Look on the News page for teaching and learning news from the UK art, design and media higher education sector, including events, calls for papers, funding opportunities and more. See the About us page for information on how to share your news on this blog.

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Brighton Photo Biennial - 6th Ocober-4th November 2012

 Agents of Change: Photography and the Politics of Space






Photoworks announce announce the fifth edition of the acclaimed Brighton Photo Biennial, once again bringing international and emerging photographers and artists to the city.

Partnered by the University of Brighton the biennial will "Explore how space is constructed, controlled and contested, how photography is implicated in these processes, and the tensions and possibilities this dialogue involves.  BPB12 provides a critical space to think about relationships between the political occupation of physical sites and the production and dissemination of images".

For more information go to: http://www.bpb.org.uk/2012/

Image Thompson and Craighead: http://www.bpb.org.uk/2012/whats_on/thomson-and-craighead/

Monday 23 July 2012

CONGRATULATIONS to Debbie

As we're sure most of you will be aware, Debbie Flint, the much loved member of our Networks team left a few weeks ago on maternity leave. I'm very happy to announce that Debbie and her partner Carl had a little baby girl, Ronnie, on Thursday July 19.

I'm sure you will want to wish her well and we will pass on the networks congratulations.

Jenny, Stuart and Steve

Monday 16 July 2012

EVENT - Showing the Arts and Humanities Matter

University College London
18 September 2012

A one day symposium at UCL in conjunction with 4HumanitiesArts EmergencyUCL Centre for Digital Humanities, and UCL Department of Information Studies.

Government and private support for the humanities—for research, teaching, preservation, and creative renewal in such fields as literature, history, languages, philosophy, classics, art history, and cultural studies - is in decline. What can we do to demonstrate that the Arts and Humanities matter?

This free, one day symposium, will feature leading figures in understanding, demonstrating, and advocating for the Arts and Humanities. The symposium will also mark the launch of the local 4Humanities@UCL chapter.

Confirmed speakers include:
  • Professor Alan Liu, University of California Santa Barbara, and 4Humanities founder
  • Dr RĂ¼diger Klein, European Alliance for the Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Amy Westwell and Oliver Milne, The Free Hetherington Campaign
  • Neil Griffiths, Arts Emergency
  • Dr Anna Upchurch, University of Leeds, and Dr Eleonora Belfiore, University of Warwick
  • Professor Andrew Prescott, King's College London.

CALL - for papers for Twitter and Microblogging conference

Twitter and Microblogging: Political, Professional and Personal Practices
Lancaster University, United Kingdom 
10 - 12 April 2013

Deadline for abracts: 10 December 2012

Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms, with their short messages, in some cases circulated to millions of followers, were at first viewed with condescension and amusement: famously David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, opined, "Too many tweets make a twat." Other media initially treated Twitter as offering platforms for celebrities, pools of banality, streams of dumbed-down opinions. But people using Twitter quickly found an enormous range of diverse uses, revelling in opportunities for creativity that microblogging and associated applications offered. People involved Twitter in organising revolutions, disseminating scientific findings, promoting brands, communicating with friends and crafting new forms of artistic endeavours and communications. Where Twitter is not allowed, as in China, other microblogging platforms have taken on similar functions.
This conference brings together a range of researchers doing detailed analyses of the discourse, practices, and social interactions of microblogging communities.
Possible topics for submission may include:
  • Microblogging and political activism
  • Constructing knowledge in short messages
  • Identities and relationships in contact and conflict
  • Studying multimodality in microblogging
  • Tweeting in action beyond Twitter
  • Negotiating the information flow
  • Affordances, emerging practices and creativity
  • Studying the discourses of professional microblogging use
  • Wit and humour
They will be inviting presentation in three formats:
  • Single paper spoken presentations - 20 minutes
  • Visual presentations (posters, videos, slide shows, etc.)
  • Colloquia of three or more linked presentations

Friday 13 July 2012

NEWS - Networks Issue 18 is now online








We are pleased to announce that Networks 18 is now online. It is a bumper issue and we hope you will enjoy reading the feature articles, case studies, reviews and reports and watching the films from Drawing on All Resources.

This is our final issue of Networks in its current form. For this issue we didn’t identify a theme, but put out a general call with the aim of celebrating the creativity, skill and attention colleagues devote to teaching and learning in art, design and media higher education. The themes and issues raised, therefore, come from teachers and others supporting learning in the sector. Nevertheless, there are commonalities between many of the articles submitted and presented in Networks 18.

We are delighted and grateful to the University of Brighton for funding this last issue and Brighton is exploring how we sustain this community and these debates and find new channels for their dissemination. Over the next few weeks and before summer’s out, the current Networks team will be taking up new roles and challenges. Thank you to the contributors to this issue and for all for your contributions in the past; we hope that the will to share, so much in evidence in Networks, will continue to thrive in new ways.

http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/networks/issue-18-july-2012

NEWS - Drawing on All Resources reports and presentations now online

Drawing on All Resources: developing open educational practice in art, design and media
Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton, Grand Parade, Brighton
16 May 2012


We are very pleased to announce that the full report from this highly successful event has now been published online in Networks 18. This includes the presentations and recordings of the sessions, reports and feedback from the day.

For more information: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/networks/issue-18-july-2012/drawing-on-all-resources-developing-open-educational-practice-in-art,-design-and-media

GENERAL NEWS - from HE

EVENT -  SEDA Workshop - Education for Sustainable Development in Higher Education
Woburn House, London
11 October 2012
  
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is an increasingly important feature of the Higher Education landscape. The workshop explores the implications of ESD for programme developers and tutors, and provides examples of good practice from across the sector. It is intended to help support participants share collective experience and move forward this rapidly growing area of knowledge and practice. It also links to SEDA Special 31 and is led by Professor Debby Cotton and Dr Jennie Winter, co-editors and authors of that publication.
______________________________________________________________________
CALL -  for papers for International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL)

Deadline for extended abstracts: 1 September 2012

This is a call for papers for the Special Issue On: Mobile Learning and Creativity: Current Concepts and Studies

CALL - for proposals for thematic workshops and seminars

Thematic seminars, 2012-13

Deadline for first call: 16 July 2012

The HEA is pleased to invite all subscribing institutions in the UK delivering higher education to be part of a thematic workshop and seminar series during the 2012/13 academic year. Funding has been provided to enable them to offer a grant of £750 to institutions to host and deliver a workshop or seminar during the series and produce an associated report for the sector.

Through this series, institutions are invited to disseminate findings from research or evaluation work, or share evidence-informed policy and/or practice in the one of the thematic areas of:
  • employability;
  • flexible learning;
  • internationalisation.
Two calls for proposals will be released during the 2012/13 academic year:
  • First call opens 19 June 2012 and closes 16 July 2012, for workshops or seminars to be held during the autumn and winter: October 2012 – January 2013;
  • Second call opens 01 October 2012 and closes 29 October 2012, for workshops or seminars to be held during the spring and summer: February – July 2013.
For more information: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/seminar-series

Thursday 12 July 2012

CALL - for papers to fusion, new international open-access journal

fusion is a new international open-access online scholarly journal for the communication, creative industries and media arts disciplines. Co-founded by the Faculty of Arts, Charles Sturt University (Australia) and the College of Arts, University of Lincoln (UK), fusion will publish refereed articles, creative works and other practice-led forms of output.

fu·sion (fy  zh n) noun.
  1. The merging of different elements into a union.
  2. The blending of different elements to form a larger nucleus with the simultaneous release of energy.
  3. A combination of different ingredients and techniques from very different cultures or countries.
fusion aims to:
  • to provide a space where the blurring of different disciplinary, cultural, local, national and global ideas and creative practices can flourish;
  • to increase scholarly appreciation of transdiscplinarity, transculturalism and transnationalism in the communication, media and creative arts industries; 
  • to encourage early career researchers by offering the opportunity to work alongside established researchers in the editorial, peer reviewing and writing processes;
  • to share the benefits of transnational collaboration and discussion of issues seen through the lens of fusion and hybridisation;
  • to foster critical awareness of the dialogic fusion produced between globalisation and regionalism.
fusion is also open to reviews, and commissioned articles. Appearing twice a year, each issue is organised around a theme involving the fusion of two or more ideas, disciplines or cultures, and edited by a small team of guest editors whose research interests reflect the particular theme.  The editorial teams will include at least one early career researcher or Higher Research Degree student.  Submissions will be refereed by an international board of established and emerging scholars working across diverse paradigms in Media, Communication, and the Creative Arts Industries.

Call for papers

Theme:  fusion in the communication, media, creative industries and media arts

Deadline:  17 September 2012

For the first issue the theme is, simply, fusion.  They invite submissions on any aspect - past and present - of the communication, media and creative industries which explore, analyse or otherwise attend to issues of fusion and hybridisation.  They also invite submissions on these same issues seen through the lens of critical regionalism.  The editors wish to encourage joint submissions, particularly those which include an emerging researcher.  Submissions may be visual, aural, still, moving and written material.

Guest Editors for this issue

Professor Craig Bremner and Damian Candusso (Charles Sturt University, Australia)
Professor Brian Winston (Lincoln University, UK)
Associate Professor Jane Mills (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Contributors are invited to submit articles or creative works on fusions and hybridising processes across a wide range of media, communication and creative industries topics.  Joint submissions which include a research student or early career researcher among the authors are especially welcome. 

Submissions which may be visual, aural, still, moving or written are invited for any one of the following sections of fusion.
  • Articles of between 4,000-6,000 words, or creative works and other projects of equivalent scope.
  • Reports, edited interviews, feature reviews of up to 4,000 words, or creative works and other projects of equivalent scope.
  • Reviews, responses, reprints of seminal reports and articles, and debate items of up to 2,000 words, or creative works and other projects of equivalent scope.
Before submitting, you must read the 'Submission' page for the journal's Author/Creator Guidelines and Refereeing Process.  Authors need to register with the journal before submitting.  If you are already registered, you can simply log in.  For enquiries, please contact the fusion Editorial Assistant Michelle O'Connor at moconnor@csu.edu.au

Publication Schedule

Submission Deadline: 17 September 2012
Review comments: 9 November 2012 
Revised submissions due: 19 November 2012
Issue publication: 3 December 2012


Tuesday 10 July 2012

CALL – for original contributions to 'Routledge Companion to British Media History'

Following the success of Stuart Allan's Routledge Companion to News and Journalism original contributions for the forthcoming Routledge Companion to British Media History are invited. It will be edited by Martin Conboy and John Steel at the University of Sheffield.

Deadline for outlines: 31 July 2012

In a similar vein to Stuart Allen's book, this volume seeks to address issues of current theoretical and historical debate with the broad field of British media history. They have already attracted a number of leading and emerging scholars within the field but still require high quality contributions in the following areas:
  • Thinking about the media historically
  • The political economy of the media
  • The media effects debate
  • Inscriptions and depictions of 'race'
  • Media and sport as spectacular representation
  • The mediation of social conflict
  • The birth of news
  • 18th century newspapers and public opinion
  • Eras of film
  • Technology's false dawns: the past of media futures
The essay should be 4,000 to 5,000 words in length including notes and bibliography and pay close attention to recent research and any international comparisons where appropriate.

If you would like to contribute the editors require a brief 500 word outline by the end of July 2012 with a view to decisions being made by the end of September 2012. On acceptance of the proposed essay, contracts would be issued by Routledge in October  2012 and complete essays submitted for editorial review in May 2013 for publication mid 2014. There will be a cash fee of £80  (payable on delivery of the final MS to Roultedge).

Submissions and queries should be directed to the editorial assistant Dr Angie Negrine at: dr.a.negrine@gmail.com 

CALL - for papers for special issue of Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism


Special issue of Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, takes as its focus the ethics of literary journalism. 

Deadline for abstracts: 1 December 2012

In each generation, writers and critics find ways to value the potential of long-form narrative nonfiction to offer readers an insight and artistry that is commonly assumed to be the preserve of fiction. In more recent times, memoir and confessional writing and their social networking equivalents have also gained currency, mixing with journalistic forms and borrowing from them. 

While literary journalism has gained prominence as a distinct genre, however, the ethical issues arising from this specific encounter – between the disciplines of objectivity as a form of verifiable truth, and the subjectivity of personal experience – have become more urgent. 

This special issue on literary journalism will explore a range of critical and practice-led approaches to an evolving genre, focusing on areas of ethical tension. 

Prospective authors should submit an abstract of approximately 250 words by email to Susan Greenberg and Julie Wheelwright julie.wheelwright.1@city.ac.uk.

Monday 9 July 2012

CALL – for submissions to Nom de Strip issue 3

Nom de Strip is a journal of Arts & Culture in the South West which promotes culture across the arts, regeneration and creative entrepreneurship in Plymouth and the South West, focusing attention on the individuals, groups and organisations that contribute to the South West’s growing cultural profile.

Deadline for submissions for the September issue:  3 August 2012.

The editors are looking for writers, artists, photographers and all other creative folk with an interest in art and culture in the South West. The next issue will be published at the end of September. 

Issue 3 looks at the role of books, literature and words (written + spoken) as tools to communicate ideas. They would be very interested to hear thoughts and ideas around this topic. Here are three ways you can contribute to Nom de Strip: 

Illustrations & Photographic Submissions
  They are always looking for new illustrators and photographers to work with on editorial commissions for the newspaper. If you are interested in creating artwork for Nom de Strip, please send at least three examples of your work, or a link to your online portfolio, to william@nomdestrip.co.uk. If they like what they see, they will get in touch with a brief for the next issue. 


Editorial Submissions Nom de Strip publishes features, reviews and
previews by new and established writers. If you are interested in writing for them, please send a proposal, along with any examples of your written work to pamela@nomdestrip.co.uk. If they like your writing and the direction of your proposed article they will get in touch, and work towards a final outcome to be published in the next issue or online.

Exhibitions, Performances, Shows & Other Events  They promote interesting exhibitions, performances and shows happening in the South West. If you are involved in any of the above, and would like them to feature your event online or in print, please send them a press release or short description of the event to press@nomdestrip.co.uk. If they think the event will be interesting to our readers, they will feature it on the website or in the next issue. Please remember that they work up to 3 months ahead for the print publication and one week ahead for the website.


Friday 6 July 2012

EVENT - Talking Shop - for teachers of film production in HE

Blue Room, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, South Bank, London 
11 July 2012 

Talking Shop is an annual opportunity for teachers of film production in Higher Education to share good practice. This year the one day conference will consist of two panel discussions on the following themes: 

  • Primus inter pares – Leadership versus teamwork for student filmmakers, with presentations from Peter Hort, University of Westminster; Nik Powell, National Film and Television School and Lucy Brown, University of Hertfordshire. 
  • Spaces for Creativity – Making filmmakers not films, with presentations from Freya Billington, University of Gloucestershire, John Burgan, University of Wales, Newport, and Simon Passmore, University of Westminster. 
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2012/seminars/disciplines/DW273

The conference will take place immediately after the Nahemi AGM. 

Eat our Shorts 10 will take place on 10 July, where more than 22 films from Nahemi member courses will be screened. For more information

GENERAL NEWS - for HE

EVENT - HEA/SEDA Conference: Open Horizons: Sharing the future
Aston Conference Centre, Birmingham
20 July 2012

Following three years of funding from the Higher Education Academy and JISC, a wide range of programmes and projects have explored the creation, development, use and reuse of open educational resources. Globally, the open resources movement is changing polices and the development needs of staff and students alike. This timely conference will bring together a broad range of people interested in using and developing open educational resources to enhance accredited CPD courses and inform policy, practice and institutional strategies, including senior management with strategic learning and teaching roles, educational developers and lecturers.
______________________________________________________________________
EVENT - Preparing for 24+ Advanced Learning Loans
Westminster, London
18 September 2012

The Government plans to introduce FE loans in September 2013, giving colleges, training providers and employers just over a year to prepare for this overhaul of education funding. Organisations affected by the move will need to anticipate the policy’s impact on access to further education, ensure staff understand the new loans system and develop an effective communications strategy.
______________________________________________________________________
NEWS - New Unistats web-site
From September 2012 a new Unistats web-site will be launched, which will present data in a significantly different way. For example, all Key Information Set (KIS) data will be available from the site alongside NSS and Destination of Leavers from Higher Education data.

The Unistats web-site will be accessed directly or through the KIS ‘widgets’ which are embedded in the higher education course web pages of universities and colleges. A search on most search engines using the more obvious key phrases will also lead users to the site. There will be links to the site from each course page within the UCAS Course Finder site

CALL - for papers Creative Industries Postgraduate Conference Wales

Creative Industries Postgraduate Conference Wales
Atrium, Glamorgan University
21 September 2012

Closing Date for Submissions: 20 July 2012 

  
The organisers are currently seeking papers, in English or Welsh,  for the first Creative Industries Postgraduate Conference Wales, co-organised by Swansea University, Aberystwyth University and Glamorgan University. This is a bilingual conference with two main aims:
  • to give postgraduate students an opportunity to present their research in a constructive and supportive environment, 
  • a means to create a national community of postgraduate students within the creative industries. 
They invite paper submissions from students who are studying towards a MA, MA through Research (MRes), MPhil or PhD degree. They are eager to receive applications from students who are studying any aspect of Film, Television, Radio, Journalism, New Media, Theatre and Performance in the context of Wales OR students who are researching any aspect of Film, Television, Radio, Journalism, New Media, Theatre and Performance in an international context but writing their research thesis through the medium of Welsh.

In addition to the paper presentations by postgraduate students, the aim of this free conference is to organise sessions which will give students the opportunity to consider how to publish their research and how to make their work relevant to a wider audience. There will also be an opportunity to meet leading academics in the field of the creative industries who will be responding to your presentations and advising you on your work, in order to support your development as young researchers.

The best paper presented during the conference will be considered for publishing in either Cyfrwng: Media Wales Journal – Cyfnodolyn Cyfryngau Cymru or in the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol journal Gwerddon. Further information on this opportunity will be made available soon.

Papers should be no more than 20 minutes in length. Please send proposals of around 300 words, and a short biography, which states the current year of your studies, to the following address: e.price@swansea.ac.uk Please also note your technical requirements for the presentation of your paper.

Thursday 5 July 2012

CALL & NEWS - Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies Journal

The first issue of JOMEC (Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies) Journal, an online peer reviewed journal has been published by Cardiff University.
JOMEC'S editorial board welcomes work that is located in any one of the related disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary work that approaches Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies as overlapping and interlocking fields. JOMEC is particularly interested in work that addresses the political and ethical dimensions, stakes, problematics and possibilities of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.
As well as publishing regular themed and open issues, JOMEC Journal also aims, from time to time, to intervene quickly into selected political discourses and debates, by publishing ‘rapid responses’ to political issues: responses that are always rigorously scholarly but that may be politically partisan, punchy and polemical, and that are not slowed down by a cumbersome publishing apparatus or timeline.
JOMEC Journal is a peer reviewed online open access academic journal run by an editorial collective based in the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University. It is peer reviewed with an international Editorial Board and Advisory Panel.

CALL & NEWS - Frames open access cinema journal

Frames is a new, student-led cinema journal from the film department at the University of St Andrews and the first issue has just been published. 

The journal aims to be a space for cutting edge research and for an intelligent discussion among those that are interested in film, film history and film theory.
Each edition of Frames seeks to bring together original scholarship from a range of disciplines that not only benefits the field of film studies but also encourages an on-going discourse among academics from around the world. Contributors are offered the opportunity to publish their work in a twice annual journal and with each issue a carefully-selected topic will be under discussion, accompanied by book reviews. Frames holds a commitment to interrogating and challenging the boundaries of the discipline, and the editors will be accommodating work that critically reassesses and creatively enacts what it means to study moving images today.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

CALL for papers 'New Uses of Bourdieu in Film and Media Studies'

Culture Lab, Newcastle University
16 November 2012

Deadline for proposals: 30 September 2012

A one day conference in collaboration between Newcastle University's Research Centre in Film & Digital Media and the University of Sunderland's Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies, with keynote speaker Professor Bridget Fowler of the University of Glasgow.

Despite the profound influence of Pierre Bourdieu's work in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies, it has been less extensively employed in research in the fields of film and media. Certainly for film, this is partially explained by a lack of direct comment by Bourdieu on the subject (the short essay "Culture is in danger" (2000) represents the most striking exception in this regard). Although Bourdieu has written more extensively on media, this has certainly not produced what one might call a Bourdieu school of media studies. The aim of the conference, therefore, is to explore new uses of Bourdieu in film and media research.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • symbolic violence: making the invisible visible
  • film space and social space
  • the engaged intellectual in film and media
  • film and artistic autonomy
  • film/media as serving/resisting cultural, social and political reproduction
  • film/media's potential to reinforce or to resist masculine domination
  • taste, distinction and canon formation
  • reflexivity in film and media
Proposals of 200 words along with a short biography should be sent by 30 September 2012 to:
Guy Austin guy.austin@ncl.ac.uk and John Storey: john.storey@sunderland.ac.uk

Monday 2 July 2012

CALL - for papers and reviewers for JMPS Screenworks

Journal of Media Practice Symposium announce that Volume 3 of Screenworks: screen media practice research is now online and the call for Volume 4 has been announced.



Call for papers will open on 24 September 2012
and close on 21 January 2013

Edited by Dr Charlotte Crofts and Associate Editor Steve Presence at the University of the West of England, the third volume of this peer-reviewed online publication of academic screen media research demonstrates the broad range of research that is currently being undertaken through practice, which includes multi-screen 'expanded' cinema, site-specific installations, live AV performances, practice-as-research into childhood, experimental documentary, philosophical mediations on the platonic ideal and an exploration of the ontology of the digital camera lens.  Each work is accompanied by a supporting research statement, offering a 'route map' of the research process and the peer reviews are published alongside the work in a system of open peer review.  



Volume 4 of Screenworks will be an open call of rolling publications. This means that in the spirit of reactive online publishing they will review and publish work on a rolling basis as it comes in, rather than waiting for a full Volume before publication. The call will open on 24 September 2012 and close on 21 January 2013, with a view to publishing each work as soon as the reviewing process is complete. All work will be published by June 2013 at the latest, accruing a full Volume of work for the academic year.  For more information about the peer review process and how to submit your work please go to the Call for Submissions page

They are very keen to expand their pool of academic reviewers so if you would be interested in getting involved then please email screenworks@jmpscreenworks.com with "Screenworks Reviewer" in the subject line, stating your area of interest / expertise and your institutional affiliation: screen media practice research.

Friday 29 June 2012

FROM THE ARCHIVE - 'Learning on Placement' & 'Fashion, Textiles and Related Industries'

Learning on Placement: An investigation of work placement opportunities within the designer-maker community 
Andie Robertson, Buckinghamshire New University
&
Fashion, Textiles and Related Industries: Work-related Learning and the Student Experience
Catherine McConnell, Northbrook College Sussex
This section, taken from Networks 5, was compiled by Andie Robertson and Catherine McConnell. Their articles (pp. 15 - 22) summarise findings of two related projects co-funded by ADM-HEA and Skillfast-UK, the Sector Skills Council for Fashion and Textiles, examining employer engagement, work-related learning and the student experience. Their ‘Conversation’ (pp. 23 - 25) provides some practical advice and solutions to challenges encountered by students, tutors and work-placement providers in developing mutually beneficial work-related learning.

The Learning on Placement research project, set out to identify the relationships that currently exist between the fashion and textiles student, tutor, course and designer-maker business, as seen from the perspective of designer-makers. The data collected during the project, while valuable to the specific subject area, raises important issues around skills training, learning experiences and entrepreneurship (pp. 15 - 18).
The Fashion, Textiles and Related Industries paper outlines the findings of research exploring employer engagement activities currently taking place across a number of HE and HE in FE institutions delivering fashion and textiles curricula. In addition, the article also seeks to examine the staff and student experience of work-related and work-based learning in the fashion and textiles educational sector and identify some of the challenges faced by educators in this field and effective responses to these (pp. 19 - 22).
Published in Autumn 2008Networks, Issue 5, pp. 15 - 27. 
To access the articles

GENERAL NEWS - from HE

EVENT - Curriculum Design - Opening up the Game          
Evidence and Practice for Responsive Curriculum Design to Widen Participation
The Open University in London, Camden Town, London
5 July 2012

The challenge to higher education institutions of providing a truly inclusive curriculum appears to many as complex and elusive. Our response to widening participation, greater student diversity and the increasing emphasis on the student experience is critical. One of the starting points has to be in the conception and design of the curriculum itself. 
This workshop will engage academics, administrators, managers and practitioners in a series of engaging interactive activities informed by evidence, which invite critical reflection on existing process and practices in curriculum design, and the  broader student experience of teaching and learning. The outcomes envisaged from these creative conversations are new strategies, approaches and opportunities for extending student engagement, retention and success of our students.
______________________________________________________________________
EVENT - Student-Generated Induction Workshop: A Social Identity Approach
Royal Station Hotel, York
19 July 2012

Participants in this workshop will have the chance to share issues and concerns relating to induction and transition. The Shared Thinking practice, developed at University of Glasgow, has already been applied to induction and transition at different universities and for different disciplines. This workshop will be useful in providing a chance to explore a particular theoretical framework and to experience a technology-supported practice that creates a participant-led approach to induction and transition.
______________________________________________________________________
EVENT - 17th Annual SEDA Conference
Excellence in Teaching: recognising, enhancing, evaluating and achieving impact
Aston Business School, Birmingham
15 - 16 November 2012

The conference will focus on Excellence in Teaching: recognising, enhancing, evaluating and achieving impact. This brings together many activities across the sector where the focus has been on enhancing the student experience.

CALL - for papers for ADCHE Special Issue on e-learning

Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education 12.2
Special issue on e-learning
Edited by Linda Drew (The Glasgow School of Art)

Deadline for full submissions: 31 October 2012 

Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education is a refereed journal that aims to inform, stimulate and promote the development of research with a learning and teaching focus for art, design and communication within higher education. 

The journal invites contributions from a wide and diverse community of researchers. It seeks to generate and promote research from both experienced researchers and to encourage those new to this field. The aim is to provide a forum for debate arising from findings as well as theory and methodologies. A range of research approaches and methods is encouraged.

For issue 12.2 the editors are inviting papers and shorter items on the theme of e-learning. This may include, but is not exclusive to: 
  • the impact of electronic resources on studio learning
  • the development and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) in art, design and communication
  • Online learning in design related subject areas
  • New technologies for learning
  • New modes of learning in virtual worlds
  •  Students’ experience of using electronic resources
Major Papers (5000-6000 words) should include original work of a research or developmental nature and/or proposed new methods or ideas which are clearly and thoroughly presented and argued. 

 Shorter items (1,000 to 2,500 words) include: 
  • Reports of research in progress
  • Reflections on the research process
  • Research evaluations of funded projects 
The editor, Linda Drew, and the editorial board are seeking suitable papers for consideration. They are also seeking reviews of relevant recent publications, electronic media and software and conference reports. 

This peer-reviewed journal is published twice a year.

Submissions should conform to the journal’s style guide. 
For more information

Thursday 28 June 2012

CALL - for papers for the Journal of Screenwriting

The Journal of Screenwriting is a peer reviewed publication which explores the nature of writing for the screen image in the broadest sense; this includes not only writing for film and television but also computer games and animation. The journal encompasses all aspects of academic and professional thinking about the screenplay and intends to promote, stimulate and bring together current research and contemporary debates in this area, an area which has previously been somewhat neglected in academic discourse.  The journal of screenwriting aims to help redress this imbalance whilst encouraging further research in an international arena.  The journal is discursive, critical and rigorous whilst engaging with issues in a dynamic and developing field, linking academic theory to screenwriting practice.  

The journal explores a wide and diverse range of methodological approaches which includes study of the history of the screenplay, textual analysis, the relationship of screenwriting to the production process and screenwriting practice as research.

The editors invite contributions from researchers and screenwriters which discuss any aspect of the history, theory and practice of the screenplay. This may include articles concerned with film, television and computer games screenplays.

Articles should be between 4000 and 7000 words in length. In the first instance the editors request a 250 word abstract which outlines your proposed article. This is an ongoing call, there is no deadline date.
For more information

Volume 1: Issue 1 is available free online

EVENT - Pedagogies for social diversity and difference in Art & Design

University of the Arts, 272 High Holburn, London
23 July 2012

This workshop, one of the Higher Education Academy Discipline Workshop and Seminar Series, examines the way art and design institutions have responded to the challenges of including students from a wide range of backgrounds. It will provide the historical context and then discuss the theory of diversity through the concepts of critical pedagogy and social justice.

It will consider the diversity work at an individual and also an institutional level. The individual examples used to discuss this will be provided by reflections of diverse successful students from the archive of the Tell Us About It Project , housed at UAL.

These responses from students range from artefacts/videos/sketch books/paintings reflecting on the teaching and learning process.

It will also use the examples of staff who have been involved in small scale curriculum interventions to make some changes within their practice. It will also discuss the institutional practices and developments that can bring about change. This will use as an example the development of the project Shades of Noir.

EVENT - Lighting a spark: Collaborative digital drawing, research and practice

Sandpit, AIR building, University Campus Tremough, Falmouth
9 July 2012

This play day is about exploring how you can capture the physical act of drawing and how to re-manifest them using digital printing technologies. This gives participants the opportunity to investigate the interface between the physical and the digital through drawing.

What happens when you rescale physical gesture, what do marks made on one surface look like on another, what are the limitations and glitches in the technologies and what potential do they hold? These are just a few things that excite the organisers and they hope to explore.

They will be using Livescribe pens that record whatever you draw on specially printed paper, drawing and painting apps for iPads, eBeam pen tracking technology that allows large scale 2D gestures and drawn marks to be recorded, and 3D room-scale motion capture that can track full body movements in space.

The computer controlled router in the Design Centre will be reconfigured as a 8’x4’ mark making machine, not just to reproduce, but to transform, translate and refigure the original drawing and movements. The router can work on a variety of surfaces with a range of media to produce different effects, and your work can be rescaled to change its impact and purpose.

This workshop is free for participants, funded and supported by the Higher Education Academy and University College Falmouth.

Tuesday 26 June 2012

EVENT - Credit and classification: where are we going?

Student Assessment And Classification Working Group (SACWG) Annual Seminar
Woburn House, London
21 November 2012

Speakers:
Professor Sir Robert Burgess, Vice Chancellor, University of Leicester, and
Professor Paul Bridges, Head of Research, University of Derby and Chair of the UK Credit Forum

Issues include:
  • HEAR implementation
  • Parallel and alternative reporting of student achievement (not limited to Honours degree classifications)
  • Are compensation and condonement compatible with good credit practice?
  • When is it permissible to re-use credit? 
Coffee/Tea from 10.00 am for 10.30 am start, to conclude at 4.00 pm - refreshments and lunch are included in the cost of £110.00 per person.  Places are limited to 75 persons. 

For more information and to book online: https://secure.worc.ac.uk/sacwg/       

Friday 22 June 2012

NEWS - Debbie Flint's last day!


Today is Debbie's last day before she goes on Maternity leave. 

Those of you who know and have worked with Debbie over the past 6 and a half years will know that she is an excellent, professional colleague, an extremely important and integral member of the team and, above all else, great fun to work with! Needless to say, we are going to miss her very much. 

We send her our very best wishes and good luck for the future.

Jenny, Steve and Stuart

FROM THE ARCHIVE - Doing Media 2.0

Doing Media 2.0
Julian McDougall and Steve Dixon, Newman University College, Birmingham


This article describes and evaluates a curriculum intervention – the development of a new module, ‘Media 2.0’ in the context of the broader debates in what Lister and Dovey call ‘a very uneven field’ (Networks 07). To avoid reproducing the debate throughout the Media degree as peripheral, the subject team designed a new module to ensure a foundational context for students in which to reflect on their ‘prosumer’ activity as well as what happens to ‘the media’ as a result. 

Published in Autumn 2009Networks, Issue 8, pp. 23 - 25.