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The purpose of this paper is to make a case for creating a strand of negotiated qualifications in the English (and more generally UK) vocational education and training (VET) system, using the approach established through Ufi-Learndirect Learning through Work (LtW).

The paper identifies some limitations in the recent Whitehead review of adult vocational education in relation to people already in work. Drawing on research into learning at work, modifications to the VET qualifications system are proposed based on the LtW approach.

The VET qualifications system assumes a purpose of preparing people for occupational entry and developing essential competence. The needs of adults already in work can be accommodated provided that they can be fitted within structures reflecting this assumption. It is less able to meet the bespoke needs of individual workers or employers. The LtW approach, which enables individual accredited programmes to be negotiated, offers a way forward that preserves the integrity of the qualification system.

Implementing a LtW-type approach in the VET sector is structurally more difficult than in higher education, although less likely to encounter academic resistance. The main challenge is likely to come from the need to modify regulatory rules and design principles for vocational qualifications.

Individually negotiated qualifications have been resisted in VET due to largely unfounded fears about reduced rigour and loss of control of content. The proposed approach offers a means of meeting individual needs while retaining the integrity of the qualifications system and reducing the proliferation of units and content within it.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the continuing dearth of scholarship about the role of work-based learning in education for sustainable development, and particularly the urgent demands of climate literacy. It is proposed that forms of work-based learning can act as catalysts for wider cultural change, towards embedding climate literacy in higher education institutions.

This paper draws data from action research to present a case study of a Climate Change Project conducted through a work-based learning module at a mid-sized university in the UK.

Contrary to the predominantly fragmented and disciplinary bounded approaches to sustainability and climate literacy, the case study demonstrates how a form of work-based learning can create a unifying vision for action, and do so across multiple disciplinary, professional service, and identity boundaries. In addition, the project-generated indicators of cultural change including extensive faculty-level climate change resources, creative ideas for an innovative mobile application, and new infrastructural arrangements to further develop practice and research in climate change.

This paper provides an illustrative example of how a pan-faculty work-based learning module can act as a catalyst for change at a higher education institution.

This paper is a contemporary call for action to stimulate and expedite climate literacy in higher education, and is the first to propose that certain forms of work-based learning curricula can be a route to combating highly bounded and fragmented approaches, towards a unified and boundary-crossing approach.

In 2014, the UK Government introduced a new form of apprenticeship, the Degree Apprenticeship, which extends across all undergraduate degree and master’s degree levels, maps to professional standards, and which is now embedded within governmental levies of large businesses. The purpose of this paper is to share early experiences of developing these Degree Apprenticeships, and consider the processes deployed to achieve it.

This paper combines desk research with reflections on the experience of developing the new Degree Apprenticeships within higher education institutes (HEIs) and considers the implications of this upon current and emerging HEI practice and research.

There were a number of key resources which facilitated the approval of the Degree Apprenticeship, and these included a pre-existing, flexible work-based learning framework, the associated mechanisms of accreditation, existing professional networks, and a professionally oriented interface between the university, employer and professional body.

As the context is currently at the early stages of implementation, and the policy context is rapidly changing in the context of Brexit, so too will the related scholarship. This means factors others than those highlighted within this paper may emerge over the coming year or two.

There are a number of practical implications for the development of Degree Apprenticeships from this research that are reflected in the findings, and include the development of flexible and collaborative processes, resources and networks.

This paper is one of the first published accounts of the development of a Degree Apprenticeship within the new policy context in the UK.

The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative investigation into whether online textual postings, produced by undergraduate students as part of an undergraduate module, can demonstrate their information literacy (IL) capabilities as a discursive competence and socially enacted practice. It also asks whether these online postings embody power relations between students, tutors and librarians.

Foucault’s notion of discursive competence and the separate but complementary concept of practice architectures (specifically focussing on “sayings”) devised by Lloyd were used as thematic lenses to categorise online discussion board postings from a formative online peer assessment exercise created for first-year UK undergraduate students. Online postings were the node of analysis used to identify patterns of language across online conversation. These postings were inductively analysed through manual content analysis. Subject’s responses were initially categorised using open coding.

Postings appeared to embody student’s discursive competence and information practice in IL, especially their level of information discernment and what constituted a quality “reference” for an assignment. However, they also demonstrated that the notion of “references” (information artefacts such as a journal article) perform a certain function in reproducing the discursive practices of an academic discipline as an agreed construct between tutor, student and librarian.

Students were engaged in the process of becoming good scholars by using appropriate online postings to create valid arguments through assessing other’s work, but what they did not do was question received meanings regarding the quality of information they used as evidence. Far from exhibiting the desired outcome of critical thinking (a cornerstone of IL) students who appeared most articulate in discussion tended to emulate the “strong discourse” put forward by their tutors and librarians.

This research uses practice architectures and discourse analysis to analyse students’ IL capabilities and the context in which they are developed. An approach not employed hitherto. This has practical implications for the ways in which academics and librarians introduce students to the academic discourse of their discipline and the ways in which the production, communication and exchange of information in academic contexts is characterised.

Kazakhstan has taken considerable steps to improve the incoming mobility of international students; however, despite these measures, the number of international students studying in Kazakhstan is still very low. Research indicates that in order to attract and retain international students it is necessary to build a thorough understanding of their experiences in the host country. The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of international students’ experiences in Kazakhstan by exploring how they exercise their human agency while adapting to the academic and socio-cultural life in Kazakhstan.

The author used a purposeful criterion sampling to select six international students from Afghanistan, Great Britain, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine and the USA studying at Kazakhstani universities to participate in this research. The primary data collection was semi-structured in-depth interviews. Supportive methods included a demographic questionnaire and a researcher journal.

The study revealed that the international students actively employed their human agency to negotiate their studying and to adapt to their life in Kazakhstan. They did not simply adjust to the host environment, but also learned from it and attempted to transform it according to their circumstances and goals.

The implication is that Kazakhstani universities and any other higher education institutions that seek to increase the number of their international students should consider not only how to attract these students, but also how to adapt their institution’s practices and regulations to create an inclusive learning environment for their diverse student population. It is also very important for higher education institutions to provide international students with the necessary conditions to exercise their human agency because as it was revealed by this study, international students’ human agency is a very powerful mechanism helping them live and learn comfortably in their host country.

Taking into consideration the reviewed previous research, this was the first attempt to use Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory for the purpose of building an understanding about how international students exercise their agency while adapting to the academic and socio-cultural life in the host country. The social cognitive theory allows investigating international students as active and self-sufficient agents of their own adaptation process who can and do change themselves, and have the potential to navigate and alter their host environment to achieve their own goals. This study encourages researchers and practitioners to think about international students outside the dimension of internationalization as a means of improving country’s economic capital.

The aim of the JUSTEIS project over the first three cycles (1999‐2002) was to examine the uptake and use of electronic information services in higher education in the UK, so that planning of services could be informed by trends in usage and evidence of specific needs. The objectives were to: examine which services were used by students and academic staff; how senior library staff planned services to purchase content and support its use; and examine how library and information services promoted services through their Web pages. Results over the three years explained the growing popularity of electronic journal services, the acceptance of the search engine model for information retrieval and the important role academic staff play in the promotion of electronic information services for student learning. Conclusions and recommendations concern the need for library and information staff to make their approach to integration of information skills into the curriculum appropriate for the discipline, the type of institution, and its strategy for implementation of any virtual or managed learning environment software.

The purpose of this paper is to identify potential reasons for the success of an innovative work-based learning (WBL) shell framework in an adverse environment.

Case study is the experience of one programme.

Demand-led, flexible WBL programmes have to overcome a number of internal cultural and institutional barriers in order to succeed. Important requirements are likely to include effective leadership, financial viability, adherence to quality assurance, adaptability, entrepreneurialism and a cohesive community of practice incorporating these traits.

The conclusions are drawn from shared experience and are suggestive only as they are not readily susceptible to empirical verification. The authors accept that the conclusions appear speculative for some, but they suggest that in order for innovative programmes to survive, more is required than sound pedagogy.

Although lessons may not be directly transferable, the paper draws attention to the importance of managerial, leadership and organisational factors necessary for innovative WBL programmes to survive and develop.

There is some literature on why some innovative higher education programmes and institutions have failed; however, there is little on why some programmes are successful.

Many start pursuing graduate or postgraduate research based education, however few complete on time. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a postgraduate student support model which will facilitate students to complete their studies successfully and on time.

The model was designed using authors viewpoint on this issue which was informed by literature and first-hand interactions with post graduate students and supervisors.

Ahmad's Student Support Model for Postgraduate Research Training proposes that students need support on three major dimension (Financial, Technical and Publishing) to complete degree on time. University and supervisor play critical role in this as they provide administrative and emotional support as they create learning environment for students. The model illustrates their role.

The model is useful for universities to ensure they provide students with all elements proposed. New supervisors can get ideas how to play their role in facilitating students to complete their degrees on time. Students can evaluate an institution before enrolling in research education if the institution has the elements proposed in the model.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a new tool that can be used to help in the design and evaluation of work-based elements within programmes or to evaluate whole programmes.

This paper takes a case study approach to describe the development of the mapping tool. The tool is based on a matrix which enables users to map four variables: teacher-centred delivery, employer-centred delivery and students outcomes in terms of knowledge and skills.

The mapping tool provides a useful approach to evaluating the outcomes for work-based learning activities.

The mapping tool provides tutors with a useful, easily used way to visualise the nature of their work-based learning activities.

This paper presents a novel, practical and useful tool that has wide applicability in the field of work-based learning.

This paper aims to explore Chinese female international students’ construction of global citizenship identity by examining their accumulation of cultural capital in different forms from transnational higher education in the UK.

Participant observations and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese female international students at a British university to explore their experiences with transnational higher education, cultural identities, the construction of global citizenship and perceived future job opportunities.

In this research, participants revealed that accessing a global elite university helps them accumulate institutionalised cultural capital. Embodied cultural cultivation acquired from transnational higher education is justified by students’ experiences in the context of transnational higher education. Rising confidence is shown by the participants’ narration and global-oriented awareness, which is their ability to understand and respect people from diverse cultural backgrounds, which was developed during their studies in the UK. However, they still realise the potentially difficult conversion of cultural capital to real job competitiveness. Recognition of global citizenship identity may be complicated if students plan to return home after studying.

This study provides further insight into the single-child generation of globally mobile Chinese female international students. Participants were aware of the positive accumulation of cultural capital in its embodied and institutionalised forms obtained from the UK higher education system and its contribution to the construction of global citizenship identity. However, the newly constructed global citizenship identity remains complex. Participants question the extent to which the new identity fits into the Chinese social context if they decide to return home.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, the originality of the paper lies in expanding the global citizenship framework with the specific application of Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital to show Chinese female international students’ study experiences in UK transnational higher education, rather than addressing the Chinese international student experience in general.