Do it yourself Guidelines: Create a website for your own institution

I believe that an institution needs to own its Guidelines. There is no suggestion that an Institution adopt the Guidelines as in this website; although some individual academics might find these pages useful. Leaders in Learning and Teaching at an institution are encouraged to consider formulating their own Guidelines, website and links. This website is intended to be a starter kit for initiating a discussion about Guidelines appropriate for the institution and to prevent reinventing the wheel. Based on my experience with universities wishing to create their own Guidelines, I would recommend the following steps to encourage ownership.

  • Form a small group with the DVC/PVC Learning & Teaching or equivalent, Director of the Learning and Teaching units and a small group of staff with a commitment and interest in teaching, including representatives of the Academic Board and rewrite the guidelines here to suit your institution.
  • Submit the rewritten Guidelines for your institution to your Academic Board for review, modification and ultimately ratification.
  • Ask the Board to officially adopt the guidelines as the “Guidelines on Learning that Inform Teaching at …(name of your Institution)”
  • Create your own website with your agreed-on Guidelines and your own quotes, references and links that are most suitable for your University. Include exemplar examples from your own staff under the Discipline Specific Guidelines section. As incentive, a reward or some other form of recognition could be given to those who contribute an exemplar example.
  • The next stage is to promote and use your Institution’s website so that it is useful. The “Embedding” section of this website stresses the importance of embedding Guidelines through all aspects of learning and Teaching in the Institution.

You are welcome to freely use the material in this website to help construct your own Guidelines and website. The only condition is that you include the following acknowledgement:
“Acknowledgement: The UNSW Guidelines and associated Toolkit were originally conceived by Adrian Lee, then the Pro Vice Chancellor (Education & Quality Improvement) at the University of New South Wales, Sydney (UNSW) and Michele Scoufis, Director of the UNSW Learning and Teaching Unit (LTU) with considerable help from the UNSW Committee on Education and the Staff of the LTU.  ….(Name of your University)…is grateful for the authors and UNSW for allowing the Univesity to base its website on the UNSW site.”
Also please send the url so I can display it on this website
Adrian Lee
adrianlee2@mac.com