Welcome to the Centre for Bioscience, Improving the Work Placement Year event social network. This one-day event is aimed at staff from bioscience and other science disciplines who already run work placements and are interested in improving what they do and sharing good practice as well as people interested in setting up a work placement scheme. The programme will include a mixture of presentations, opportunities for discussion and a swapshop element to allow individuals to share and hear experiences of setting up, managing and assessing work placements. There will also be a hands-on session exploring how web 2.0 technologies can be used to help monitor and assess students on placement.

Provisional Programme

10.00 Registration; Tea and Coffee
10.20 Welcome and Introduction to the day
10.30 Issues around student placements - Academic view point
Ian Hughes, Centre for Bioscience and University of Leeds
10.50 Issues around student placements - Employer view point
Louise Wilkinson, Senior Recruiter at Covance
11.20 Refreshments
11.35 Issues around student placements - Student view point
Placement student at GSK 2006-2007
12.05 Activity - Preparing students for placement
Anna Worsley, Work Based Learning Centre, University of Leeds
12.35 Lunch
13.25 Web 2.0 technologies for monitoring and assessing placements. This will start with a brief introduction, followed by a hands-on session and discussion.
Theresa Beattie and Ali Marie McAllister, JISC Regional Support Centre
14.45 Refreshments
15.00 Swapshop - Setting up and running good placements

* Gillian Fraser, University of Reading, How to entice students and employers to work placements
* Karen Hustler, Askham Bryan College, TBC
* Roger Barraclough, University of Liverpool, Assessing Student Placements
* Karen King, Institute of Agri-food and Land Use, Learning outcomes for work placement
* Chris Seal, Newcastle University, Supporting Placement Learning through a Virtual Learning Environment

16.00 Reflections and Close