Oxford Centre for Academic Enhancement and Development (OCAED)

OCAED’s support, activities and resources are available to anyone teaching and supporting learning for, or on, a Brookes’ programme of study on campus or at an Associate College Partner institution. Our offer is relevant to our entire Education portfolio, including (but not limited to) undergraduate and postgraduate study, short courses and degree apprenticeships. We also offer a flourishing consultancy service to the wider sector.

Our holistic academic development framework enables transformational academic practice and supports the Oxford Brookes Strategy 2035.

Transformational academic practice is an inclusive, accessible and collaborative approach to teaching, research and innovation. Inherently progressive, transformational academic practice aims to enable the next generation of graduate citizens to meet the social, economic and ecological challenges facing our immediate and global communities.

We exemplify best inclusive practice in all we do and are working to ensure our offer is relevant to our diverse learning community, for example we consult the OCAED Stakeholder Forum. The forum is a collection of colleagues from across the institution working in a variety of disciplines, professional services and with different backgrounds and characteristics who help shape our offer. 

We collaborate with staff, students, and stakeholders to understand and respond to their specific academic development needs. For example, OCAED Faculty Partners work closely with Deans of Education and practising HE teachers. We also consulted the PVC Research & Innovation, Education’s (Unit of Assessment 23) REF Lead, Principal Lecturers and Professors of Education and Student Experience and Professors in co-authoring our HE & Lifelong Learning Strategy.

We care about our learning community, recognise the challenges we face, and question the status quo to act with the community to make positive change. To care, to question, to act to make positive change is the definition of compassion and can be written into academic development (Lawrence and Herrick, 2020) teaching practice (Gilbert, 2019) and organisational structures (Buitendijk, 2019).

• Objective 1.1: We will widen engagement with hi-impact academic development by
  • Revising the ‘increase the number, profile and esteem of Advance HE Fellowship Action plan.
  • Delivering a lean portfolio of Academic Development activities.
  • Scoping ‘just in time’ academic CPD: curating asynchronous Staff Learning Resources (materials from EXPLORE, IDEAS, Brookes Briefings).
  • Editing the non-accredited EXPLORE offer.
  • Revising our comms plan, ensuring all those teaching a Brookes programme of study are aware of, and can access, our offer. 
• Objective 1.2: We will embed institutional pedagogic knowledge across the OCAED portfolio.  
  • Following up on the Assessment workstream; updated Assessment EXPLORE workshops and resources and embedding in IDEAS.
  • Consolidating university-wide staff-facing academic professional development offer within the EXPLORE portfolio (Excellence in Promoting Leadership of Research and Education).
  • Consider integrating CAD’s staff-facing offer.
  •  Integrating IDEAS SoTL Projects/Assets eg BEE in Employability in 2026/27).
• Objective 1.3: We will encourage the adoption of Brookes’ ‘Reflective Dialogue on Academic Practice’ by
  • Creating easy to use guiding materials on Staff Learning.
  • Embedding Reflective Dialogues in PDRs.
  • Adopting Reflective Dialogues in EXPLORE and GTA.
  • Continuous evaluation and enhancement of guiding materials.
• Objective 1.4: We will build our own and our learning communities AI Literacies/Pedagogies by
  • Co-leading and contributing to the ‘Building Critical AI Literacy’ workstream in the Critical AI Literacy Working Group. 
  • Delivering a small portfolio of development activities in support of Gen AI: AI and Assessment Think Space.
  • Integrating AI within the EXPLORE portfolio (‘How to Teach Using Gen AI’ on Staff Learning

• Objective 2.1: We will support programme directors’ capability in directing and managing their programmes effectively by: 
  • Offering developmental network (ELF) for programme leaders aligned to D3 of the PSF.
  • Better understand how to engage with and disseminate development opportunities to Degree Apprenticeship Programme Leads +Tutors.
  • Integrate Brookes’ Leadership and Management Framework within the offer.

• Objective 3.1: Invest in and work to the He and Lifelong Research Strategy.
• Objective 3.2: We will support evidence-based innovation in how we teach and assess by
  • Delivering a portfolio of Academic Development opportunities to support the development of SoTL capabilities: Brookes International T&L Conference; ‘Research Development’ stream in EXPLORE (hosted by Grad School) and SoTL workshops; Fund for Academic Collaboration and Transformation.
• Objective 3.3: Rolling out a Brookes’ approach to SoTL-based and led academic enhancement / T&L inquiries and innovation.
  • Review for plain English and promote cross university adoption of the Academic Enhancement Toolkit (1. Designing for Impact; 2. Evaluating and Evidencing impact; 3. Disseminating for impact).
  • Embed and use tool kit in EXPLORE and Fund for Academic Collaboration and Transformation.
• Objective 3.4: Enable agile and robust Research Ethics Approval processes for SoTL / Academic Enhancement projects by
  • Establishing ‘programme approvals’ for strands of activity (Organise by each Education and Enterprise pillar ambition and actions)

  • Establishing a SoTL Research Officer in OCAED to work with SoTL project leads/Associate Professors

• Objective 4.1: We will enhance cross university capability to take a student partnership approach to academic practice and enhancement by
  • Supporting and guiding teams/departments wishing to recruit and work with student partners.
  • Producing guidance for teams/departments.
  • Inviting students to the OCAED Stakeholder Group.
  • Continuing to recruit, train and mentor Student Partners and support teams/departments in working with them.
  • Promote Student Partners.
  • Reconfigure FACT to be student-led.
  • Co-opting SIP for IDEAS Legacy planning.

• Objective 5: We will build colleagues Online/Flexible T&L capabilities by 
  • Embedding and exemplifying in EXPLORE/entire portfolio and modelling good practice, particularly for asynchronous, online learning.
  • Scoping the collaborative development of a new approach to building digitally enabled teaching capability.