The Transition Attributes (TA) framework is a novel evaluative pedagogic tool which allows mapping of transition activities across four core attributes (skills, knowledge, mindsets and habits) and twelve sub-attributes which are linked to established higher education sector graduate attributes literature and measures of student success in higher study. This short paper outlines the basis of the TA framework, the rationale for each sub-attributes and outlines how the TA framework could be applied via an exemplar analysis to illustrate its potential to aid in gap analysis, assurance and advanced planning around suites of activities intended to support learners transition in any context.

Student Academic Experience surveys evidenced that undergraduate students fare worse than the whole population in wellbeing measures. Several studies have found that students reported assessments as one of the top stressors. At the same time, research has shown that studying at a Higher Education Institutions (HEI) contributes to students’ personal growth and have lifelong benefits. This study explores how to support students at critical times during an academic year. In doing so, it proposes the use of psychoeducation through an unconventional, decentralised, and targeted intervention. This goes beyond counselling service provisions and focuses not only on disciplinary academic challenges but also embeds mental wellbeing in the curriculum. Its aim is to normalise talking about mental wellbeing at classroom level and bring the conversation about it out in the open. More specifically, this solution uses targeted newsletter (t-NL) to enhance students’ academic experience in a non-health-based course when students are more vulnerable to diminished mental wellbeing. The use of newsletter is intertwined with formative assessments which promotes students and staff collaboration as well as student engagement using play-based learning approach. In addition, this framework allows co-creation of resources by feeding forward diverse and multicultural students’ voices for future issues of the newsletter attending to students’ lived experience, required support and possible intersectionality. The findings of this research are supportive of such an intervention and indicate students’ interest in engaging with mental wellbeing content alongside academic activities.

In higher education (HE), academic development and in-sessional provision have traditionally existed at the margins, often treated as supplementary rather than integral to institutional priorities. However, as student demographics and academic demands evolve, the need for a more inclusive, integrated approach to student support becomes increasingly pressing. This reflective analysis explores the collaboration between two services situated within the third space (Whitchurch, 2008): academic skills provision offered by the Centre for Educational Enhancement and Development (CEED) and Academic English Services (AES) provided by the International Education Institute (IE). Through this partnership, we sought to challenge entrenched othering structures that distinguish international from home students and reinforce the problematic dichotomy between native and non-native English speakers. Drawing from practitioner-based enquiry, we outline the steps taken to integrate these services and develop a student-centred provision that fosters autonomy and inclusivity. Our approach intentionally moves beyond problematising existing labels, instead focusing on dismantling institutional barriers that have historically segregated academic and language support. By aligning pedagogical and operational strategies, we created a unified framework that allows all learners to access tailored support without being restricted by linguistic or institutional classifications. This reflective analysis critically examines the early stages of our collaboration, drawing from qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate its impact. We unpick the successes and challenges encountered in navigating institutional constraints, streamlining service provision, and fostering a more cohesive academic community. Our findings contribute to ongoing discussions on cross-departmental collaborations and provide a potential blueprint for integrating academic and language development within the third space. Ultimately, we advocate for a model that prioritises learner agency, challenges deficit-based perspectives, and repositions academic development as a core function within HE institutions.

Open educational resources (OERs) are materials made freely available for others to use and adapt to support their educational practices. In 2019, the Bloomsbury Learning Exchange (BLE) created a Digital Skills Awareness Course (DSAC) to support digital skills development and transition into Higher Education (HE) for students across its six partner institutions in London. Subsequently, the BLE took the unusual step to release the entire course as an OER thereby making it available for educators across UK HE to use and edit to fit their own educational context. Five years on, this study sought to evaluate how and in which contexts the DSAC had been implemented across UK HE institutions using an explanatory mixed-methods approach. We conducted an online survey of those who had signed up to receive a copy of the course (n = 54). Of the twelve respondents, eleven had implemented the DSAC at their institution and edited the course to include links to institution-specific support and resources. To further interrogate participants’ experiences of using the course, we conducted five semi-structured interviews and, using thematic analysis, identified two themes that captured participants’ experiences: ‘The DSAC lays the foundation to explore digital capabilities’ and ‘It’s me driving it forward (with the help of others)’. This study demonstrates that the DSAC provides a much-needed starting point for professional and academic staff to implement digital skills training for new students. We found that the DSAC was being used both as a generic institutional or discipline-specific course and that learning technology and senior management support was integral to successful implementation. Future work should seek to explore how best practices and iterative changes to OERs can be shared back to the community, so that these materials remain relevant for adopters and tomorrow’s students.

RecSpace was conceived as a STEAM-informed, interdisciplinary initiative, led by academics from within the Division of Arts and Media at University of the West of Scotland. Driven by creative-practice education principles and practices, the initiative provided opportunities for students from a range of subject disciplines, levels of study, and points of entry to work collaboratively with stakeholders within the university and the wider community. From the outset, the initiative was premised on offering students a unique opportunity to engage with locally situated community issues as a collective. By considering the different skills, knowledge and experience that their varied disciplinary backgrounds brought to the group, students were encouraged, through creative practice techniques, to consider how they, as a collective, might tackle real-world challenges creatively and innovatively. The focus was on empowering students to make a tangible impact on pressing concerns facing the university population and wider community which it is part of, as well as developing an appreciation for how their learning and developing communities of practice might have impact outside of the classroom. In this case study, we will argue that RecSpace embodies the ways in which creativity within an educational environment offers routes to address a range of strategic institutional priorities and sectoral challenges including campus reimagining, retention and progression, socialization and student experience, and the efficient pooling of resources for collective and shared interests. These benefits prevail despite extreme cuts to the arts. An account of how the project evolved highlights the challenges faced in developing inter/multi/trans/disciplinary working beyond curricular silos and outside of established university schools and structures. We will explore the project's strategies for tackling these barriers and how it attempted to address these challenges. We will reflect upon the outcomes of the project, including exploring possible applications, and future directions, before drawing conclusions as to how lessons learned here could be applied across the wider sector.

Scottish policy, funding, and quality systems have been tasked to provide “a more coherent and streamlined tertiary education system from the student perspective that delivers the best learning experience for students” (Scottish Funding Council, n.d.). This paper helps to inform this process, by presenting the findings from the second stage of Quality Assurance Agency Enhancement Theme project: Mind the Gap? College Students’ Experience of University. This stage investigated the perspectives of staff who support students making the transition from college to university. While there is a relatively broad literature covering the student perspective of this transition, the staff perspective is less well understood. This paper uses the themes developed from the first stage of the project – a qualitative research synthesis on the lived experiences of students (Robertson & Cunningham, 2023) – to investigate staff perceptions of this transition. These themes considered are: (1) the responsibility for enabling effective transition; (2) the extent to which alignment between colleges and universities is achievable or, indeed, desirable; and (3) the extent to which college to university transitions genuinely widen participation. This paper reports the findings from a series of focus groups with university academic staff, university student support staff, and college academic staff from three institutions (two universities and one college). Using theoretical thematic analysis, the paper considers how sectoral, academic, identity and social, and logistical factors affect, or are identified in, the practice of the participants and what this means for the development of policy and practice around a ‘coherent tertiary model’.

In this article, we reflect on our efforts supporting an institution-wide special interest group (SIG) on pedagogic research. Initiated by the Academic and Learning Enhancement at the University of Greenwich, the SIG serves as an interdisciplinary and collaborative space for the university community to develop skills and practice in this area. We discuss our practices around the structure and sustainability of the Pedagogic Research SIG, which are characterised by values such as openness, transparency, inclusion, and equity. In the current neo-liberal climate of Higher Education, we advocate for the humanisation of pedagogic practice through a recognition of staff agency, endorsed by a compassionate community of practice. As an antidote to the commodification of academic practice, we suggest a more holistic approach to academic development with an emphasis on authenticity and fulfilment. In the context of the Pedagogic Research SIG, we envision impact as a multidimensional and layered construct, which includes the intellectual, social and personal dimensions of education, emphasising transformation and change with a potential positive effect on individuals, communities and the society within and beyond academia. Our work makes a significant contribution to the scant scholarship on special interest groups in Higher Education with broader implications for academic development and practice.

After a rapid shift in instructional delivery during times of conflict, natural disasters, health crises, and other unprecedented circumstances, educators are often challenged to expeditiously shift from emergency remote teaching (ERT) back to in-person instruction when the instructional disruption abates. However, there is a dearth of support for practitioners about how to maximize ERT practices for post-ERT instruction. This paper proposes a Post-ERT Reflection Framework to guide practitioners in enriching their in-person courses based on ERT practices. The 4-step framework guides practitioners in examining their ERT practices to determine how they may be eliminated, adopted, or adapted for in-person instruction as part of the return-to-the-classroom process. The proposed framework embraces blended learning (BL) for enhancing post-ERT instruction and supports the development of instructional preparedness competencies. By emphasizing core teaching principles and individual experiences, this framework invites practitioners to reimagine their ERT practices while foregrounding the principles of accessibility, engagement, authenticity, and other influential principles through BL. Here, the authors describe their development of the Post-ERT Reflection Framework, the framework steps, and its implementation when reimagining an English for legal purposes course in a post-ERT context. The framework offers a practical and sustainable process for reimagining in-person instruction after ERT.

Post-graduate research students (PGRs) often have teaching roles during their studies with little formal training or support (Lueddeke, 1997). Previous support at Edinburgh Napier University consisted of voluntary, unpaid on-campus Learning and Teaching (L&T) training over three days (pre-pandemic). During lock-down, this course transitioned online to a voluntary 3.5-hour workshop and a follow-up Moodle course.
 To have a student-centred approach (Pedersen & Liu, 2003; Hannafin & Hannafin, 2010) and understand the needs and wants of PGRs who teach, we aimed to co-create with students (Cook-Sather, Bovill & Felten, 2014) effective PGR support and evaluate its impact. 
 Students were employed as partners (Matthews 2018; Dollinger et al. 2022) to assess support needs and explore options available for PGRs at 11 other UK Universities. Based on the assessment findings, a new programme was co-designed between the student-partners and L&T academics: three 1-hour online workshops and three corresponding peer-led discussion sessions. The student-partners also created a Microsoft Teams workspace for students to build community: sharing their own L&T experiences, practice, and engagement with relevant theories.
 These findings support our plans for upcoming mandatory and paid introductory teaching workshops, as a foundation for this longitudinal development of peer-relations and practice. This new structure and format has cultivated a community of practice constructed by students, for students (Wilson, Wilson & Witthaus, 2020). 
 An autoethnographic approach has been taken with the student interns and lecturers as both researchers and participants (Wall, 2008; Méndez, 2013; Cooper & Lilyea, 2022), by means of writing a narrative based on self-reflection on the process. This will be analysed by thematic coding (Gibbs, 2008) to discuss the experiences, thematic ideas, emotive language, and feelings expressed by students interns and lecturers in this co-creation journey.