Archive of past TASH Meetings

General meeting - December 16

This was the last general meeting for the design phase of the TASH project, and offered opportunities for participants to comment on the emerging structure of the resource, the style in which it is being written, and the draft reflective exercises we had produced. Willy's presentation, setting the agenda and summarising the structure, is available to download from the right, as are more detailed notes from the meeting.

We had some excellent discussions about how students might be engaged with the resource and the academic skills development opportunities it offers, and how we might embed and promote it to staff colleagues. The main thing we took away from the discussion was that we had gone as far as was useful in a large-scale collaborative design mode, and what was now required was smaller, more intensive work producing draft components of the resource. Now, we move into a production phase, more concentrated on creating the resource, ready to re-emerge around Easter for a testing and feedback phase. Wider community involvement will clearly be essential for this next phase, so we may well contact you soon!

General Meeting - September 16

This was a general meeting, open to all interested in TASH, and offering a chance to learn more about the project and find out where it is going. The meeting centred on a series of presentations, updating participants on developments within the project (these are available to download from the right-hand menu). The presentations were helpful firstly to keep widening the community and ownership of the project – we have now had involvement from 70 individuals across 44 departments – and secondly to stimulate debate about where we go next.

The main response to this was to keep worrying away at the issues we´ve already identified – how can we engage students? How can we highlight the relevance to their disciplinary studies of developing generic skills? And how do we ensure that all categories of staff are turned on to the project and aware of what it can (and can´t) do? Participant feedback from the meeting was very positive, and the interest and energy generated by the project makes it much easier to address these important issues in the coming project stages.

As ever, there is more information available on the blog.

Skills Hub Update - Thursday 17 July

The second open TASH meeting took place on the 17th of July, and involved colleagues from 12 academic departments and 10 professional service departments. The PowerPoint used by Tim and Willy is available to download from the right-hand side of this page, or from the blog, where you will find a number of reports from the day. The blog is linked in the "See Also" box in the top right-hand corner of the page.

Discussions at the event covered the draft "Seven skills, seven hills" framework the TASH team has put together, which you can find more information about here. The framework was, in general, well-received, with the areas identified as necessary skill-sets recognised as important; there was helpful feedback on the fine details of the structure, and some useful challenges around skills that didn't seem to clearly fit. There were also important questions about how TASH fitted with other University projects, such as the Inclusive Learning and Teaching project (see menu on the left). The TASH team have tried to respond to these on the blog, and will bear in mind the concerns raised as the design process goes on.

Skills Hub Update - Tuesday 24 June Launch Meeting

The initial TASH meeting on June 24th was a great success, and brought together a range of interested colleagues from across the institution. The PowerPoint presentations used by Tim and Willy, and those generated by participants, are available to download from the top right-hand corner of this page. You can also access them through the blog, where you´ll find summaries of discussions from the day, responses to them, and rolling updates about the project. The blog is linked in the "See Also" box on this page.

To summarise a few key points from the day – there was great enthusiasm for the project, and a general feeling that this kind of thing has been needed for some time. There were questions raised over how the staff-facing aspect of the resource would mesh with the student-facing aspect, and this is indeed a valid topic for consideration as the design process develops. Another subject for further debate was precisely what we mean by skills, and how we will structure the resource to reflect them. Tim and Willy have tried to address that point on the blog. Finally, questions of embedding the resource, and encouraging students to access it were explored, as we´re all aware of high-quality resources that don´t get the use they deserve. All of these topics will be carried forward in our discussions on July 17th and after.