The solution – Part 1 Certified Membership of the Association for Learning Technology (CMALT) CMALT is a portfolio-based professional accreditation scheme developed by ALT to enable people whose work involves learning technology to o have their experience and capabilities certified by peers; o demonstrate that they are taking a committed and serious approach to their professional development. Candidates produce a portfolio covering core areas and a specialist option. The core areas are: o Operational issues o Teaching, learning and assessment processes o The wider context o Communication Professional Accreditation and Managing Change: The UCL CMALT Project Stefanie Anyadi (UCL), Maren Deepwell (ALT) and Clive Young (UCL) Poster Number: 2 Key Points  Teaching Administrators are a staff group that is often overlooked but which can be crucial in supporting and enabling change across institutions, with a direct impact on the student experience.  The CMALT accreditation framework lends itself to a cohort based approach which can help this staff group to develop and share skills and good practice.  The programme to support accreditation developed at UCL can be easily adapted for use by other institutions and other staff groups, e.g. academic staff. The challenges Professional support staff in academic departments are facing increasing demands: o Need to work more effectively to provide support to staff and students o Good practice in silos o Resistance to change in academic departments o Lack of confidence on the part of some teaching administrators The opportunities Teaching administrators (TAs) are professional staff working in academic departments supporting teaching and learning, e.g. recruitment, admissions, quality assurance, pastoral support, timetabling, examinations, administrative support for teaching staff. At UCL, this staff group has a strong network and mutual support.  Good awareness of issues affecting students and the student experience  Using wide range of technology  Increasing professionalisation of support staff (Whitchurch) “I’m quite often the first person staff with a technical question will come to” “I trained all of our Academic staff on how to use Moodle and set up Moodle sites for our UG and PG courses” “I am at the moment trying to get academics to use grademarking. Although we organised a workshop for them, many were not able to attend so I am given them one-to-one sessions when they are ready to mark. It will save me lots of time in the long run...” The solution – Part 2 As part of the JISC-funded Digital Department project at UCL, we have developed a programme of workshops which supports colleagues working towards this accreditation, with the additional support of mentors. In 2012, we had a pilot cohort of 20 participants with an excellent success rate. The 2013 cohort is much larger and includes academic staff and colleagues from another university. Advantages have been o Opportunities to exchange ideas across departments and for collaboration and sharing of good practice o Encouragement of and support for change, which have led to improvements in the student experience o Support for the emergence of a teaching administrator identity at UCL o Increased confidence of participants o Increased career opportunities  Working closely with academic staff, students and central divisions For further information, contact