Overseas Fieldwork in HE - A National Conference
Wednesday April 2nd, Geological Society, London
A collaborative event between LTSN Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) and LTSN Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (in association with the Royal Geographical Society with the IBG)
One of the most appealing characteristics of a degree for undergraduates in many disciplines, is undertaking overseas fieldwork. Travelling to far-away places, undertaking valuable research and meeting new people can all provide a very rich and exciting student learning experience. However, planning such fieldwork requires a considerable amount of time and effort. What will you do? Where will you go? How will you assess student work? How will you deal with student health & safety and accessibility issues? And how will you get institutional support?
These are some of the important questions that need to be considered by academics running overseas fieldwork in all subjects. This conference provided a unique opportunity for a wide-range of practitioners from a variety of different disciplines to network and collaborate on issues relating to the running of overseas field programmes.
Specifically, the event aimed to:
- Bring together academics involved in HE overseas fieldwork from a variety of disciplines in order to share expertise, exchange ideas and good practice
- Raise awareness of the inter-disciplinary learning needs of students on degree programmes with overseas fieldwork components
- Provide opportunities to discuss the academic and the practical/logistical issues when designing and delivering overseas fieldwork
- Identify the needs of colleagues with respect to overseas fieldwork support and guidance
- Assist in the building of an area studies network to discuss inter-disciplinary issues such as overseas fieldwork and other generic issues
Links to some the presentations can be found in the programme below:
Programme
10:00 -10:30 Registration and Coffee
10:30 -10:45 Welcome and introductions - Professor Brian Chalkley, Director, LTSN-GEES
10:45 -11:00 Keynote: The changing roles of overseas fieldwork in HE (PDF file 0.8 MB) - Dr David Nash, School of the Environment, University of Brighton
11:00 -11:45 Disciplinary perspectives on overseas fieldwork presented through case studies:
(1) West African Studies - Dr Lynne Brydon, Centre of West African Studies,
University of Birmingham
(2) Town Planning (RTF file 32 KB) - John McCarthy,
School of Town & Regional Planning, University of Dundee
(3) Languages - (Professor Jim Coleman, Department of Languages, The open
University
Workshop: Curriculum integration, design and assessment - Facilitator: Dr Rob Butler
1:00 - 2:00 Lunch
Workshop: Health & safety, risk assessment, accessibility (SENDA), cultural and language issues - Facilitator: Shane Winser
3:00 - 3:30 Making an institutional case for overseas fieldwork - Facilitator: Dr Neil Thomas, School of Earth Sciences and Geography, Kingston University
3:30 - 4:00 Plenary - Q&A session - Chair: Dr David Nash, School of the Environment, University of Brighton
- What have we learnt from undertaking overseas fieldwork?
- What do we now need to do?
- What resources are available?
- How can your particular Subject Centre help?
4:00 Close, tea and depart