Turning challenges into opportunities

Angela Benzies

Welcome to the first edition of the tfj for the session!  You may have noticed that we did not publish in June and this was due to us needing to reconsider the future of the tfj in the light of recent reorganisation. In responding to this challenge there was an opportunity to stop and reflect on what the tfj is for, who reads it and why and, if we continue with it, how might we as a community wish to see it develop, especially in the light of increased activity across the University through grant-aided project work and our Special Interest Groups. 

I am convinced that we ‘punch above our weight’ in Edinburgh Napier in terms of the quality of our learning, teaching and assessment work and, if there is a failing, it is in perhaps in not publicising it enough. The recent QAA Enhancement Led Institutional Review provided affirmation of our high standards and recognised the Teaching Fellow contribution to that achievement.

The vision for the tfj is that it continues to do the good things it has done in the past but that the new format will better reflect our current portfolio of activities and enable effective dissemination. So, the tfj will still provide a place for colleagues to gain confidence in publishing, to share across School and Faculty boundaries, and to provide practical information to support our work, but it will change to accommodate more reporting on our development activities, to stimulate ideas for new ventures, and to help make links between individual pieces of work as well as foster more and stronger connections between people. To help us achieve that, we have the opportunity to take the tfj to a new internal audience, and also to make provision for more regular updates by means of a news blog to run alongside the main publication, which is in line with current practice in the publishing industry. In order to maximise advantage of this redesign opportunity, the work has been done as a Teaching Fellow project with a team drawn from the Office of the Vice Principal (Academic), the Teaching Fellow community and the School of Arts & Creative Industries, which has allowed us to effectively tap into the creativity of our staff and students. See project report on.

However, without the ongoing involvement of the Teaching Fellow community and other colleagues we would have no publication so thank you to all who have contributed directly by writing articles and to those who have given their comments. There is plenty of opportunity to contribute to regular sections and features so I look forward to receiving your suggestions for future editions.

Last updated 40 days ago by TFJ