Integrating progress files into the academic process

Keywords: higher education, key skills, personal development planning, policy implementation, pro gress files

A literature review of published case studies reporting progress file implementation was conducted with the intent of discovering how this is being interpreted and implemented in higher education institutions. The three studies found were analysed using an ideal type categorization developed by Clegg and Bradley (2006), that is, professional, academic or employment.All three case studies are examples of academics learning through experience about the process of personal development planning and how this integrates with current educational provision. As this is not a static process, an activity theory perspective may be a more useful framework to research how this understanding develops in a particular context. Currently the progress file is a contested object, which has not yet fulfilled its potential to place the student and their individual learning needs at the centre of the educational process.

Introduction

Higher education institutions in the UK are now expected to have strategies in place which ensure that all students have supported Personal Development Planning (PDP) opportunities during their course of study (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education [START_REF] Qaahe | Guidelines for HE Progress Files[END_REF]. This policy originated from a proposal in the Dearing review of Higher Education (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education [NCIHE], 1997). The remit of Dearing (NCIHE, 1997) was to provide a vision of Higher Education for the next 20 years. It was the first major review of higher education since Robbins (Committee for Higher Education [START_REF] Che | Higher Education Report of the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister under the Chairmanship of Lord Robbins 1961-3[END_REF] and was commissioned by a Conservative government wanting graduates effectively equipped to promote and service a growing economy. Recommendation 20 (from a total of 93) was as follows:

We recommend that institutions of higher education, over the medium term, develop a Progress File. The File should consist of two elements: A transcript recording student achievement which should follow a common format devised by institutions collectively through their representative bodies;

A means by which students can monitor, build and reflect upon their personal development. (NCIHE. 1997) This recommendation was adopted by the Quality Assurance Agency (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education [QAAHE], 2000) which set a 2005/6 implementation date for higher education institutions. This implementation date has now passed yet there is still no real compulsion or incentive for academics to 'integrate the development of Progress Files into the academic process' as envisioned by Dearing (2000: 140).

A survey to evaluate the implementation of progress files commissioned by the Department of Education and Skills [DfES] [START_REF] Brennan | Report on the Implementation of Progress Files[END_REF] reported good progress on the first element of the progress file, namely, the provision of transcripts. These are generally managed by central administration and are often integrated into the development of new student record systems. However provision of the second element, PDP (personal development planning), has been patchy and subject to different interpretations even within institutions. Despite this less than enthusiastic embracing of the new policy and the lack of consensus on key issues (such as assessed/non-assessed, tutor supported or not, employment or education focus) [START_REF] Brennan | Report on the Implementation of Progress Files[END_REF] remain cautiously optimistic about the progress of the progress file.The reason for this optimism is the lack of compulsion for academic staff to be involved in the process. They argue that PDP is being introduced where academics see the value of it and for some this means seeing its potential as a radical innovation.

This article seeks to investigate how the integration of PDP into the academic process is occurring in practice. It will first set the historical and political context of this policy through a brief discussion of supercomplexity and widening participation. The theoretical assumptions of the policy are then revealed through an examination of the concept of selfregulated learning. The concept of self-regulated learning focuses attention on individual agency. However it is acknowledged that students can adopt different practices in different contexts. The importance of the context of learning is emphasized from a social practice perspective. This leads to a view of progress files as artefacts which convey a shared meaning of what learning is in a particular context. The article then uncovers some detail behind survey data [START_REF] Brennan | Report on the Implementation of Progress Files[END_REF] by reviewing published case studies on progress file implementation. These case studies are analysed using ideal type categories (Clegg and Bradley, 2006a) and the benefits and drawbacks of the different approaches are highlighted. This leads to a discussion of lessons learnt so far in the implementation of progress files and the implications for further research and development.

Historical and intellectual context

There is evidence that our society is changing dramatically in terms of knowledge creation and knowledge use. [START_REF] Gibbons | Higher Education Relevance in the 21st Century[END_REF], Secretary General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, makes the case for curriculum change to create more knowledge workers who can access and apply knowledge to solve problems rather than academics to create new knowledge. [START_REF] Broadfoot | Quality Standards and Control in Higher Education: What Price Life-long Learning?[END_REF] describes a postmodern vision of the 'learning society' as one 'in which learners are empowered to want, and to be able, to manage their own learning in a highly individualistic manner; where there will be fewer and fewer designated spaces and times, defined outcomes or prescribed bodies of knowledge ' (1998: 158). [START_REF] Jackson | A Fresh Perspective on Progress Files -A Way of Representing Complex Learning and Achievement in Higher Education[END_REF], key figures in the development of progress file policy in the UK, see the progress file as higher education's answer to problems posed by the contemporary super-complex world [START_REF] Barnett | Supercomplexity and the Curriculum[END_REF]. This is a world in which the only certainty is change and students must prepare themselves for a life of constant adaptation to new circumstances. Higher education in the past has been concerned with preparing scholars able to understand and develop disciplinary knowledge. In contrast, in the post modern world graduates need to be able to work across disciplines, drawing upon and using trans-disciplinary knowledge to work collaboratively and to solve problems. Progress files provide a means whereby students can demonstrate these capacities [START_REF] Jackson | A Fresh Perspective on Progress Files -A Way of Representing Complex Learning and Achievement in Higher Education[END_REF]. [START_REF] Barnett | Supercomplexity and the Curriculum[END_REF] acknowledges the need for new curriculum ideas in this super-complex world but argues that so far the educational response has been an increasing focus on 'performativity' or the attainment of generic skills. He argues that there is too much focus on what the student can do now rather than developing their capacity to engage in a constantly changing environment.This requires a curriculum that seeks to develop self awareness and personal and interpersonal resources. This tension between the need to demonstrate skills to prospective employers and the actual improvement of student learning through a refocusing of the curriculum on student development is a recurring theme in the discussion of the progress file, that is, is it a record of achievement or a tool to support learning? [START_REF] Jackson | A Fresh Perspective on Progress Files -A Way of Representing Complex Learning and Achievement in Higher Education[END_REF] draw upon the global context to explain the need for progress files. However there are also national political agendas which have contributed to the pressure on traditional university education. One example is the changing relationship between the academy and the state. It can be argued that university education is now seen as a personal and state investment to secure employability rather than the right of the intellectual elite to higher education. There is a clear government policy in the UK to widen participation in higher education to 50 per cent of 18-30 year olds by 2010 (DfES, 2003). This expansion is linked to the need for a skilled workforce able to function effectively in a knowledge based economy. This vision of graduate abilities is focused more on transferable skills than knowledge of a particular discipline.Thus progress file policy can be seen as politically driven in that the progress file is a means to record and monitor student development throughout their course and to present their skills to prospective employers.This focus on employability does not necessarily conflict with other educational aims such as the development of autonomy [START_REF] Winch | The Economic Aims of Education[END_REF]. However, it can be argued that an emphasis on recording key skills does little to meet the educational needs of an increasingly diverse undergraduate population. What is required is a much clearer focus on the process of learning and adequate resources to provide a scaffold of support to facilitate learner development. [START_REF] Boekaerts | Self-regulated Learning: Where We are Today[END_REF] argues that perceived failures in the school system, that is, underachievement of the majority and failure to meet employer expectations, have led to the popularity of the concept of self-regulated learning for policy makers and teachers. 'Self-regulation means being able to develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes which can be transferred from one learning context to another and from learning situations in which this information has been acquired to a leisure and work context' (Boekaerts, 1999: 446). [START_REF] Boekaerts | Self-regulated Learning: Where We are Today[END_REF] identifies three strands in the concept of self-regulated learning: learning styles, meta-cognitive skills and self-regulation. In relation to learning styles, for example, surface or deep [START_REF] Entwistle | Conceptions of Learning and Knowledge in Higher Education: Relationships with Study Behaviour and Influences of Learning Environments[END_REF], it is argued that these are not fixed attributes but strategies that students are capable of choosing to use in different contexts. Meta-cognitive skills are the organizing strategies by which students achieve their learning goals and include orienting, planning, evaluating, etc. These skills are well developed in successful learners but they can also be encouraged or taught. Self-regulation is made up of motivational control, that is, the extent to which the student values the task and has confidence in their ability to perform it and volition control, that is, the ability to start, engage and disengage from the task. All three aspects are pertinent to the idea of PDP since in PDP the student sets their own learning goals and develops meta-cognitive skills to promote deep learning and thereby successful achievement of goals. Self regulation is seen as the key factor because students may understand metacognitive principles and be capable of deep learning but not be motivated to learn effectively in particular contexts.

Self-regulated learning

Research is focused on individual learning processes but also highlights the importance of the learning context. Social practice theory considers learning as a social rather than individual process, and that learning takes place as the meaning of concepts changes through social interaction. From this perspective self-regulated learning, articulated in PDP artefacts, is not seen as an individual cognitive process but rather as a change in the shared meaning of learning in response to the particular tensions in the current educational system and the impact of the wider environment on this system. Activity theory [START_REF] Engeström | Expansive Learning at Work: Toward an Activity Theoretical Reconceptualization[END_REF] suggests that activities are rooted in a social and historical context which impacts on the shared meaning of those activities. This theory, applied to the activity of preparing graduates, suggests that the shared meaning of undergraduate education is underpinned by the university policies and regulations, the tacit understanding of the academic community, the division of labour between academics and students and the artefacts used to articulate this shared meaning.

This rooting of Higher Education activity in a firm socio-historical base limits possibilities for change but, on the other hand, the changing nature of the wider social context, and the prior experience of the undergraduates admitted, create tensions in the system. These tensions may be resolved through the adaptation of tools and artefacts to reflect new priorities. Likewise these new tools and artefacts, particularly if they involve the incorporation of new technologies, may change the meaning or situated knowing about the activity for the actors involved. Progress files, in particular the self development planning aspect, are artefacts which articulate a particular meaning of learning.Thus they are more likely to be successful when introduced by academics who share this understanding. There will be resistance to this artefact from both academics and students if they have a different understanding of what learning is.This reinforces the point about the benefits of non-compulsion made above [START_REF] Brennan | Report on the Implementation of Progress Files[END_REF]. There may also be different meanings attached to particular versions of the progress file in different settings.

A recent international systematic review of PDP activity [START_REF] Gough | A Systematic Map and Synthesis Review of the Effectiveness of Personal Development Planning for Improving Student Learning[END_REF] found thousands of examples both in the UK and the USA of academics using reflective practice, learning logs, journals and diaries, etc. with their students but these were not specifically related to progress file implementation. [START_REF] Brennan | Report on the Implementation of Progress Files[END_REF] found that less than half of their survey respondents had introduced formal policies for the PDP element of the progress file. There have been no studies so far exploring the value of using these diverse practices to build up a progress file of personal development through a higher education programme. The following literature review analyses case studies of progress file implementation. The intent was to discover how this policy initiative is being interpreted and implemented at ground level by academics in higher education institutions. This literature review does not claim to be exhaustive but was systematic and thorough. It seeks evidence of the different versions of the progress file identified by Clegg and Bradley (2006b) and analyses the strengths and weaknesses of these versions.

Methodology

A literature search included educational databases and Google scholar. The keywords used were 'progress file or personal development planning or recording achievement, and higher education'. The search was limited to English language and the date restriction was from 2000 to 2007 since the focus of interest was the UK experience since the publication of the QAA policy statement [START_REF] Qaahe | Policy statement on a Progress file for Higher Education[END_REF]. Case studies describing experiences of implementing progress files in a higher education institution were selected from the hits returned. The rationale for this selection was the intention to investigate responses to the progress file policy per se. Several of the articles retrieved referred to reflective learning or PDP initiatives not directly linked to progress files.There were surprisingly few case studies of progress file implementation.

The three case studies selected describe how progress file policy is being enacted in three different practice settings. They were written by academics with some responsibility for implementing progress files in their department or university. The framework used to analyse these case studies is an ideal type categorization developed by Clegg and Bradley (2006a) who, while not involved with the implementation of progress files directly, investigated the attitudes and approaches articulated by academics associated with PDP in various departments in one university.Three ideal types of PDP were induced from their interview data, that is, professional, employment and academic.These categories are also supported to some extent in survey data [START_REF] Brennan | Report on the Implementation of Progress Files[END_REF], particularly the academic/employment divide. Clegg and Bradley (2006a) found that though no ideal type existed in a pure form, each ideal type was associated predominately with different disciplines. For example in their research setting health and educational courses tended to adopt a professional model for PDP which focused on reflection. Sport and Leisure and Engineering courses used an employment model which focused on building up a CV and career management while humanities and social science tended towards the academic model which focused on academic development and meta-cognitive skills.The authors map these different models against concepts of identity and orientation. They considered the course identity in terms of introjection and projection, that is, whether the courses looked inward to the needs of the discipline or outwards to the world of work.They also considered whether the course had a singular orientation, that is, maintained strong subject boundaries or was more generic [START_REF] Bernstein | Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory Research, Critique[END_REF]Clegg and Bradley, 2006b).

This ideal type framework (Clegg and Bradley, 2006b) was used as a comparative tool to analyse the three case studies found from the literature review.This tool helps to describe different approaches to the same concept and provides a useful starting point for thinking about PDP and progress files. It is used to disentangle the different philosophies and pedagogical approaches which underpin the implementation of progress files in particular settings. It is particularly appropriate since by chance each of the three case studies found represents a different ideal type.

Case study one: employment

This case study was written by a progress file tutor charged with introducing progress files university-wide into one institution [START_REF] East | A Progress Report on Progress Files[END_REF]. The approach focused on skills development, specifically Edexcel skills framework and not the key skills of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) since lecturers were more familiar with the former.The progress file was seen as a tool to aid reflection on skills for learning; to help students identify and take steps to address 'skills deficiency ' (2005: 161). The aim was to improve generic learning skills and therefore make the students more employable. In Bernstein's terms [START_REF] Bernstein | Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory Research, Critique[END_REF] the identity of the course was projective and the orientation generic. [START_REF] East | A Progress Report on Progress Files[END_REF] identified a difference between the framing of the policy at government level as an information product for employers and the adoption of the policy by academics as a learning process. However the learning achieved is still perceived as generic, not learning in a particular discipline. [START_REF] East | A Progress Report on Progress Files[END_REF] raises issues that might cause difficulty in a one-solution, university-wide approach.The first issue is whether a university-wide understanding of what is to be achieved via progress files is possible. The conflict between preparing for employment and learning in a discipline is the essence of this difficulty. [START_REF] East | A Progress Report on Progress Files[END_REF] sees this articulated in the different skills frameworks, that is, the generic frameworks of Edexcel and QCA versus the more specific skills to be achieved within a discipline as described in the UK's Subject Benchmarking statements. He suggests that scepticism about 'the skills agenda' is a disincentive to staff engagement in the PDP process whereas a focus on reflection to improve learning within a particular discipline may be more acceptable to academics.

Analysis of case study one: employment

In this case study progress files are firmly linked to the key skills agenda. Skills are perceived as attributes that can be transferred from one context (university) to another (the workplace). This approach can be seen as response to employer complaints that graduates are not fit for purpose, that is, adequately prepared with the skills needed in the workplace [START_REF] Mason | Graduate Skill Gaps and Employer-provided Training[END_REF][START_REF] Saunders | Understanding Emerging Trends in Higher Education Curricula and Work Connections[END_REF].The progress file here is a record of achievement in which students are encouraged to evidence key skills for employment, that is, communication, numeracy, information technology and learning how to learn.

This model has significant flaws, not least its unpopularity with both students and staff [START_REF] East | A Progress Report on Progress Files[END_REF].The progress file, particularly when seen in conjunction with the QCA key skills initiative (QCA, 2004), can be seen as a tool imposed by government with the intent of making higher education more narrowly focused on producing efficient workers. The progress file can be interpreted as another step towards 'performativity' in contemporary higher education, 'from a curriculum for inner contemplation to a curriculum for outer performance' (Barnett, 2000: 261). As such it will be resisted by some academics because they have a different view on the purpose of higher education. This version of the progress file does not articulate their concept of learning. Moreover, social practice theory suggests that a skills base approach is flawed. Skills such as communication, team working and problem solving are intimately bound to specific social practices and localized knowledge [START_REF] Holmes | Reconsidering Graduate Employability: The "Graduate Identity" Approach[END_REF]. They cannot be learned out of context or transferred to a new context intact. New graduates in employment will need effective induction policies which provide opportunities for legitimate peripheral participation and assimilation into a new community of practice [START_REF] Lave | Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation[END_REF]. It is unlikely that a tick list of skills accomplished will be useful in this process unless the practices in which the skills were embedded have relevance to the career in question [START_REF] Holmes | Reconsidering Graduate Employability: The "Graduate Identity" Approach[END_REF]. Rather than producing a checklist for students to identify their skills deficit, staff time might be better focused on designing curricula within which students would be able to demonstrate skill performance in authentic career relevant practices.

study two: academic

This was a funded project concerned with developing and embedding reflective portfolios in Geography [START_REF] Kneale | Developing and Embedding Reflective Portfolios in Geography[END_REF]. It was part of a DfEE funded initiative, 'A strategic model for developing methods and materials for recording achievement in traditional universities'. Activity was coordinated by the Centre for Recording Achievement across consortia of pre-1992 universities. PDP was seen as vehicle for reflection on what had been achieved and for action planning, that is, looking back over the previous semester to evaluate learning and looking forward to the next to make constructive plans. Reflection here is on achievement within the course so it can be said to have an introjective identity, though the author notes that encouraging more mature reflection skills is seen as part of professional preparation for work in academia or elsewhere. Within the larger project, a suite of portfolios was developed to meet different departmental and professional needs.These ranged from recording professional development to generic skills-based portfolios. This case study report focuses on geography. The orientation was generic to the extent that it was a facultywide initiative that built on existing good practice in tutorial support yet singular in that a key purpose was to encourage deeper thinking on and around the subject area and to improve academic learning within the discipline. Any long-term benefits were seen as a bonus.

The expressed benefits of the progress file were also introjective, that is, not seen as preparing students to be more effectively equipped for 21st-century employment but rather as a useful tool to help cope with the increasing diversity of student intake and limited time for one-to-one tutorial support. In its intention to help students understand and take responsibility for their own learning, it formalized the processes of individual objective setting. Different sections of the progress file were to be completed in advance of tutorials. This set the agenda for discussion with the tutor and so made better use of tutorial time. It also created an impression of equity across the student group. These tutorial practices were reinforced by email reminders to both students and tutors from the progress file coordinator.

The process was not assessed so levels of engagement varied and there was a reported gender and age bias; mature students and females were more likely to engage. The benefits were most notable in orientating students to the requirements of the course and helping them get organized. Another advantage was the effect on the interaction during a tutorial. The use of the reflection tools helped to create a more student-centred focus to the meeting. This empowerment of students through well designed self assessment tools has been observed elsewhere [START_REF] Haigh | The Impact of Mobile Technology on Students' Experience of Learning and Being Assessed in Clinical Practice: A Focus Group Study[END_REF]. Despite these advantages there was concern that the students were not using the tool effectively to improve performance and this was linked to the lack of commitment to a reflective approach by the tutors and a tendency to view the progress file as a CV preparation tool. Thus there is a discrepancy between the aims of enthusiasts leading the implementation process and the day to day practices of academics interacting with students.

Analysis of case two: academic

This version of the progress file is more focused on developing meta-cognitive skills to improve deep learning in the discipline than on developing key skills for employment.This appears to be more motivating for students than generic skills training and therefore has the potential to help develop self-regulated learning [START_REF] Boekaerts | Self-regulated Learning: Where We are Today[END_REF][START_REF] Zimmerman | A Social Cognitive View of Self-regulated Academic Learning[END_REF]. Clegg and Bradley (2006b) suggest that paradoxically the most 'academic' disciplines in their study, whilst placing key skills firmly in the context of improving learning in the discipline, may be producing the most employable graduates in terms of their written communication and presentation skills. These disciplines also seem to have well established personal tutor systems whose role is to encourage students to think about and record their learning processes.This model of personal tutoring may prove impossible to replicate in other courses where arguably student need for such support is more pronounced [START_REF] East | A Progress Report on Progress Files[END_REF].

However even in settings with good personal tutor provision, staff and student engagement in PDP is patchy [START_REF] Kneale | Developing and Embedding Reflective Portfolios in Geography[END_REF]. There is also no clear evidence that the professed aim of encouraging deep learning is achieved through PDP (Clegg and Bradley, 2006b). [START_REF] Broadfoot | Quality Standards and Control in Higher Education: What Price Life-long Learning?[END_REF] argues that the enlightenment ideal of deep learning in a particular discipline is already compromised by the assessment culture in contemporary higher education. In such a culture students are rewarded for playing the system rather than for deep self-motivated learning. In such an assessment-driven culture a nonassessed process of PDP will struggle to engage either students or tutors. On the other hand, [START_REF] Haggis | Constructing Images of Ourselves? A Critical Investigation into "Approaches to Learning" Research in Higher Education[END_REF] makes the point that students struggle to understand what is expected in a particular discipline so are not able to engage in deep self-motivated learning without guidance. She argues for a view of academic study as an apprenticeship into new ways of thinking and expression. This perhaps takes the debate even further from the idea of key skills for employment towards the development of the enlightened thinker and communicator.

Case study three: professional

This two-year funded research and development project led to the production of a Reflective Progress File for dental therapists [START_REF] Fry | Developing Progress Files: A Case Study[END_REF][START_REF] Pee | Practice-based Learning: Views on the Development of a Reflective Learning Tool[END_REF] which clearly corresponds to the professional model described by Clegg and Bradley (2006b). The paper-based file contained sections for recording achievement and activity sheets to promote reflective writing and self-appraisal. A reflective diary was added after the first trial at the request of participants. This consisted of a daily record of important events and weekly consideration of concerns and intentions arising. Group sharing and disclosure to tutors was encouraged. The identity displayed was projective in that the purpose was to record and review individual progress towards becoming a competent health care professional and indeed the progress file spanned training and professional practice. The authors specifically link progress files to other requirements of professional life, that is, evidencing and assessing continued fitness to practice and the need for continuing professional development.The orientation was singular in that the file was embedded in the curriculum and one of the key aims was to promote the professional role and competencies of the therapists to their employers.

Analysis of case study three: professional

The projection and singularity of this version of the progress file perhaps goes some way to explaining the mixed reception of the tool from different groups. Practising therapists evaluated it very positively as a tool to support development within their role whereas an adaptation of the tool trialled by undergraduate dental students (not therapists) was very unpopular. From the self-regulated learning perspective it can be seen that the therapists had much clearer personal and professional motivation to use the file. Professional courses can be seen to have an advantage in the development of progress files in that their students have a clear focus on employment requirements from the beginning of the course and there is a strong tradition of reflection on practice embedded in the curricula [START_REF] Brennan | Report on the Implementation of Progress Files[END_REF]Clegg and Bradley, 2006a).The focus on practices rather than skills is also relevant. [START_REF] Holmes | Reconsidering Graduate Employability: The "Graduate Identity" Approach[END_REF] proposes an alternative approach to the skills agenda which focuses on practices and identity, that is, skills should not be see as generic tools which an individual carries with them -skill is a generalized way of articulating what a person can do in a particular social context. From this perspective recording and reflecting on performance in practice settings is clearly good preparation for employment.

The limitation of this approach is that it can lead to a conformist approach where the goal is to be seen to perform appropriately by significant others responsible for validating the performance. Reflection can be limited to how far the student is conforming to work-based protocols and evidencebased practice. To infer that professional programmes are already encouraging reflection and therefore meeting the requirement for PDP is perhaps missing an opportunity to create a pedagogic device that promotes selfawareness and lifelong learning, developing the potential to act on the world as well as in it.

Discussion

On the basis of this albeit limited evidence, it appears that the implementation of progress files can be described in terms of tendency towards one of three ideal types: professional, academic or employment. The concepts of introjection/projection and singular/generic orientation go some way to explaining the different approaches. The differences may also reflect variation in the shared meaning of learning in particular contexts. The progress file is an artefact which articulates the priorities of a particular activity system. These may be reflection on professional practice, promotion of deep learning in a discipline or developing and recording skills needed for employment.

It is suggested here that all three are examples of academics learning through experience about the process of personal development planning and how this integrates with their current educational provision. So these early versions of progress files clearly reflect the context in which they are situated. [START_REF] Brennan | Report on the Implementation of Progress Files[END_REF] report that existing practice on implementation of progress files is rather conservative so far but it could be argued that new initiatives which can build on existing practices and beliefs have more chance of successful implementation (Clegg and Bradley, 2006b) and new artefacts produced by these initiatives in turn influence and modify existing practices and beliefs. Thus early versions of progress files can be seen as a stage which may lead to more radical change in practice.

The purpose of higher education, even within a particular institution, can be described as a contested object [START_REF] Blackler | The Conflicted Object; Strategy as Organisational Practice[END_REF] and the different 'ideal types' of PDP provision reflect different conceptions of that purpose. [START_REF] Saunders | Understanding Emerging Trends in Higher Education Curricula and Work Connections[END_REF] use case study data to suggest that different universities have responded differently to key skills policies. Older established universities which attract more traditional students focus on the development of academic skills, whereas newer institutions (in the UK these are known as 'the post-1992 universities'), working with a more diverse student group, focus on employability.This divide is also likely to be evident in progress file implementation. The question is whether the implementation of PDP policies will reinforce differences or lead to greater consensus on the purpose of university education in the 21st century. An activity theory perspective [START_REF] Engeström | Expansive Learning at Work: Toward an Activity Theoretical Reconceptualization[END_REF]) may be a useful framework for researching developing understandings of the progress file particularly in the context of new e-portfolio tools.

The deceptively simple concept of the progress file becomes increasingly complex as one tries to implement it in practice. Advocates of personal development planning suggest numerous advantages for the student [START_REF] Croot | Getting the Most Out of Progress Files and Personal Development Planning[END_REF] and psychological research confirms the benefits of self-regulated learning [START_REF] Zimmerman | A Social Cognitive View of Self-regulated Academic Learning[END_REF]. However, in order to realize these benefits it is essential that PDP is integrated into the academic process. Staff engagement is seen as key to successful implementation. This is more likely where PDP is promoted as a tool to improve learning in the discipline rather than focusing on employability per se. Some would argue that the graduate skills achieved through full engagement in an academic programme will develop the autonomous learner able to think creatively and work collaboratively. Lack of engagement and surface learning to meet heavy assessment loads will work against this development [START_REF] Broadfoot | Quality Standards and Control in Higher Education: What Price Life-long Learning?[END_REF] as will failure to provide supported induction into the ways of thinking and knowing in the discipline [START_REF] Haggis | Constructing Images of Ourselves? A Critical Investigation into "Approaches to Learning" Research in Higher Education[END_REF].

Another obstacle to integrating PDP into the academic process is inadequate resources. [START_REF] East | A Progress Report on Progress Files[END_REF] makes the point that implementation of PDP using a personal tutor system can make excessive demands on tutor time, and that time available for such support seems inequitably distributed between different universities. [START_REF] Kneale | Developing and Embedding Reflective Portfolios in Geography[END_REF] believes that progress file preparation makes tutorials more focused and effective in the context of an established personal tutor system. A module approach to PDP may be more effective in universities without an established personal tutor system. This is likely to be less demanding on tutor time particularly where the module leader utilizes student peer-to-peer support. [START_REF] East | A Progress Report on Progress Files[END_REF] provides evidence that a PDP process can be made available to students without undue erosion of staff time through a dedicated module using peer support and structured group activities instead of one-to-one tutorials. However the challenge in the modular approach is to make the activity purposeful in the context of the whole curriculum.

In this process of experimentation with the concept of progress files we are hopefully reaching a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between education and employment, PDP and skills. There is an urgent need for more action research and evaluative studies to determine the usefulness of progress files in the academic process. The situation is still in a developmental stage and it is likely that new influences such as e-portfolio and personal learning systems will have a significant impact on future progress file policies. The integration of progress files into the academic process so far is patchy and arguably superficial.There is little evidence to date that this tool is being widely used. However there are pockets of good practice where progress files are used to facilitate the reviewing, action planning and presentation of individual learning journeys [START_REF] Jackson | A Fresh Perspective on Progress Files -A Way of Representing Complex Learning and Achievement in Higher Education[END_REF]. Realizing the ambition to bring about sustainable implementation in different contexts will require commitment, experimentation and adequate resources. If these are forthcoming, the progress file may become an artefact which supports a student-centred vision of higher education that prepares students more effectively for life-long learning and the challenges of the 21st century.

H A I G H : P R O G R E S S F I L E S


Melanie King

Steve Loddington
email: s.p.loddington@lboro.ac.uk

Sue Manuel
email: s.manuel@lboro.ac.uk

Charles Oppenheim
email: c.oppenheim@lboro.ac.uk

Keywords: Higher Education, institutional repository, repository

Analysis of academic attitudes and existing processes to inform the design of teaching and learning material repositories

A user-centred approach

M E L A N I E K I N G, S T E V E L O D D I N G T O N, S U E M A N U E L A N D C H A R

L E S O P P E N H E I M Loughborough University, UK

A B S T R AC T The last couple of years have brought a rise in the number of institutional repositories throughout the world and within UK Higher Education institutions, with the majority of these repositories being devoted to research output. Repositories containing teaching and learning material are less common and the workflows and business processes surrounding these types of repositories were unclear. The user motivations to contributing to and downloading from repositories were also unknown. This article reports on two studies: a widescale survey carried out with HE staff to identify barriers and incentives to contributing to teaching material repositories; and interviews carried out as part of a workflow study at Loughborough University, to identify existing practice in the creation and sharing of teaching material. Confusion is reported with regard to the difference between a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and a repository. However, many different purposes of a teaching and learning material repository are highlighted. This article discusses how repositories could successfully interoperate with other institutional applications and highlights the benefits of teaching material repositories to the user, through scenarios. Recommendations relating to the key aspects of the design and implementation of a repository service are outlined.

Introduction and background

Preamble

Our objective was to uncover potential users' attitudes towards sharing teaching and learning materials within a digital repository. The results of our investigations informed the design of a demonstrator institutional teaching and learning material repository to provide academics with new ways of sharing resources and expertise. The intention was not to replicate a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) which is the most commonly used mechanism for sharing teaching material with students, but improve access to resources for different staff across the education sector.

Background to repositories

Repositories maintained by Higher and Further Education institutions in the United Kingdom (UK), i.e. Institutional Repositories, usually comprise research output, sometimes with teaching and learning material. Such repositories are usually Open Access (OA), rather than access being limited or authenticated to particular groups, such as a VLE. [START_REF] Hayes | Digital Repositories: Briefing Paper for Higher Education[END_REF] describes a digital repository as one where 'digital content, assets, are stored and can be searched and retrieved for later use'. Research output repositories have been the most popular type to date, with many UK Higher Education (HE) institutions now having, or considering deploying, such a system. According to the Registry of Open Access Repositories (http://archives.eprints.org/), there were 102 HE Institutional Repositories in the UK in June 2007, with over 85 (89%) of these being devoted to research output. There has been little research hitherto into repositories of other data types, such as teaching material and learning objects. At present, teaching material repositories exist on a national or international scale, most notably Multimedia Resource and Online Teaching (MERLOT) (http://www.merlot.org/), an international repository, and Jorum (http://www.jorum.ac.uk), a UK national repository funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). [START_REF] Mcmartin | MERLOT: A Model for User Involvement in Digital Library Design and Implementation[END_REF] recognizes that the sustainability of the MERLOT service is due to 'its commitment to creating and supporting services that support the needs of its users as expressed by the users'. MERLOT is one of the largest teaching material repositories in the world; this is reflected by the 47,000 registered members and over 16,000 resources. In the UK, few institutions currently have a separate OA repository to hold teaching materials. Jones et al.'s seminal book (2006) on Institutional Repositories primarily focuses on those related to research output, and shows how new and undeveloped the area of institutional repositories of teaching materials is. One distinction made between the two material types is that 'research materials are likely to be quite widely read by other members of a disciplinary community across the world' whereas 'the value of learning objects [and other teaching material types] lies in their capacity to be re-used' [START_REF] Jones | The Institutional Repository[END_REF]. [START_REF] Hollingsworth | Workflow Management Coalition: The Workflow Reference Model[END_REF] describes a workflow as being, 'concerned with the automation of procedures where documents, information or tasks are passed between participants according to a defined set of rules to achieve, or contribute to, an overall business goal'. Our business goal is to design and develop a demonstrator teaching and learning material repository which provides many benefits to individuals and the institution. Such benefits could be seen as enhanced re-use and management of institutional resources and improved ways of communicating and sharing of expertise. One of the organizational viewpoints on the Digital Repositories Road Map (Heery and Powell, 2006: 11), which presents a vision for 2010, is to 'Carry out analysis of existing business processes, workflows and dataflows; identify opportunities for innovative inter-working between repositories and between repositories and other applications'. Jones et al. (2006: 110) believe that you could 'try and tailor the working practices of the repository to the ones that already exist in real life '. Casey et al. (2006: 710) identify that 'in order to understand how to successfully implement e-learning in our organizations we need to understand how they work in the first place in order to change them effectively'. Jones et al. (2006: 85) believe, in relation to workflows, that 'understanding how they are constructed then allows us to present some examples for different purposes that may be of use in an institutional repository'. We aim to identify the rationale behind a teaching material repository and illustrate a variety of purposes and uses, through the use of scenarios.

Repository workflows and business processes

Other projects have reviewed existing workflow practices of repositories, although, each in a different context. The RepoMMan (2005) project's remit was to 'understand the processes that a researcher undertakes between having an idea for a piece of work and seeing it appear in print' (Green, 2005: 3). We are also interested any systems, technology and people involved in such processes from the perspective of teachers. The Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories (CD-LOR) Project (2005) discovered a number of enablers (ease of use and adequate user support) and barriers (low quality of resources and lack of copyright information) to using Learning Objects (LOs) [START_REF] Margaryan | Report on Interviews with LO Repository Users[END_REF]. We have studied copyright in greater detail, specifically, authors' attitudes towards the rights protection of their research and teaching materials [START_REF] Gadd | A Comparison of Academics' Attitudes Towards the Rights Protection of their Research and Teaching Materials[END_REF].

Learning -'a journey of the self' [START_REF] Hedgebeth | Making Use of Knowledge Sharing Technologies[END_REF] recognizes the importance of collaboration and the transfer of expertise through knowledge sharing technologies (such as repositories, wikis and blogs) within organizations. [START_REF] Wenger | Keynote speaker: Association for Learning Technology Conference (ALT-C), 2005, Keynote and Theme Speakers[END_REF] highlighted an individualistic view to sharing resources and expertise and believes that 'enabling learning is not merely the transmission of information and skills, but an invitation to a journey of the self', and that learning is 'a social journey'. Like Wenger, McNaught (2003: 207) identifies the importance of individuals, by arguing that 'we need to find ways where individuals can feel that, within a collaborative project, they are establishing their own personal reputations whilst also having access to and contributing to the pool of reputation and combined intellectual input of others'.

In our research we have explored a number of questions. How would academics use the repository to collaborate with others, and what would the barriers and incentives for using a repository be? What are the existing user processes associated with creating and sharing teaching material relating to communication, support and technology? How will Institutional Repositories inter-work with other institutional systems? Finally, as there is little research in this area, what do we recommend from our research to others? This article reports on our findings.

Methodology

Our inter-disciplinary approach

The Rights and Rewards in Blended Institutional Repositories project (2005) was funded by JISC under the Digital Repositories Programme (JISC DRP, 2005). This research and development project focuses on the idea of a 'blended' repository of both research and teaching material, and we tested our findings on a demonstrator repository of this kind. However, our primary focus was on teaching materials. We had a trio of project partners, all based at Loughborough University: the Department of Information Science, the engineering Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (engCETL) and the University Library. We adopted an interdisciplinary approach to our research as [START_REF] Campbell | Repository Issues….from a Teaching and Learning Perspective[END_REF] advocates.

User-centred design

By adopting a user-centred design approach rather than one which was led by technology, we hoped to make the user's needs a priority and to provide a complete service rather than a number of IT systems working in isolation. Using this method, the service should evolve around the contributors' needs and preferences, and the features and functionality of chosen IT systems will be dependent on these. This approach aligned with the Digital Repositories Road Map, which advocates the need to 'explore user requirements in greater detail' (Heery and Powell, 2006: 11). We identified contributor requirements and show how their existing needs might best be fulfilled within a repository environment. This will be of benefit to those in the HE community who are in the process of establishing a teaching and learning repository in their own institution.

The survey -a broader picture

From September to November, 2005, we carried out a motivational survey to identify the barriers and incentives associated with teaching and learning material repositories [START_REF] Bates | Attitudes to the Rights and Rewards for Author Contributions to Repositories for Teaching and Learning[END_REF]. The survey was delivered online. A total of 430 valid responses were recorded from individuals within 88 distinct Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The survey was widely advertised by way of 755 email communications, which were sent to 98 UK HEIs. Fifty-six emails were sent to individuals within Higher Education Academies (HEAs), and as a result, our survey was posted on many HEA news bulletins. The response rate was impossible to calculate as the survey was delivered online.

Questions were split into six sections. Section A collected demographic information. Sections B, C and D looked into past, current and future use of repositories, respectively. Section E focused on the rights associated with materials placed within repositories and Section F captured any other comments.

The interviews -an institutional view

In 2006, ten interviews were carried out with academics based in a variety of departments throughout the three University Faculties at Loughborough; Engineering (one), Science (three) and Social Science and Humanities (six). The interview participants were selected based upon the amount and variety of material that they had uploaded onto the University's (VLE). The purpose of the interviews was to capture information relating to existing business practice within our institution. Information captured from the interviews was used to help us to envisage the people and systems involved with relevant existing business practice.

The format for each interview was to provide an introduction to the project and the study. Each participant was then asked the same questions, with the average time of each interview being 45 minutes.The focus of the interviews was on the creation and deposit of materials rather than its retrieval. Of the 35 invitation emails that were sent out, just over onequarter (26.8%) agreed to be interviewed.

The questions were split into six different sections. Section A collected information relating to the teaching material that is produced by academics. Section B collected information on the processes related to the re-use of other people's teaching materials. Section C focused on the technical systems that academics use to share their teaching materials with students and beyond. Section D focused on identifying stakeholders involved within the workflow of creating, modifying, sharing and storing teaching materials. In Section E, participants were asked if they had contributed research items to Loughborough University's Institutional Repository. Participants were finally asked if they wished to make any additional comments.

Data analysis and findings

The survey was analysed by the Library and Information Statistics Unit (LISU) at Loughborough University.The interviews were written up by the project team and the write-up was then e-mailed to the interviewee, who checked for misinterpretations and mistakes. The data was then analysed, section by section.

An overview of the survey findings

A total of 430 valid responses were recorded. The majority of participants worked within a UK University, with 221 participants (51.3%) situated with UK pre-92 Universities and 143 respondents (33.2%) based within UK post-92 universities. 230 respondents (53.5%) shared teaching materials within a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). A total of 169 (38.8%) respondents had contributed to a repository before.

Respondents identified two distinct types of content which could be deposited or found within a teaching material repository. First there were those items that could be embedded into teaching, such as diagrams or text that can be re-used. Secondly, there were items that inform the teaching and learning process, such as teaching exemplars, how-to-guides and FAQs. This shows differences amongst participants as to the purpose of a teaching material repository and that there are many uses for a repository of this kind.

Survey analysis: what would the barriers and incentives for using a repository be?

Over three-quarters of respondents (347, 80.7%) would be much more likely or likely to contribute to a repository in the future if support was freely and easily available. Just under three-quarters (310, 72.1%) of respondents would do so, to preserve materials. A total of 220 respondents who had contributed to a repository did so, to 'improve my teaching' (51.2%). Just under one-half (207, 48.2%) were motivated to use a repository to 'improve student motivation'. Over two-thirds (291, 67.7%) of participants were 'much more likely' or 'likely' to contribute to a repository in the future if the repository was 'connected to research as well as teaching'. Over three-quarters (324, 75.4%) of respondents would definitely or consider contributing to a repository for the 'satisfaction of contributing'. Just under two-thirds (271, 63.2%) would definitely or consider contributing for a period of secondment for professional development.

In terms of identified barriers, over one-third (171, 39.8%) of respondents who had used a repository in the past stated that it was not clear how materials could be re-used or modified within the copyright guidelines. Nearly half (185, 43.0%) of respondents who had not contributed to repositories, had not done so because they were not aware of any repositories. Just under one-quarter (119 or 27.6%) of respondents who had not contributed to repositories, had not done so because of time pressures. Over one-quarter (115, 26.9%) of participants who had used a repository in the past disagreed that 'it did not take long to find what I was looking for'. Of those who had downloaded material in the past, just over onethird (158, 36.8%) of respondents 'strongly agreed' or 'agreed' that 'details of the author and copyright information was easy to locate'.

Interviews -What are the existing user processes associated with creating and sharing teaching material relating to communication, support and technology?

Table 1 illustrates the identified generic stages involved in the workflows studied with corresponding information about the specific task investigated and the interrelationships between people and IT systems involved.

From the interviews we have identified five different user stages in the lifecycle of teaching material and some common tasks that academics carry out.

Our interviews showed, unsurprisingly, that all participants made their teaching materials available to students via the University VLE. One participant also made their materials available on a website maintained by themselves and hosted by the University. The majority of participants (eight out of ten) made these materials available without the help of others, one was assisted by a secretary and one was supported by their Faculty's Online Learning Development Officer. However, not all interviewees shared the same views in relation to the creation of their teaching material, nor did they carry out this task the same way. Two out of ten participants enjoyed creating material on their own and keeping to their own ways of doing things. Six out of ten participants would like to enhance their material and use different technologies that interact with students better but do not believe they have the skills or time to do so. Two out of ten participants enjoyed creating interactive materials, using a variety of technologies and systems to do so. Figure 1 allows us to distil the different levels of communication, support and technology that are needed in each of the identified stages of the teaching material workflow. They represent the general picture of these three elements from the interviews. Interaction with other peers is most likely to occur at the idea/need for material and editing/updating material stages. Support is predominantly sought or needed at the deletion/archiving stages. Systems and technology are used at the ideas and creating stages and equally at the sharing and deletion/archiving stages.

Our results showed that formal practices of communication and sharing are minimal compared to more informal methods. However, one participant stated that they have meetings in their department to discuss teaching as well as having informal discussions with others. This is not the case for the majority of academics, who typically rely on more casual ways of communicating and sharing. One participant mentioned that they take every opportunity to share their resources with others and have created an 'informal web' of people who share ideas. There were many people that the interviewees communicate with informally, including IT specialists, learning technologists, departmental peers and professional development personnel. Informal communication was important and they would like more opportunities to share informally.

Table 2 shows how support, technology or communication (identified from the interviews) could potentially help to overcome the barriers and provide incentives (identified by the survey).

Discussion

How would an institutional teaching repository inter-work with institutional systems?

Figure 2 provides an overview of systems identified at Loughborough, which aligns with Heery and Powell's (2006: 11) road map recommendation. A teaching and learning material repository has been added to show how it could sit alongside existing systems. Instead of a single repository system, this would function as a repository service. Operating distributed systems that interoperate can help to ensure sustainability because the removal of one service does not affect the successful operation of the remaining services.

One might ask, why is a repository needed if institutional systems already exist that hold teaching and research material? A large range of content is identified in Figure 2, such as research outputs (Dspace), images (Imagebank) and a variety of textual and teaching content on the VLE. A teaching and learning repository could hold material such as how-to guides and teaching exemplars as identified by our survey. Scenario one highlights the benefits of a repository that interoperates with existing institutional systems.

Scenario one: the benefit of repositories inter-working with existing applications

A lecturer needs some diagrams to complement a set of case studies they have created for their students. They visit a learning and teaching repository which provides a search mechanism that searches across the institution's VLE, image store and the repository itself. In the past, they visited a number of subject-general and subject-specific services to find new resources to enrich their case studies, including various internal and external websites and databases. Whilst searching external sources may still be valuable, searching internal sources is made easier and the search retrieves a range of resources, which are of use. In return, the lecturer deposits their case studies and other materials into the teaching and learning repository to share a variety of materials with internal colleagues.

Understanding existing business processes and user requirements -user support

The project's interviews showed that support was most needed when sharing materials with others. The survey highlighted that time pressures presented contributors with considerable barriers to sharing materials. Adequate support being freely and easily available could alleviate this barrier. By analyzing the 'real' processes and identifying the support available we can describe how support could enable contribution. Scenario two highlights the benefit of user support in facilitating contribution to a repository of teaching materials.

Scenario two: user support -benefiting repositories through the removal of barriers

An academic wants to archive some diagrams that may of use to other members of staff in the future. They discover that their institution has a teaching repository. They contact the repository manager who helps them to deposit material by making sure that the files are in a format for preserving and depositing. The repository system automatically emails the academic with a permanent link to the diagrams, so that they can always refer to them in the same location for future reference. Without the help from the institutional support network this deposit may not have been possible.

Understanding existing business processes -user communications

While a VLE directly benefits students, a repository of teaching and learning materials provides many new opportunities for sharing with colleagues across disciplines, internally and externally. Communication usually occurred at the initial user stage when they were gathering ideas. Scenario three highlights the benefit of a teaching and learning material repository, as a method of collaborating and sharing informally.

Scenario three: the benefit of repositories -enhancing user communications

An academic currently delivers their teaching material on the VLE for their students.They are introduced to a teaching and learning repository that has just been launched within their institution -by support staff. The academic has a variety of citation guides that may be of benefit to other staff, both internally and externally but they have hitherto not had any mechanism to enable sharing of them. If they upload the material to a VLE, not all of these peers will be able to access the material, owing to password restriction and access rights. The academic, therefore, deposits their materials to the Institutional teaching material repository and discovers a colleague from another faculty who also has some guides related to citations. Without the existence of a repository this may have not been possible.

Understanding existing business processes -user technology

Many of the incentives for contributing to a repository were personal ones, which support Wenger and MacNaught's views of individuals being at the forefront of the learning process. The interviews suggest a need for more informal ways of collaborating and sharing materials.The growth of social networking sites such as Myspace (www.myspace.com), Flickr (www.flickr.com) (Images) and YouTube (www.youtube.com) (Videos) shows, at present, how popular informal sharing is.These are predominantly structured around the needs of the individual.This is untrue of VLEs, which are mostly structured around a course or module. If a repository were to be more like a social networking site, rather than a VLE, it would require user participation. Web 2.0 technologies provide an 'architecture of participation' (O'Reilly, 2004) that supports the exploration and discovery of various content types and encourages self promotion. The final scenario highlights how new web 2.0 technologies can be used to allow the informal sharing of materials, whilst supporting a 'journey of the self' [START_REF] Wenger | Keynote speaker: Association for Learning Technology Conference (ALT-C), 2005, Keynote and Theme Speakers[END_REF].

Scenario four: the benefit of web 2.0: an informal repository route to 'a journey of the self' A lecturer wants to find some information on digital photography.They use a teaching and learning material repository service that provides an informal way in which others can share material and expertise.They type 'digital photography' into the search box. The results are returned and the academic is provided with content to embed into teaching, items to inform the teaching and learning process and a list of people that are interested in digital photography. A couple of blog postings are also identified. Web 2.0 technology also allows them to link their blog to others blogs through the use of RSS and are a good way of capturing and transferring thoughts and expertise. Information related to people provides a bridge to facilitate communication between the academic and other users.

Conclusion and recommendations

Our study aimed to highlight the workflows of potential content contributors in the creation and sharing of their teaching materials and to highlight the many benefits of a teaching material repository. Owing to the lack of research into teaching material repositories there was little to inform the questions that we asked in both studies. There was much confusion as to what a repository was, and participants may also have been confused as to what they wanted from a repository. What emerged, however, was a clear opportunity for alternative materials that could be put into a repository, not necessarily suitable for a VLE or other institutional system(s). However, how national and institutional repositories of learning materials fit together, including social mechanisms for sharing these resources, has yet to be explored. The following recommendations have been distilled from the findings and discussion and can be used by others to help evaluate the success of Institutional Repository services in relation to communication, support and IT matters. Recommendations relating to repository design and development have also been made. These recommendations are not limited to a teaching and learning repository, but may also be applicable to other repository types. Recommendations related to communication and support:

1. Support and expertise must be easily and freely available to contributors to facilitate contribution to a repository. This support must also be available for the personnel supporting and maintaining the repository service. 2. Contributors (that is, academics) prefer informal communication and sharing methods and therefore, the repository service should provide ways in which materials and expertise can be shared informally. 3. The repository needs to be promoted strongly to different groups, for example, new or probationary lecturers, to help foster a culture of sharing and help to build communities of practice within the institution.

Recommendations related to Information Technology and repository systems:

1. Identify existing institutional systems to see how a repository would fit in with such systems (see Figure 2, for example). 2. The repository service needs to help automate common administrative tasks, such as archiving of old material, and provide solutions to keeping users informed of updates and information regarding the use of the material they have contributed. The system should reduce the need for human assistance, wherever possible. 3. Technology should be used so that material is structured around the individuals.

Recommendations related to the process of repository design and development:

1. A user-centred approach to the design and development of a technology related service, such as a repository, helps to highlight the functional and non-functional requirements of such a system, with the emphasis on user requirements rather than what the technology can provide. 2. Carrying out surveys and interviews with the potential users of the system has helped to create buy-in from future users and may be crucial in encouraging the 'take-up' of the repository. 3. From the survey and interviews, many see the repository as a similar system to a VLE, and therefore the unique qualities of the repository must be publicized. 4. Stakeholders such as support staff and contributors should be contacted during the development of the repository, as they will help to build the momentum of support that is needed to help use and populate the repository with content in the early phase of its provision.

Recommendations for further research:

1. A study of contributors' perceptions of the usefulness of repositories versus actual use would be of benefit. This could be presented using scenarios like the ones in this article and could analyse the use of particular items and the usefulness of comments and feedback received. 2. A study into how a repository benefits learning by comparing the perspectives of contributors and content consumers could provide answers to the following questions. Were resources easy to locate and access? Were they useful? How were resources repurposed in teaching? Did collaboration across institutional departments or with students occur? 3. A study into how students interact and can use repositories in conjunction with a VLE would extend our initial investigations into staff-to-staff sharing via repositories.

Figure 1

 1 Figure 1 Proportion of user support, communication and technology relating to different teaching material processes

Figure 2

 2 Figure 2 An overview of how a repository service may bring systems and people together

Table 1 Support, communication and technology at identified user stages

 1

	User	systems/technology		Subject general or	specific information	services and systems,	e.g. Higher Education	Academy (HEA) sites	Subject general or specific	information services	and systems, e.g. Google			Computer aided assessment	technology	Email	Email
	People who provide	user support		Professional	development	(assessments),	learning and	teaching co-ordinator	Library staff					Online Learning	Development Officers	(OLDOs), Professional	Development	Technical author/tutor	OLDOs, technical	author/tutor
	People involved with user	communication	and interaction	Internal peers,	external peers,	external examiners					Internal peers
	User task			Formulating ideas					Search for materials		Create plan either	on paper or in	own head	Create material		Adapt to 'house' style	e.g. add logo(s)	Create in multiple file	formats
	User stage			Idea/need for	material									Creating

Table 2 Examples for overcoming barriers and providing incentives

 2

	Identified barriers	Interventions for	Example solution(s)
	(survey)	potential user support,
		communication and
		technology (interviews)
	Unclear copyright	User support	Design a suitable
	guidelines		copyright mechanism
			and identify support
			to assist users.
	Time pressures/	User support,	Identify ways of making
	taking too much	user technology	the system easy
	time		to use. Also, promote
			the personal benefits
			to potential users.
	Not aware of any	User support, user	Promote the repository
	repositories	communications	to potential users and
			support staff.
	Identified incentives
	(survey)
	Support freely and	User support	Identify and establish
	easily available		an adequate support
			network.
	Preserve materials	User technology	Provide for adequate
			storage and preser-
			vation of digital
			resources.
	Improve my teaching	User technology, user	Use Web 2.0 technology
		communications	to enhance communi-
			cation, resulting in
			improved expertise
			and teaching.
	Improve student	User technology	Allow students to access
	motivation		some or all resources.
	Connected to research	User technology	Bring research and
	and teaching		teaching systems
			together. Use
			information from these
			existing systems.
	Satisfaction of	User communication	Attempt to overcome
	contributing		cultural attitudes.
			Promote altruistic
			reasons for sharing
			to different users.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the JISC for funding this project and all of the participants who took time to complete our survey and those who agreed to be interviewed. We would also like to thank the referees for their helpful comments.


published or not. The documents may come   L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire

courses on economy-culture relationships. At the research level, it will be equally invaluable. I dare you not to buy it. Her postmodern-influenced 'partnership ethic' rejects the linear logic of traditional narrative while promoting equality between men, women and the natural world.

Manchester

Reinventing Eden offers fresh insights into Western culture and, boldly and constructively, it offers a new master narrative (or set of narratives). However, I doubt that feminist geographers and environmentalists already versed in the white male anthropocentrism of Western culture will find the bulk of Merchant's book -the eco-feminist critique -to be fundamentally surprising or new. Students interested in the technical subject of geography and narrative will not find much here either: Merchant writes only a few simplistic paragraphs on the structure of narrative, defining it as 'an ideal form into which particular bits of content are poured. The form is the organizing principle; the content is the matter' (p. 37). For the purpose of introducing alternative environmental histories to undergraduate and graduate students, however, the book would be an excellent resource.

  The diaries of Adam and Eve, illustrates the sort of insightful gems that Merchant produces in her ambitious and richly illustrated eco-feminist rethinking of Western culture. She aims to show how Western culture has long conformed to variants of a master narrative of recovery -Eden is lost, -but since the seventeenth century secular society has embarked on the project of 'reinventing' it on a global scale. Shopping malls, theme parks, genetically engineered agricultural products and the Internet are contemporary fruits of this dream. Merchant devotes much of her book to critique: the 'Recovery narrative' has legitimated the dominance of nature, women, the poor and non-white peoples. She concludes by proposing a new narrative for the new century.

	University	NOEL CASTREE
	Reinventing Eden: the fate of nature in Western culture. By Carolyn Merchant.
	New York: Routledge. 2003. 308 pp. $25.00 paper. ISBN: 0 41593 l64 9.
	Was Eve of the Bible the first scientist? After all, as Carolyn Merchant remarks in
	Reinventing Eden, Eve's consumption of the forbidden fruit illustrated her 'independent
	and curious' (p. 23) nature and her preference for knowing the world through empirical
	observation rather than through God's word alone. The question, inspired by Mark
	Twain's

  Scholars have long recognized the importance of history in understanding the social dimensions of science. Biographies of prominent figures and institutional histories of leading disciplines have established historical context as a central supporting themeReviews in brief

	California State University, Northridge	RONALD A. DAVIDSON
	Putting science in its place: geographies of scientific knowledge. By David
	Livingstone. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003. 234 pp. $27.50 cloth. ISBN: 0
	22648 722 9.


courses on economy-culture relationships. At the research level, it will be equally invaluable. I dare you not to buy it.

Manchester University NOEL CASTREE

Reinventing Eden: the fate of nature in Western culture. By Carolyn Merchant. New York: Routledge. 2003. 308 pp. $25.00 paper. ISBN: 0 41593 l64 9.

Was Eve of the Bible the first scientist? After all, as Carolyn Merchant remarks in Reinventing Eden, Eve's consumption of the forbidden fruit illustrated her 'independent and curious' (p. 23) nature and her preference for knowing the world through empirical observation rather than through God's word alone. Her postmodern-influenced 'partnership ethic' rejects the linear logic of traditional narrative while promoting equality between men, women and the natural world.

Reinventing Eden offers fresh insights into Western culture and, boldly and constructively, it offers a new master narrative (or set of narratives). However, I doubt that feminist geographers and environmentalists already versed in the white male anthropocentrism of Western culture will find the bulk of Merchant's book -the eco-feminist critique -to be fundamentally surprising or new. Students interested in the technical subject of geography and narrative will not find much here either: Merchant writes only a few simplistic paragraphs on the structure of narrative, defining it as 'an ideal form into which particular bits of content are poured. The form is the organizing principle; the content is the matter' (p. 37). For the purpose of introducing alternative environmental histories to undergraduate and graduate students, however, the book would be an excellent resource.

Reviews in brief

in the scientific legacy. Whether intentional or not, such narratives often resonate with popular conceptions of the scientist-as-recluse or with the drama associated with novel experimentation and high-profile public debate. Geography has not been anywhere near as prominent in critical explorations of science. As David Livingstone illustrates in his wonderfully written Putting science in its place, geography challenges scientific culture by concentrating on the particularities of what turns out to be a highly localized and regionally distinctive social practice. Livingstone deftly uses three simple spatial concepts -site, region and circulation -to deconstruct science's claims to universality and thereby reveal an intriguing set of relationships that begin to characterize the social geography of scientific endeavor. Livingstone's account is ambitious in scope, ranging from the spatial politics of laboratory investigation and medical examination to the ways museums and gardens interacted with popular perceptions of far-flung regions and peoples. By design, he rejects a chronological ordering of events and opts instead to juxtapose temporally disparate episodes in an effort to discover science's site-specific and regional qualities. The relative lack of historical analysis, however, ends up concealing what might be some insightful connections between science and society. This deficiency is perhaps most evident in the third chapter, which concerns the regional cultures of science. Livingstone demonstrates how the political-economic pressures of various regional contexts (for instance, Victorian Manchester) shaped the type of science that was accepted and supported there (utilitarianism, in this case). Yet, beyond the point of identifying a basic interaction between regional culture and scientific practice, broader socioeconomic connections and trends remain undeveloped and unexplored. It would be fascinating, for instance, to undertake a systematic investigation of the relationships between science's spatiality and the political economies and cultural formations evolving in different parts of Europe, Such an analysis is most certainly beyond the scope of Livingstone's current book, which serves as a highly accessible and introductory typology of science's social geography. But the point remains that space and time have factored equally in the production of science as an intellectual division of labour, and that both have been manipulated and erased to create the unfortunate illusion of a placeless social project. The essays collected here explore the connections between blood, genes, selves, community, soil and geography. The underlying themes of race and nature -as they are socially produced and experiential -structure the text and advance innovative ways of reconceptualizing, and respatializing, uneven socio-spatial patterns. That is, race, nature and difference in the text are simultaneously evident in the built and natural

Georgia

Reviews in brief

  The question, inspired by Mark Twain's The diaries of Adam and Eve, illustrates the sort of insightful gems that Merchant produces in her ambitious and richly illustrated eco-feminist rethinking of Western culture. She aims to show how Western culture has long conformed to variants of a master narrative of recovery -Eden is lost, -but since the seventeenth century secular society has embarked on the project of 'reinventing' it on a global scale. Shopping malls, theme parks, genetically engineered agricultural products and the Internet are contemporary fruits of this dream. Merchant devotes much of her book to critique: the 'Recovery narrative' has legitimated the dominance of nature, women, the poor and non-white peoples. She concludes by proposing a new narrative for the new century.

  Southern University SOREN C. LARSEN Race, nature, and the politics of difference. Edited by Donald S. Moore, Jake Kosek and Anand Pandian. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. 2003. 475 pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 0 82233 076 2.


environment and within and among skin-blood histories; together, race, nature and difference chart locations of decay and possibility on and beyond the racial body. Environmental pollution, land claim struggles, skulls, disease=health, nationalism, intimacy, tourism, genetics and violences demonstrate the consequences of skin-blood essentialisms and the limitations of their attendant geographies which include nationalist projects, outer-national 'crusades' for Western democracy, territorialization, border security, racial-sexual segregations. For example: ideologies of bloodznation-community-purity naturalize social and spatial hierarchies, thus reinforcing expendable geographies and subjects; the scale of the racial body is inscribed with natural blood-histories -risky bodies 'carry' risky genes; biotechnologies simultaneouslydestabilize and stabilize nature-places and racialization.

While the political and theoretical positions of the essays vary, it is the twofold spatialization of new humanism and racial genealogies (alternative conceptualizations and historicizations of humanness) that demonstrate the ways in which nature, and the natural, are infused with all sorts of geographical politics. This is the uniqueness of the text: it does not simply replicate or describe analyses of race and place, anti-racism or racial injustice; rather it seeks to undo blood-essentialisms by exploring the seeming naturalness, or transparency, of geography and its inhabitants. What I mean by this is that the authors take seriously the role played by nature in determining spatial zallegiances, desires and rifts, and the ways in which ideological 'naturalisms' are invoked in situated contexts. By refusing to complement one side of racial essence debates (as resistant or emancipatory), each essay imagines the possibilities advanced by ongoing struggles which are never resolved: what kind of politics, articulations and geographies, then, are forged through social struggle?

The arguments do not only seek to 'denature' race and nature and their commonsensical truths. They also hinge on recognizing how essences are lived and constructed through alterity and the work and the workings of subaltern political subjects. It is the work and workings of political subjects -taken up differently in each chapter and ranging from environmental activism to dog breeding and native geographies, spanning the USA, Guatemala, South Africa, Germany, Indonesia -that create innovative theoretical and everyday sites of opposition. The text offers not simply maps of difference, but locations where difference, and struggle are wrought with the demands of natural, commonsensical, sometimes violent truths.

York University KATHERINE MCKITTRICK

South Asian women in the diaspora. Edited by Nirmal Puwar and Parvati Raghuram. Oxford: Berg. 2003. 252pp. £15.99 paper. ISBN: 1 85973 602 5.

In the last decade, there has been an expansion of research and publications in the US and UK on South Asian women in the diaspora, within the contexts of identity, visual culture, transnationalism, material culture and literature. This edited collection is a rich and extensive set of interventions into the disabling paradigms within which South

Reviews in brief

Asian women are located, including a narrow set of temporal and spatial geographies.

It is an essential read, and offers a challenge for all geographers engaged with these literatures. The text is a stark reminder of the continuing acceptability of an Orientalist lens through which ethnographies and academic literatures are received, produced and reproduced. South Asian women in the diaspora is a collection written by South Asian women within the academy who theorize from a position of being producers and subjects of research within the institutions of knowledge production. This collection offers a critical review of the nature of the racial politics within the academy, and an insight into the sociology of knowledge production from the perspective of the South Asian academic. Here, the heterogeneity of South Asian women's academic interventions are explored, and thus challenge the usually reductive frame of subjective knowledges.

The first key theme within the text is the objectification, essentialism and limitation of intellectual agency afforded to South Asian women, reflecting the dynamics of race and the reductive dynamism within academic process. The second theme is the means through which stereotypes of South Asian women's embodied identities are purveyed in familiar iconographic forms. Nayanika Mookerjee examines the aestheticization of the raped woman as being incorporated within masculinist constructions of Bangladeshi nationalism, communicated through icons of nature and landscape. Bakirathi Mani also reviews the form of the South Asian body, within work on South Asian fashions in the West, as being one located in a cultural and homogenizing intellectual cul-de-sac. The third theme of the book is concerned with grounded approaches to South Asian spatial, identity, and participatory politics. In this section Rani Kwale records South Asian lesbian activism, which challenges the heterosexual matrix which structures spatial politics within society. Samina Zahir extends this concern with participatory practices in the context of community arts; here she examines the continued burden of representation played out within the political landscapes of community arts projects This burden is expressed effectively by the editors in their development and promotion of a productive dialogue with social theory and practice within and outside the academy. Here, the gaze of those Othered is returned, and a variety of new lenses of academic enquiry are borne through new research trajectories and epistemological challenges.

Lancaster University

DIVYA TOLIA-KELLY

The companion species manifesto: dogs, people, and significant otherness. By Donna Haraway. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. 2003. 100pp. $10.00 paper. ISBN: 0 97175 758 5.

In this well-written, well-researched and thought-provoking essay, Haraway argues that a human's cross-species 'companion' relationship with a dog can tell and teach something profound about the importance of recognizing the facticity of difference and, hence, how to engage with 'significant otherness': 'Contrary to lots of dangerous and unethical projection in the Western world that makes domestic canines into furry

Reviews in brief


I am also left with three major questions: First, who is to communicate this radical way of engaging doggie-human relationship, one that does not conflate all dogs with dogs used as 'pets' ('. . .many pets and pet people deserve respect' although 'being a pet seems to me to be a demanding job for a dog, requiring self-control and canine emotional and cognitive skills matching those of good working dogs' p. 38). My question is salient given that the vast majority of the burgeoning doggie-loving masses support non-radical, mushrooming 'pet' industries antithetical, I suppose, to Haraway's project: witness the proliferation of doggie bakeries, doggie parks, doggie bedding, couture and perfumeries, doggie magazines, doggie insurance plans and the like. Those who buy into these industries do not treat their dogs simply as 'furry little children ' (e.g. pp. 11, 38, 95). These are actors caught up in post-industrial commodity domains of desire and consumption enmeshed in highly mobile, post-industrial 'family' formations in which children are often optional and dogs provide all kinds of alternative functional convenience and affection (you can put them in kennels or the SPCA). Given that Haraway's meta-knowledge about significant otherness does not travel easily alongside commodity chains, it appears that we would need meta-training schools to teach humans how ethically to engage and think about (only working?) dogs as nodes of much larger historical and material processes ('Dog people need to learn how to inherit difficult histories in order to shape more vital multi-species futures', p. 63).

Secondly, if the majority of dog-owners are deeply enmeshed in commodity circuits divorced from the embodied practices Haraway describes, why does she find working dogs to be particularly compelling vehicles for teaching humans about intersubjectivity, trust, and respect -a group of dogs largely inaccessible and unknown to 95 per cent of those living on the planet? Is it only because she happens to own dogs and to engage them in agility training? Is she arguing that dogs hold potential for being the ultimate(?) 'companion species' because they are common? Because they've been around in history for a long time? Because they are physically engaging, active creatures? Because, unlike birds or turtles, they are proxemic? Thirdly, if we (who the 'we' is, is unclear) learn her radical way of knowing dogs, will the world be saved? ('[In agility training] -both dog and handler have to be able to take the initiative and to respond obediently to the other. The task, is to become coherent enough in an incoherent world to engage in a joint dance of being that breeds respect and response in the flesh, in the run, on the course. And then to remember how to live like that at every scale, with all the partners' (p. 62)). The conservative in me wants to ask how counterhegemonic or recuperative this text is when the level of investment in pet-dogs, especially in post-industrial contexts of privilege soars while the gap between the wealthy and impoverished widens; and the expensive art of agility training remains a largely feminized, 'white' and elite one.

De

Reviews in brief

From 'acid rain' to 'zoos', the 1500-page, three-volume Encyclopedia of world environmental history attempts to chronicle the human impact upon the 'natural' world (and vice versa) on a global scale from prehistory to the present. It does this through over 500 entries, ranging from geographical regions to animals and plants, environmental problems, and prominent figures in the history of environmental conservation. This collection will be a valuable first stop for undergraduate and graduate cultural ecology and physical geography research projects. The entries are concise, usually between one and five pages, and each concludes with a 'further reading' section (quite possibly the most useful part of the entire encyclopedia).

For the sake of most readers of Cultural geographies, it is necessary to discuss a little of what the Encyclopedia is not. This collection is not a work that attempts to engage with 'critical' approaches to the social sciences. Notable missing index entries include 'political ecology', 'globalization', 'the agrarian question', 'landscape', 'the social construction of natural', 'discourse', 'post-' (you fill in the blank, they're all absent) and, perhaps most egregiously, 'gender'. It is not that gender is totally overlooked. Indeed, in the introduction we are informed that ''it is important to environmental history because the nature of male and female interactions with the natural world has changed over time' ' (p. xii). Many readers of this journal no doubt will wince as, in one sentence, gender is conflated with biological sex and the (sexed) genders carry out 'natural' interactions with the 'natural' world.

To be fair, however, the Encyclopedia is not a wholly uncritical project. Garret Hardin's 'tragedy of the commons' theory, for example, is succinctly debunked in the entry on 'Law: land use and property rights'. Mercifully, human population is not causally linked to environmental degradation. Max Oelschlaeger's entry on 'wilderness' at least acknowledges recent critiques of the wilderness idea. The Encyclopedia does, in other words, steer clear of the worst crimes of neoliberal environmentalist boosterism.

In sum, most critical geographers will likely spend little time between the covers of the Encyclopedia. At nearly $500, few faculty and even fewer students will be moved to purchase the set. That being said, it is an impressively crafted reference work. Any geography department with a physical or nature-society component would benefit from having a copy on hand in the departmental library.

University of Kentucky JOHN HINTZ

Reviews in brief