Keith
Duckitt
Many members will be saddened at the death on
3 October of Keith Duckitt, who was appointed as ALT’s first Honorary Life
Member in September 2004. Keith, who was head of ICT at the Further Education
Funding Council (and subsequently the Learning and Skills Council), was hugely
influential from the mid 1990s onwards in ensuring that learning technology got
the strategic attention it deserved in English Further, Adult, Community, and
Work-based Learning, and in making the LSC a funding partner of JISC.
John Gray, who worked closely with Keith for
much of this period, writes a more extended and personal reflection elsewhere in this newsletter.
If any reader
wishes to contribute to either of the charities nominated by Keith’s family,
these are The Alzheimer's Society
www.alzheimers.org.uk/
and the South Warwickshire Carers' Support Service
www.swcss.org.uk/. Donations can be sent c/o John Taylor Funeral
Service, 9 St Johns, Warwick, Warwickshire CV34 4NE.
Staffing
changes
Maren Deepwell, who recently finished her PhD in Anthropology
at University College London, and who
has been covering Mel Fox’s Administrator role during the latter part of Mel’s
maternity leave, will be filling the new role of Membership Services Manager
from 1 November until the end of April 2009. Mel returns from maternity leave
from the same date. There are brief biographies of all ALT staff on the ALT web
site at:
www.alt.ac.uk/team.html.
New
Trustees, Vice Chair, Chair, and President
We welcome Carol Higgison, from Bradford
University, whose election as Vice Chair of ALT was announced at the Annual General
Meeting on 10 September. Steve Ryan, from the London School of Economics,
becomes Chair of ALT, having served a year as Vice Chair. Cathy Ellis, from
Becta, becomes President, having served a year as Chair. Also elected as
Trustees of ALT were Nicola Whitton from Manchester Metropolitan University,
and Linda Creanor from Glasgow Caledonian University.
New
Chair of the ALT Publications Committee
As reported in ALT-N 62, Paul Bacsich stood
down as Chair of the ALT Publications Committee, after the maximum six year
period as a Trustee of ALT. Dick Moore, from Ufi/ learndirect, who was elected
as a Trustee in September 2007, has been appointed in Paul’s stead.
Getting
directly involved in ALT
We have further delayed issuing a call for
people to express an interest in serving as member of one ALT’s four
operational committees (Further Education, Membership Services, Publications,
and Research) due to the pressure of running the ALT Conference. The call will
be issued shortly; please be on the look out for it.
CMALT
We continue to make steady progress in enrolling applicants onto CMALT
at the 50% preferential rate supported, with our thanks, by a generous grant
from JISC. By the end of September we were closing in on our target of 180
registrations. We are now turning our
attention to supporting applicants through the certification process, with a
view to everyone registered under the scheme submitting their CMALT portfolios
for assessment by December 2008. If you or your organisation wish to take
advantage of the JISC-supported scheme, please contact the ALT office by email
–
admin@alt.ac.uk – by no later than the end of November 2008.
Memoranda of Understanding
During the 2008 ALT Conference ALT signed two revised memoranda of understanding:
with JISC, and with
ascilite, our
sister organisation in Australasia. In both cases these agreements strengthen
and formalise longstanding collaborations between ALT and two key partner
organisations. Copies of each are available on the ALT web site at
www.alt.ac.uk/documents.html.
ALT-C
A review of the 2008 ALT Conference appears elsewhere in this
Newsletter. For ALT’s staff, many of
whom are new in post, our 2008 conference was a particularly demanding
challenge. I place on record ALT’s
thanks to them, and to conference co-chairs Jill Jameson, from the University
of Greenwich, and John Sandars, from the University of Leeds, and to the rest
of the Conference Programme Committee for all of their efforts.
We are now turning our attention to ALT-C 2009, ‘
In dreams begins responsibility’ – choices, evidence, and change,
which will be co-chaired by Tom Boyle from London Metropolitan University, and
Gilly Salmon from Leicester University. The conference will be held in
Manchester between 8 and 10 September 2009. Nearly 100 people (a record) have
expressed an interest in membership of the 2009 Conference Programme Committee,
which will begin its work over the next couple of months. Meanwhile, the call
for organisations to sponsor the 2009 conference can be accessed at
www.alt.ac.uk/altc2009/.
Proposals for inclusion in the ALT-C 2009 programme will be accepted, from
www.alt.ac.uk/altc2009/
between
1 December 2008 and 16 February 2009.
Seb Schmoller
seb.schmoller@alt.ac.uk 8/10/2008