NEWS - PRESS RELEASES

Professor Salmon, Professor of E-Learning and Learning Technologies at the University of Leicester

University of Leicester Professor Wins Award for excellence in higher education teaching

Professor Gilly Salmon, Professor of E-Learning and Learning Technologies at the University of Leicester is today celebrating after being selected as a winner of a prestigious National Teaching Fellowship from the Higher Education Academy

Professor Salmon is the third academic from the University of Leicester in as many years to win the national prize which recognises and rewards teachers and learning support staff in higher education in England and Northern Ireland for their excellence in teaching.

Professor Salmon will receive an award of £10,000 to support learning and teaching at the University which is recognised for its excellence. The University of Leicester is UK's top ranked University for teaching quality and overall satisfaction among universities teaching full time students and was rated joint 1st in the UK in the 2005 National Student Survey.

Professor Salmon is the first person to hold the post of Professor of E-Learning and Learning Technologies at the University of Leicester. She said:

"It's great to have online and distance teaching recognised in this way. I hope my National Teaching Fellow Award will give a boost to the many teachers beavering away at making e-learning successful and effective for learners in Higher Education. We' ve still a way to go but increasingly research into e-learning practice is helping- and the University of Leicester has provided me with a wonderfully supportive environment."

She is Head of the Beyond Distance Research Alliance at the University which brings together teachers and researchers interested in the field of innovation in teaching and learning, from any discipline or level of education. To date it has promoted the possibilities of research into teaching across all departments and subjects, including involvement in all three of the Leicester Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs).

Professor Salmon also developed the Media Zoo at Leicester - (http://www.le.ac.uk/beyonddistance/mediazoo/ ), which forms an integral part of the University’s approach to promote high quality e-learning and distance learning across all departments.

It displays and demonstrates in a highly accessible and non-threatening way, a wide range of e-learning applications and learning technologies for viewing and experimenting by staff, and provides a “laboratory area” for experimenting and trying out new and potential technologies for research, teaching and learning. Gilly Salmon says; “The zoo metaphor provides a creative approach to demonstration, inspiration, encouragement, transfer of understanding and the potential of new technologies and the findings from research.”

Professor Salmon is highly regarded by her peers: Professor Allison Littlejohn of the University of Dundee comments: “Professor Gilly Salmon has an outstanding reputation in the field of learning technology. In my view, she, more than anyone else internationally, has contributed to advances in e-learning design by practitioners in a range of subject disciplines.”

She is highly effective at drawing upon research and professional practice. She acted as Project Director for a series of nine television programmes called The Business Café which were first broadcast on BBC2 in 1999. This provided the first fully interactive learning website linked with live television broadcasts and as such was the forerunner of the kind of interactive television we take for granted today.

Professor Salmon’s first research on the student experience of computer-mediated conferencing began in 1993 with the provision of a tutor-mediated environment for MBA students outside the UK. Many of the students in Europe were unable to attend regular face-to-face tutorials and she broke new ground by training tutors to work online and structuring successful remote group work and tutorials.

Professor Salmon has always supported the diversity of student learning needs. From 1998-2000, for example, she directed a Certificate in Management Programme for managers in voluntary and non-profit organisations, which included deployment in development projects in Africa, including Eritrea, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, enabling students in developing countries to access high quality distance management education.

She has been a Visiting Professor in the Caledonian Business School at Glasgow Caledonian University for four years and is the author of several books, including two which have proved significant in influencing the world of e-learning in the UK and worldwide. The model detailed in the books has spawned many highly accessible online staff development programmes, reaching around 1.500 staff over four years.