resulted in transformative and constructive enhancements in teaching, learning and assessment. Keywords: Higher Education, Social Media, Openness, Digital Age, Technology Enhanced Learning

A significant area of learning design research has been the development of software applications that guide teachers' thinking as they plan, construct and revise learning events for their students. In this paper, we review conceptualisations of, and approaches to, the activity of pedagogic design and highlight the implications for the provision of computational support for this activity. We then outline different ways in which that support has been implemented in three digital tools: Phoebe, the LAMS Activity Planner and the Learning Designer. We consider the challenges to, and implications of, deploying these tools from the perspectives of three groups of stakeholders: developers, teachers and institutions. Our findings suggest that, while such tools are acceptable in principle, they face a number of technological and socio-cultural challenges to their acceptability from teachers' perspectives and to their deployment within institutional strategies for teaching and learning in a digital age.

This chapter traces the embryology of students as change agents in relation to digital practices, including their experiences of operating in different disciplines and contexts. It outlines benefits, issues and challenges of employing students as digital change agents and proposes a model for implementing cultural change. Mini case studies include first-year students operating as 'e-champions' within a university module, the second considers the impact of student-led projects in evaluating and innovating technology provision in a business school and the third examines recruitment to a student-led interdisciplinary research group. The 'e-champions' reflect on their experiences of using Facebook at Wolverhampton and consider the impact of their role on peers and staff and on their own social and digital identities. Lessons learnt at Exeter reveal that institutions who embrace the passion, creativity and energy of their most talented students gain positive, tangible and lasting benefits. Reflecting on a novel recruitment process at Greenwich, the student research group were found to be enterprising and dynamic and the mini case study proposes a series of recommendations. Throughout this chapter the experiences and 'voice' of the students provide unique insights alongside practical guidance to those wishing to employ the concept of student digital change agents within their institution.

The challenge for the modern university in the digital age involves developing an effective pedagogy that meets the changing needs of students and staff as well as addressing the requirements of business and industry. The development of the Learning Design Conceptual Map (LD-CM) represents an educational landscape, which can be used to support learning design activity at all levels of operation (Dalziel, et al 2012: 14). The shift towards learning design predicated on social interaction, social connectivity, social knowledge construction and collaboration has promoted an interest in design at all levels, represented throughout the LD-CM components. The modern learner now transitions into higher education with a digital `backpack' of devices, a set of preferred digital tools (social, professional and subject-orientated), a nascent set of connections and networking skills (Bryant & Walker, 2012). They are the generation y-fi who are always connected. They have serious tools for learning but are the product of a consumer generation and may lack the necessary criticality of their digital practice. Indeed, Learning Design in the 21st Century tends towards a technocratic framing, which may be deficient in the critical perspective (Hinrichsen & Coombs, 2013). This presentation will consider a framework for critical digital literacy and ways in which this may be mapped through the LD-CM to augment learning designs at the curriculum design and delivery level. Importantly it will highlight the risks and opportunities for enrichment and mitigation of these challenges.

Teaching and learning health and social care in a digital age produces many challenges for students and their teachers. A common hurdle for healthcare students and practitioners is the sheer amount of information that they have to make sense of. Another challenge is where this information is captured and stored, with people utilising personal, as well as institutionally owned devices. A potential solution to these problems is the use of social bookmarking applications such as “delicious”, where users can create a centralised repository of online resources, share them with other users, and view what others are bookmarking. This paper describes research conducted at the University of Greenwich involving 160 participants across three Schools and 5 modules, including Health and Social Care who were encouraged to integrate social bookmarking into their learning and teaching. Participants were instructed to tag their resources with an appropriate module code tag e.g. NURS1297 so that a repository of module specific bookmarks was created. Over a 4 month period, 160 users created 1430 bookmarks with 5032 tags. Further analysis of the bookmarking behaviour is discussed along with reflections on the suitability of social bookmarking to create digitally literate health care communities of practice.

The Making Assessment Count (MAC) project started at the University of Westminster in 2008. It sought to align staff and student expectations of feedback and support greater use of feed-forward approaches. A baseline analysis of staff views in the School of Life Sciences suggested that students did not make strategic use of the feedback they received. A similar analysis of the student position revealed that as a group they felt that the feedback provided to them was often insufficiently helpful. To address this dichotomy, a MAC process was developed in the School of Life Sciences and trialled with a cohort of about 350 first year undergraduate students. The process was based on a student-centred, three-stage model of feedback: Subject specific, Operational, and Strategic (SOS model). The student uses the subject tutor's feedback on an assignment to complete an online self-review questionnaire delivered by a simple tool. The student answers are processed by a web application called e-Reflect to generate a further feedback report. Contained within this report are personalised graphical representations of performance, time management, satisfaction and other operational feedback designed to help the student reflect on their approach to preparation and completion of future work. The student then writes in an online learning journal, which is shared with their personal tutor to support the personal tutorial process and the student's own development plan (PDP). Since the initial development and implementation of the MAC process within Life Sciences at Westminster, a consortium of universities has worked together to maximise the benefits of the project outcomes and collaboratively explore how the SOS model and e-Reflect can be exploited in different institutional and subject contexts. This paper presents and discusses an evaluation of the use of the MAC process within Life Sciences at Westminster from both staff and student perspective. In addition, the paper will show how the consortium is working to develop a number of scenarios for utilisation of the process as a whole as well as the key individual process components, the SOS model and e-Reflect.

Recognizing the powerful role that technology plays in the lives of people, researchers are increasingly focusing on the most effective uses of technology to support learning and teaching. Technology enhanced learning (TEL) has the potential to support and transform students’ learning and allows them to choose when, where and how to learn. This paper describes two different approaches for the design of personalised and non-personalised online learning environments, which have been developed to investigate whether personalised e-learning is more efficient than non-personalised e-learning, and discuss some of the student’s experiences and assessment test results based on experiments conducted so far.

In 2006, the Leitch report propelled an increasingly centralized governmentled agenda for skills reform into further and higher education (Leitch 2006). Questions concerning the appropriateness – or not – of academic and vocational skills have seeded a debate about the relevance and types of skills that graduates should possess to enable them to take a full and active role in a democratic learning and earning society.

The use of the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) to support English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) learners has been shown to enhance learning in a Further Education College in North West London, UK. In this paper the authors discuss the findings of a pilot project that explored its use with different groups of learners. They consider some of the pedagogical issues affecting the integration of learning design using LAMS in the curriculum and its uptake by staff in the wider community. Cultural factors that contribute to the sharing of learning designs and, ultimately, the adoption of learning design by a community of practitioners are discussed and conclusions drawn about some ways to develop capacity.

This article distinguishes three dimensions to learning design: a technological infrastructure, a conceptual framework for practice that focuses on the creation of structured sequences of learning activities, and a way to represent and share practice through the use of mediating artefacts. Focusing initially on the second of these dimensions, the article reports the key findings from an exploratory study, eLIDA CAMEL. This project examined a hitherto under-researched aspect of learning design: what teachers who are new to the domain perceive to be its value as a framework for practice in the design of both flexible and classroom-based learning. Data collection comprised 13 case studies constructed from participants' self-reports. These suggest that providing students with a structured sequence of learning activities was the major value to teachers. The article additionally discusses the potential of such case studies to function as mediating artefacts for practitioners who are considering experimenting with learning design.

Trust and collective learning are useful features that are enabled by effective collaborative leadership of e-learning projects across higher and further education (HE/FE) institutions promoting lifelong learning. These features contribute effectively to the development of design for learning in communities of e-learning practice. For this, reflexivity, good leadership and the capacity to engage in innovation is crucial to team performance. This paper outlines a serendipitously useful combination of innovative models of collaboration emerging from two 2005-06 UK e-learning pilots: the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) e-Learning Independent Study Award (eLISA) and JISC infoNet Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning (CAMEL) projects. The JISC-funded eLISA Distributed e-Learning (DeL) project set up a collaborative partnership among teachers to try out LAMS and Moodle using study skills in e-learning. Simultaneously, the JISC infoNet CAMEL project developed a model of collaborative approaches to e-learning leadership and management across four UK HE/FE institutions. This paper proposes two new theoretical collaborative team leadership and operational models for e-learning projects, including indices of trust, reflexivity and shared procedural knowledge, recommending that these models are further developed in future communities of e-learning practice in institutions promoting lifelong learning.

This paper takes as its starting-point the role of reusable learning designs and of practitioner communities in disseminating effective pedagogic practice. The authors note the findings of previous research indicating a gap between teachers’ stated intention to reuse others’ materials and the practicalities of reuse, and comment on the shortcomings of both Wenger’s communities of practice and Hung and Nichani’s quasi-communities as models of the types of community that might foster the reuse of learning designs. They suggest that another model is needed to address the ‘scaffolding’ of teachers into the practice of sharing. To explore both themes, the authors then present an investigation into the reusability of learning designs. This was set in the context of a regional initiative, within the London Borough of Greenwich, to support students’ development of study skills through blended learning. Questions raised by the findings include the cost-benefits of adaptation versus creation of one’s own learning designs, and the reusability of designs created ‘in the abstract.’ The authors conclude by introducing the CAMEL model of collaboration as a potential means to overcome the discrepancy between the theory and reality of reuse through establishing relationships of trust mediated by both online and faceto-face communication.

Trust and collective learning are useful features that are enabled by effective collaborative leadership of e-learning projects across higher and further education (HE/FE) institutions promoting lifelong learning. These features contribute effectively to the development of design for learning in communities of e-learning practice. For this, reflexivity, good leadership and the capacity to engage in innovation is crucial to team performance. This paper outlines a serendipitously useful combination of innovative models of collaboration emerging from two 2005–06 UK e-learning pilots: the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) e-Learning Independent Study Award (eLISA) and JISC infoNet Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning (CAMEL) projects. The JISC-funded eLISA Distributed e-Learning (DeL) project set up a collaborative partnership among teachers to try out LAMS and Moodle using study skills in e-learning. Simultaneously, the JISC infoNet CAMEL project developed a model of collaborative approaches to e-learning leadership and management across four UK HE/FE institutions. This paper proposes two new theoretical collaborative team leadership and operational models for e-learning projects, including indices of trust, reflexivity and shared procedural knowledge, recommending that these models are further developed in future communities of e-learning practice in institutions promoting lifelong learning.

The School of Architecture and Construction of the University of Greenwich has successfully delivered a range of distance learning programmes, mainly in Hong Kong, Malaysia and China, since the early 1990s. The method of delivery has been through paper-based study material and study weekends held twice a year at each centre. Recently, the distance learning market has become more fragmented, diverse and scattered with students expecting multimedia programme delivery. In 2003, the decision was taken to examine the potential of electronic teaching and learning systems to meet changing student expectations. This paper describes the experiences of the authors as they retrofitted an e-learning solution to an existing distance learning course. The paper, through the use of a case study methodology, critically reviews the various stages of the retrofitting process and highlights the key factors that affected its progress. The paper concludes that, while it was technically feasible to retrofit an e-learning solution to a traditional paper-based course, the trade-offs between the potential benefits and associated costs, and the need to clearly articulate these to other stakeholders in the distance learning programme, was a major inhibitor on both the scale and speed of development.