Student attitudes towards and skills for sustainable development

Posted on: 10 December 2014
By: mackene
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This is the fourth consecutive year in which the survey has been run by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and the National Union of Students (NUS). It is part of a longitudinal study into student attitudes towards sustainable development in UK higher education.

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Innovating pedagogy 2014: Exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers

Posted on: 5 December 2014
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The annual Innovating Pedagogy report explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. Produced by the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University, the report identifies ten educational terms, theories and practices that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice in the near future.

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Skills to build: LCCI/KPMG Skills Index (London and the South East) 2014

Posted on: 20 November 2014
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This report aims to quantify construction skill shortages across London and the South East, showing how they impact on the delivery of key infrastructure projects and public policy goals. Using a unique methodology developed by the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the report outlines the labour required to deliver the construction projects planned for London and the South East between 2014 and 2017, and the gaps in training provision that must be filled to meet this demand.

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Aichi-Nagoya Declaration on Education for Sustainable Development

Posted on: 13 November 2014
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The World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) held in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, closed on 12 November 2014 with a declaration urging action to mainstream education in the United Nations post-2015 development agenda. The Aichi-Nagoya Declaration calls on all nations to implement the Global Action Programme on ESD to move the relevant agenda forward.

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Disasters and ecosystems free online course

Posted on: 12 November 2014
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The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), through its Global Universities Partnership on Environment for Sustainability (GUPES), and Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS), Germany, has launched the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Disasters and Ecosystems: Resilience in a Changing Climate. The MOOC is an outcome of the long-standing collaboration between UNEP and the Center for Natural Resources and Development, a consortium of 11 universities from around the world that is coordinated by CUAS. The free course, due to start in January 2015, will cover the following topics: Disaster trends and statistics; Fundamentals of disaster risk reduction; Climate change, disasters, and environmental linkages; Tools for ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction and adaptation; and Global, national and local processes of disaster risk reduction. The course will be delivered through a series of lectures and case studies, along with substantial additional study materials provided to the students. Lectures will be available through videos as well as online documents, and will be geared for students who may not have access to high speed internet so they can also follow the course. Registration for the course is now open.

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Skills to build

Posted on: 11 November 2014
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KPMG, in association with London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), have launched a report which analyses the skills gap in relation to the construction pipeline between 2014-2017. The report provides a detailed insight into the skills gap and the training shortage, and makes recommendations for policy makers, employers and training bodies to help drive change in the industry.

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New modes of learning and teaching in universities

Posted on: 4 November 2014
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The European Commission’s High-Level Group on the modernisation of higher education has published a report which presents a number of recommendations for the improvement of teaching technologies and practices and stresses the need for government authorities to stimulate and foster educational change rather than the present practice of delegating responsibility to grassroots initiatives alone. They call on all member states to draw up strategies to support universities in this major change in focus as well as stressing the need for coordinated teacher development and support. In addition they stress the need for quality assurance in online learning and the open availability of educational resources.

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Referencing your work

Posted on: 29 October 2014
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A useful guide from the University of Westminster libraries on referencing your work.

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The role of universities in the regional creative economies of the UK: Hidden protagonists and the challenge of knowledge transfer

Posted on: 22 October 2014
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Since the 1970s policies have been developed across Europe to evolve this institutional landscape. Since the late 1990s, regional and urban development strategies have also sought to harness the growth potential of the cultural and creative industries to regional and urban economic development. However, whilst the regional and urban planning literature has examined the growth-promoting potential of universities very closely, their possible role in relation to regional and urban creative economic development has received less attention. This paper aims to begin addressing this gap by interrogating the relationship between universities and the regional creative economy using, as a starting point, a model of analysis suggested by the Triple-Helix theoretical framework. The paper finds that whilst universities possess often long and hidden associations with regional and urban creative activities—as hidden protagonists—there are important institutional and professional challenges in the possibility of their developing an explicit and sustainable role as new actors in the regional and urban creative economies. The paper identifies the nature of these challenges with a view to developing a clearer understanding of the system, policy and institutional realities that underpin the often complex dynamics of knowledge creation−practice relationships found in arts and humanities disciplines. This article can be found in the latest issue of European Planning Studies (Vol.22, Issue 12, 2014)

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Box of Broadcasts (BoB)

Posted on: 23 September 2014
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BoB (Box of Broadcasts) National is an innovative shared online off-air TV and radio recording service for UK higher and further education institutions. BoB enables all staff and students in subscribing institutions to choose and record any broadcast programme from 60+ TV and radio channels. The recorded programmes are then kept indefinitely (no expiry) and added to a growing media archive (currently at over 1 million programmes), with all content shared by users across all subscribing institutions. A series of webinars is scheduled in the coming term covering all aspects of BoB National, including a broad introduction to the main aspects of the service.  There will also be 30 minute webinars covering specific aspects of BoB, including the best way to embed clips, tips for discovering content and more information for admins.

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