School of Health and Social Sciences

Exciting new project!

csyke01 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:28:00 GMT

The School of Health and Social Sciences TELLS team are pleased to be working in partnership with the Institute of Digital Learning (IDL) on supporting staff to develop their modules via MOODLE as part of the Work Based Learning Project for Newport Business School as part of a cross university initiative. This project commenced today and will conclude at the end of July 2010. We look forward to working with our colleagues across the university.

'What Else Works? Creative Work with Offenders' HSS Staff Book Published.

csyke01 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:33:00 GMT

Dr Jo Brayford, Dr John Deering and Dr Francis Cowe have had their edited book published.

It is What Else Works? Creative Work with Offenders, is published by Willan Publishing (2010).

The book arose out of the 2008 Newport Centre for Criminal and Community Justice conference.

This year’s conference is “Sex offenders – punish, help, change or control?”, on April 29^th, an immensely relevant and important event, and the team intend an edited volume arising from that conference.

Details of the book at http://www.willanpublishing.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781843927662

Many congratulations to John, Jo and Francis.

Limited Reduced Price student places available on Community Justice 'Sex Offenders' Conference

csyke01 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:21:00 GMT

A limited number of places are available for current HSS students on the Newport Centre for Criminal and Community Justice Conference to be held on 29th April 2010 entitled 'Sex Offenders - Punish, Help, Change or Control'. This special limited offer will allow students to attend at the cost of just £10 per person which includes all conference presentations and refreshments (compared to the normal price of £80 pp). If you would like to book on this first come first served offer then please contact Carl Sykes via email on carl.sykes@newport.ac.uk

BOB's your best friend!

Mike Simmons — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:43:00 GMT

BOB (Box of Broadcasts) is an incredibly useful resource that allows you to watch, record and archive TV and radio programmes from over fifty freeview television and radio channels. BoB is available to all University staff, researchers and students. It is available on or off campus but is not available outside the United Kingdom.

Searching and viewing: You can search for programmes which other users have recorded or see other peoples clips and playlists. Your search results will be displayed as a list of programmes. To view, click on the programme thumbnail and click on the on screen 'click to play' option.
Recording: There are two ways to find a TV or radio programme to record - you can either perform a search for a keyword or programme title in the search box, or look through a 7 day programme guide to find the programme you want. Users are limited to 3 programmes requests per day.
Creating playlists and clips: Playlists can be used to collect and manage a number of related programmes. They might be related by title (all belong to the same series), or by topic (Politics etc). Clips can be created from longer programmes for lectures or tutorials.
MyBob: Is your user account area where you can access and manage your recordings.

How can you access this? You simply need a computer with a broadband connection and an ATHENS account, and you can find out about that here. You can find out more about BOB here. Clearly this is an academic resource but from looking at the most highly rated playlists that's not all people are using it for - unless an awful lot of them are doing research on The Wire, Blade and NHRA Drag Racing!

National Student Survey 2010

clloyd01 — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:08:00 GMT

January sees the launch of the National Student Survey (NSS) 2010 at most universities and colleges across the UK. Entering its sixth year, the NSS is a census of students in the final year of a course leading to undergraduate credits or qualifications across the UK. It is your opportunity to give your opinions on what you liked about your time at your institution as well as things that you felt could have been improved.

Student feedback is used to compile year on year comparative data that is:

published on Unistats.com where prospective students and their advisors can use the results to help make informed choices of where and what to study
useful to your university, students’ union or college to facilitate best practice and enhance the student learning experience.

You and your answers remain anonymous at all times and your contact details are only used for the purpose of the survey.

For more information and to complete the survey please visit: www.thestudentsurvey.com.

Postgraduate Research Opportunity

Mike Simmons — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:05:00 GMT

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Project RESPECT:

PhD Research Stipend

£13,290 p.a. + tuition fees waiver (full time, 3 years) Closing date for applications: 24 March 2010

An exciting opportunity for postgraduate research has arisen within the Newport Social Ethics Research Group (SERG). The successful candidate will undertake a PhD and participate in the RESPECT Project, an international and interdisciplinary research programme funded through the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme. We are looking to appoint an enthusiastic and motivated individual with a strong interest in contemporary academic debates about respect, tolerance, equality and diversity and their application to issues of pressing social and political concern.

The research will focus on the role of tolerance and equal respect in relation to policies for the distribution of public spaces in culturally diverse societies. As a postgraduate researcher you will be involved in extensive international liaison with partners in China, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Russia, and Slovenia. This will include the attendance of workshops and conferences at collaborating institutions, and the possibility of single-authored and/or co-authored publications. The successful candidate will therefore have excellent communication and organisation skills, experience of undertaking research in a relevant discipline and, as a minimum, hold an undergraduate degree in any relevant discipline: philosophy (esp.

applied ethics, and political philosophy), law, sociology, politics, social policy, or related fields across the humanities and social sciences. The ability to combine theoretical and empirical research approaches would be ideally suited to the aims of the RESPECT Project.

To apply email a CV, a covering letter and the contact details of two referees to serg@newport.ac.uk

* Shortlisted candidates will be asked for a sample of written work and invited for an on-campus interview.

* Interviews will be held in mid-April.

* Closing date for applications: Wednesday, 24th March 2010

* Start date: 1 June 2010 (negotiable)

* For informal enquiries please email enzo.rossi@newport.ac.uk or serg@newport.ac.uk

Poster Presentation Video now live on Youtube.

csyke01 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:33:00 GMT

A video, created by Dr Hilary Matheson, dealing with the do's and dont's of poster presentations is now live on Youtube. Please click this link to view the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb68JG4v2Kk

Tsunami Reseach Project

Mike Simmons — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:24:00 GMT

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It is just over 5 years since the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit countries around the Indian Ocean. As a commemoration of this event, the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at the University of Wales, Newport, has received funding from the Higher Education Academy to develop an international community of University students, both undergraduate and postgraduate from any discipline, who are studying or undertaking research into the Indian Ocean tsunami and, for example, its social, economic, cultural, and physical impacts.

If you are already studying or researching the event, or are planning to do a dissertation or project on it next year, please be among the first to join and contribute to the online community at http://tsunami2004.ning.com/, which was launched this week.

Newport has been partnered with Osmania University in India and students there are also being invited to join with a view to developing collaborative research links, holding video conference seminars, and arranging possible study visits. The CELT Project intends to publish a book of collected student research papers on the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2011.

If you are interested, please join the project at http://tsunami2004.ning.com/.

News from SERG

Mike Simmons — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:04:00 GMT

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The School's Social Ethics Research Group (SERG) is delighted to announce the launch of its innovative MA in Social Ethics and Public

Advocacy:

http://www3.newport.ac.uk/courses/displayCourse.aspx?course_id=224

This course provides the ideal combination of theoretical and practical knowledge and experience for those wishing to embark on or progress in careers in the fields of public advocacy, political activism, and public policy at both domestic and international level.

The coursework includes theoretical and applied modules. The theoretical component is centred around key issues in ethics, human rights theory and law, and political theory, whereas the applied modules explore the concrete application of theory to a broad range of issues such as the environment, international justice, disability, and multiculturalism.

Students may choose to study several of the applied issues, or to focus on just one of them by tackling it from different perspectives.

To complete the course students may write a research dissertation or carry out an appropriately selected internship at a relevant NGO or public sector organisation, which will enable them to develop professional experience and links.

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The Newport Social Ethics Research Group is also about to advertise a fully funded two-year bursary for a postgraduate research student (MPhil, with possible extension to PhD level) in connection with Project RESPECT, an international and interdisciplinary research project funded by the European Commission under Framework Programme 7.

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To learn more about the RESPECT Project studentship or the MA in Social Ethics and Public Advocacy email enzo.rossi@newport.ac.uk or serg@newport.ac.uk . You may also wish to attend our Postgraduate Study Fair on 17 March, and talk to members of the Newport Social Ethics Research Group in person:

http://www3.newport.ac.uk/displayPage.aspx?object_id=13865&parent_id=1089&type=SEC

E-learning workshops now available.

pandre01 — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:41:00 GMT

The school's Technology Enhanced Learning & Learning Support Team (aka TELLS) is now offering a series of full and half day e-learning workshops covering a wide variety of fee and open source tools which can be used by educators at all levels to enhance teaching and learning.

The workshops can be held either in your organisation or on one of our campuses.

Please click on the link below for full details but if you do have any questions then please contact us.

http://sites.google.com/site/uwnshsstells/e-learning-workshops

Thanks for reading.

Paul.

Module Evaluation Results & Feedback for the 1st year "core" module: G106029 - Skills for a Professional Environment

pandre01 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:03:00 GMT

>> Click here to view the evaluation results <<

The tutor's response to these results is as follows:

"May I start by thanking you for your responses and comments relating to this module. We have read with interest your remarks and would like to address some of the main themes highlighted. It is encouraging that overwhelmingly you were pleased with the quality of the teaching methods and style of teaching on this module. In addition you have highlighted that you would recommend this module to other students. It has been noted that some of you find the start time too early but due to the inflexibility of the estate and the timetable / demands for rooms, the start time is not within the School's control. It is encouraging to learn that you felt that the module was relevant to your course in providing basic academic skills such as Harvard Referencing, plagiarism and academic writing.

Your comments relating to the types of assessments have given us some important themes to consider. For instance we have appreciated some concerns about having to fill in your PDP weekly, however the aim of this was to get you into a pattern of working and to capture your personal developments as they are occurring through workshop support . When we asked you how often you made use of the various one line resources we were pleased to learn that the vast majority of you made very frequent use of Moodle. One area for concern was your physical use of the library resources with almost 40% saying you infrequently visit the library. We would like to highlight that there are many valuable resources in the library that are not on line along with a team of dedicated staff to help and support you in your studies.

We would just like to say thank you once again for taking the time to complete the evaluation and also for making the Skills for the Professional Module a pleasure to deliver.

Best wishes

Andy Thomas and Paul Andrews"

Module Leaders

Three Week Evaluation

Mike Simmons — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:05:00 GMT

We asked you how the first three weeks of this academic year had been for you, and about 300 people responded. With this posting you'll find a summary of what you said along with our response. This is always quite a general evaluation because it goes out to everybody - when it comes to the individual module evaluations we'll be able to be more detailed in our responses.

HSS Examinations Timetable - May

Angela Llewellyn — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:42:00 GMT

...here's the exam timetable for May. If there is anything you are unsure of, please contact your tutor.

All the Best, Angela

HSS Examinations Timetable - January

Angela Llewellyn — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:35:00 GMT

Hi All

Attached is the provisional exam timetable for January (the May timetable is to follow in a seperate posting). Please contact your tutors if there is anything you are unsure of.

All the Best, Angela

Further Updates to the HSS Tutor Surgery Timetable

Angela Llewellyn — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:49:00 GMT

Hi All,

There have been a few amendments to the Tutor Surgery timetable so please find attached the latest version.