Blended and Online Education

PGCert / PGDip / MSc Blended and Online Education

Dr. Keith Smyth

Senior Teaching Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Higher Education,
Programme Leader MSc BOE
Telephone: 0131-455 6181
Skype and Twitter: smythkrs
k.smyth@Napier.ac.uk

Keith is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education and Senior Teaching Fellow, and Programme Leader for the MSc Blended and Online Education (MSc BOE). Keith also teaches on Edinburgh Napier’s Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, for which he leads the first module Effective Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Contexts.

Keith originally joined Edinburgh Napier as an Academic Development Adviser in Online Learning, prior to which he had several years experience of teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across a range of subjects within classroom, blended and online course contexts. Keith has authored or co-authored several papers, reports, and conference presentations that have addressed various issues in blended and online education, and is particularly interested in the individual factors that influence the ways students undertake and experience online learning.

Between 2005 and 2007 Keith was seconded to the cross-institutional TESEP (Transforming and Enhancing the Student Experience through Pedagogy) project that Edinburgh Napier undertook in partnership with Lauder College and Edinburgh’s Telford College. TESEP focused on issues of teaching, technology, and institutional change, and Keith remained involved in initiatives to take the lessons learned and outcomes of TESEP to the wider sector. This has included through http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform and the organisation of the national Learners in the Co-creation of Knowledge (LICK) 2008 Symposium (http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform/lick08.htm). More recently, in conjunction with Mark Johnson from The University of Bolton, Keith has been involved in co-ordinating the workshops and related work of the Taking Forward Change in Technology-Enhanced Education initiative.

With Christina Mainka, Keith co-authored Edinburgh Napier’s ‘Pedagogy and Learning Technology’ staff guide and the institutional Quality Framework guidance on assuring standards in online learning. Externally Keith is a member of JISC’s Learning and Teaching Experts Group, a submissions reviewer for the British Journal of Educational Technology, and has recently concluded a three-year appointment as Secretary for Universities Scotland’s Educational Development Sub-committee.