Candidates should demonstrate their knowledge and skills in communication through working with others.
Statements could describe the way in which your work involves collaboration, for example through participation in a team or acting as an interface to other groups.
Relevant evidence would include reflection on collaborations with others, reports outlining your activity within a team process, how you have brokered support for a particular initiative (for example from a technical or legal support service) or how you have worked with others to solve problems.Where your evidence involved collaboration, please acknowledge the contribution of others. You may also chose to discuss how you select appropriate forms of communication
| The most visible of my collaborative efforts in the last couple of years was the development of a digital resource that supports postgraduate taught learners, in humanities and social sciences in their research. Not only was the focus of the project a vertical collaboration between, senior academics, myself as early career researcher, and a PhD student, but it also necessitated collaborating with stakeholders across the School of Humanities and Social Sciences to explore the most appropriate structure and content of our online research tool. Further, we engaged a private graphic designer to support our efforts. As member of the LDC team, I participated in the university wide away day. Within this frame communicating through and about learning technology. Whilst this is internal university communication, another form of participating with the wider professional community in my field is Twitter. I attended the European First Year Experience Conference 2014, in Nottingham, leading some successful online communications. Further, pictures from my workshop were tweeted in the conference. I have tried to accumulate some of the communication via Storify: https://storify.com/drnsheridan/efye2014 |
Reflection
| I enjoy networking and bringing professionals together for collaborative efforts. I have established wide contacts and many ideas for projects. I am lacking the follow through with some of those, because I have not yet found a permanent position and feel I cannot commit to projects, if I have to assume leaving the institution, which support these efforts, in the middle of an on-going project. Unfortunately, a majority of funding depends on the support of academic institutions, and cannot successfully be implemented without such. On the other hand, I have now extended my mentoring efforts internationally and was just asked to peer-feedback a syllabus for a colleague in the USA and am going to provide peer-feedback on a first year module for a colleague in Germany. The ladder is a Professor and former mentor, with whom I have previously applied for funding. In conclusion I do enjoy the social aspects of professional development, and have come to realize how important institutional support, and structures for such collaborations are. |
Adventures in Academic Development 
