Before retiring in September, 2014, after over 25 years at Oxford Brookes, Chris had been Associate Dean (Academic Policy). Previously, for ten years, he was Head of the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD), and Deputy Director of the Human Resource Directorate.
In the 90s he contributed to the design and delivery of a national programme of staff development in higher education on the issue of teaching more students and over the years has run numerous workshops around the country and internationally on a range of issues including teaching large classes, developing assessment strategies, and engaging students with assessment and feedback.
Between 2005 - 2010 he was also a Deputy Director for two Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning - ASKe (Assessment Standards Knowledge Exchange) and the Reinvention Centre for undergraduate research (led by Warwick University).
In OCSLD, with thirteen colleagues, he helped to provide both staff and educational development support to the University’s academic Faculties and support Directorates for nearly 23 years. For six years he was Course Leader for the University’s initial training course for new teaching staff.
He achieved a PhD by publication in 2003 and became a professor in March, 2010.
He has researched and published on a range of issues including:
- the experiences of new teachers in HE
- the positive effects of supplemental instruction
- ways of diversifying assessment
- improving student performance through engagement in the marking process
- the effectiveness of workshops as a method of staff development
- the design, development and use of social learning space in universities
- the development of research-based learning in the undergraduate curriculum, including its potential effect on university organization
More recently he increasingly focused on researching and writing about assessment, including: improving student learning through active engagement with assessment feedback, the significance of both explicit articulation and socialisation processes in improving students' understanding of assessment requirements and assessment feedback, the importance of programme-focussed assessment, and the issue of assessment standards.
In 2015, he was a member of a team that reviewed external examining arrangements in the UK and since 2016 he has been a member of the Advance HE Degree standards project team.
He has been a Fellow of the RSA, a Senior Fellow of SEDA (Staff and Educational Development Association) and was one of the first fourteen Senior Fellows of the UK Higher Education Academy.