Purpose – This paper seeks to present the gamble made by the University of Alicante (Spain) on the promotion of open knowledge. Information and communication technologies have became pervasive in our lives and in this changing world education cannot remain anchored in oldfashioned models which ignore the evolution that society is going through. Design/methodology/approach – The educational envi...

Eight bereavement support posts in paediatrics and maternity were established using the experience of the Child Bereavement Trust (CBT). Evaluation showed that staff welcomed the informal support and teaching for themselves, as well as support for families; 67% of staff who returned questionnaires felt care for bereaved families had improved as a result of the posts. Many felt that there had be...

BACKGROUND Nursing and midwifery education have comparatively recently moved into academia in Ireland. In 2002, nurse tutors who were qualified to Master's degree level assimilated into the third-level sector. Only 11 of the 35 staff (31%) in one university School held, or were undertaking, a PhD. In 2006, children's nursing and midwifery tutors also moved into third-level institutions. The cul...

Learning analytics, with a risk management approach, provides relevant and actionable information to teaching and administrative staff to make evidence-based decisions in curriculum and program quality improvement. This paper outlines the development and pilot implementation of a risk management model with an online feedback system in a research-intensive Australian university. Providing teache...

The significant role of reflection in sustaining the quality of learning and teaching (L&T) activities at high levels has been widely acknowledged in literature. Reflection has been identified as a key factor underpinning both successful learning by students and successful continuing professional development by their teaching staff in higher education. This study focuses on aspects associated w...

Need for emphasizing teaching Psychiatry to undergraduate Medical students highlighted. Specific recommendations put forward by different bodies and groups reviewed. A questionnaire on the pattern of teaching Psychiatry was circulated among fifty undergraduate Medical students. Analysis of results revealed students in general are not satisfied with the present pattern. Several lacunae in the te...

BACKGROUND The role of health systems research (HSR) in informing and guiding national programs and policies has been increasingly recognized. Yet, many universities in sub-Saharan African countries have relatively limited capacity to teach HSR. Seven schools of public health (SPHs) in East and Central Africa undertook an HSR institutional capacity assessment, which included a review of current...

Lectures and self-directed study are all too often perceived by teachers and students as distinct educational activities. This paper describes how World Wide Web and ‘interactive meeting’ technologies are being used to help establish and maintain context and continuity for learning. The tools and their role in lecture preparation, presentation, and self-managed study are described. Initial tria...

A common problem in the design of information systems is how to structure the information in a way that is most useful to different groups of users. This paper describes some statistical methods for revealing the structure inherent in empirical data elicited from users. It is illustrated by the application of these methods to the design of some web pages giving information about the Universitat...

There are numerous websites and considerable literature which describe approaches to learning and teaching using a range of technologies in higher education contexts for academic staff. Further, that as academic staff development is increasingly recognized as having an essential role to play in the recasting of ways in which teachers work with students and how students best learn, that this is ...