My name is Kevin Moffat. I'm a professor in the School of Life Sciences and I've been chairing the ITLR panel for the History review.

I've been at the university for 33 years and done many jobs in my department, including Director of Studies…being on the other side of the fence in previous reviews in Life Sciences. I became a professor with a focus on teaching, probably seven or eight years ago. It was one of the early such positions in the Science faculty. So, I guess I was asked to chair this panel with my expertise in curriculum design and curriculum delivery to the sciences and therefore to learn something really about a department. Although I knew about them but didn't know what they were doing.

Well, I now don't have the administrative roles in my own department that I did have but it reflects on my own teaching practices, certainly in the way that I will engage some of my students in smaller working groups. Its very impressive work that's been done in the department I've been reviewing and its made me think about…I could do that too, we could do this as well, I'm not going to do that. So yeah, there are definitely elements that we'll take back to the department to think about how we might utilise some of their ideas.

I think the university has a good history in collaborating across departments and across faculty. And ever since the Institute of Higher Education was set up, we've had this level of collaboration and just information sharing. So to actually take part in the ITLR was yet another step in confirming that collaboration. So yes, I think its been a very positive event, hopefully from the department as we reviewed their activities, but also as we reflected on our own activities in similar areas, our own problems in similar areas, our own annoyances with the systems of the university and how we might together make suggestions of what can help them.

I think we have been very positive in the outcomes. The first thing we've actually done with the department in question was to look for the positivity, the positive elements that they had brought to both the care and the teaching of their students, which was exemplary in many situations. And I would hope that they've seen the positivity from us in how we've been able to advise in areas that they're not so expert in, particularly in PGT delivery to their students. I think that's been a very positive outcome on both sides. We've seen great contributions that they've made to the care that they take with their undergraduates.

Hopefully what they've seen from the two of us on the panel within academic departments (is that) we've been able to make suggestions really positively on how they might think about their PGT courses in particular.

And we've also, kind of, not been critical. But I think what we've done is taken a very good look at their intentions on online delivery and the way they blend their learning going forwards. And I think they got quite a lot of information out of us in that way. So, an absolutely positive experience, I would judge at this stage, not having quite finished the report yet, but yeah, very positive experience hopefully for both sides.

I am very impressed with the way the department cares for their students. We've talked to seven of their students and it was very hard to get anything out of them that was negative.

I was very impressed with the students' responses. (I am) very impressed with the information the department gave us about the students and if I could highlight one other thing that would be my panel members who would be great in their support of generating responses, analysing the data presented to us, and in particular the administrators who somehow managed to write down most of the things we've said.

There's quite a bit of there is a reasonable time commitment. There is a number of documents to be read and to be edited. The administrative support makes this process an achievable process. So, first of all, make sure you have the right support in place, and you'll hopefully have something useful to say and hopefully you'll learn something too.