June 2005 - Humanities, Languages and Social Science ...

Around the Faculty
You’ve Got Mail!
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His main research interests include
urban and rural cultures, sexuality,
consumption and lifestyle, science
and technology, and cultural policy.
David has also been appointed to the
AHRB’s Peer Review College.
The department has formed an
e-Learning Strategy Group (chaired
by Helen Jones) which has focussed
on staff development using WebCT
and on using the JISC Plagiarism
Detection Service. Out of this we are
implementing an innovative scheme
to require all student coursework to
be submitted electronically from next
term, with a staff development event
planned for the autumn term to
introduce staff to the scheme.
Dr Justin O’Connor visited Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou in July
2004. With the support of the British
Council he discussed the
development of initiatives in the
creative industries.
Dr Helen Jones visited Mongolia in
March 2005. Together with Shani
D’Cruze she was invited as a guest of
the Mongolian Women Lawyers
Association (MWLA). The visit was
funded by a research grant from the
Committee for Central and Inner Asia
(CCIA) Faculty of Oriental Studies,
Cambridge. On their visit they met
with a range of organizations and
agencies including CEDAW Watch
Network Centre, the Mongolian
Women’s Federation, Lawyers Centre
for Legal Reform and the National
Centre Against Violence.
Dr William Johnston attended the
Council meeting of the University of
the Arctic, held in Oulu, Ostrabothnia
in May 2005, in his capacity as a
member of the UArctic ‘Arctic
Learning Environment’ team. He also
attended meetings of UArctic in
Lapland during the spring term of
2005 in connection with his Higher
Education Academy-funded research
on assessing quality in e-Learning.
STOP PRESS!
The Manchester Ethnography
Group - a seminar series jointly
organised by the University of
Manchester and MMU - has
recently held a very sucessful
international seminar series across
the spring and summer terms.
Speakers and topics have
included: Anthony King
(University of Exeter) The word of
command: communication and
cohesion in the military
Mark Rouncefield (University of
Lancaster) Gambits of compliance
Yoshifumi Mizukawa (Hokusei
Gakuen University, Sapporo,
Japan) Synchronized categories: a
study of instructed assistance for
people with disabilities
Ron Korenaga (Rikkyo University,
Tokyo, Japan) Practical
understanding of a commercial
film: making use of categories and
sequence to find out ‘the
message’.
The seminar series will be
concluded by Professor Mike
Lynch (Cornell University) on 5
July.
The seminar series has been coorganised
by Jacqueline Eke
(Associate Lecturer in the
Sociology Department, MMU) and
Christian Greiffenhagen
(Sociology Department, University
of Manchester) and supported by
the Interaction Research Group,
Sociology Department, MMU
(Covenor Dr David Calvey).
Imagine forming a pen pal
relationship, being given topics to
discuss with someone in Florida and
getting credit for it on your
undergraduate degree. Sounds a
doddle doesn’t it but this is just what
some Criminology students have
been up to in the Sociology
Department this year.
The project was called
‘Communicating across the Atlantic:
US and British students discuss
criminal justice issues’ but it was
better known - this side of the pond -
as the ‘Florida project’ and - you’ve
guessed it - the ‘British project’ by our
partners in the US.
This project formed part of a strategy
to integrate e-learning across
criminology degree routes. In the US,
students from the University of West
Florida (UWF) partnered our students
in Sociology in an e-communication
project. Although containing material
relevant to the field of criminology,
the format is readily applicable and
transferable to many disciplines.
Essentially the e-communication
approach can enable and facilitate
students’ participation in a borderless
community and enhance skills in
many diverse areas. In this project
students in each university followed
their own course of study determined
by their tutors. Although lectures,
seminars and associated study
materials in each university shared
common themes, they were not
identical in content or presentation.
The students’ common experience
was in relation to the
e-communication project.
Students were paired up and each
week a different topic was delivered
to them by email. They then had until
the following week to complete
discussion of the topic. This included
two emails per individual (four
responses per pair) per week.
Students on both sides of the Atlantic