Author: Project 2
Last saved by: Becky Jennings

SUBJECT CENTRE FOR LANGUAGES, LINGUISTICS 
AND AREA STUDIES

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE MANAGEMENT GROUP

18 NOVEMBER 2002, CILT LONDON

Present
Prof Michael Kelly (Chair and Director of the Subject Centre), Janet Bartle (Academic Coordinator, Learning Technologies), Alison Dickens (Academic Coordinator, Linguistics and Area Studies), Dawn Ebbrell (CILT Higher Education Information Officer), Roel Vismans (Director Subject Centre Hull Team), Vicky  Wright (Academic Coordinator, Language), Liz Ashurst (Centre Manager and Minutes Secretary)

Minutes of the last meeting and matters arising
The minutes were accepted as a true record of proceedings subject to some minor amendments.  

Staffing
MHK report on some of the discussions that had taken place at the LTSN Directors/Managers Awayday the previous week.  The rising cost of staffing is an issue which affects all Subject Centres and the LTSN executive encouraged Subject Centres not to commit too high a proportion of its funds to staffing.   The Executive, however, was bidding to the funding councils to obtain extra funding for Subject Centres to help address this problem.

MHK also reported on the TQEF review of Quality enhancement agencies.  The report would be published after Christmas and was likely to propose a single agency which would merge the current functions of LTSN, ILT and HESDA without the overlap of roles which currently exists.  The role of Subject Centres in providing subject specific support would be key.  It was probable that FDTL programmes would be put under the responsibility of Subject Centres.  The government is keen for HE providers to place more emphasis on education.  At present, LTSN funding is granted to universities without overheads but it is hoped that funding after 2004 would be with overheads. 

Reports from the three centres
The reports were sent in advance to the Management group so only questions and matters arising were taken.

Marketing
RV suggested that current marketing languages activities could be developed further by building links with language colleges.  Some universities have already done this.  It was agreed that careers advisers are often insufficiently well informed of the opportunities for language study at university but that links with language colleges could help to redress this.  It was agreed that the Subject Centre should consider including representatives of language colleges in its marketing event in March and that there should be discussions with Bernadette Holmes at CILT.  She is currently working on improving links with primary and secondary schools and she might be able to carry out similar work with secondary schools and HE.  

Website
The deadlines and deadlines were confirmed.  A prototype of the website would be publicised to those on the Subject Centre mailing list at the start of December and the website would go live in January 2003.  

Since the meeting, the website has been announced to the mailing list.  Userbility testing is due to take place before the website goes fully live in January 2003.

Learning Technologies Special Interest Group
JB reported that the group were keen to continue meeting.  It was agreed that a meeting would be scheduled in the New Year.  
Pedagogical Research Project
DE reported that there had been a good response to the call for bids for the Pedagogic Research project.  It was not possible to fund all suitable projects out of the Pedagogic research fund.  It was suggested that project bidders might be invited to re work their bids to improve their quality.  If staff in language centres were successful in their bids, this would raise their research profile.  

Registration for events
Registration for some Subject Centre events had been disappointing this year.  Numbers registered for the postgraduate information days at CILT were encouraging.  DE agreed to find out from participants where they had learned about the event.  
Action DE

Review of the Conference
Alison Cutler joined the meeting for this agenda item.  

It was agreed that the 2002 conference had been a success and this was reflected in the evaluation forms.  Certain themes were discussed:

Content
The majority of papers were in the Languages area.  It was agreed that it was maybe too difficult to bring together Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies all into one conference.  Since the Area Studies project was planning to hold a conference at the end of the project term, it might be more reasonable to focus on languages and related studies.  It was also agreed that it would be good to create a programme that would entice Heads of Departments and Senior staff to attend.  It was suggested that the themes could be narrowed and it was also proposed that the overarching theme of the conference might be the curriculum and this would have a broad-based appeal.  

Structure
Most of those attending the conference were also presenting papers so that departments would fund their attendance.  There had not been enough interactive workshops at the conference.  It was suggested that some workshops could be commissioned so that there was a little more control of the content though it was agreed that there must be plenty of opportunities for colleagues to gain experience in presenting their research.  

Length
Alison Cutler noted that this conference was longer than others CILT had arranged.  A shorter conference might also address the problem of the relatively high cost of the conference.  The timing of the conference should either be the same or a week later.  

Venue
AC stated that the Manchester conference centre had been ideal for the conference organisers but using Trinity and All Saints College in Leeds would lower the conference fee.  It would be important to find a venue where adequate technical support was provided.  

Branding
There was some discussion as to how the conference could be branded so that the profile of all conference partners would be enhanced in equal measure.  It is possible that the Subject Centre logo might be changed to make it more distinctive.  Badges should contain all logos or none though it was agreed that this was the only item which did not contain the logo of all partners in 2002.  

Actions
AC agreed to produce a costing for a two day conference held at Trinity and All Saints College.  At the same time, EJA would investigate which conference venues had been used  by other Subject Centres and attempt to do a comparable costing.  

Reorganisation of Subject Centre activity 2003
MHK noted with regret that JB was leaving the Subject Centre at the end of December and it would be important to consider how the activities of the Subject Centre would be reprofiled in the light of the withdrawal of the Subject Centre partnership by the University of Hull.  It would be the responsibility of the team in Soluthampton to ensure that commitments are met.  JB and EJA would consult before the end of December so that EJA  was fully briefed on progress in the activities.  

Institutional visits
There had been expressions of interest from the Universities of Canterbury,Surrey and Essex.  The Southampton team would re advertise visits and would use some of the funding which had been allocated to Hull to commission experts to lead the visit. 

Learning Technologies workshops
AD stated that the Linguistics Specialist Group would take the Linguistics event over and that the new Coordinator for Area Studies could organise the Area Studies event.  EJA could represent the Subject Centre at the Strathclyde event in January.  

Special Interest Group
It was agreed that the Southampton team would convene the group as soon as possible in the New Year and would also try to extend the membership of  the group.  

Software resources
Both the Southampton team and the CILT team felt that their own activities would be enhanced if they were to house the software collection currently held at Hull.  It was agreed that the collection should be sent to CILT as they currently hosted the Subject Centre resources collection.  If CILT already had any of the software, the duplicate copy would be sent to Southampton.  

The database of CALL software would be sent to the Rebecca Jennings, Subject Centre web editor at Southampton.  JB was inputting data into the database before the end of December.  

Mailbase lists
Although most of the lists were not very active, members of the lists had not wanted the lists to be closed.  RV suggested that academics might be invited to manage the lists and therefore feed the discussion.  

MHK ended the meeting by thanking staff at the University of Hull for all the work that they had carried out for the Subject Centre.  He hoped that  Roel  Vismans would continue to have an interest and some involvement in the work of the centre.  

Date of the next meeting
It was hoped that a meeting could be scheduled for February 2003.  A date would be advised.  

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