2010

June - ALPS has won a Learning Impact Award at this year's EDEN Conference in Valencia! The Award for Leading Practice in Learning Impact was granted to Catherine Coates, Jill Taylor, Leeds Metropolitan University; Julie Laxton, University of Leeds, Christine Dearnley, University of Bradford, Ian Hall, MyKnowladgeMap Ltd., United Kingdom for their Conference Contribution on:
"Promoting the Concept of Competency Maps and Interprofessional Assessments linked to e-Portfolios to Enhance the Student Learning Experience in Preparation for Work Based Learning, Employability and Life Long Learning" . Congratulations to all those involved! Click here to read the article or visit the EDEN website to find out more about the Conference.

25 April - Congratulations to Chris Dearnley, Stuart Walker, John Fairhall and Jak Radice from the University of Bradford who last week won the prize for Interdisciplinary Working at this year's Excellence in Knowledge Transfer Awards at their University. The quartet won the award for their Mobile Enabled Disabled Students (MEDS) project which over the last few years has informed the development of ALPS tools and mobile software. Click here to learn more about the award!

24 March - ALPS has been shortlisted for a Times Higher Education award! The University of Leeds, lead partner of the programme has been named a finalist in the ICT initiative of the year category. Read more here

10 March - Congratulations to Maria Parks and Alis Moores who have had an article published in the Medical Teacher journal. 'Twelve tips for introducing E-portfolios with undergraduate students' draws on the experiences of ALPS and can be accessed here. Maria is a senior lecturer and teaching fellow at York St John University, while Alis was formerly at York St John University and is now working as an Occupational Therapist for Queensland Health in Australia.

1 February - Staff and students at the University of Leeds can now find out more about ALPS, as well as other academic and co-curricular initiatives by logging on to Leeds for Life - a website packed with resources and development opportunities. Visit https://leedsforlife.leeds.ac.uk to find out more and start exploring!

11 January - ALPS demonstrated 'the exceptional student journey' at this year's Learning and Teaching Conference at the University of Leeds. The ALPS Core Team and ALPS site members all worked together to put the ALPS story together using posters, IT demonstrations and case studies. The posters told the complete ALPS story; from the development of the ALPS Common Competency Maps, to the assessment tools and learning material, and finally some case studies illustrating how different professions and cohorts have embraced the ALPS outputs and adapted them to suit their own requirements. Look out for a report of the event from ALPS Teaching Fellow Julie Laxton in next month's issue of the ALPS Bulletin.

2009

4 December- Making Involvement Count: Service User and Carer Involvement ALPS hosted a research workshop in Leeds yesterday to launch a study of service user involvement in mental health training, education and research. Dr Virginia Minogue presented her work, with input from some of the service users directly involved in the research. A detailed report of the day will be available in the next ALPS Bulletin, available in February.

4 November - An ALPS paper about Common Competences has been published in the highly regarded Nurse Education Today Journal. Congratulations to the authors; Janet Holt, Julie Laxton and Helen Mistry from the University of Leeds, Catherine Coates from Leeds Metropolitan University, Diane Cotterill from York St John University, Sara Eastburn from the University of Huddersfield and Carol Young, formerly of the University of Bradford. The paper is entitled 'Identifying common competences in health and social care : An example of multi-institutional and inter-professional working'. Access the online version of the complete article here

15 October - Guidelines for the involvement of Service Users and Carers in ALPS and beyond...The ALPS Service Users & Carers Working Group have produced a valuable resource which gives examples of best practice when involving service users and carers in assessment and learning. Access the guidelines here

6 October 2009 - ALPS has won a Handheld Learning Award! Jason Bradbury from Channel Five's The Gadget Show presented the award for 'Best Innovation' to the Director of ALPS, Trudie Roberts at yesterday's sparkling awards ceremony. The winners were voted for by the public and ALPS would like to thank everyone who voted for us! Read more about the award here!

6 October - ALPS extends a warm welcome to Delia Muir who has joined the Core Team in the role of Conference Organiser. Delia joins us from the Communication Skills Team in the Medical Education Unit at the University of Leeds.

1 October 2009 - Three new ALPS Globalised Skills and Attributes Maps have been published! In response to considerable interest from subject areas outside health and social care, ALPS has produced three Maps which can be used by any discipline. Find out more and access the Maps here.

9 September 2009 - ALPS has been nominated and shortlisted for two prestigious learning awards! The Handheld Learning Awards have named the ALPS programme an innovation finalist in the higher and tertiary education category. ALPS has also been shortlisted for 'Best Use of Mobile Learning' by the E-Learning Awards. Congratulations to everyone who has contributed to the programme. Find out more here.

7 September 2009 - Congratulations to Nancy Davies and Ceri Coulby from the ALPS Core Team and Richard Fuller, Shervanthi Homer-Vanniasinkam and Scott Hennessy from the University of Leeds. The five colleagues have had an article published in the highly regarded Medical Teacher journal. Entitled 'e-Learning in Medical Education', the article details a practical application of the use of mobile technologies for the assessment of undergraduate medical students on work-based placements. To view the complete article click here.

26 August 2009 - ALPS is pleased to announce the launch of its brand new website! Please feel free to get in touch to tell us what you think of the new layout and design. More.

19 August 2009 - ALPS has appointed The ROI Academy to undertake a Cost Benefit Analysis of ALPS assessment methods. The CBA will inform further development of ALPS work and contribute to the evaluation of the programme. To find out more click here.

2nd June 2009 – ALPS extends a warm welcome to Gill Waters, who joins the Core Team as part-time Conference Organiser. Gill will be co-ordinating the preparations for an ALPS conference to be held in Spring 2010. More details of the conference will follow shortly!

21st May 2009 – An ALPS seminar for Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Bodies was held at the University of Leeds. Questions discussed included: ‘How can ALPS practices be used beyond professional registration and can we extend ALPS to health and social care disciplines beyond the existing 16 professions?’ Read more about the day here.

May 2009 – ALPS has received almost £100,000 from the Yorkshire and the Humber Strategic Health Authority to go towards developing the ALPS Assessment Suite. Read more about the three funded projects here

May 2009 - A photo feature on the ALPS Group Study Area in the Health Sciences Library at the University of Leeds has been included in the latest edition of EDUCAUSE Quarterly (EQ). ALPS Research Officer Viktoria Joynes responded to a call for images of versatile learning spaces, and provided a photo and description of the ALPS Group Study Area, which has been featured alongside learning spaces from institutions all over the world. To view the ALPS feature and to read more about the research being carried out on learning space design, visit the EDUCAUSE website: http://www.educause.edu/eq 

1st April 2009 - ALPS is pleased to welcome a new member to the Core Team. Kate Murphy is joining us in the role of Communications Officer.

27th March 2009 - Ceri Coulby (ALPS Core Team) and Julie Laxton (ALPS Teaching Fellow at Leeds) represented ALPS at the 3rd WLE Mobile Learning Symposium in London with a presentation on 'Mobile Learning and Assessment - A Student Perspective'.

26th February 2009 - University of Leeds CETL Student Conference. Julie Laxton (ALPS Teaching Fellow - Leeds), Trish Walker (ALPS Core Team) and Viktoria Joynes (ALPS Core Team) ran a workshop focussing on team working and presented the ALPS Team Working Common Competency Map.

January 2009 - New guidelines have been released by the Department of Health concerning use of mobile phones in hospitals click here to access the report.

2008 - archive