The Higher Education Academy

Supporting New Academic Staff (SNAS)

Enhancing support for the disciplinary focus on professional courses

10th November 2005

Supporting New Academic Staff (SNAS)

The SNAS project arose from a desire expressed amongst Accredited Course Tutors and Subject Centres to share discipline-specific resources and guidance to complement generic learning and teaching theory and practice.

First project team meeting October 2003

SNAS database piloted January-March 2004 and revised in response to feedback.

2005 SNAS expands to three strands of activity

SNAS Online database

A team of Course Tutors and Subject Centres have worked collaboratively to:

• Identify topics covered on initial courses in Learning & Teaching for new staff for which discipline-specific resources would be useful

• Develop succinct lists of discipline-specific and generic resources to provide a starting point for new academic staff

• Involve experts, Subject Centres and Course Tutors in choosing and annotating the resources

• Establish an online database to make available theses resource lists in an easily searchable format

SNAS Online database

Each database entry contains the following information:Title: Author: Resource Type: Subject: Chosen by: Topic: Topic Description: Resource Description: Publisher: Publication date/edition: Price: Web Site:Contextual Information about learning and teaching in your discipline:

Case Studies

What can SNAS do to help you?

Topics or issues that you would like to see addressed in the database

Feedback form

SNASEnhancing support for the disciplinary focus on professional courses

Community of Practice (reference group)Building on the existing group of subject centres and course tutors

Strand 1Discipline-specific

resource and guidance

Sue BurkillYolande Knight

Strand 2Mechanisms for staff

engaged on programmes to share discipline

specific pedagogy

Rowland GallopPhil Gravestock

Strand 3Linking teaching with

research and scholarship

Alan JenkinsMick Healey

Cross-cutting ENSURING INCLUSIVITY OF ROLES

Bland Tomkinson

Cross-cutting SUBJECT CENTRE PERSPECTIVE

Yolande Knight & Nigel Purcell

Strand 1: Discipline-specific resource and guidance

This strand is intended to maintain the quality and increase the range ofdiscipline-specific resources and guidance available through SNAS by:

Continuing to develop, enhance and evaluate the quality of the discipline-focussed resource database with reference to the National Standards Framework.

Developing easy access for all members of staff in HEIs to the contents of the database

Strand 2: Mechanisms to share discipline specific pedagogy

This strand is intended to develop mechanisms to enable staffparticipating on accredited programmes to share ideas and experiences

by:

Designing and piloting an on-line forum to provide a community of practice for new staff to address issues of subject-specific pedagogy.

Strand 3: Linking research and teaching

This strand is intended to provide support for course leaders andparticipants in making pedagogical links between teaching anddiscipline-based research through:

Developing a set of discipline-based resources, including case study and review essays, for linking teaching and research in partnership with a number of Subject Centres.

Developing and populate an Academy website on linking teaching with disciplinary research for new academic staff and continuing professional development.