1. Sustaining Sustainability: developing material for higher education Neil Gordon Department of Computer Science University of Hull Cottingham Road, Hull, HU6 7RX n.a.gordon@hull.ac.uk www.hull.ac.uk/php/cssnag/ www.hull.ac.uk/php/cssnag/ Subject Centre for Information and Computer Sciences Higher Education Academy Annual Conference, August 2010 University of Durham

2. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 2 Introduction 2010 is just over half way through the United Nation’s decade of sustainable development (S.D.) it is timely to consider the impact and progress made in including sustainable development within Higher Education (H.E.) curricula. This talk will review some of this in the context of numerous U.K. strategies, and in particular how the profile of this is developing within the H.E. computing community in the U.K. It will also consider ways in which SD provision can be improved within computing courses and wider afield As part of this last point, we will consider some technical and pedagogic issues that can assist in widening the opportunities for SD delivery

3. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 3 What is Sustainable Development Sustainable Development has been on the agenda for education for several years. As a general topic, it can be encapsulated in the following quote from the World Commission on Environment and Development as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” Education is seen as a key mechanism to promote this agenda, through “Education for Sustainable Development”

4. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 4 United Nations decade of Education for Sustainable Development Launched in 2005 quite a lot of progress already in UK H.E. through estates strategies on campuses – EcoCampus – Higher Education Council for England strategy on carbon reduction progress with respect to curriculum change seems more limited from a practitioner perspective. Recent initiatives by the ICS subject centre – such as a special journal on SD in the computing curriculum and a workshop on this subject – whilst garnering some support from a group of enthusiasts, indicates that there is still a lack of engagement and action across the sector Experience in similar campus based initiatives shows a lack of awareness or desire to engage with this agenda across other subjects

5. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 5 How to encourage SD within education Sustainable Schools programme: implemented within the national curriculum areas of “self, relationships, society and the environment” Further Education implementing this under Learning and Skills Council policy which specifies the inclusion Whilst there is evidence of some progress here (DCSF, 2010), actual student data indicates there is some way to go at the pre-university level

6. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 6 SD in U.K. Higher Education Funding councils (such as HEFCE) have been encouraging institutions to engage with the agenda through a range of activities. Some link directly to funding, others through medium term strategic aims. Within the U.K., the Higher Education Academy has a project on ESD to help “institutions and subject communities develop curricula and pedagogy that will give students the skills and knowledge to live and work sustainably”. This project has funded mini-projects and activities to encourage the development and shared practice regarding sustainability in H.E. Another initiative is the EAUC (Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges). This organisation supports member institutions in developing sustainability within the management and curriculum, and as such can be considered along the lines of the Sustainable Schools initiative The Sustainability in Higher Education Developers (SHED) network aims to support curriculum development of sustainability within H.E.

7. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 7 Resources and initiatives within the H.E. ICS sector HEA subject centre for Information and Computer Sciences ran a joint focus group with the Maths, Statistics and Operation Research (MSOR) subject centre, on sustainability within these disciplines as part of a wider information gathering exercise. This contributed to a report on the state of sustainability in the HE curriculum at that time. As noted in that report “Subject Centres that have an interest in ESD, but have found it much more difficult to embed ESD widely or deeply into their curricula. Examples include Information and Computer Sciences and Mathematics, Statistics and Operational Research”. The ICS website on Sustainable Development provides some starting points for colleagues interested in SD within computing, including case studies on integrating content into the curriculum. the British Computer Society also provide some resources – so far focussed on green computing – especially power usage, carbon footprints and the manufacturing processes - with professional qualifications in related areas, and a Green IT specialist group.

8. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 8 Sustainable Development in the curriculum Desk based research on Sustainable Development within U.K. computing curricula finds little evidence of progress. Whilst some MSc programmes explicitly include SD anecdotal evidence regarding undergraduate teaching - from discussions with colleagues across the sector - indicates that where SD is included currently, it is included under the general areas of ethical and professional behavior and awareness. But there are positive impact on students’ perceptions of embedding SD material within a CS course as seen on the next slide.

9. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 9 Student perceptions post teaching of SD material

10. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 10 Creating shareable resources: a case study Aim was to encourage engagement by colleagues with SD across campus Plan to accomplish this through taking advantage of technical and policy changes. In particular using Reusable Learning Objects (RLO) These offer one way to support colleagues in integrating new material – here SD – within their own teaching.

11. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 11 What are learning objects and what makes them reusable Learning Object: “the smallest independent structural experience that contains an objective, a learning activity and an assessment". Reusable learning objects can be considered as “by being a cohesive learning resource focused on one clear learning goal” typically be electronic in nature “reusable learning objects as web-based interactive chunks of e-learning designed to explain a stand-alone learning objective” naturally fit into the ambit of Open Educational Resources.

12. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 12 Developing RLOs for SD An institutional project Utilising a small amount of funding we carried out a project to encourage staff across campus to develop small learning resources on sustainable development. These range from careers and staff development, through to specific disciplines such as health or Computer Science. Colleagues developed materials that include guidance for staff, learning materials (PowerPoint slides, electronic learning objects), and assessment materials. The learning objects were developed as simple collections (e.g. Word files and PowerPoint slides), as well as flash objects developed using Articulate and Xerte. Assessments are either suggestions for activities such as reports or essays, to be tutor marker, as well as some developed in Sakai (the local VLE) and exported for importing into other compatible VLEs and other computer based assessment tools.

13. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 13 Defining meta-data and good practice for RLOs To maximise the learning materials impact as possible, developers have been encouraged to follow good practice, in particular Ensuring good practice in referencing and acknowledging materials Considering and obeying copyright Allowing for the context and transferability of ideas/information (especially considering subject specific language) Considering the provenance/context for external links Defining appropriate Meta-Data for the learning objects

14. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 14 Meta Data Name Description Subject Topic Level (3, 4, 5, 6 using U.K. level descriptors Credit value (Hull credits) Sub-level: e.g. introductory; advanced Specialised (subject dependent) or service Focus : background; motivation; introduction; examples; theory; applications; advanced; implications Aims and objectives Pre-requisites Learning outcomes: intellectual; transferable Mode of study: taught; led; supervised; supported; self; independent Type of study: individual; group Assessment: automated; manual; tutor; self; peer; group; mixed

15. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 15 Successes and failures Successes include the wide number of faculties involved – including computer science, education, social health, business, careers and staff development. However, there has been no engagement by arts subjects on campus as yet. Whilst geography and biology do include relevant content, there are currently no representatives from those areas involved with this project. Discussion across campus has shown that the awareness of sustainability, and what it encompasses, varies widely. Many colleagues were initially unsure how it could be relevant to their discipline – although having explored options, realised that it was already present implicitly, and could be developed explicitly with some learning material. This has been the key success of this project to date.

16. Changing the way you think about Hull | August 2010 | 16 Sustaining sustainability One common problem for innovations is how to maintain momentum – especially in an area where funding is limited in value and time. Taking onboard ideas of community sites, this project is using community website – in this case hosted on Sakai – to – Share resources and best practice – Encourage colleagues to consider how to embed sustainability into their own teaching – Allow those developing resources to maintain and evolve them – Encourage a community of practice – through a Wiki, discussions and other shared resources – Encourage colleagues to reflect, analyse and record the impact with their students. Migrate suitable materials to the institutional repository and offer them to a wider audience

17. Conclusions We have considered some of the issues pertaining to Sustainable Development within Higher Education. Empirical evidence demonstrates that a positive impact can be made on students’ awareness of this subject through embedding content on this Furthermore, one effective way to produce such content is through reusable learning objects. Such learning objects have the potential to allow colleagues across the sector to include this material efficiently and effectively

18. Future developments The HEA ICS/BCS workshop on SustainablIT ended with a discussion on issues of SD within the computing curriculum - these will lead to a set of guidelines for colleagues interested in embedding SD within their own teaching A development project to develop more RLOs on SD for computer science has been funded under the recent ICS project call – this will lead to more materials being made available to colleagues to utilise and hopefully encourage wider inclusion of this important topic. Whilst these developments can assist where colleagues wish to include SD, changes in subject benchmarks and accreditation guidelines could be one way to step up the inclusion of SD within computing education.