T&L Bulletin – Issue 23: 6 July 2009
Faculty of Humanities
Teaching and Learning Bulletin
Issue 23: 6 July 2009
Welcome to the Faculty of Humanities Teaching and Learning Bulletin.
The Bulletin will normally be distributed every month and will be archived on the Faculty’s HumNet
site. It is intended that the next Bulletin will be sent during the week beginning 10 August 2009.
All colleagues are welcome to contribute relevant material and we hope that over time it will
become widely used. Please send any items for inclusion in the next issue by 5pm on 31 July
2009. We would particularly welcome details of events or activities taking place in Schools that
relate to teaching & learning. We would also welcome your feedback on the Bulletin and any
suggestions for improvement.
The Bulletin page can also be found at: (http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/humnet/tandl)
Please note any actions that may be required will be highlighted in italics; these will normally be
reminders of looming deadlines, the full details of which will have been circulated by other means.
Please forward names of any other colleagues in your School working in the area of teaching &
learning who would like to receive this Bulletin, or notification if you wish to be removed from the
mailing list, as well as items for inclusion, suggestions / feedback to:
lisa.mcaleese-2@manchester.ac.uk.
This Bulletin covers the following topics:
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Guidance / Policy / regulations – Changes & Developments
New Online resources from the Office of Student Support & Services
eLearning Update
Teaching & Learning Support Office (TLSO) Bulletin
Connections – Connecting the Teaching and Learning Communities
School-based projects funded by the 2008/09 TQEF allocation
University of Manchester Awards for Outstanding Academic Achievement
Teaching Excellence Awards 2008-09
University of Manchester Forums
Programme Approval
Contact Lists
Guidance / Policy / Regulations - Changes and Developments
Collaborative Policy:
Procedure for hearing appeals or complaints from students registered on validated
programmes at partner institutions
Amendments have recently been made to clarify the University's procedure for dealing with
appeals or complaints from students registered on validated programmes. The revised procedure
is available on the TLSO website and we ask all partner institutions with programmes validated by
the University to ensure that the procedure is clearly set out in programme handbooks or
equivalent and that it is also referred to in the final letter at the end of a partner institution's internal
investigation of an appeal or complaint. The Procedure for hearing appeals or complaints from
students registered on validated programmes at partner institutions can be found at:
http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/tlso/qualityframework/collab/collaborativepolicy/annex4areasforagreementwithprospectivepartner/7disciplinecomplaintsandappeals/
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T&L Bulletin – Issue 23: 6 July 2009
Any queries regarding this procedure should be referred to louise.walmlsey@manchester.ac.uk
2.
New Online Resources from the Office of Student Support and Services
The Office of Student Support and Services has recently launched two online resources which will
be of interest to any member of staff with a student-facing role.

Handling Enquiries from Concerned Third Parties
Many staff will from time-to-time receive calls from students' parents, relatives or other third-parties.
You might feel uncertain about how best to respond, worried about the data protection act whilst at
the same time realising that the caller is anxious.
The new website, Handling Enquiries from Concerned Third Parties, is a source of help and advice
to give you the confidence to deal professionally and positively with all calls - no matter how tricky.
It is supported by a system of 'locally-based' contacts across the University to whom you can turn
for advice and guidance if you have a particularly worrying enquiry.
Visit the website to find out more http://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/3rdpartyenquiries

Information for Student Parents
This recently updated and expanded resource offers detailed information and helpful links to
provide support and guidance in the following areas:
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Child Care
Schools
Funding
Accommodation
University Policies and Procedures
Support Groups and Services
Useful links
See http://www.manchester.ac.uk/academicadvisoryservice/studentparents/ or contact: Beth Rees
on 53033 or email at caas@manchester.ac.uk for further information.
3.
eLearning Update

Blackboard 2009-10 courses
For information about transferring existing courses across to the next academic year, as well as
developing new ones in Blackboard, please see:
http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/tandl/elearning/blackboard/courses_200910.html

Blackboard Training, Drop-ins and How to Guides
Details of Blackboard training courses including dates can be found at:
http://www.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/trainingcourses/corporateapplications/bb/
Guides on how to use the various tools in Blackboard together with some supporting information
on eLearning pedagogy are at:
http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/elearning/traindevelop/howto/
Additionally, the Faculty eLearning team offer a variety of workshop and support sessions ranging
from drop-ins through to more specialist help with audio and video.
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The drop-in sessions run every Tuesday and Thursday from 12pm – 1pm (no need to book).
Information on training and drop-ins can be found at:
http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/tandl/elearning/events/index.html
4.
Teaching & Learning Support Office (TLSO) Bulletin
The Central TLSO produce a Bulletin every four to six weeks which contains information relevant
to teaching and learning support staff, quality assurance and enhancement staff and those working
in partner organisations.
Previous copies of the TLSO Bulletin can be found at:
http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/tlso/tlsonewsletterbulletins/
If you would like to be added to the email distribution list to have the TLSO Bulletin sent out to you
when it is produced, please contact Miriam Graham (Teaching & Learning Adviser, Policies &
Procedures) at m.graham@manchester.ac.uk.
5.
Connections – Connecting the Teaching and Learning Communities
Connections is a new publication dedicated to keeping staff informed about the campus-wide drive
to make sure teaching and learning, here at the University, are world-class.
The latest edition of the Connections publication is now available at:
http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/tlso/reviewteachinglearning/connections/
You will need to log on using your normal University of Manchester user name and password to be
able to access the page.
6.
School-based projects funded by the 2008/09 TQEF allocation
A list of the School-based projects funded by the 2008/09 TQEF allocation is provided in the table
below.
Proposer
LLC
Project
Away Day to Promote Innovation in Teaching in LLC
In the context of the University’s Review of Undergraduate Education and the Faculty’s
Strategic curriculum review, SLLC plans to hold an Away Day to Promote Innovation in
Teaching. The overall aim would be to discuss new approaches to teaching amongst
members of staff with the purpose of improving the quality of the teaching and learning
experience, and achieving further efficiency in overall provision.
E Schleef
LLC
Teaching more effectively through reading, reading based exercises and
immediate feedback
This project will focus on three problems in course provision. First, students should do
weekly readings for such a course to consolidate and extend what they’ve heard in the
lecture. This is usually not the case as there is often no appropriate introductory reading
and no mechanism in place to enforce this. Second, any concepts discussed in readings
should be practiced in exercises but there is often no time available in a 10 credit lecture
with only six tutorials. Third, immediate feedback cannot be given on readings or
exercises to every individual student in a large class.
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The project would facilitate review and reciting of the reading through structured
feedback questions and exercises. It design reading and concept exercises that give
immediate feedback and which can be provided through Blackboard or other online
sources and form part of the assessed coursework. Making these exercises assessable
will not only give students an opportunity to apply acquired knowledge, but they will also
be rewarded for reading and for applying what they have learned.
The Sociolinguistics Reader and online exercises will be the main outcome of this
project.
A Barratta
Education
Academic writing development across UG programme
This project will explore the development seen within a student’s academic writing across
the three years of a BA degree within the School of Education’s Language, Literacy and
Communication (LLC) programme, thus providing a longitudinal study.
Broadly, the aims of the project are as follows:
1. To use the knowledge obtained in order to have a clearer picture of the main
writing difficulties first-year undergraduates face and the ways in which they
overcome them.
2. To better understand the nature of feedback offered, in terms of which of the
scoring bands (e.g. knowledge and understanding, presentation and language,
etc.) largely comprise most of the feedback – and how this affects student writing
development.
The results will be disseminated through the Humanities Study Skills Network, potentially
providing material for the Academic Skills Site.
G Veletsianos
Education
Developing an eLearning innovation for adaptive and individualised student
feedback
(a) design and develop an eLearning environment that provides incremental, immediate,
and individualized feedback to students enrolled in a specific course unit
(b) generate guidelines for the development of a generalizable
e-learning “shell” for course units that involve repetitive heuristic-based feedback.
The outputs and deliverables therefore are:
• An e-learning environment that provides individualized and adaptive feedback. This
environment will also be launched across the university as a self-study learning module
for interested e-learning technologists.
• An empirical manuscript evaluating the e-learning intervention (The manuscript will
comprise of data from (a) a pilot-test evaluating its efficiency, engagement, usability, and
(b) a summative evaluation establishing its effectiveness.
• A set of guidelines for the development of a generalizable e-learning “shell” for course
units that involve repetitive heuristic-based feedback
C Warr
AHC
AHC UG Academic Skills Project
The aim of this project is to provide targeted feedback and support for level 1 students
who are having difficulty in adjusting to the standard and type of work expected from
them at University level. Level 1 students who are identified as having failed one or
more course units involving essays and/or essay-based examinations at the end of
semester 1 will be contacted and provided with easy access to a study pack aimed to
help them with those academic skills most in use across SAHC – essay and essaybased examination skills. Students at level 1 who have been before an academic
malpractice committee will also be offered the same support. Students will be
encouraged to work through the study pack and to contact their academic advisors for
further guidance and advice.
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The objectives of the UG Academic Skills Project are:
 To provide generic (essay and essay-based exams) but targeted (students who
have failed one or more course units in semester 1) feedback and study advice
to level 1 students who are experiencing significant difficulties in their academic
work during their first semester of university
 To improve retention rates
 To help students to improve their academic results.
7.
University of Manchester Outstanding Academic Achievement Awards, 2009
The recipients of the above Award, which is bestowed to the top 0.5% of the undergraduate
graduating year according to academic performance, for the Faculty of Humanities for 2009 are:
BURNETT, James (SLLC)
BUTCHER, Luke (SED)
BUTLER, Dell (SoSS)
CAMERON, James (SAHC)
DURRANT, Samantha (SoSS)
FISHER, Lana (Educ)
GRUN, Alison (MBS)
McMANUS, Stuart (SLLC)
ORPHANIDOU, Maria (SoSS)
SINGH, Neshan (SoSS)
TURTON, Danielle (SLLC)
URBANAVICIUTE, Gintare (SoSS)
ZWEMSTRA, Tessa (SoSS)
8.
Teaching Excellence Awards 2008-09
The profiles of the successful candidates for this year's Teaching Excellence Awards are now
available at: http://www.campus.manchester.ac.uk/tlso/excellence/2009winners/
9.
University of Manchester Forums
The following documents and discussions have recently been added to the University of
Manchester Forums (you will need to log in with your University user name and password to gain
access):
10.

Report on Blackboard World Europe Conference, 6-8 April 2009 - details of the conference
recently held in Barcelona are available in the forums.

Discussions about Interactive Voting - these are a number of recent discussions around this
area
Programme Approval
The following are new taught programmes or changes to existing taught programmes which have
recently been approved by the Faculty and have been ratified by the Vice-President for Teaching
and Learning, Professor Colin Stirling for entry in September 2009 (except where indicated):
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
School of Environment & Development
MSc in Global Urban Development & Planning

School of Languages, Linguistics & Cultures
BA European Studies & Modern Languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian &
Portuguese):- Creation of core course at L1, 2nd Language in the 2nd year is now optional, 4th
year dissertation is now optional and 2nd and 4th year students will now be able to select courses
on the ES side of their degree from a menu of those available in Social Anthropology & Sociology
as well as Politics, Economics & History.

Manchester Business School
BA (Hons) International Business Finance & Economics: amendment to various 1st and 2nd year
course units
MSc Executive Management
MBus Global Business Analysis - various changes to the course units available on this programme.
Manchester Global MBA - addition of a 360 credit stream to the existing Global MBA programme
The existing Global MBA is now renamed the Manchester Global MBA (Accelerated)
MSc in Marketing - addition of specialist pathways in Retailing, Consumer Behaviour, International,
Services and Business to Business
MSc in Human Resource Management & Industrial Relations - removal of 1 core course unit,
Introduction of 3 new optional course units and name changes to 3 existing course units.
MSc in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship - change of programme title from MSc
Management of Science, Technology & Innovation to MSc Innovation Management &
Entrepreneurship
MSc Quantitative Finance and Financial Engineering to change to MSc Quantitative Finance
(Financial Engineering) and MSc Quantitative Finance (Risk Management)
MSc Analytics: Operational Research & Risk Analysis - a more coherent mention of risk
analysis, including a minor change of content of 1 core unit; change of titles of all 4 core units and
access to units from other programmes as electives
MSc Information Systems (Business IT, eBusiness technology, eGovernment, Organisations &
Management) - Research Methodology (from Semester 1) and Research and Professional
Development (from Semester 2) have been combined into a new course unit to be offered in
Semster 2:- Research Methods and Practice.
Master of Public Administration - Major amendment which has resulted in the programme being redeveloped into a 15 month FT programme (270 credits) and an exit award of PG Dip (180 credits).

School of Social Sciences
BA (Econ) – introduction of a non-specialist exit route for final year students who have not satisfied
the programme regulations for their chosen specialism
MSc Financial Economics
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11.
Contact Lists
In order that we can provide support and assistance where possible and ensure that our contact
details are current please keep us updated on any changes of staff working in your School in the
area of PGT, UG and QAE.
We hope that you have found the content of this Bulletin informative. The next Bulletin will be
distributed during the week beginning 10 August 2009. Please send any items for inclusion by
5pm on 31 July 2009 to: lisa.mcaleese-2@manchester.ac.uk.
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