Partners

The project partner presentation at Newcastle went really well and seemed very positive. They gave us some thoughts on where they would see the Enable project, plus seemed very open to the idea of using blogs and reflecting on the processes involved in curriculum design, and development. We managed to make a clear distinction between the Enable project and DIVAS during this meeting, as we are still planning on using the Validation Support Network to capture the reflective process. They have collected a number of awards that are in development at the college, and have one more interview before we get the templates back all completed. We will then need to think of a way of capturing when those developments change status - something to think about for the new year I feel. I have also contacted Shrewsbury to find out where they are with capturing award information, it looks like we might be waiting for the New Year before that information comes to us, but is on the list. I will be popping to see the Shrewsbury team just before Christmas to see if they are happy and also give them an overview of the project and what is happening. Once I have finished this blog its time to spend some time with the To Do list in Outlook so nothing gets over looked.

Linking together

Had an interesting conversation with Sam on Monday afternoon about how the spokes will all link together, and that we need to start thinking about the themes and who will fit in each one. We have started on a simple map of all the spoke names we have spoken to and put in initial lines on how they fit together. We have been pleased to note during some interviews projects have been talking together, but there are still some obvious gaps where the theme groups will work.
This morning I am off with Richard Benefer and Sue Lee to talk to the HE forum at Newcastle college about Enable, I have loads of handouts for them, including what we will expect from them for the funding and how they fit into the project as a whole. A lot is a duplicate of the meeting we had with the partners at the end of October. I will feed back on this meeting as I am hoping for some useful conversation to come out of it.

Perceptions of Staffordshire University

We had an interesting conversation this morning around how the university markets itself to different learners. We found that the recruitment of learners can be something that is the responsibility of a faculty, an award leader, a link tutor, the marketing team, student recruitment or AimHigher. There is an initiative in the university that is looking at bringing the efforts of student recruitment and AimHigher together, however there are some interesting holes in the processes around recruitment and marketing within the university. This links with work being done by Paul Baron, who we spoke to last week and how we manage the product portfolio, how new markets are identified and how communication is managed between the university and prospective learners.

Faculty and Process Spokes

We have had another busy week here, talking to members of faculties, those reviewing processes in the university, and taking part in Annual Award Reviews. It all feeds into what we would like from Curriculum Design and Development. We have found that there are some issues around using templates for faculties in that even when training is provided they can still be interpreted completed in a number of different ways. When asked for "blue sky" ideas we heard about the idea of the personalised prospectus and website, that experiences should be personal to those we are trying to engage and that the addition of negotiated modules onto traditional awards as options would be useful. I have yet to have time to blog about last weeks training and conference work, but I am hoping I will get some time free soon to do that! Next week we have more interviews and we will be presenting to our first college partner HE Forum.