Additional Call for VIT&L Week Scholarship
VIT&L Week will feature a Scholarship Showcase, including a daily scholarship hour and an online poster gallery. The Showcase aims to illustrate the inextricable links between teaching and learning and research and provide an opportunity to highlight innovation and research on teaching and learning that is happening across the sector.
Through discussion and sharing, we will explore the impact of teaching and learning enhancement and scholarship and how it can enhance the student learning experience and support higher education staff as both teachers and researchers. The Showcase will provide an opportunity to share teaching and learning scholarship, enhancement innovations, findings and insights, and prompt further conversations among those who teach and learn.
Call Details
The VIT&L Scholarship Showcase invites staff affiliated to Irish higher education institutions to share their teaching and learning innovation based on enhancement initiatives and/or previously peer-reviewed publications. The VIT&L Week Scholarship Showcase will include work in two formats: digital posters and Gasta lightning talks. Colleagues can choose one of these two options for submission:
- Option 1. Submit a digital poster
Create a digital poster to share your enhancement innovation. Use our prepared poster template, adapt the template, or create your own design. Either way, we’d love you to share your enhancement innovation as a visual and accessible digital poster. All VIT&L Week digital posters will be shared on the National Forum website from 08 to 30 November. See the Eligibility Criteria below to find out how to share your work as a digital poster.
- Option 2. Submit a digital poster and propose a Gasta lightning talk
You can become part of Ireland’s first Gasta Marathon! Consider sharing your enhancement innovation as a Gasta lightning talk and a digital poster. We invite all proposing a Gasta lightning talk to create a simple digital poster as well so that all innovations shared as part of VIT&L Week will be accessible via the digital poster gallery.
Gasta lightning talk proposals that meet the Eligibility Criteria outlined below will be included in a longlist of proposals. Because there are only 26 scheduled slots in the Gasta Marathon, we anticipate that we may not be able to accommodate all of the longlisted proposals. As a result, the National Forum will randomly select 26 lightning talks, making every effort to ensure a range of representation across institutions, disciplines and topics.
Important Dates
01 June 2021
VIT&L Week Scholarship Showcase submission interface opens
27 October 2021
Deadline for all submissions (Option 1 and/or Option 2)
On or before 2 November 2021
Confirmation of submissions (including decisions on Gasta proposals) shared with proposers
08-12 November 2021
VIT&L Week, including Gasta Marathon
What if I Have a Question?
Please direct any queries to vital@teachingandlearning.ie with the subject line, Scholarship Showcase.
What are the Eligibility Criteria?
The showcase provides an opportunity to reflect on your evidence-based enhancement and/or previously published work, to consider its impact and to communicate to a broad audience what your findings mean for teaching and learning practice and for student learning. The following criteria apply:
- Based on evidence-based enhancement and/or previously peer-reviewed publication (published or in press)
- Full, majority or lead involvement from staff affiliated to Irish higher education institutions
- Based on work completed between 2014-2021
Poster should contain the following elements and be submitted using the template provided:
- Title – title of the research or evidence-based enhancement
- Author(s) – name(s) and institutional affiliation(s) of the poster submitter(s)
- Aims – aims of the evidence-based enhancement and/or research which has inspired the poster
- Findings
- Impact – reflection on what your work means for teaching and learning – impact: for you, for your students, your colleagues and discipline, your institution, or more broadly
- Visuals – may include images, figures, tables, etc. as appropriate and in line with conditions and permissions
- References – include any references cited in the poster (title, authors, date, etc.), including an active weblink/DOI
- Optional addition – a student response to the research/evidence-based enhancement
Technical specifications and accessibility
Posters must be:
- Designed to be displayed as A3 (landscape orientation)
- Written in plain English and be accessible to a multi-disciplinary audience
- Reflective of the principles of universal design for learning
- Between 750 – 1000 words (excluding title, authors’ names and affiliations, full citation details of the published research piece and any references)
- Submitted through the dedicated online form
- Submitted as landscape pdfs
Accessibility is very important to us. It is recommended that visuals meet accessibility requirements in order for all colleagues to engage with your content. In addition to being reflective of the principles of universal design for learning, all posters should be accompanied with an alternative document which includes the poster text and describes each image included in the poster to visually impaired users accessing with screen reading technology. Only .doc, .docx and RTF files will be accepted as the alternative document.
In addition to the poster submission, the Gasta lightning talk submissions must also:
- Agree to the specified time limit of 5 minutes
- Outline what is particularly interesting and/or novel about the research/ enhancement
- Be engaging
The authors of each of the 26 lightning talks accepted for the Gasta Marathon will be invited to participate in a peer feedback conversation with another lightning talk presentation team in the week prior to VIT&L Week. The purpose of this feedback conversation is to encourage dialogue across teams and to allow colleagues to assist one another in ensuring that talks are engaging and demonstrate what the research/innovation means for teaching and learning. This process reflects the National Forum peer-support ethos and approach which is used in PD Open Courses.
