Active Learning Strategies for Higher Education: the Practical Handbook

The manual itself is based on a sound method that the Educator can easily deploy. This is made up of easy stages for each activity which they and their students can embrace. This student-centred pedagogical approach allows learners to build their understanding while also taking responsibility for their own learning where the educator acts in a facilitator or enabler role. This active, enquiry-based approach is at the heart of what Durham College, UOIT and TU Dublin endeavour to provide to students as it can be applied to diverse problems and contexts within their educational journey and across disciplines. It also provides learners with a framework to use when working on problems that they will encounter within the

Towards a Research Strategy on Learning & Teaching. Report of a study to assist HEFCE in the development of a long-term research and evaluation plan to underpin its policies on learning and teaching

The Council commissioned the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI) to conduct a scoping study to assist in the development of the Council’s longterm research and evaluation strategy for learning and teaching. Members of the project team have conducted interviews with a large number of HEFCE staff and with staff and representatives of other national bodies and higher education institutions, have scrutinised HEFCE research and evaluation reports, and have investigated the approaches and experiences of a number of other countries

Report on the implementation of progress files

'Report on the Implementation of Progress Files' summarises the findings of a sector-wide survey on progress in the implementation and use of transcripts and personal development planning in higher education. The report, by John Brennan and Tarla Shah of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI), was commissioned by the Progress File Implementation Group (consisting of policy advisers from Universities UK, SCOP, LTSN Generic Centre and QAA) following the announcement in the recent HE White Paper, 'The Future of Higher Education'

Evaluating lifelong learning networks

The focus of this short article is on the interim evaluation of Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs) that the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information of The Open University was commissioned to undertake by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) during 2007 (HEFCE, 2008). It is not the intention to go into the detail of that evaluation, but instead to do two main things: to discuss the main challenges that the project team experienced in undertaking the evaluation, and to explore some of the challenges that LLNs are likely to experience as they reach the end of their HEFCE funding periods

Higher Education and Society: A research report

This report draws on a substantial body of research undertaken by the Open University's Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI) on the changing relationships between higher education and society. Higher education currently faces many changes, some externally driven by government policies and changing patterns of social and economic demand and some internally driven by changes in the way knowledge is produced and organised within universities and other 'knowledge organisations'. CHERI examines these changes through empirical research which is policy relevant though not policy dictated, frequently international, and broadly focused on the social impacts of higher education. Does higher education make a difference and to whom? In their different ways, the articles in this report seek to provide answers to this important but difficult question

Interim evaluation of lifelong learning networks

The Open University's Centre for Higher Education Research and Information was commissioned in June 2007 to undertake a formative evaluation of Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs). Research to inform the interim evaluation has been two-fold: desk research of LLN documentation and visits to and interviews with personnel involved in eight LLNs. The report's main conclusion was that LLNs are making progress in terms of encouraging institutions to offer curricula and put in place procedures that, in the fullness of time, could make a significant difference to the coherence, clarity and certainty of progression opportunities for vocational learners. However, it went on to say that it is too soon to be able to make substantive and well-evidenced statements about LLNs' overall progress on meeting this overarching objective of the LLN initiative

Ethics matter: A critical realist account of research ethics for social science and humanities researchers

Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning, 202

Collecting and using student feedback on quality and standards of learning and teaching in Higher Education

This report was prepared for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) by a project team comprising SQW Limited, the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI) at the Open University and NOP Research Group. The study had two main components: to identify good practice by higher education institutions (HEIs) in collecting quantitative and qualitative feedback from students and to make recommendations on the design and implementation of mechanisms for use by individual institutions. The focus of this part of the study is quality enhancement to make recommendations on the design and implementation of a national survey of recent graduates, the results of which would be published. This part of the study is focused on providing comparative information to assist applicants to higher education (HE). Fieldwork for the study was undertaken between September and December 2002. Written information on institutional processes was requested from all HEIs in England and visits were made to 20 HEIs. During these visits, discussions were held with staff and current students on both feedback procedures within the institutions and the potential value of a national graduate survey. More focused discussions on the National Survey were held with a further 50 students and a small pilot survey was undertaken over the Christmas period

The Academic Profession in England: Still stratified after all these years?

This chapter focuses on the findings from the initial analysis of the responses to a survey of nearly 1,700 academics from a wide range of higher education institutions (HEIs) throughout the UK which was carried out by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI) at The Open University. It includes comparisons with findings from the original survey of the academic profession in England in 1992 as part of the First International Survey of the Academic Profession (Fulton, 1996). Therefore, it concentrates on the responses to the 2007 survey from those employed in English HEIs. The 2007 questionnaire repeated 13 items included in the earlier survey. The report of the 1992 survey sought to investigate institutional diversity and differentiation on the eve of the abolition of the binary divide in the UK between universities on the one hand and polytechnics and major colleges of higher education on the other. As such, this initial report of – what amounts to a fraction of – the UK 2007 survey findings, is of an analysis by institutional type utilising three categories: Pre-1992 Universities, Post-1992 Universities (i.e. Polytechnics at the time of the 1992 survey), and Post-2004 Universities and HE Colleges. These analytical categories are also applied to the responses to a selection of other questions in the survey not included in the 1992 instrument