Keynotes

Ranald Macdonald was Professor of Academic Development and Head of Strategic Development in the Learning and Teaching Institute at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) until 2009 when he took early retirement. He remains as an Emeritus Professor at SHU, mainly supporting the Higher Education Research and Scholarship Group and research in Education. He also works as an independent Higher Education consultant.

For the last three years Ranald has been working with early career academics. He has also continued to provide consultancy, workshops, keynotes and writing on many aspects of academic and professional development; the leadership, management and evaluation of educational change, risk taking and innovation; assessment and plagiarism; problem and inquiry-based learning; learning and teaching strategies; and anything else anyone wants!

Ranald was a Co-Chair of the UK’s Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA), established and chaired its Scholarship, Research and Evaluation Committee, jointly launched the association’s magazine Educational Developments and recently led on the revision of the SEDA Fellowship scheme. He was also the UK representative on the International Consortium for Educational Development for a number of years and hosted its conference at SHU in 2006. He holds the Senior Fellowship of SEDA, the Fellowship of the UK’s Higher Education Academy and was awarded a UK National Teaching Fellowship in 2005, using the £50,000 award to engage with the professional development of those supporting learning and teaching throughout Sheffield Hallam and more widely. Ranald was awarded a visiting fellowship to the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand in 2007.

Ranald was Co-Director of Sheffield Hallam’s Centre for Promoting Learner Autonomy from 2005-7. His academic background was in Economics and Business Studies and, following a period as a Research Economist in a major bank, he was a teacher, module and course leader, and Head of Department. Since 1994 he has worked as an academic developer in various contexts.

Ranald is a keen orienteer, photographer, cyclist, vegetable grower and traveller in his campervan as well as spending much time reading, listening to music and attending folk concerts and festivals where he often plays the cello in a band for his wife’s dance group.

Thomas Olsson is working in academic development in the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University. He is a Senior Lecturer and holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. Thomas Olsson has an extensive experience in systems for rewarding excellent teaching; pedagogical aspects of tenure and promotion; and research projects in relation to excellence in teaching and learning. He has been a leading person during the development of a reward system in the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University – The Pedagogical Academy – which has had a profound impact on the culture of engineering education. He is also a member of the Pedagogical Academy himself. Furthermore, Thomas Olsson has played an active role in the steering group of a national Swedish project on excellence in university teaching. He has held several workshops, seminars and key-notes about reward systems for excellence in university teaching, nationally and internationally. Recent publications include articles and conference papers about the cultural aspects of rewarding teaching excellence; a model for analysing scholarly approaches to teaching and learning; theoretical aspects in relation to the model; the scholarship of teaching and learning as a strategy for institutional change; and the assessment process in engineering education.