BUFVC
The British Universities Film and Video Council (BUFVC) promotes the production, study and use of moving image media for higher education and research, and is a rich source of resources for teaching and research covering a wide range of disciplines, with a particular emphasis on media and media history. The Council has established extensive archives of TV off-air recordings (at least 16 hours per day have been recorded since June 1998), and of newsreel and related materials. It is also running a number of projects designed to open up access to these resources, some of which will be relevant to colleagues teaching English programmes which cover media and such twentieth century contexts as newsreel and documentary reporting. The Council has premises at 77, Wells Street, London, W1T 3QJ, and can be contacted on 0207-3931500.
HAN
HAN The Humanities and Arts Higher Education Network (HAN) was instituted in April 1994, by a group of academics at The Open University, with the aim of linking together the then scattered community of educators and researchers committed to improving processes of teaching and study within the arts/humanities. We also aimed to form a pressure group to help improve perceptions of the relative importance of the domain within higher education systems internationally. Not only has this network survived, it has flourished over the years. It now has a membership of some 200 academics, representing 100+ UK universities, who work right across the range of disciplines and fields. Accordingly, the HAN disseminates research results and new developments in teaching method (nowadays, especially uses of the electronic technologies); broadcasts information about meetings/conferences (members’ own and world-wide) and in support of research funding applications (e.g. to the FDTL, ESRC/HEFC programmes); and enables researchers having common interests to form consortia towards the conduct of research into teaching and learning. For further information see: http://kn.open.ac.uk/workspace/han/index.cfm.
NAWE
The National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) is the one organization supporting the development of creative writing of all genres and in all educational settings throughout the UK. Its website is a major interactive resource for writers and all those who wish to learn more about the writer’s craft. The Directory of Writers gives extensive details, including samples of work and audio-visual presentations, of over 1200 writers. The Archive contains conference papers and journal articles dating from 1987, when NAWE was founded. There is also a Directory of Writing Courses to assist in identifying appropriate courses for writers at all stages of their development. NAWE is particularly concerned to integrate good practice across all levels and to create strong cross-curricular links. Our projects range from Study Support in primary schools to a Continuing Professional Development programme for all writers and writing tutors. For further information, please contact Paul Munden, NAWE, PO Box 1, Sheriff Hutton, York YO60 7YU Tel: 01653 618429
NTFS
The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), as part of its use of the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF), launched the National Teaching Fellowships Scheme (NTFS) to recognise and reward individual academics who have demonstrated excellence in teaching and support for learning. The scheme, administered by the Institute for Learning and Teaching (ILT), has secured funding for an additional two years. In the year 2000, twenty successful nominees received awards of £50,000 to benefit their work in teaching and learning. Four of these new teaching fellows work in the English subject community.
Dr Angela Smallwood is a senior lecturer in English literature at Nottingham University. Through the PADSHE Skills Interface Project, she will set up a series of seminars and publish papers contributing to the national debate on the broadening area of skills development in which academic study and the world of work overlap. Drawing upon a range of experts across the country, these will demonstrate ways in which the new requirements for personal development planning in universities can be integrated with students’ skills development both inside and outside the curriculum. A major aim is to show how academic support for personal development planning may help university teachers realise their traditionally high aspirations for students’ independent learning. For more information, visit the PADSHE Project.
Mick Short, Professor of English Language and Literature at Lancaster University, is planning to investigate the effectiveness of web-based learning. He will develop web-based materials for use in Stylistics teaching and test their effectiveness via a controlled teaching experiment comparing learning outcomes and student responses to web-based and more traditional teaching modes. He will also test a computer-based self-assessment mechanism. Students will be able to try out bits of analysis on three texts (a poem, a prose extract and a drama extract), estimate what grade they think they have achieved and then get an example of a piece of writing on the text which has been assessed at the relevant grade. This practise should help students before they do the assessed work demanded of them.
Professor Rob Pope, Teaching Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, will be working on two projects. The first of these will expand, and make available as a web-based resource, the materials for critical and creative rewriting first published in Textual Intervention (Routledge, 1995). These materials will invite students to generate parallel, alternative and counter-texts, as well as to experiment with genre, parody, imitation and adaptation. His second project involve the production of a critical and historical sourcebook which will provide a historical sense of the discipline.
At Manchester University, Dr Bill Hutchings will investigate the suitability of Problem Based Learning systems for the teaching and assessment of literary studies. The project will also consider the implications of problem based learning in terms of resourcing and assessment. Bill Hutching’s intention is to trial PBL systems on a small number of selected course units in 2001-02. These units will include his modules on eighteenth-century Poetry and on Samuel Johnson.
