Scottish Higher Education Developers October 2018 | Page 5

Foreword
A SYNOPTIC HISTORY OF SHED
Darren Comber, University of Aberdeen
SHED began its existence in 1993 as a formally recognised sub-committee of the
Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals (CoSHEP), the predecessor of
today’s Universities Scotland which was itself created in 2000. Under this latter banner
the Universities Scotland Educational Development Sub-Committee (USEDSC) –
contender for the clumsiest title ever devised – was created, and as an extension of this
formal committee role a wider, ‘outreach’ branch known as SHED was set up in 2007
to encourage colleagues outwith the formal committee (both educational developers
and others with allied interests working in Scotland) to come together, share ideas and
develop CPD collaborations.
As one-time Convener of the USEDSC, upon commencing the role I was given three
substantial files bulging with paper copies of agendas, minutes and papers archived
over the years. The following is a short series of synopses of the notes from meetings
at (almost) regular five-yearly intervals throughout our history, extracted from those
files. As one might expect many things have changed (including paper filing and even the
names of some of our HEIs), whilst others seem to remain as perennial items for agendas
over the years.
October 1995: held at Napier University, Edinburgh
Educational development was clearly well-funded at this time. The minutes include a
report on the outcomes of a SHEFC Staff Development initiative, providing financial
support to the tune of £999000 for Scottish HEIs for in-house staff development
programmes to meet needs identified in QA reports plus a second stream of funds per
institution of a basic £5000 each, then a further £25000 pot against which to bid to
research good practice in relation to the use of QA reports. How times have changed.
Projects being discussed at this time included Assessment Strategies in Scottish HE
(ASSHE) and the outcomes from the Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative
(LTDI), which still persists today via the well-known ‘LTDI Evaluation Cookbook’.
Discussions also took place around ‘Gender & the Classroom Climate’, ‘Emerging needs
of PG tutors’, plus a proposal for joint activity with SEDA.
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Celebrating 25 years of SHED