[Listed in alphabetical order]

Mark Atlay

Dr Mark Atlay is Director of Teaching and Learning and the University’s Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, University of Bedfordshire. Mark spent seven years lecturing in chemistry at the University of Glamorgan before moving on to work on the development of distance learning materials at the Open University in the UK. At Luton he has worked in a number of areas including Quality Assurance, Staff Development, Quality Enhancement and Educational Development. He has coordinated the development and implementation of the University’s curriculum model involving a revised approach to skills development linked to progress files and personal development planning (PDP). The University was designated a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for this work and Mark was appointed the first CETL Director (see www.beds.ac.uk/bridgescetl ). He has also led a Hefce Good Management Practice project (GMP201) on effecting change in Higher Education. His current role involves responsibility for the development of the University’s curriculum and in his spare time he does some teaching on a postgraduate course for new academic staff.

Maha Bali

Maha Bali is a senior instructional technologist at the Center for Learning and Teaching, American University in Cairo, Egypt. She earned her M.Ed. in eLearning from the University of Sheffield in January 2005, and is currently undergoing a PhD in Education at the University of Sheffield also. She has had several presentations at conferences at the American University in Cairo, mostly in the field of eLearning, and has recently co-written a paper that has been accepted in the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. Her research interests include teaching and assessing critical thinking, use of eLearning and educational technology, and pedagogy of asynchronous discussions.

Simon Bates

Simon Bates is Director of Teaching and Senior Lecturer in the School of Physics at Edinburgh. He has a strong interest in development and innovation in Physics teaching. Recent work in this area have included the introduction and propagation of personal response systems as a tool for interactive engagement in large lectures; workshop / studio teaching as an effective replacement for small group tutorials; peer assessment; and blended learning, utilising online materials in support of face-to-face teaching. In the last few years, he has presented this work at national and international conferences, and published several articles on innovative aspects of teaching, particularly the utilisation of learning technology in support of this. In 2006, he received the Chancellor’s Award for Teaching, the highest individual award within the University of Edinburgh, in recognition of academic excellence.

Jim Baxter

Dr Jim Baxter lectures in Psychology at Strathclyde University. For 12 years he has been in charge of Strathclyde’s First Year Psychology Class, which typically numbers 520+ students. His principal research area is Forensic Psychology. He is not therefore, an expert on formal research into educational practice or theory, and, given his existing research commitments, is unlikely to have the time to become one. The teaching initiatives reported in his paper are based, rather, on his experiences of teaching and assessing this first year class, and his perceptions of which improvements made possible by VLE-based opportunities for online collaborative learning would be most likely to assist his class to learn Basic Psychology.

Barbara Crossouard

Barbara Crossouard is a Research Fellow in Education at the University of Sussex. She worked as a researcher for the EU-funded collaborative project Internet-Based Assessment (2002-2004), directed at the University of Sussex by Harry Torrance and then John Pryor. She recently completed her doctorate, building upon the EU project work at Sussex. This involved action research into formative assessment in doctoral contexts from the perspective of sociocultural learning theories, and was carried out in collaboration with John Pryor. Her research interests include formative assessment in school contexts, where she has been involved in the Assessment for Learning (AfL) strand of the Portsmouth Learning Community, a university/local authority collaboration, and in the evaluation of an AfL professional development initiative carried out on behalf of the States of Jersey with Judy Sebba. She continues to work with John Pryor in taking forward formative assessment from a sociocultural perspective in different education contexts.

Marija Cubric

Marija Cubric is a Senior Lecturer in University of Hertfordshire (UH) Business School, where she teaches information systems and e-business related subjects. Before joining the University in September 2004, she worked as a system and software engineer, on various telecommunication projects in UK and Canada. She holds PhD degree in Computer Science (1994) from University of Concordia in Montreal and is working towards Master degree in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (UH) . Her research interests include educational technologies, and their influence on learning and teaching processes. Marija has been using wikis in her teaching since late 2005  and has gained valuable experience that she would like to discuss and share with the rest of the community.

Nancy Curtin

Nancy Curtin is a Reader in Muscle Physiology at Imperial College London, doing research into energy conversion during muscle contraction. She has had a long-standing involvement in medical education at Imperial where the pre-clinical phase of the course starts at the undergraduate level. With this group of students an important challenge is the enhancement of self-directed learning and assessment. Certainty-Based Marking (CBM) has been particularly useful to students, but is always limited by input from teachers.

Quintin Cutts

Dr Quintin Cutts is a senior lecturer in Computing Science at the University of Glasgow. His interests are in Computing Education and in Educational Technology. He leads an EPSRC-funded public engagement initiative to enthuse school pupils about the science of computing, separating this from the rote ICT training they are bombarded with throughout school, through classroom workshop and teacher CPD development. He has published widely on the use of electronic voting handsets in education, being amongst the first to report on the link between handset use and educational attainment. His current use of voting handsets in Level 1 computing classes is highly contingent with one lecture each week entirely based around handset questions derived from feedback from laboratory tutors. He recently received a teaching excellence award from the university.

Nandini Das

Dr Nandini Das is lecturer in Renaissance Literature and Director of Graduate Studies (Admissions) at the School of English, University of Liverpool. Both her teaching and research interests cover a wide range of late fifteenth to early seventeenth century texts and genres. She is interested particularly in Renaissance prose fiction and early travel writing and is currently working on a project that explores the many versions of Renaissance travel, from European educational trips to exotic Eastern voyages. She uses e-learning resources extensively in her teaching, and played a key-role in creating the VITAL (Blackboard) based e-learning resources for the undergraduate Shakespeare modules offered by the School of English.

Tony Gardner-Medwin

Tony Gardner-Medwin is an emeritus professor of physiology at University College London (UCL), researching on the cochlea and promoting dissemination of Certainty-Based Marking (CBM) to enhance the value of student self-assessment and objective testing. During his teaching career he has been particularly keen to develop practicals, simulations, tutorials and CAL sessions that challenge students, help them to learn through thinking, and that encourage effective interaction with teachers. Those unfamiliar with CBM should look at www.ucl.ac.uk/lapt and try out exercises. Tony encourages queries and pleas for help in applying these ideas in any field.

Peter Gray

Dr. Gray earned his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Oregon and his Masters Degree in Curriculum Theory from Cornell University. His areas of higher education expertise include student learning outcomes assessment; quality assurance; course, curriculum, and program design, development and evaluation; and leadership and planned change.

From 1984 to 2002 he was Associate Director of the Syracuse University Center for the Support of Teaching and Learning. He became Director of Academic Assessment at the United States Naval Academy in August 2002, where he is responsible for developing and maintaining a broad program of academic assessment.

Dr. Gray has over 40 publications including the chapter Roots of assessment: Tensions, solutions, and research Directions in Building a Scholarship of Assessment (Banta, T. W., editor, 2002); The campus-level impact of assessment: Progress, problems, and possibilities (Gray & Banta, 1997); and Viewing assessment as an innovation: Leadership and the change process (Gray, 1997). Dr. Gray chaired the Middle States Association Commission on Higher Education Advisory Panel that produced the publication, Student learning assessment: Options and resources. He has also given approximately 100 workshops, key note addresses and presentations at conferences and on individual campus world-wide concerning topics related to the enhancement of educational excellence in higher education.

John Hamer

John Hamer is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Auckland, where he has worked since 1990. His education research interests include collaborative learning and peer-assessment. He is also involved in a number of multi-institutional, multi-national studies on how novices learn programming.

Rosario Hernández

Rosario Hernández is a College Lecturer in the School of Languages, Literatures and Film at University College Dublin. Rosario’s primary degree is in Education and she also holds a B.A. and M.A. in Hispanic Studies. Currently, Rosario is about to complete a PhD in Education focusing on an analysis of the practices adopted in undergraduate Hispanic Studies programmes to assess students’ learning. Rosario has presented her work at international conferences, and published several articles on the impact that alternative assessment practices have on students’ learning. Rosario’s research interests include second language teaching and learning, assessment of student learning, teaching methodologies, the professional development of teachers and ICT in teaching. Rosario has recently been awarded a Fellowship in Teaching and Academic Development as part of a new initiative at University College Dublin to develop more innovative teaching and learning practices and to enhance student learning.

Lesley Lawrence

Dr Lesley Lawrence is Assistant Head, Teaching Quality Enhancement at the University of Bedfordshire, formerly the University of Luton which she joined in 1993 as a lecturer in Leisure Studies. Following various faculty roles related to teaching and learning, she headed up a central student support area at the University in 2004 before moving to work in teaching quality enhancement. In her current role, she co-ordinates University-funded teaching and learning projects, is herself involved in teaching and learning projects, and has responsibilty for the annual University Teaching and Learning Symposium, the theme this year being 'Embracing e-learning'. She teaches on both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes including our Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice. Current and recent research interests include issues around engagement with assessment feedback, the student experience, and interaction in virtual communities both within leisure and education contexts.

Stuart McGugan

Stuart McGugan is an educational developer within the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Liverpool. He has responsibility for supporting the development of good practice in learning, teaching and assessment across all disciplines at the University. This involves co-ordinating the Graduate Teaching Assistant programme and teaching on the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching and the Certificate of Professional Studies programme for new lecturers. Prior to joining Liverpool he lectured in Tourism Studies at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and at La Trobe University, Melbourne. He is interested particularly in collaborative learning and learning skills development.

Sean McKitrick

Dr. Sean McKitrick is Assistant Provost for Curriculum, Instruction, & Assessment at Binghamton University (State University of New York). In the past, he has served as assessment and accreditation coordinator at Indiana State University, dean of instruction at Bryant & Stratton College in Lackawanna, New York, and as academic dean at Parks College in Thornton, Colorado. He has presented at the 2nd and 3rd International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, at the Association of Institutional Research Conference, the 5th Annual North Carolina State Assessment Symposium, the Indiana Association of the Arts Conference, and the Indiana North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement conference. He has published articles on assessment in Assessment Update and the College Reading Association Yearbook. He received his doctorate from Claremont Graduate University in political science, and his master’s and bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University in international relations.

John Pryor

John Pryor is a Reader in Education at the University of Sussex, which he joined after 17 years as a teacher in secondary and primary schools. In HE, he has mainly taught on postgraduate programmes, most recently managing an interdisciplinary professional doctorate. His research has investigated the social contexts of education in schools, colleges and universities both in the UK and sub Saharan Africa. Following a doctorate on gender and group work, John is best known as a researcher in the field of formative assessment. This work, much of it in collaboration with Harry Torrance and Barbara Crossouard, has involved both developing a critical sociocultural theorization of formative assessment and also using action research to develop practice in different educational settings. John has also published on intercultural collaboration in ethnography and more generally on research.

Andy Sharp

Andy Sharp Graduated from Glasgow Polytechnic in 1992. After graduation Andy joined Glasgow Caledonian University, in the first instance as a researcher working on organisational development projects and subsequently, as a lecturer specialising in leadership, organisational behaviour and strategy. Andy’s expertise and experience encompasses several external consultancy projects working with Marks & Spencer, JVC, IBM, Keystone International, Albany Life, and Primal Design.

Recently Andy facilitated a strategic HR review with Strathclyde Police. In addition he delivered keynote presentations at the ACPOS continuous improvement event and at Force conference events for Fife and Central Scottish Police Forces. Andy has 10 years of experience working with the voluntary sector and was actively involved in both developing programmes to improve employability skills with the long-term unemployed, and leading teams of volunteer youth workers engaged with socially disadvantaged youth.

Andy is completing a Masters Degree in Education at Strathclyde University where his thesis involves evaluating the effects of electronic voting technologies on student engagement and assessment.

Angela Sutherland

Angela Sutherland attained Masters Degree with Distinction at Strathclyde University Graduate School of Business, has a 1st class (Hons) degree and was awarded the University Court Medal for research into an application of Business Ethics within Industry. She has worked in public, private and voluntary sector organisations and has been self-employed.

Latterly Angela lectured within several Universities in the West of Scotland, at both post-graduate and undergraduate level, within the realms of Business Ethics, Internal Communication, Knowledge Management, Advanced Information Strategy and Strategic Management. She has worked on research projects with organisations such as Strathclyde Police and B&Q, and provides consultancy services for both public and private sector organisations.

Angela hopes to embark on a PHD later this year, which aims to evaluate the effectiveness of internal communication mechanisms within organisations in specific industry sectors in developing stimulus towards Continuous Performance Improvement.

Charlotte Taylor

Charlotte Taylor is the Director of Learning and Teaching in the Faculties of Science at the University of Sydney. She is a former director of the First Year Biology unit, and has 15 years experience in course design, assessment and online learning for large classes of over 1000-1500 students. Outcomes of these activities include an Excellence in Teaching Award for the First Year Experience, and completion of a Master in Higher Education degree. She is Chair of the Science Faculty Education Research Group (SciFER) and of the Research in Biology Education and Training group (RIBET), and has published collaborative papers in areas of learning through writing, teaching large classes, giving feedback and online discussions. She has also been researching and publishing in the field of threshold concepts since 2004 and is currently investigating the identification of a threshold in the understanding of evolution. Other current projects include Improving student understanding and use of feedback for written assignments; Assessment of generic attributes; and a Carrick Institute funded project: Enhancing the Assessment of Learning in Australian Higher Education: Biological Science.

Tracy Winning

Tracy Winning has been involved in the implementation, development and evaluation of the Adelaide PBL-based BDS curriculum and has contributed to the development of PBL packages for the Bachelor of Oral Health curriculum. Currently, Tracy co-ordinates the ongoing development and delivery of a range of PBL packages throughout the BDS curriculum as well as staff-development activities, particularly for PBL tutors. Tracy's major research activity, involving post-gradaute research students, is in dental education, particularly, development and evaluation of PBL, investigation of student experiences and outcomes of PBL and assessment and development of clinical skills in dental students. This has involved collaboration with colleagues in the Universities of Otago, and Sydney, and currently, Malmö University.

[Listed in alphabetical order]

Linda Creanor

Linda Creanor is Development Director (Professional Practice) in the Caledonian Academy, a centre for educational research and scholarship at Glasgow Caledonian University. She is currently Chair of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT). She has been involved in a range of national and international e-learning projects as a researcher, designer, evaluator and consultant, and has presented and published widely. Most recently, she led the JISC funded LEX research study which explored the learner perspective on e-learning across the post-16 sectors. Linda is also an e-learning advisor to the REAP project, a Scottish Funding Council transformational project focusing on Re-Engineering Assessment Practices, led by Strathclyde University in collaboration with Glasgow Caledonian and Glasgow Universities. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

 Sharon Hamilton

Sharon Hamilton is currently Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Associate Dean of the Faculties, and Chancellor’s Professor of English at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). After serving as founding director of the IUPUI institutional portfolio, she has, until recently, directed the project team developing the conceptual design and implementation process for student electronic portfolios that document both improvement and achievement in student learning. Additionally, Dr. Hamilton is a Carnegie Scholar with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. For the past several years, she has played a leadership role on campus for the assessment of teaching and learning.

Dr. Hamilton has written several journal articles and book chapters about writing across the curriculum, collaborative learning, literacy, and portfolios. Her book-length publications include Collaborative Learning in the Arts, Sciences, and Professional Schools, Collaborative Learning in Higher Education: Underlying Processes and Effective Techniques, Writing in the Arts, Sciences, and Professional Schools and My Name’s Not Susie: A Life Transformed by Literacy. She has just completed an edited collection: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at IUPUI.

Susan Kahn

Dr. Susan Kahn first joined IUPUI in 1998 as national director of the Urban Universities Portfolio Project. In that capacity, she coordinated a six-campus collaborative project that produced the first generation of electronic institutional portfolios. These portfolios sought to demonstrate student learning and achievement in the context of a group of universities serving a highly diverse array of learners. The portfolios include authentic examples of student learning and development in multiple media, aggregated assessment findings, and performance indicators, with supporting data. Upon the conclusion of that project, Dr. Kahn became Director of Institutional Effectiveness at IUPUI, with responsibility for documenting and demonstrating institutional accountability through annual campus Performance Reports, accreditation self-study, and the online institutional portfolio. She subsequently assumed additional responsibility as Director of IUPUI’s student ePortfolio initiative, which supports deeper, more integrated student learning, and enables students, departments, schools, and the institution as a whole to demonstrate student learning of key collegiate abilities and skills.

Prior to joining IUPUI, Dr. Kahn directed a University of Wisconsin System-wide faculty development office that supported initiatives focused on effective teaching and learning and on expanding campuses’ capacity to support teaching and learning. She co-edited the AAHE volume, Electronic Portfolios: Emerging Practices in Student, Faculty, and Institutional Learning and has published work in such venues as Metropolitan Universities, Change magazine, and Jossey-Bass’s New Directions in Teaching and Learning series. She presents and consults frequently on assessment, accreditation, and electronic portfolios and serves as a member of the Consultant-Evaluator Corps of the North Central Association’s Higher Learning Commission.

 Katy McCloskey

Katy McCloskey is the Past President of the University of Strathclyde Students Association.  As President of the student body, Katy was responsible for representing the views of over 15,000 students to the University, mostly on academic matters. During her time in office, she campaigned on many student issues such as anonymous marking, charging for course materials, variable fees, and library opening hours.

Whilst Student President, Katy sat on the University Academic Committee and Senate. During this time she became involved in the Academic strategy, and developed an interest in the QAA first year student experience theme.

She now sits on the Strathclyde Assessment review group. Katy is also part of the project team investigating the expectations and experiences of the first year across Scotland, funded by the QAA. Recently, she has been involved in a project looking at easing transition between School and University.

Katy's interests include: the first year experience, transition, assessment, accessibility, and student involvement. She studies journalism at Strathclyde and is a part time Press Officer for a Member of the Scottish Parliament..

Margaret Price

Professor Margaret Price is Director of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, ASKe (Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange). Her role involves working with a team of colleagues to build a learning community centred on assessment, to encourage innovation and foster evidence-based assessment practice within the Higher Education sector.

Margaret was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in June 2002 in recognition of her excellence in teaching and contribution to the development of learning, teaching and assessment in Higher Education, especially through curriculum development in interdisciplinary learning and interpersonal skills development. She is Professor in Learning and Assessment at Oxford Brookes and her research interests focus on peer support for learning; criterion referenced assessment; social constructivist approaches to sharing knowledge or assessment standards with students and the effectiveness of sharing knowledge of standards within marking teams.

Brenda Smith

Brenda Smith is an Assistant Director of the Higher Education Academy. Prior to this she was Head of the Generic Centre of the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN).

Brenda takes a lead role for the Academy’s work on assessment and feedback and was responsible for initiating the Change Academy Project which is now in its fourth year. She is actively involved in supporting a number of institutions across the UK with enhancing assessment. She has run conferences, given keynote presentations and 24 hour events for HEIs that have included both staff and students. She is keen to involve students in these events wherever possible. Brenda believes that students can act as key change agents in helping staff to reflect on and enhance their practice.

She is a member of international committees for the Improving University Teaching (IUT) Conference, the journal Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, the USA based Journal on Excellence in College Teaching and a past Executive member of the Professional and Organisational Development Association (POD) in America.

Brenda has acted as a consultant and facilitated seminars and workshops in many different countries including Sweden, South Africa, Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, America, Lithuania, Colombia, the West Indies and Malaysia. Brenda has written widely on learning, teaching and assessment.