ROYAL (DICK) SCHOOL OF VETERINARY STUDIES
LEARNING AND TEACHING COMMITTEE
Meeting of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies
Learning and Teaching Committee
held on Wednesday 23 April in Seminar Room G.01
MINUTES
Present: Susan Rhind (Chair), Lindsay Dalziel, Susan Orr, Stacy Eastman (VSC), Eoghan Clarkson, Jo Spiller, Geoff
Pearson, Tim King, Claire Phillips, Donald Yool, Thalia Blacking, Gura Bergkvist, Neil Hudson, Rachel Whittington,
Fiona Brown, Alistair Macrae, Alex Seguino
1. Apologies
Apologies were received from Darren Shaw, Sally Argyle, Catriona Bell, Andrew Gardiner, Carolyn Morton,
Simone Meddle and Jessie Paterson.
2. Minutes of meeting held on 12 March 2014
The minutes were approved as a correct record.
3. Matters Arising (not considered elsewhere on agenda)
Item 8 (12/3/14)
The proposal to create a DVM degree was being progressed.
Item 12 (12/3/14)
EUSA had declined the VSC’s request to include an award for EMS practitioners in the EUSA Annual Teaching
Awards. However, the school - in consultation with VSC - would look to arrange something at school level to
recognise the crucial role EMS placement providers play.
The EUSA Teaching Awards would be held on 23 April. There had been a good number of nominations from
R(D)SVS again with Anna Meredith and Sue Kempson shortlisted for the overall Award for Teaching in Veterinary
Sciences.
OPEN BUSINESS
For Approval
4. Curriculum Items
a. New Year 5 Assessment Regulations (Paper 1)
Changes outlined in the summary attached paper included compulsory attendance at all core &
selective rotations and increased flexible guidelines on assessment during selective rotations, offering
a more robust OSCE process and a higher level of assessment (based on smaller groups and broader
assessment criteria, taking into account all professional attributes and providing clear marking
guidance). The Portfolio element would contain documents relating to Final Year only. It was agreed
that the Final MCQ would also be a ‘Must Pass’ element (the regulations would be amended to
include this change).
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The new guidelines would be reviewed after implementation and adapted if necessary. The
document would be expanded to include ‘What If’ example scenarios and additional detail added as
required.
ACTION: regulations approved, subject to minor clarifications and the addition of further detail as
required.
For Discussion
5. New Assessment Executive (Paper 2)
The RCVS was reviewing its accreditation process and merging its standards with those of AVMA. ‘Assessment’
would be a new section within the official standards document and the new guidance would state the
requirement to have a clearly defined body within the School with responsibility for assessment. The
proposed Assessment Executive would define its activities under the leadership of Sally Argyle. Members
would include Exam Board Chairs as well as any other interested staff. The Executive would be distinct from
L&TC but would report to this committee and would link with the QA Committee as well.
ACTION: proposal approved.
6. Hofstee stats (Paper 3)
The attached paper summarised the data extracted from the use of Hofstee standard setting at 13/14 exam
boards (to date). Thanks were due to LD for her work on analysing the data.
Concerns were expressed over the use of this method; however, the Accrediting Bodies requirement for some
kind of standard setting process was non-negotiable and it was vital to have a robust standard setting
mechanism consistently in use across all courses. Exam Boards would continue to use the Hofstee Standard
Setting process for the remainder of 13/14 and oversight of the process would be passed to the new
Assessment Executive, who would review the process and feedback suggestions to L&TC.
7. Course Surveys Tracking Analysis (Paper 4)
The attached analysis provided a comparison of course survey responses across all courses, by means of a
‘traffic light’ system. The July meeting of L&TC would review the data from all course surveys, with course
organisers presenting a commentary on their course results and the opportunity to discuss best practice and
share ideas.
The low response rate to surveys continued to be problematic (across the University as a whole). The VSC
president noted that timing was key to achieving a good response rate hence a review of timings and planning
to optimise response rate would be carried out.
8. Curriculum & Assessment Development Strategy 2014/15 (Paper 5)
The attached paper outlined draft priorities. Further suggestions were welcomed by SMR.
9. BVA/ AVS Survey Results 2012 (Section C of attached paper) (Paper 6)
The survey results had flagged up that although the quality of R(D)SVS’s teaching was excellent, there was a
need to review the balance of lectures and practicals and improve on the basic Clinical Skills teaching offered
at pre-clinical level. It was suggested that a Clinical Skills Leader be put in place for each year of programme.
Students felt that smaller group sizes would improve practicals, offering better quality ( preferable to
increased quantity). The online delivery of practicals, where appropriate, was worth exploring. There was also
the possibility of recruiting a part-time veterinary nurse to assist in clinical skills practicals.
ACTION: SMR and CB to liaise with students to get input into what could be added to/ improved with
regards to the clinical skills curriculum.
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For Information
10. MyEd upgrade
Information about the new MyEd interface would be circulated to students as required.
11. Payments for Lecturers/ Tutors/ Demonstrators
In order to improve record keeping and budget monitoring, Year Administrators would be asked to confirm
(during the process of finalising teaching timetables) which external staff would be required in advance of each
year of teaching. A clear process for appointing and paying external staff was available on the intranet at
http://intranet.easterbush.mvm.ed.ac.uk/vetschool/vto/tutoring-demonstrating/
12. Communication of Final Degree Award to students (Paper 7)
A new University policy required information on the release of results to final year students to be available
online for each School. A message would be sent to all students by Central University informing them that
their results would be delivered via EUCLID (and by no other channel). Information would be made available
on EEVeC once it was confirmed on which date the results would be released and who would be available to
offer support to students.
13. Accessible & Inclusive Learning/ Marking Guidance (Paper 8)
Updated policies were available at:
 The University’s Accessible and Inclusive Learning Policy:
http://www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/AcademicServices/Policies/Accessible_and_Inclusive_Learnin
g_Policy.pdf
 Guidance on the IAD website on accessible and inclusive learning:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/institute-academic-development/learningteaching/inclusive/accessibility
 Marking guidance (produced after the removal of coursework stickers for dyslexic students):
http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.120006!/fileManager/Marking%20Guidance%20July%20
2013.pdf
Standing Items
14. Staff Updates (Paper 9)
Professor Tony Nash had retired from the Roslin Institute. Enormous thanks were extended to Julie Gifford
(moved on to a new role in UOE) and Sue Kempson (due to retire end of April 2014) for all their hard work and
for their contribution to the student experience.
15. Staff Development
a. VMED Workshops (Paper 10)
The attached calendar listed upcoming VMED workshops. Suggestions for further workshops should
be passed to JP or CB. If there was enough interest, workshops would also be offered especially for
Hospital staff.
b. Updates to LEARN Staff Development Course: additional information for Exam Board Chairs
All staff would automatically be added to the LEARN Staff Development Course (EC to investigate).
Additional information for Exam Board Chairs would shortly be available as a PPT.
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16. Student Experience
a. Student Support & Advisory Group/ SAMO/ Fitness to Practise/ Progression Committee (Paper 11)
Updated numbers were attached.
b. House & Personal Tutor Update
Two Personal Tutor briefing sessions would be held in June and September to update current PT’s and
induct new PT’s.
17. VSC
The details of a White Coat ceremony were still being worked on. It would be too costly to provide this for all
current students so it would perhaps need to be rolled out for new students only, unless sponsorship could be
found.
The EMS awards were due to begin shortly.
18. College UG Studies Committee
There were no updates.
19. Library Report
Bone-boxes could now be borrowed via the library catalogue as per the standard 1 week renewable loan
period.
More TALIS reading list demonstrations had taken place. Course reading lists could be accessed via LEARN.
CABI had given a demonstration of their VetMed Resource product for which the School has a subscription.
Training documentation from this demo would shortly be available on EEVeC.
20. Digital Education Unit
The Final Year Prep course had gone live on LEARN.
The Glass Horse was now available on a remote access system and site licences had been purchased for
‘Equine Colic’ and ‘Distal Limb’.
Monitoring EMS (student experience): AG and EC had met with a representative from MyProgress software,
which was being considered for use alongside the RCVS student experience log.
Use of Second Life was under review again and work had been done with SA to build an online pharmacy.
Other course were being polled for their interest in using it.
21. Admissions Report
333 candidates (123 SEU/ 210 RUK) had been interviewed during the February/ March MMI’s. Offers had gone
out one week after the interviews (57 RUK and 58 SEU), with help from Ian Handel and Darren Shaw to
interpret the MMI data. Not all Vet Schools had made offers yet so a delay in acceptance of offers was
expected.
A debriefing on the MMI process would be given at the next meeting of the Admissions Committee on 7 May.
The process would be reviewed and those involved asked for feedback in order to make any changes for the
next admissions cycle. The feedback from interviewed candidates had been very good.
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Offers had gone out for full fee places and acceptances were expected shortly.
The Student Recruitment Manager Gurpreet Grewal-Kang had recruited student ambassadors for Open Days
and was working on conversion events and identifying new target regions for full fee candidates.
22. EEVeC Liaison Group
JS reported that progress had been made on managing the SSC2 project proposals: a pilot version was being
developed using PebblePad.
EEVeC were also looking at developing publicly-accessible pages and simplifying the process for page editing.
The LTS team were being integrated with Central IS services. Thanks to all staff who had attended meetings
about the LTS review.
The Clicker Procurement Group had decided that device-only models (using Wi-Fi) would be purchased. These
would be trialled on a small scale first and workshops would be offered for staff.
23. QA update (Paper 12)
The role of the QA committee was being reviewed ahead of the 2015 accreditation visits, to ensure that all
aspects of QA were covered within the School.
The College QA Committee were pleased with the School’s Annual QA Report for 12/13. The issue of low
response rate to student surveys had been raised by College but this was a problem across the University.
Student reps had raised the difficulties of organising Final Year SSLC meetings.
24. Clinical Skills Committee
The Clinical Skills Committee were halfway through a curriculum review of current clinical skills teaching. This
was based around the RCVS skills list for both clinical and preclinical EMS. Results from the review were being
tabulated into summary tables, and were also being entered into COMMAND curriculum mapping software as
a pilot exercise. A full report would be available for the AVMA/RCVS visitation next year.
Results of the curriculum review would be used to identify both overlap and gaps in current clinical skills
teaching to inform future curriculum development. One current example of overlapping teaching was
urinalysis which was taught in multiple places in the curriculum by multiple staff members. It had been
proposed that all relevant colleagues meet to discuss how this teaching was delivered, and also identify
appropriate methods for assessing urinalysis skills where possible. An example of a current gap in teaching
was the appropriate, safe and welfare friendly use of additional restraint methods such as crush cages, dog
catchers and equine twitches.
An audit of all clinical skills equipment was also undertaken during the Easter holidays and a list of equipment
would be available for colleagues to consult. The Clinical skills store room had also been completely sorted and
rearranged.
The JMICAWE Board were given a full tour of both the large and small animal clinical skills labs last week, and
were given demonstrations of the various simulators and training aids which their funds had purchased. These
included the equine colic simulator, bovine calving simulators, bovine reproductive examination simulators,
and various canine spay and vascular access models.
25. EMS Committee & Updates
AVMA were interested in processes of quality assurance and monitoring for EMS, in particular the amount of
student/ animal interaction typically experienced during EMS placements. It was important that a method be
implemented to document this. AG would feedback on the pilot student experience log over the summer.
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26. Accrediting body issues
a. RCVS & AVMA Report: https://www.eevec.vet.ed.ac.uk/secure/page.asp?ID=ei000014
b. NAVLE: https://www.eevec.vet.ed.ac.uk/secure/page.asp?ID=ei000014
c. Revised Day One Competencies (Paper 13) – final version.
RESERVED BUSINESS
For Approval
27. External Examiner Appointments
a. Mick Bailey for GEP Animal Body (Papers 14a & 14b - CLOSED)
ACTION: approved.
b. Paul Loughna for GEP Animal Body: extension of appointment for 14/15 (Paper 15 - CLOSED)
ACTION: approved.
c. Iain Robbe for SSC1 (Papers 16a & 16b - CLOSED)
ACTION: approved.
Date of next meeting: Wednesday 4 June, 2pm, Room G.01
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