HIGHLIGHT #1 | 113
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH (UR): CONTEXT, BENEFITS AND UR IN ACTION
UR in Action: The JADE Student Learning Undergraduate
Conference 2016
The JADE Student Learning Undergraduate Conference was
awarded Teaching Innovation Project funding in the 2015/16 round
of submissions. It represents an endeavour from me, situated within
the centrally-based Student Learning team, to develop a crossfaculty UR opportunity for Keele Students. Students are required
to conduct no primary or empirical research. The first conference
is theme-free to encourage students from all backgrounds and
disciplines to pursue research interests developed within their
academic studies or alongside their studies.
The conference will run on the 1st June 2016 following the close of
the summer assessment period, and it is aimed that the delegates
will be entirely undergraduate students. The Student Learning
team and a few selected staff members will be there to facilitate
the event but this is intended to be an undergraduate conference
for undergraduate students. Furthermore, it is a completely
cross-faculty learning and development opportunity open to all
undergraduate students. Further information is available at www.
tinyurl.com/jadeconference.
The conference is being developed in collaboration with JADE to
afford those who present with an opportunity to be published in
JADE, featuring the full conference proceedings. There is also a
commitment to help any student who wishes to work their paper
into a full JADE piece, giving them a very real entry into academic
publication via JADE.
Students were required, if they wish to present at the conference,
to submit an abstract by 1st February 2016. This date was later
revised to 26th February as winter assessment period dates had
not previously been taken into consideration. It was intended for 24
presentation slots to be available for the conference. It is extremely
positive that, upon closing of the abstract collection page, we had
over 30 students applying to present at the conference. This is an
encouraging start, particularly when considering that the event
itself will take place when the academic year has ended for most
students.
There have been a number of key learning points for myself as the
organiser of the event. The relationship between staff and student
is a complex one and many students enquired about having their
abstracts checked over first and tried to email their abstracts to
me personally rather than using the abstract collection form in