ALT-C 2006: registration information
Authors will receive news about the status of their submissions by 19 May. If you have not heard the outcome of your submission by 19 May, please email alt_administrator@brookes.ac.uk.
Registration opens on 8 May. All principal presenters must register by 9 June; and all remaining presenters must register by the early bird rate deadline on 30 June. Exhibition bookings also close on 30 June. Registration closes on 11 August. For more information go to http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2006/index.html

Call for ALT-C 2007 Chair (or Co-chairs)
The venue for ALT-C 2007 is Nottingham University, which has a pleasant lakeside campus and dedicated conference facilities. We are now seeking an experienced Chair or Co-Chairs to lead the programme committee for this key event. Planning and organisation of ALT-C is the responsibility of the Director and the Chair/Co-Chairs, with support from other key committee members. The Conference Chair (or Co-Chairs) will also receive extensive support from ALT's permanent staff.
For more details about the role please contact me on rriachi@brookes.ac.uk. Deadline for expressions of interest: Friday 5 May. A call for programme committee members will go out when the chair or co-chairs have been confirmed. We also welcome expressions of interest to chair ALT-C in future years.

Nominations for vacancies: AGM 2006
There will be three vacancies on the Central Executive Committee for the Vice-Chair and two Trustee positions. These important roles are all three-year terms and will commence from the Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh on 6 September. If the posts are contested, the election will be conducted via secure Internet ballot (using Electoral Reform Services) and the results announced in the summer. Members must notify the office (alt@brookes.ac.uk) by 30 May if their email address has changed, as notification of the secure login procedure will be sent via email. The deadline for nominations is 30 May. Nominators should complete the form on the web site at http://www.alt.ac.uk/docs/agm_notice_2006.pdf or contact me for more details (rriachi@brookes.ac.uk).

CAMEL gets another hump!
The CAMEL project partners (http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/camel) have been successful in bidding for funds from the JISC in a new project led by Greenwich University. Entitled “e-learning Independent Design Activities (eLIDA) for Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-learning (CAMEL)”, the project will be funded under the JISC Design for Learning Programme to explore the area of implementing and evaluating learning design tools. ALT is delighted to be participating in a collaborative project that plays to our members’ strengths. The project will run from May 2006 till October 2007.

Spring Conference 2006
Leiden University provided a beautiful venue for stimulating discussions at our spring conference and research seminar in April. We are grateful to all the presenters and facilitators who contributed to make this event successful and enjoyable. Jennifer Burke writes about the conference in the ILTA April newsletter: "...it was brilliantly organised and had a very worthwhile group of speakers and attendees. Often we attend conferences and return back to the office with loads of questions and answers in mind. What was really good about the conference in Leiden was it was followed by a research day which enabled delegates to reflect on everything they had heard the day before and then apply it to a working paper that was compiled using a Wiki". (The ILTA newsletter is at http://ilta.dcu.ie/mod/resource/view.php?id=206 - requires login.)
A paper will be published jointly with SURF and ILTA in July to capture the key points raised at the research seminar. Slides from the presentations and a link to the research seminar discussions on the wiki can be found at http://www.alt.ac.uk/conferences.php

Rhonda Riachi
rriachi@brookes.ac.uk