Marchmont Observatory

Last updated
Marchmont Observatory
AbbreviationMarchmont/SLIM
Formation1998
PurposeTo provide data and analysis for decision makers
Location
Region served
South West (England)
Director
Chris Evans (University of Exeter)
Assistant Director
Ben Neild
AffiliationsSouth West RDA, Government Office for the South West, Office for National Statistics (ONS), Association for Regional Observatories (ARO)
Website Official website

The Marchmont Observatory conducts academic research in support of local government policy formation concerning skills, employment and education for adults through networking, the development of learning programmes and research.

Contents

Organizational history

Established by the University of Exeter in 1998, following a £3m bid to the ADAPT Programme of the European Union, the Observatory was established initially as a partnership between the University of Exeter, the Open University, the BBC, [1] TUC, IBM, NETg and FT Management. [2] The early focus of the Observatory centered around the field of ICT and a collaboration with the University. [3]

Programmes

As part of its commitment to develop regional expertise, the Observatory has established the Skills and Learning Intelligence Module of the Regional Observatory, on behalf of partners in the region. Through this, intelligence and statistics on the labour and skills markets are provided to stakeholders in the South West. [4]

Because of its presence within the University the Observatory staff are able to work with other parts of the University and work closely with the similar Research Centres often developing joint projects. [5]

Core activities

The aim of the Marchmont Observatory is to improve evidence-based practice in the field of lifelong learning. This occurs through:

Skills and Learning Intelligence Module

The Skills and Learning Intelligence Module (SLIM) provides information on the skills and learning needs of individuals and businesses in the South West for policy decisions, funding programmes, organisational and partnership strategies and individual projects. [7]

Related Research Articles

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT British professional body in IT

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in information technology (IT) and computer science, both in the United Kingdom and internationally. Founded in 1956, BCS has played an important role in educating and nurturing IT professionals, computer scientists, computer engineers, upholding the profession, accrediting chartered IT professional status, and creating a global community active in promoting and furthering the field and practice of computing.

Community informatics (CI) is an interdisciplinary field that is concerned with using information and communication technology (ICT) to empower members of communities and support their social, cultural, and economic development. Community informatics may contribute to enhancing democracy, supporting the development of social capital, and building well connected communities; moreover, it is probable that such similar actions may let people experience new positive social change. In community informatics, there are several considerations which are the social context, shared values, distinct processes that are taken by members in a community, and social and technical systems. It is formally located as an academic discipline within a variety of academic faculties including information science, information systems, computer science, planning, development studies, and library science among others and draws on insights on community development from a range of backgrounds and disciplines. It is an interdisciplinary approach interested in using ICTs for different forms of community action, as distinct from pure academic study about ICT effects.

Information and communications technology Extensional term for information technology

Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications and computers, as well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage and audiovisual, that enable users to access, store, transmit, understand and manipulate information.

Open educational resources Open learning resource

Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed instructional materials such as text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing, as well as for research purposes.

Cambridge Judge Business School

Cambridge Judge Business School is the business school of the University of Cambridge. The School is a provider of management education and is consistently ranked as one of the world's top business schools, with the Cambridge MBA programme ranked among the top in the world by Bloomberg, the Financial Times, BusinessInsider, US News & World Report and Forbes Magazine. It is named after Sir Paul Judge, a founding benefactor of the school.

Advance HE is a British charity and professional membership scheme promoting excellence in higher education. It advocates evidence-based teaching methods and awards fellowships as professional recognition for university teachers. Founded in 2003, the Higher Education Academy was responsible for the UK Professional Standards Framework for higher education practitioners and merged to form Advance HE on 21 March 2018.

Digital literacy refers to an individual's ability to find, evaluate, and clearly communicate information through typing and other media on various digital platforms. It is evaluated by an individual's grammar, composition, typing skills and ability to produce text, images, audio and designs using technology. The American Library Association (ALA) defines digital literacy as "the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills." While digital literacy initially focused on digital skills and stand-alone computers, the advent of the internet and use of social media, has resulted in the shift in some of its focus to mobile devices. Similar to other expanding definitions of literacy that recognize cultural and historical ways of making meaning, digital literacy does not replace traditional forms of literacy, but instead builds upon and expands the skills that form the foundation of traditional forms of literacy. Digital literacy should be considered to be a part of the path to knowledge.

Education in Ghana Overview of education in Ghana

Before the arrival of European settlers, who introduced a formal education system addressed to the elites, education in Ghana was mainly informal and based on apprenticeship. Economic activities in pre-colonial Ghana were based on farm produce shared within households and members of each household specialized in providing necessities such as cooking utilities, shelter, clothing, and furniture, and trade with other households was therefore practiced on a very small scale. As such there was no need for employment outside the household that would have otherwise called for disciplines, values, and skills through a formal education system. After colonization, Ghana's economy became a hybrid of subsistence and formal economy.

The New Line Learning Academies were two ill fated learning concept schools used in south Maidstone, Kent, England. It consisted of two secondary schools in South Maidstone who were governed under one body to improve standards for children and create greater consistency in the quality of provision through a collective approach to education.

Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD) now known as Peninsula Dental School and Peninsula Medical School was a Medical and Dental school in England, run in partnership with the University of Exeter, the University of Plymouth and the NHS in Devon and Cornwall. In January 2013 the school began disaggregation to form Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry and the University of Exeter Medical School. The school had campuses at the University of Plymouth, the University of Exeter, the John Bull Building, the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and the Royal Cornwall Hospital. Teaching of medical students also took place at North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple, South Devon Healthcare Trust in Torbay and General Practices across the region plus a number of community orientated healthcare settings.

Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) is part of the Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge. The IfM integrates research and education with practical application in industry. It disseminates its research findings via a university-owned knowledge transfer company, IfM Engage.

Teaching and Learning Research Programme

The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) was the United Kingdom's largest investment in education research. It was initiated in 2000, ended in 2011 and was managed on behalf of the Higher Education Funding Councils by the Economic and Social Research Council. The programme engaged 700 researchers in some 70 major projects. These covered all education sectors - from Early Years to Higher Education and Workplace Learning. The TLRP researchers work closely in partnership with practitioners to ensure the relevance and application of findings to policy and practice. Thematic work across the diverse range of projects enabled analysis of themes and the identification of 'ten principles for effective teaching and learning'.

EUCIP

The European Certification of Informatics Professionals (EUCIP) is a professional certification and competency development scheme, aimed at informatics professionals and practitioners. EUCIP, which originated with the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies, is offered in a range of European countries through national computer societies. The EUCIP certifications are maintained by ECDL Foundation.

The South West Observatory (SWO) was a regional resource for the South West of England, originally established by the former South West Regional Development Agency, Government Office for the South West, and the South West Regional Assembly as a partnership for use by policy-makers to aid and improve evidence-based decision-making. It operated from 2002 - 2013.

Open educational practices (OEP) are part the broader open education landscape, including the openness movement in general. It is a term with multiple layers and dimensions and is often used interchangeably with open pedagogy or open practices. OEP represent teaching and learning techniques that draw upon open and participatory technologies and high-quality open educational resources (OER) in order to facilitate collaborative and flexible learning. Because OEP emerged from the study of OER, there is a strong connection between the two concepts. OEP, for example, often, but not always, involve the application of OER to the teaching and learning process. Open educational practices aim to take the focus beyond building further access to OER and consider how in practice, such resources support education and promote quality and innovation in teaching and learning. The focus in OEP is on reproduction/understanding, connecting information, application, competence, and responsibility rather than the availability of good resources. OEP is a broad concept which can be characterised by a range of collaborative pedagogical practices that include the use, reuse, and creation of OER and that often employ social and participatory technologies for interaction, peer-learning, knowledge creation and sharing, empowerment of learners, and open sharing of teaching practices.

Alternative pathways in education are alternative means of obtaining educational qualifications, other than the traditional means of gaining access to or completing the required study to obtain the educational qualifications.

Katharine Jewitt Research Fellow and lecturer in The Open University

Katharine Elizabeth Jewitt is a Research Fellow in The Open University's Faculty for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics, an independent Educational Technology and Management Consultant. She works as a lecturer at The Open University in the Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies; Faculty of Business and Law and The Centre for Inclusion and Collaborative Partnerships. She works for The Open University's Teaching and Learning Centre and International Development Office in a consulting capacity. She also works as a Mentor for FutureLearn and is a Producer Editor for OpenLearn. She is a School Governor and mentors staff to achieve Fellowship status for the Higher Education Academy and on the Aurora programme at Advance HE. Jewitt teaches ESL in China. Previously, Jewitt was Director of Teaching, Learning, Curriculum and Quality at Prospects College of Advanced Technology and has held senior positions in industry, including DHL, Exel and Fujitsu.

Simon Rogerson

Simon Rogerson is lifetime Professor Emeritus in Computer Ethics at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (CCSR), De Montfort University. He was the founder and editor for 19 volumes of the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. He has had two careers; first as a technical software developer and then in academia as reformer. He was the founding Director of CCSR, launching it in 1995 at the first ETHICOMP conference which he conceived and co-directed until 2013. He became Europe's first Professor in Computer Ethics in 1998. His most important research focuses on providing rigorously grounded practical tools and guidance to computing practitioners. For his leadership and research achievements in the computer and information ethics interdisciplinary field he was awarded the fifth IFIP-WG9.2 Namur Award in 2000 and the SIGCAS Making a Difference Award in 2005.

Educational technology in sub-Saharan Africa refers to the promotion, development and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), m-learning, media, and other technological tools to improve aspects of education in sub-Saharan Africa. Since the 1960s, various information and communication technologies have aroused strong interest in sub-Saharan Africa as a way of increasing access to education, and enhancing its quality and fairness.

Educational management Administration of education systems

Educational management refers to the administration of the education system in which a group combines human and material resources to supervise, plan, strategise, and implement structures to execute an education system. Education is the equipping of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, habits, and attitudes with learning experiences. The education system is an ecosystem of professionals in educational institutions, such as government ministries, unions, statutory boards, agencies, and schools. The education system consists of political heads, principals, teaching staff, non-teaching staff, administrative personnel and other educational professionals working together to enrich and enhance. At all levels of the educational ecosystem, management is required; management involves the planning, organising, implementation, review, evaluation, and integration of an institution.

References

As of this edit, this article uses content from "About the Marchmont Observatory" , which is licensed in a way that permits reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, but not under the GFDL. All relevant terms must be followed.

  1. British Broadcasting Corporation. "ICT Coach - ICT Links". BBC. Retrieved 2012-01-04.
  2. "Graduate School of Education :: Research :: Marchmont Observatory :: Research for the learning age". Education.exeter.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012-01-04.
  3. "e-Learning Centre by Learning Light - Academic e-learning organisations". Archive.e-learningcentre.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-01-04.
  4. "The Skills & Learning Intelligence Module". Swslim.org.uk. 2011-09-29. Archived from the original on 2012-09-12. Retrieved 2012-01-04.
  5. https://web.archive.org/web/20110726014805/http://dickwillis.edublogs.org/2006/08/29/what-employers-want/. Archived from the original on July 26, 2011. Retrieved November 8, 2010.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. "News | Association for Learning Technology". Alt.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012-01-04.
  7. "South West Observatory (SWO) | Thematic Modules". SWO. Archived from the original on 2010-07-12. Retrieved 2012-01-04.