Institution/ Organisation Name: Birmingham City University URL: www.bcu.ac.uk

 

Summary

Case study Home Page

An overview of use

The implementation journey

 

What is distinctive about this implementation case study

• The developments have been Bottom-up initiated, i.e. staff demand led, with middle-through implementation of Mahara adopting an organic approach
• Rapid uptake supported by an established network of Teaching Fellows and local champions within faculties where they have been interested - no cordinated push
• Access through the institutional VLE Moodle has resulted in high use by students
• The Professor for Learning Technologies within a central professional development unit and a member of Learning and Teaching Committee has led the developments
• Showcasing initial successful pilot in year one Business Studies led to wider use
• Use on PG Certificate in Education for staff
• Strategic use of externally funded projects
• Sharing of practice through university-wide event in 2011

 

e-Portfolio tool: Mahara

 

Numbers of students and staff using e-portfolios

Number of staff logged in since 18/6/2010: 603 - actually uploaded something 257 (approx 20%) 

Number of students logged in since 18/6/2010: 9027 -actually uploaded something 3828 (approx 15%)

Some students are using Mahara for collaboration/ group work rather than uploading and so usage numbers are misleading and are somewhere between those who have logged in and those who have uploaded something.

 

PURPOSE: Personal Development Planning, Continuing Professsional Development of Staff, Work Based Learning, Employability, Assessment.

 

PROCESSES:  Information capture, Planning, Feedback, Reflection, Collaboration, Presentation, Evidencing skills, Publication for a variety of audiences.

 

DRIVERS: Bottom–up implementation so far - experimentation/pilots/winning of hearts and minds/ripple effect. Academic staff wishing to innovate have therefore been the main drivers.

 

Key words: Birmingham City University,HE,UK,Higher Education,Mahara,Moodle,Champions,Teaching Fellows,New lecturers course,PDP,assessment

 

Brief overview of the organisation and its current e-portfolio use:  

With around 25,000 students, Birmingham City University is one of the major universities in the UK. Situated in Birmingham, the UK’s second city and informal capital of the West Midlands, we have a long history of close interaction with this vibrant region. As a university we have a distinctive focus on education and research for professional and creative practice and on collaboration with business, industry and the public services. We are one of the three long-standing universities in the city of Birmingham, alongside the University of Birmingham and Aston University.

 

Strong traditions

Our contribution to the education of the citizens of Birmingham and beyond stretches back through a succession of predecessor institutions for over 160 years. We achieved university status in 1992 as the University of Central England, changing our name to Birmingham City University in 2007, reflecting our commitment to, and pride in, our home city. We are extremely proud of our achievements to date and excited about the possibilities for the future and the contribution we can make to our students, the economy and society.

 

Professional university

We are a professional institution in many senses of the word. A significant proportion of our undergraduate courses enjoy professional accreditation, including Accountancy, Acting, Architecture, Education, Engineering, Law, Marketing, Nursing, Radiography and Social Work. Our postgraduate provision provides a wide range of opportunities for management and professional development for early and mid-career professionals. Many of our staff boast professional qualifications and bring professionally relevant experience to bear on their teaching practice. We aspire to provide an educational experience of the highest quality, putting our students at the centre of everything we do. We have a strong commitment to flexible and practice-based learning, and place great importance on our ability to develop professionally qualified graduates with skills relevant to contemporary workplaces. Also, we seek to professionalise all our activities through a fundamental core commitment to quality.

 

Contribution to research and employer engagement

Alongside our commitment to educating our students for creative and professional careers, we have a strongly developing research base with a number of Centres of Research Excellence which received formal recognition in the national Research Assessment Exercise 2008. These centres are involved in world-leading research, innovation and enterprise projects covering the arts, engineering, education, business, humanities and social sciences and sciences. We also aspire to be an exemplar for engagement with employers in all sectors through our programmes of applied research, innovation, knowledge transfer and workforce development. We work with organisations as diverse as the BBC, CISCO, Microsoft, Advantage West Midlands, Arts Council England, Jaguar Land Rover, Jewsons, the Law Society and the NHS.

 

e-Portfolio use 

Mahara was installed in 2008 for experimentation, and the first formal pilot started in Autumn 2009 in the Business School on a module entitled Personal Development involving 500 plus students in 19 groups with 14 tutors. Feedback about Mahara was gathered from these tutors and other early adopters, and in March 2010 it was agreed to pay developers to enhance 'core' Mahara for the following academic year. In Autumn 2010 Mahara was being used in all but one faculty, and university-wide for staff development (PG Certificate in Education):

 

• Business School
• Mahara is being used for a second year with the Business Studies and Joint degree students (Personal Development module). There are 400 students spread across 14 groups with 9 tutors. Students submit a view to their tutor for formative assessment at the end of week 5 and 3 further views for summative assessment at the end of the semester. The 3 later views, all need to be designed with the recipient in mind and have been specified as a view for a potential employer, a PDP view and a social view

 

 

• Education, Law, and Social Sciences
• The Law School has rolled out Mahara to all the first year undergraduates - this amounts to around 250 students. They have been introduced to Mahara through a module called Skills, Processes and Scholarship - which introduces students to legal method and research skills as well as the PDP process. Students use Mahara to support their work in this module by producing social and professional views and storing pieces of work carried out during this module to be made available to their PDP tutors as part of their assessment in this module
• The Law School has also rolled out Mahara to around 70 new postgraduate students on the Legal Practice course. Again, Mahara is being used to support PDP but they also intend to use it to support students' skills development. They were filmed individually at the very beginning of the course role playing a legal interview. The idea is that they upload their short film onto Mahara - making it available for tutors to access and comment on. They then reflect on their early performance and as they develop their skills, create more short films which can be compared to their early performance
• There are several developments regarding Mahara in the School of Education. The two main ones are: use of Mahara to support PGCE Secondary students Professional Development Planning in relation to QTS standards, and use of Mahara with PGCE Primary & Early Years students as a presentational tool for school based research work. A portfolio of materials presented via Mahara is the assignment task for a module that represents 50% of the course

 

• Performance, Media, and English
• School of Media - 'Professional Studies' year 1 - 184 students, and year 2 156 students. Used for assessment

 

• Technology, Engineering and the Environment
• Foundation Certificate students (40 Sound Engineering and Production, 20 Multimedia Technology ) as part of a module 'Communications and Research' are introduced to Mahara and encouraged to use Mahara to show artefacts that they have created as they progress through the course

 

• Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
• In the School of Jewellery, Mahara is being piloted by the HND course team, who are exploring innovative assessment methods such as patchwork assessment. The proposal involves training a student partner so that s/he can provide demonstration and trouble-shooting support to first year HND students as they engage with Mahara in order to complete a Contextual Studies module

 

• Centre for Enhancing Learning & Teaching (CELT) - staff development
• The Post Graduate Certificate in Education for academic staff across the university, delivered from CELT is now dependent on Mahara for its assessment and peer support concerned with the sharing of learning diaries. 67 staff

 

•  The sixth faculty (Health) is planning significant use of Mahara for the following year

 

Key factors for successful implementation

 

• Having enthusiasts that want to innovate and are prepared to take risks
• Staff development, training and support
• Mechanisms for innovations to influence decision makers so that resources follow 

 

Lessons learnt

 

• Don't assume that students understand the benefits of using e-portfolios
• Students need training and support too! 

 

The future

 

A Learning Objects Repository is being purchased and this might have implications for Mahara, in so much as content (especially media rich content) might be stored here rather than directly in Mahara.  A TELT (Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching) board is being set up to consider all systems that effect learning and teaching. This will comprise of the Director of Learning and Teaching, the Director of CICT,Professor of Learning Technology , Academic Leads for TELT (a new job [0.4] in each of the faculties to replace the role of Learning Technology Champion, and some others such as library.