Using complexity to deliver standardised educational levels in conservation

Descriptions of conservation practice typically tend to focus on the range of activities under-taken by conservators and on the quality of the outcomes achieved. Using case studies, this paper examines the conservation tasks that can be explored within teaching, from undergraduate through to postgraduate level, and describes how these can be used to help practitioners effectively develop and achieve the competencies required in the sector. In higher education, the need to show this developmental framework explicitly, capturing progressive challenge in an auditable way when all of the students are doing ‘conservation’, is an increasing pressure. By setting out this progression in terms of com- plexity and using the language employed in education to describe an increasing sophistication in conservation practice the sector as a whole creates the opportunity to offer descriptions of the degree of sophistication of expert practitioners. This may be useful in workplace discussions, as colleagues sometimes struggle to understand the complexity underlying proficient practice

Balancing accountable assessment with holistic professional practice

Trends in the management of education and demands from students for clarity in assessment resulted in the grading of course work being extensively articulated and described. Students rightly expect to know what they will be marked on and what constitutes work of an appropriate level. This can lead to the disarticulation of a topic into tiny graded fragments that no longer equate to a ‘whole’ professional experience. This paper looks at changes to the assessment of practical conservation in Cardiff University that attempt to offer an assessment of conservation as a complete professional activity whilst respecting the student and administrative demands for clarity and accountability

Do methods of assessment accurately reflect the priorities of conservation teaching?

This paper considers a range of assessment methods available in conservation, it evaluates aspects by which they can be described and evaluates the priorities expressed by stakeholder groups. Responses show that there is a strong community of practice with all conservators having similar priorities for conservation assessment with conservation practice being the priority for all. The authors use this data to rate the applicability of the different assessment methods to the stakeholders priorities based on their specific use in a conservation teaching context at Cardiff University. This illustrates how educators can review forms of assessments to ensure that what the students are assessed in, and therefore what they learn, matches with the expectations of different communities

Spotlight on Musueums: CyMAL Baselines 2006

The Spotlight on Museums report aims to provide baseline information to CyMAL to inform the development of Welsh Assembly Government policy for museums in the next few years. CyMAL also plan to use the results of this survey to inform priorities for their development work including grant and training programmes

TEDI: the TripleSpec Exoplanet Discovery Instrument

The TEDI (TripleSpec - Exoplanet Discovery Instrument) will be the first instrument fielded specifically for finding low-mass stellar companions. The instrument is a near infra-red interferometric spectrometer used as a radial velocimeter. TEDI joins Externally Dispersed Interferometery (EDI) with an efficient, medium-resolution, near IR (0.9 - 2.4 micron) echelle spectrometer, TripleSpec, at the Palomar 200" telescope. We describe the instrument and its radial velocimetry demonstration program to observe cool stars.Comment: 6 Pages, To Appear in SPIE Volume 6693, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets II