Scholarly activities and research from presenters to follow shortly.
A House of Lords Select Committee is using evidence provided by Northumbria Law School and the University of Cumbria to help shape policies to regulate the Internet.
Find out more about Regulating in a Digital World.
Absolutely delighted to announce that my co-authors and I have now published the world’s first textbook on Digital Lawyering with Routledge, in a quest to digitally transform legal education, particularly in today’s rapidly changing legal landscape, where becoming a digital lawyer is vital to success within the legal profession. Checkout some sample chapters.
This is an accessible and thorough introduction to digital lawyering, present and future, and a toolkit for gaining the key attributes and skills required to thrive in the radical transformation of the legal profession and the justice system. Digital Lawyering introduces students to all key topics, from the role of blockchain to the use of digital evidence in courtrooms, supported by contemporary case studies and integrated, interactive activities. Its a guide for law schools to reimagine the legal education curriculum.
A Quality Assurance Agency project around establishing the Hallmarks of Success series for Hybrid and Online Learning (2021-2022) for all programme teams and Heads of Learning and Teaching
Questions to Inform a Toolkit for Enhancing Quality in a Digital Environment around enhancing quality of courses in digital spaces in aid of ensuring rigour in teaching and course design during the pandemic. The work with QAA has led to invitations to support 50 FE college representatives simultaneously to improve digital learning in their course design.
Student-Centred Learning and Teaching, published in October 2021, featuring interrelated themes of student engagement, retention, achievement and progression in the context of hybrid learning.
Assessment in Digital and Blended Pedagogy, published in February 2022, advocating that assessment design is integral to a successful student learning journey providing a key link between student engagement, assuring academic standards and facilitating the development – and demonstration – of students’ knowledge and skills.
Course Design, Approval and Management, published in April 2022, in which blended and digital approaches require extensive planning and preparation, and involve a wider range of stakeholders than more traditional delivery.
Supporting and Empowering Teaching Staff in a Digital Environment, published in July 2022, to inform thinking and decision making around Organizational culture, strategic vision, mission and objectives, Learning teaching and assessment practices and professional development in the context of recognition and reward.
Access to content is available for members of the QAA.
Check out The Digital Learning Design Framework and Toolkit: Transforming Course Design, developed by Teesside University’s Digital Transformation department in collaboration with Jisc UK, published internationally by EDUCAUSE. The toolkit itself is available for free and downloadable for all learning organisations and course teams to use.
The new ways of designing courses, whether this is through a hybrid model of delivery or a full fledged online model of delivery, challenge universities to change, think and do things differently. How we approach digital learning design is critical to student success. The purpose of our collaboration is to bring together sector-wide, national and international perspectives to support the education sector to design and deliver successful online learning courses, having reflected and learned from the past fifteen months as courses rapidly pivoted from campus delivery into online delivery.
The framework and toolkit can be a fundamental action you take to ensure not just one department, not just one school, but an entire institution can move towards effective online delivery in a structured and supportive way. It has been designed to help course teams reflect, work collaboratively to determine the key considerations of each segment of the Digital Learning Design model. We have developed these questions to help course teams pursue a reflective and collaborative approach to course design, creating the space for innovation and excellence as they see fit.
In preparing the sector towards online and hybrid learning readiness, the Digital Learning Design Toolkit will focus on the design of learning and teaching with the aim to create modules and courses that can offer outstanding learning experiences. The framework and associated toolkit help course designers and tutors to develop and maintain an academic quality offer that is rigorous and high-quality. This brings out the best digital learning experiences for students:
- a learner journey that is clear, logical, systematic
- a rich pedagogic rationale that is relevant to the subject discipline
- a learning environment that encourages active engagement through collaboration and communication, reflection and knowledge development.
BETT Global on Building blocks for Education 4.0, published July 2021.
Universities UK, What does the future of digital learning look like? Published March 2022
The Digital Transformation of Higher Education: Improving Academic Practice with Lessons from Industry, by Ann Thanaraj and Paul Durston, to be published in January 2024
The transformation of higher education is a large, complex and multi-focal exercise which takes several years of institutional and culture change. In this book, we will draw together the lessons learned from industries and professions, discuss the impact of this on higher education, and develop a practical to use blueprint for University Executive decision makers and Heads of Learning and Teaching. This book focuses on two niche areas of this transformation journey in higher education:
Impact on Curriculum and Learning: Future Ready Graduates. We question whether universities are preparing graduates for today’s (or tomorrow’s) world of work, and whether the academic experience and curriculum is indeed one that is preparing students for the digital transformation of industries, sector and professions. We will analyse the case studies received from each of the industries and professions to understand the significance of what and how we teach our students and prepare them for the changing industries and professions. We will address what this means for universities to develop future ready graduates – curriculum, experience, attributes and interdisciplinarity, and as such those leading learning and teaching across the institution, educational policies and framework would also benefit from this resource. We will utilize vignettes and excerpts from the case studies provided from other industries and professions to illustrate and bring to life future ready graduate attributes. We will conclude the chapter by exploring what this might mean for Higher Education.
A Blueprint on driving change. We will analyse the case studies received from each of the industries and professions (particularly question 3 – see case study template), that will help influence the blueprint. The blueprint will be developed as a practical toolkit for the higher education sector, offering high-level strategic guidance, aimed at decision-makers who are able to influence the learning and teaching, business and transformational change in their organisation.