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Changing Academics, Changing Curriculum: How
Technology Enhanced Curriculum Design can Deliver
Strategic Change
Christine Davies
University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, UK
cpdavies@glam.ac.uk
Abstract: This paper describes a case study resulting from a JISC Building Capacity Project at the University of
Glamorgan. The case study indicates that curriculum design can be used a vehicle to engage staff with
technology for learning and teaching, and provide the means to initiate sustainable staff development. At the start
of the project, a research survey revealed that whilst academic staff were reasonably proficient in the use of the
institutional VLE, they were unaware of many of the tools and resources that could be useful within their subject
disciplines. Some staff identified training needs, and indicated a preference for one-to-one support over group
training. The survey also revealed evidence that some staff clear use technology in innovative and effective ways
within their courses. In response to the research data the project team took a three-pronged approach to building
the capacity of academic staff to use technology in their learning and teaching in a sustainable way: Remove the
barrier of lack of awareness of useful technologies – this was undertaken through in-faculty drop-in sessions to
demonstrate hardware and software and answer queries; and seminars and blogs to provide more detail of the
ways in which the vast range of available technologies could fit into subject teaching and research activity
Encourage staff already competent in using technology – by organizing regular ‘self-help’ groups to allow sharing
of new ideas and good practice Reach staff with limited engagement with technology – by arranging one-to-one
interviews using appreciative inquiry approaches to explore their subject learning and teaching traditions and
identify the ways in which technology enabled tools and resources could be integrated Emphasis was placed on
the curriculum rather than on the technology. Tools and resources –particularly Open Educational Resources
(OER) - were discussed in the context of improved curriculum design and established tangible benefits (JISC
Infonet, 2008). Learner benefits were also a focus, with emphasis on the key role of the tutor in guiding learners
towards the effective use of technology in their learning (JISC, 2009). This case reveals that an institutional
approach to curriculum design can be implemented through sustainable approaches at subject level. Thus a top
down mandate for change can be implemented through a bottom-up engagement with practitioners in the
language and approaches of their own discipline. Such an approach moves from central support into the common
practice with departmental and course team debate.
Keywords: technology-enhanced learning; staff development; curriculum design
1. Introduction
Over the past decade, The University of Glamorgan has followed a path from Blended Learning to
Technology-Enhanced Learning, via several key projects including the HEA’s GWELLA (University of
Glamorgan, 2011) and Change Academy (University of Glamorgan, 2010) projects which focused
particularly on assessment and feedback methods. These initiatives, steered by the University’s
Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), have had a significantly positive effect on the
institution, which serves an economically challenged geographical area and a student community that
includes several minority and protected–status groups. These benefits linked to predicted
expectations (Garrison and Kanuka, 2004) to some extent, but it was felt the institution needed to
reflect on the impact resulting from previous interventions (Conole, 2006). It was also believed that
barriers still existed in some cases that were preventing academic staff making full use of the benefits
that technology can bring, and in some cases inhibiting them from making their first tentative steps
across the digital ‘chasm’ (Rogers, 1962). The JISC Building Capacity Project at the University
provided the resource to investigate these barriers more fully and to identify ways of removing them.
The approach was strategic in that it covered the whole organization and was directed by the
institutional Teaching and Learning Strategy (University of Glamorgan, 2006); however, it was also
‘bottom up’ in the sense that there was significant direct contact with academic in the context of their
teaching curricula. The project has constituted a key advance in an on-going programme to make
best use of technology for the benefit of learners.
2. Methods
This paper outlines the methodologies adopted during the project in the form of a case study to
enable the key project milestones to be viewed in context and to provide an ethnographic
development of the project results and its outputs. This phenomenological research began by
considering the barriers to engagement with technology for learning, teaching and assessment in
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