Guides and publications
Search here to find guides and publications by the National HE STEM Programme and other STEM bodies.
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If you are reading this, then it is likely that you have been selected to run a Royal Society Summer Exhibition. In fact, you may even be reading this if you have been selected to run an interactive session at any form of fair, festival or exhibition. This might be nationally, within your local region, or within your own school or institution.
As a core output from all National HE STEM Programme funded work, project proposers are required to produce a detailed case study detailing the activities they have undertaken, the key findings, outcomes or outputs that have emerged from the work, and to detail how the activities that have taken place will be utilised by their institution in the future.
In March 2010, a total of 78 applications were made to the National HE STEM Programme’s Collaborative Practice Transfer Fund, which was issued to enable colleagues in Higher Education Funding Council of
England and Higher Education Funding Council of Wales funded Higher Education Institutions to adopt tried and tested approaches, resources or ideas. These 20 projects therefore represent collaboration in support
of the transfer and embedding of existing, evidence-based proven practice between colleagues in a total of 31 HEIs, four professional bodies, two private sector companies, two Higher Education Academy subject centres, one sector skills council, one science learning centre, one independent charity, and one sixth form college.
An adequate supply of graduates into the labour market with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) skills underpins the ability of the UK to position itself against global competitors, increase its capacity for innovation, and for enterprise. As economic growth gradually returns, the focus is on current and future employer demand for these skills. The hi-tech, science and IT sectors are all reporting difficulties in recruiting STEM graduates and predicting even greater difficulty in future years. These employers rate STEM graduates highly, not only for their technical competency but also because of the analytical, problem-solving, numeracy and intellectual rigour skills that they bring with them.
The purpose of this booklet is to offer some practical advice and guidelines on evaluating the impact of your teaching practice. Although it focuses on development projects in support of the STEM programme, it will be relevant to any teaching practice.
The guide is designed to bring together the findings and learning from all four projects, and forms part of a wider programme of work designed to transfer and embed the learning and outcomes from them within the HE sector. The guide details the key findings and provides a series of ‘top tips’ to assist Higher Education Institutions in exploring new approaches to recruiting students and delivering programmes of study within the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics disciplines.
Maths Busking aims to show the public the surprising and fascinating side of mathematics through the medium of street performance. Performers are trained by Maths Busking and invited to perform at Maths Busking managed events. We partnered with the IMA and HE STEM to organise and run a training day in Birmingham to build a local team of performers in preparation to the national Big Bang Fair event taking place at the NEC.
This report has focused on looking at employer engagement practice in the Midlands and East Anglia to seek answers to the questions around what is taking place currently, what factors influence the impact of employer engagement; and how can investment and focus on engagement activities be best tailored to provide the maximum benefit where it is needed most.
This report was commissioned to consider the challenges faced by employers recruiting and upskilling STEM skilled employees in the London and South East region.
This report focuses on two key issues: (1) ensuring that all bioscience graduates are equipped with basic mathematical skills and understanding; and (2) encouraging and increasing the number of bioscience graduates who develop their mathematical skills beyond A level standard so that they have the confidence and understanding to participate in increasingly quantitative and interdisciplinary research.
Practice guide focusing on the rationale for creating work-based learning; the varieties of approaches to work-based learning currently implemented; student opinions of work-based learning; and to resolve any implementation and communication issues.
Whether you’re designing an activity to deliver yourself or organising an event for others to run, this guide will help you work through the steps for developing and delivering high quality and effective public engagement activities. The guide poses a series of questions that are helpful to consider at the very beginning of any public engagement project as well as highlighting many of the resources that are available.
Ambassador video competition for Maths undergraduates who have worked with secondary schools during their time as an undergraduate. Closing date 30/06/12
Survey from the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications of outreach activities taking place in Mathematics departments in England and Wales.
This problem is adapted from an online knowledge enhancement module for a PGCE programme. It is used to cover the dynamics of rigid bodies and motion under gravity. The original material can be found at http://open.jorum.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/2969. This unit was run over one week with online support
Further information is also available from the Institute of Physics
This document is intended to provide overall guidance to all Partners and Project Leads when promoting and publicising their projects and activities. Whilst ensuring consistency in approach, the Programme would like to reinforce the notion that Partners are encouraged to actively promote their activity accordingly.
The obligations on the Partners, as outlined within the contractual documentation, include:
- All materials for release are required to be submitted to the Programme Hub in advance of publication for approval or amendment, but written permission for publication should not be unreasonably withheld.
- All materials must refer to the Programme and also include a reference to the joint funding of the Programme provided by HEFCE (and HEFCW for Welsh partners).
These contractual obligations enable the Programme to oversee all publications in order to harmonise and coordinate them effectively.
Where you are creating materials for your own project(s) please ensure the articles follow these guidelines. Where you are looking to discuss the Programme overall please provide a copy of the item to the Hub well in advance of any copy deadlines.
In order to satisfy these requirements the Programme would ask Partners to ensure all resources;
- Include a statement referring to the Programme and the website (see a below),
- Clearly display the Programme logo, following the branding guidance from the Corporate Identity Manual (see b below),
- Include the tag ‘HE STEM’ within all metadata for resources (see c below),
- Are accessible for those with disabilities,
- Are available freely for reuse by others under Creative Commons licences where possible,
- Are submitted to the Hub for approval well in advance of any publication deadlines.
a. Programme Statements
In all resources, presentations, videos or publicity materials created for your project it is important that you link back to the Programme to make it clear that your activity forms a part of an overall scheme of work taking place at institutions nationally. There have been instances where Programme work has been publicised but no mention of the Programme has been included - something that should be avoided going forward.
In order to do this the Hub team have taken care to come up some with suitable clauses that partners and projects might use within their outputs, materials and publicity items.
1. ‘The project was a part of the National HE STEM Programme. Please see www.hestem.ac.uk for further information.’
2. ‘This activity forms a part of the National HE STEM Programme, details of which can be found at www.hestem.ac.uk.’
3. ‘This activity was initiated by the National HE STEM Programme, details of which can be found at www.hestem.ac.uk.’
4. ‘This activity was undertaken as a part of the National HE STEM Programme, details of which can be found at www.hestem.ac.uk.’
5. ‘This activity was initiated as a part of the National HE STEM Programme via the XXX Spoke. For more information on the Programme overall please see www.hestem.ac.uk.’
If you feel you have a more suitable statement please contact the Hub team to discuss accordingly, before publication.
Please do not say ‘this project was funded by the National HE STEM Programme’ as it implies the Programme is a funding body which it is not.
b. Programme Logos
As mentioned above, all outputs, materials, resources, publicity, and publications are required to carry the Programme logo. Accordingly a set of branding guidelines were issued within the Corporate Identity Manual in order to ensure uniformity across all Programme projects. These branding guidelines highlight how to use the logo, what colours the logo should appear in, the exclusion zone settings, and the files to be used. Please note that these guidelines should be followed when reproducing the Programme logo and that only the approved images within the guidelines should be used.
The Corporate Identity Manual is attached to this page, and logo files are available upon request.
c. Tagging
Tagging and metadata is something that should be very carefully considered when releasing materials and resources online, or depositing them into repositories, public or closed. Using correct keywords, or tags, will allow related materials to be surfaced together.
The Programme tag to be used for all resources is ’HE STEM’.
Please include this tag in all metadata entries for any outputs, resources, or materials produced. This will allow all resources tagged ‘HE STEM’ to be displayed together.
Partners may also want to create a tag of their own so that projects along a similar theme or funding call can be surfaced together. For example the Royal Society for Chemistry might use ‘RSC HESTEM’ whereas the South West Spoke might use ‘SW Spoke HE STEM’ as a tag.
Partners may also want to include tags such as; ‘employer engagement, widening participation, outreach, curriculum development’ so that resources along similar themes can be discovered in context alongside related materials.
Other tags might include the HEI involved in the project, the project lead details, and some key words relating to the particular resources and their content.
A list of the tags for this resource might be:
HE STEM, National HE STEM Programme, HEFCE, HEFCW, publicity guidance, guidance for partners, editor notes, Creative Commons, tags, metadata, key words, promotion, dissemination, corporate identity manual, branding guidelines, University of Birmingham, unibirmingham, OER, UKOER.
Welcome to this short guide on collaborative outreach practice. We've pulled together some advice and hints and tips from a variety of collaborative projects to help you in building your own multi-HEI outreach projects. Each site has its own identity, so this is not meant to be prescriptive, but hopefully will preapre you as you set up your project.
The interim report covering the first edition of the Connect 2 Science course.
“Creating and embedding an employer liaison group to enhance employability and higher level skills in science students” commenced with a start date of 1st May 2011.
Since then the project has been running on schedule. Activities occurring in the White Rose group of universities with respect to employer interactions have been assessed and this has been written up in Case Study 1 submitted in the 3Q11 report.
The National HE STEM Programme has an obligation to ensure that any and all resources from the Programme are freely available to be used by institutions across England and Wales as a requirement from the funders HEFCE (& HEFCW). The Programme has therefore taken the view that all of the resources and outputs produced by the Programme should be released under open licences to enable such reuse of the resources.
The original form of the problem is an Experimental Group Research Project, undertaken by students organised into small groups working as teams. Most, if not all, of the required theory can be found in standard first year physics texts.
Further information is also available from the Institute of Physics
The original version of 'Crosswinds are Critical' is run as a Laboratory Group Research Project, undertaken by students in small groups. There are four laboratory sessions of 3 hours each as well as two facilitated workshops. For each of the workshps there is a set question for class discussion, which is marked at the workshops.
Further information is also available from the Institute of Physics
This problem is adapted from an on-line knowledge enhancement module for PGCE programme. It is used to cover the basics of circuits with resistance, capacitance and inductance. The original material can be found at http://open.jorum.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/2970
This unit was run over one week with online support
Further information is also available from the Institute of Physics
A report created by the pilot project More Maths Grads titled ‘Developing mathematical and statistical skills in the engineering workplace’ has been published and disseminated to the mathematics community using the support of the National HE STEM Programme.
The Guide has been designed to be used as a starting point for teaching and professionals in HE and FE institutions by providing ideas to support, attract and retain female staff and students in STEM disciplines.
The information in this guidance booklet is based on a research project funded by the National HE STEM Programme and undertaken by the UKRC South East Hub in 2010-11. The research included the development and implementation of one-day Gender Equality Training workshops attracting participants from over 25 higher and further education institutions from across the UK. The workshops developed for this project are built upon the experience of industry and education professionals and originated as part of collaboration between Sheffield Hallam University and the UKRC in 1999.
The original form of the problem is the first part of a four week (15 credit) module in the IScience programme at the University of Leicester providing an introduction to thermal and atmospheric physics.
Further information is available from the Institute of Physics.
As a core output from all National HE STEM Programme funded work, project proposers are required to produce a detailed case study detailing the activities they have undertaken, the key findings, outcomes or outputs that have emerged from the work, and to detail how the activities that have taken place will be utilised by their institution in the future.
These guidelines result from a Royal Academy of Engineering HE - STEM supported project carried out by the University of Bradford’s School of Engineering, Design and Technology. The project originated from the identification at national level by senior employers, employer representative organisations, Professional Institutions and the higher education community’s own organisations that undergraduate work experience is not only important in civil engineering and related subjects, graduates without work experience are disadvantaged in the race for good jobs. This race has become even more competitive than it was, primarily because of economic conditions which seem unlikely to improve significantly in the near future.
In 2007 it was decided to refresh and invigorate a level 7 MEng module in enterprise education in order to improve student participation and engagement. Given the nature of on-going research work being undertaken in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield at that time, it was decided to look at projects that had a broader civic and social element as part of this exercise. To that end, various methodologies were considered, including the concept of service learning, defined as ‘a method under which students or participants learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized [sic] service that is conducted in and meets the needs of a community; […] helps foster civic responsibility; and that is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students […] and provides structured time for the students or participants to reflect on the service experience’ (US Code 12511, 1990).
The original form of the problem is an Experimental Group Research Project, undertaken by students organised into small groups working as teams. Most, if not all, of the required theory can be found in standard first year physics texts
Further information is available from the Institute of Physics.
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