Hackney Community College: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 28/96 and 25/00)

Comprises two Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) inspection reports for the periods 1995-96 and 1999-200

Latin American perspectives to internationalize undergraduate information technology education

The computing education community expects modern curricular guidelines for information technology (IT) undergraduate degree programs by 2017. The authors of this work focus on eliciting and analyzing Latin American academic and industry perspectives on IT undergraduate education. The objective is to ensure that the IT curricular framework in the IT2017 report articulates the relationship between academic preparation and the work environment of IT graduates in light of current technological and educational trends in Latin America and elsewhere. Activities focus on soliciting and analyzing survey data collected from institutions and consortia in IT education and IT professional and educational societies in Latin America; these activities also include garnering the expertise of the authors. Findings show that IT degree programs are making progress in bridging the academic-industry gap, but more work remains

Computer game development education at university

This paper articulates some of the challenges for computer game development courses at university level. A typical course development of this type is described. The need to include creative methods alongside more formal software development methodologies as core elements of computer game education is proposed and placed within the context of an industry specific framework. The evolutionary nature of the computer game industry requires that computer game development programmes at university should be equally evolutionary and adaptable to change

Computing Graduate Employability: Sharing Practice

Computing is one of the largest subject areas in Higher Education, and is taught in almost every institution, graduating around 9,000 students each year. However Computing graduates are recorded as having the highest unemployment rates for all subjects (11% for Computing compared with an overall rate of 7% for graduates of all subjects). This new report, jointly published by the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing (CPHC) and Higher Education Academy (HEA) highlights the depth, complexity and richness of employability practices in the sector, and aims to share those practices more widely. The report places practice in a comparative context so that departments may learn what works from each other. It draws on research gathered from over fifty Higher Education institutions in a series of workshops, focus groups and interviews. Throughout, participants’ voices are given priority, with the report structured around the common employability challenges faced by academics. Within that structure, clusters of similar practice (those which appear in several institutions) are presented, together with a series of showcases providing rich detail of specific interventions. Challenges discussed within the report’s three themes of ‘Addressing Employability’, ‘Curriculum Issues’ and ‘Placements’ include ‘the employability agenda’, ‘student engagement’, ‘curriculum design’, ‘reaching “tipping point”’ and ‘finding alternatives to the “sandwich year”’ and are balanced throughout with a ‘View from Employers’. Clusters identify good practice from ‘hackathons’, competitions, mentoring, ‘compulsion’, an employer-led curriculum, industry-focused projects and placement preparation, application, monitoring, return, assessment and alternatives. Showcases highlight practice in ‘auditing employability’, ‘dedicated placement support’, ‘multiplicity of opportunities’, ‘short placement modules’, ‘think future’, ‘summer internships’ and ‘transition week’ from the universities of York, Kent, London South Bank, West of Scotland, Edinburgh Napier, Southampton and Brunel London, amongst other

Flexible learning in computer science

This paper outlines the concept of Flexible Pedagogy and how it can assist in addressing some of the issues facing STEM disciplines in general, and Computer Science in particular. The paper considers what flexible pedagogy is and how technologies developed by Computer Science can enable flexibility. It then describes some of the issues facing STEM education, with a particular focus on Computer Science education in Higher Education. Finally, it considers how flexible approaches to teaching and learning are particularly pertinent to the issues faced in Computer Science and future opportunities

St Helens College: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 53/94 and 73/98)

The Further Education Funding Council has a legal duty to make sure further education in England is properly assessed. The FEFC’s inspectorate inspects and reports on each college of further education according to a four-year cycle. This record comprises the reports for periods 1993-94 and 1997-98