Posted to SEDA course forum Friday, 30 October 2015, 11:42 AM. Names and institutional identifiers redacted

Task: Please post a 500 word description of your current roles and duties. Please read, and if relevant comment on, those from your fellow participants.

I work as an Academic Developer at institution in the department. In common with my colleagues, I have a set of duties that includes teaching on the PgCert, running workshops, and supporting my assigned faculty (name) take proposals through our programme approvals and review process.  As a new member of staff, however, my list of responsibilities and duties is still relatively modest compared to established colleagues.  As would be expected, many of the large portfolios of activity already have staff responsible for them and include: leading the PgCert and MA pathways; working with on the professional development route connected to the HEA PSF; coordinating our portfolio of CPD activities; leading the modules that constitute our MA pathway; contact point with other key departments; and other duties that escape my mind as I write this.

It is at this time of year that we agree our annual personal development plans with our line managers (Professional Development Reviews [PDR]) and I have still to finalise mine. This is important for me as it means that there is the opportunity to have a significant input into defining my role, and it is this opportunity that is upmost in my thoughts around work at the moment. This is my first role working fully in an academic support department, as in previous HEI, I have worked in research and development units running projects, some of which were externally funded and focussed, and others that were inwardly directed towards the host institution. However, alongside the project work, I also delivered a significant amount of academic development through various internal arrangements, and many of the projects I worked on were focussed on curriculum design and development. In seeking to give a full enough answer required by this activity, I have felt it necessary to stray into a bit of future gazing, and the final paragraph indicates a couple of things that I hope would constitute a broader description of my responsibilities in the coming months and year.

In common with many HEI, the work of programme leaders is central to institutional development and improvement activities. An area of interest that I have agreement to pursue is to undertake an inquiry into the role of programme leaders at institution. This is with the intention of developing a proposal for interventions to support post holders of that role to become more effective. Alongside this, I will also take over our unit designed for programme leaders. Another area I have been asked to become more involved in is our relationship with our internal quality office, this fits well with much of the previous work I have undertaken on development new and innovative programmes and externally funded Jisc projects, and this will grow in significance over the coming months.