 Hi everybody, my name is Annabelle De Fries and I work with Tom Tanner on the MSc SEDEP programs. So Tom is director of the Climate Change Programme and I'm director of the Sustainable Development Programme. So welcome to our open day. Now I'm actually trying to, okay. So for this webinar we're just going to talk very briefly about the programs that we offer and we're going to give us some time for Q&A. So within that we'll talk about the programs and give you an idea of the structure and setup and assessments and the type of learning environment that you'll be, it'll be a part of at SEDEP. On my notice you're back. Do you want to take it? Absolutely. So SEDEP is a research centre and teaching centre which is set within the Department of Development Studies in Soares. So we have a mix of research staff and teaching staff and a set of associates including tutors and researchers, associates as well. A quite happy bunch. And we have good links with obviously with other departments because we recognise that climate change, sustainable development, there's a lot of other people working within Soares on those issues, particularly strong within development studies in our environment, political economy, natural resources cluster there and within the centre for sustainable finance which is hosted in the Department of Economics but has associates from all over Soares as well. So we have strong links with those guys. Next slide please. So it's very hard to say when people say I work in So and So, is that okay, is that normal for a student? It's a real diversity. We do have I think a profile that's changing somewhat. It was more people working within the development, kind of aid and development agency type sectors. It's really moving as climate change is mainstreaming itself into everybody's business and we're seeing in particular a lot more finance sectors and mainstream companies who recognise that ESG, that environmental sustainability, governance, social criteria is really going to becoming central to what they do and they want to be able to take climate change rather seriously because they realise it affects both their bottom line and potential future market opportunities. So we have a real mix including some people working within the the international development sector and within ministries both home and overseas as diplomatic core as well as well as in our development banks and classic development NGO types. So you get to meet and interact with a wide variety of other students from all around the world. It's one of the advantages of it being an online distance learning course is that people are situated everywhere. It makes it difficult in some ways but it makes it really vibrant and brings a lot of energy in others. So the research we do is set around those challenges of sustainability and development and here's just three examples of areas that we're currently working on. Some work around knowledge and food systems which Annabel leads on particularly trying to develop a cadre who understand the knowledge systems, curricula and the research networks around food systems that link them up more effectively. We do quite a lot of work in energy transitions and access to energy from a social justice perspective. So our colleague Giuseppe Netticiliano in particular has looked at large-scale hydropower another colleague John Phillips who looked at more local scale at the justice issues around energy in South Africa and one of my areas of work is around urban sustainability and urban resilience and looking particularly around where approaches are heading and where they've been working well, where they need to draw on new and emerging technology and approaches in particular and an awareness to the politics of those processes and the justice criteria and concerns as well. So presumably those who are watching are interested in climate change, sustainability and development issues and that so as we firstly recognize there are global structural injustices that are presented by climate change a lot of those map on to what we already know about environmental injustice and its relationship with development and we also recognize that there is a problem at the minute that there is a very incremental approach to moving ourselves out of the climate crisis and we need more radical agendas and to do so we can bring in diverse knowledges that can inform policies so we're looking for different ways of thinking, different ways of understanding problems and to try and help inform socially just but also rapid and effective transitions from towards the low carbon economy and ways that can help people adapt to climate change and deal with disaster risk in a fairer way in a more effective way. We also really came around that we understand the growing job market for climate and sustainability with regards to development and as you saw we've got a variety of students and that alumni network really helps. I think firstly from with our work online using discussion for to actually exchange between students and moderating discussions we you know it's you know it's it's all really up to date because it's people's lived experience of their work and their experiences both in the countries they're working in the countries they've worked in previously or wherever they're from that brings a real vibrancy and dynamism to our courses. We at SEDUP have actually been working for over two decades I say almost three decades on distance learning back in the day at a different part of the University of London but we have the core staff who you can see online but we have also a network of external associate tutors who work with us and specialists that we bring in for dissertation supervision where we don't have that knowledge in-house so we have some research expertise where we don't necessarily have it and we can we can call on our colleagues and also our external contacts. We have a commitment in SOAS across SOAS to decolonize in the curriculum so we're looking for ways not just of bringing in academic perspectives from the global south but also recognizing that the way we interpret those perspectives is actually constrained and influenced by how we've been conditioned in our learning as well so we're looking to really test ourselves and our students in the ways of understanding knowledge as well as bringing in a diverse set of different knowledges to bear on the problem and the solutions. SEDUP as a unit is a cost-efficient way of doing a master's degree enables people to study whilst working or whilst doing household duties or just in a more relaxed manner because it is part-time. Our network of students as it says 250 there we're actually our active students are more like 400 now and we have a really wide network of alumni as well our LinkedIn page is pretty heavy and that professional networking is something that we really encourage and people get a lot from meeting up with people in the same countries from exchanging people who are working on similar issues and that again is one of our USBs that we bring. The SOAS library is second to none in its resources with regard to international development, Global South and the online library is really extensive and for those who can get to the library it's quite an experience to visit because it's a beautiful piece of brutalist architecture so that's something we're seeing. We also provide careers service so we have careers advice split between University of London's provision and the SOAS provision and there's a wide variety of events that are organized both in our department which are more focused on development studies, environment, sustainability and then those that are more generic across the SOAS University and the University of London. Annabel do you want to take over? Okay so yeah I'll take over from here thanks a lot Tom and so the learning approach that you'll get that's set up is really based around the online learning environment which you'll see a little kind of screenshot here at the bottom so basically you would go on to this environment online wherever you want to and you can use it on your mobile or on your PC or laptop and you will access then the module that you're doing if you're first starting you'll start with your core module and so both programs have core modules and then from there you will carry on with your electives so each module you will get core teaching materials which basically summarize concepts, debates, methods, policies and generally the the kind of introduction to that particular topic each week has a different topic and each week has different reading so there will be a core key reading list and additional reading lists for further interest and a lot of students find that they may not actually get to all the further readings each week but when they start doing their dissertation they will find that those further readings are an incredible resource for them and so when you start to refine exactly what you want to really focus on for your dissertation then you've got a lot of material and resources available to you. Our modules also have exercises, self-assessment exercises and learning exercises to help you sort of work out how you've digested the information and let you give given you a little bit of time to reflect on your learning and kind of keep you going each week so that you're not just completely just reading reading reading all the time and help gives you an opportunity to kind of you know put down thoughts and this is also another way and another kind of avenue for this is the discussion forums which we have online and so each week your tutor would pose a question or a sort of concept to think about which is based on the readings and that you've done that week and sort of put it out to everybody and you'll be able to discuss with your fellow students that that area of interest and that happens every week it's part of the assessments as well so you're encouraged to do that because it gives you percentages towards your final your final grade and our other forms of assessments are both formative and summative so you're formative in that this allows you to write a response to a question that you're set and your tutor will then give you feedback and that feedback can then feed into the large piece of work which will come at the end of your module at the end of the session so that formative feedback is really important and that actually also occurs within the online discussion forums as well because your tutor monitors and feeds back and you know your ideas and sort of pulls out areas that are really pertinent and that all helps you kind of develop and grow within your learning so it's a really useful way of kind of assessment as well so within that assessment we also have a critical reflection and peer review so you know reflecting and reflecting critically on your reading and also working with your students with your colleagues on reviewing their work and having that interaction and we also try and bring in a few different ways of writing as well because that's really important and we try to make sure that throughout the kind of life cycle of your MSc you will have the opportunity to write in a number of different ways whether it's traditional academic essays or policy briefs and also blogs so I think that gives you an opportunity particularly with blogs to be able to show that you can digest perhaps some scientific or very very detailed academic work and be able to kind of translate that into a piece of writing that the general public would be able to understand and we value that kind of encouragement of those skills as well because they're really great when you're in the workplace as well and just moving on so to the program structure and on our website you'll see that there's a structure tab and if you click on that then you'll get to see all the different modules that are available so for your MSc you would need to do one core module three elective modules in the dissertation and the postgraduate diploma is one core module and three electives so no dissertation and the postgraduate certificate is one core module and one elective module so you'll see here it's varying times that these awards these programs can be taken and we do have a minimum uh sorry maximum registration of five years and most we like to think that most students can get through their MSc in two years and many many do however we do recognize that a lot of our students also are doing this whilst caring for children or dependents and working at the same time so you know there is definite flexibility and that actually allows people to take on this extra commitment and and sort of you know partake in professional development whilst they're at work so hopefully it provides a really flexible and useful way of studying for for a master's and you take one module at each time so that's another really sort of useful way of learning so that you can really focus on that particular topic and each session is around six months and each session also includes a dissertation study window so if you are doing the MSc you will do one module plus a dissertation in in each session and the reason for that is that as you're learning and you're developing your skills and you can start right from the beginning thinking about what your dissertation would would be on and start sort of bringing in your studies and learning into into that deeper element of the study and the dissertation will take place at the end of each session and throughout your your dissertation sorry throughout your your master's so here's just a little graphic which helps you kind of see how the year taken in as an example of a two-year program you'll you'll start with your subject module and your dissertation followed by your second and so on and so on so there are short breaks in between around a week sometimes two depending on where you are in the year and then you will start again with your elected elective module once you've finished your call so as as I explained if you go on to the website you'll see something like this and this will help you sort of see what kind of modules that we have on offer in each of the programs and really the difference between the climate change and development and master's and the sustainable development master's is there are definitely some areas of crossover however the climate change really does focus on science climate change and how climate change relates to different areas of study for example urban environments as as tom mentioned and but also looking at specifics like adaptation resilience mitigation financing and that kind of thing the sustainable development module starts with understanding sustainable development and it takes takes you through kind of historical look at sustainable development where did where did it come from how did we get to where we are today with the sustainable development goals and then has a kind of critical look at how sustainable development is measured how we understand things like well-being and equality how we understand different aspects of sustainable development relating to biodiversity and climate change but also looking at perhaps alternative forms of sustainable development so once you've done your core modules you'll then be able to take some electives and and some of these electives are offered by our development studies department such as the politics of gender and feminism in development and understanding violence conflict and development so you might find those to be interesting to you and so and we also have development studies students electing to take some of our some of our electives as well so as you can see the program is structured with different electives available in different sessions so it's important that you and think about how you're going to plan the studies and and make sure that you are you know you're not sort of taking make sure that you're sort of thinking ahead basically for the next sort of couple of years and then you can see how how your studies will will progress but recognizing I should say that you I just spoke to one student who said he completely changed his view on what his pathway might be so you don't have to choose in the the fore in advance you choose them just before the session starts when you register so it may be that you thought you were going to choose one pathway and take these modules but actually as you're learning your interest has been piqued by something you're like well I really want to know more about food security and or your job changes or whatever it might be so there's that flexibility to change that pathway so it's good to have in mind what you might most interest you but you can you can change your mind yeah that's a good point thank you Tom I think that's actually it and we'd like to take some questions and anybody has so do feel free to drop any more questions into the chat box and and then also if you would like to raise your questions via the audio do feel free to click the raise a hand and we'll happily invite you in to ask any questions that you might have so I can see a few questions that have already been answered by Tom so got any others maybe I could pose a question to the two of you just in terms of the online program how do you find that current students interact with each other outside of the classroom environments that you find that a lot of the students set up different kind of channels to speak to each other outside of kind of the formal classes or how do you find that work well I could speak from today's experience then there's a group for example in London that that meets up the students that are based in or near London and very equally in other places around the world we know we've had sets of students who want to just feel part of something something bigger and whether it's visiting so as on or somewhere overseas and there's also several channels of WhatsApp groups for everyone who loves their WhatsApp groups and they form organically within any within individual modules and when students want to work on something together and there's one larger one also for the main for the bigger group and it's useful for getting pointers but also within our modules themselves we split the students into groups of 15 for online discussions so you have like a smaller core group that is because you know it gets too big or people get scared to they don't want to feel you know they get shy of posting or don't feel their contributions worthy and by having smaller groups and building these building up confidence to postings and recognizing that everyone's experience and interpretations are interesting and different so yeah we use the kind of variety and the LinkedIn group is quite active but for the larger kind of finding who else works in your field and linking it with them so it's a good question about choosing others we've put the ones from the development studies department that we know we can rely on running as well because it's without with our department and we have offered in the past and will offer in the future electives from the centre for international studies and diplomacy which run in particular the finance climate change and sustainability module which provides something that that we currently don't in more and more depth but we haven't we don't advertise that so we don't disappoint people because it's not within our control whether whether and when that runs so it's not run in a calendar way like our approaches it's more on demand I think what the other thing to know is that there's lots of open events at SOAS that are held both in person and online so the other thing to note is that whilst you're going through your program we do kind of recommend to students that they do keep a lookout for kind of the one off events that we do host as I say both online and in person if you're able to come in person then you're more than welcome as an online and distance learning student to come to our campus albeit obviously there might be some issues around kind of visas depending on where you're coming from but yeah there's a lot of online one off events as well that because we operate quite an interdisciplinary approach at SOAS you'll find that there's lots of crossover so that's well worth bearing in mind as well absolutely so we're running we're currently running a seminar series with development studies and environment and development seminar series with our colleagues wider colleagues in development studies but that is being populated by so the speakers come from all across SOAS so they're from anthropology they're from economics they're from politics they're from arts development studies law you know we've got a lot of people working on climate change and we're trying to bring those in so yeah there's a lot of it's been quite nice actually the audiences for those have been students from across all different departments as well and that's been another way of kind of performing that interaction maybe we could talk a bit about access to academic staff when you're on an online and distance learning program so how can students contact staff whilst they're in the program at different times and obviously being located in different locations around the world okay I'll take that one so each module has its own shooter and its own convener and students generally are in contact with the module tutor on a weekly basis so they are involved in those weekly discussions and of course we do have because we're conveners we would generally the conveners would generally run webinars to help with assessments but also get involved in other things like seminars and things like that so in terms of actual interaction you've got the weekly interaction from your tutor and then you've got more intermittent interaction with your convener who is likely to be more sort of support you with your assessments and things that are coming up that you need to sort of a little bit more help with but yes I mean we're all available via email and through the and through the discussion page we've also got a program area and the program area is basically everybody in all the program in all both programs doing all the modules so that is where the kind of it's kind of like the base and we have discussion forum on that and announcements as well so all the conveners program directors sort of converge with students in that in that area and that's where they will get lots of information and I think at the beginning just going through the learning how to do the VLE and Tom and I run webinars right at the beginning when students start with us and take students through the VLE we help explain how the structure is and also sort of navigating the VLE and where you can find information so we're always on hand we understand the international nature of distance learning don't we? So each of the modules has a convener as well so you have like a program convener it's Annabelle Rye which would be your first point of call for any you know major admin issues in particular or academic admin issues academic issues and broad academic issues things like advice on which modules you might want to take just to talk something through but each module has a convener academic convener as well so it's one of the members of staff who said it who's your kind of port of call that's the person who would have written the curriculum and you'll get to know because they'll be on the webinars and they'll be a point of call for that as well and of course there's your dissertation supervisors so that as I said that's a mix of people for internal experts and external expertise but again there's a convener for that dissertation process our colleague Ros Taplan from within ZEP who can help steer you through that and provide advice and support and we've also got our student support team and they help students with enrollments registration and also those questions you know I'm not able to hand in on time I mean you can go to your convener or student support or your tutor and that student support will help you with deferrals will help you with any problems that you're having and with you know handing in assessments and anything really I mean they're there all the time for you and and of course you know we have the University of London and things like graduation and ceremonies and certificates and all those kind of things so you also get a kind of pass into the University of London portal and on that as well there is also lots and lots of support in terms of writing in terms of writing assignments in terms of learning about academic issues such as plagiarism and how to how to you know reference correctly and and lots of study skills actually that are available through the University of London so you'll get you'll get access to two kind of worlds you'll have the SOAS world and you'll have the University of London world as well yeah and I think that access to kind of support both within SOAS and also within the wider University of London group is kind of really crucial because if we look at kind of the the makeup of our online and distance learning students compared to in some respects our in-person students though arguably SOAS has a very diverse student body for in-person as well because it is often people who are maybe out working in various different sectors for many many years or possibly just having spent a lot time out of education I think that those kind of skill sets are really really great for you to get that kind of support with and also just thinking very internationally how might look at academic writing in one country might vary very differently to how you look at academic writing in another country so I think that that kind of support is really really key for students yeah definitely and for all your assignments I mean as I mentioned earlier we have got formative assessments and that means that students who yes quite rightly have maybe done you know degrees in other countries with completely different sort of academic cultural you know rules regulations and but also people who haven't written for a long time and it really gives those people an opportunity to try stuff out and get you know dedicated feedback on their work so that they can understand how they can improve because that's that's what everybody wants to do they just want to you know see what they can do and try to try to do it well and improve and and so tutors that are on our programs they they you know very very good specific feedback for each and every assignment and and also do lots of start signposting to study skills if they think that students or students require more or ask for more support so do feel free to drop in any other questions that you might have and it could just be about particular it could be about particular modules it could be about the program as a whole and we'd be happy to answer that maybe I can just please one more question out there is about kind of alumni and how our alumni are involved in our programs kind of once they finished and their studies with us so do we do events where we kind of invite alumni to come back and and participate in in current programs or participate in kind of webinars that we might be running more open webinars I can answer that in terms of what we're starting with development the department development studies now is to start working on seminar a seminar series for careers that are based on our alumni network so that is a really nice way of bringing people back in to talk about what's happened since their degree and to provide advice on you know so we caught one on Thursday which is someone working in the financial sector someone working for an activist oriented NGO someone who's based in a UN agency and one more and they've all they've all done environment related development and environment development related degrees in the department development studies and so it's nice to hear from them how what the real world looks like and how it's different having studied at SARS and that's something that the students have asked for in their feedback I should what we should have said the other way that you asked for how we have contact how students have contact with the academics but also they have contact with student representatives for each of the programs so they get to talk they get to speak regularly with us informally but also formally through our academic committee and so things like those requests for what would better what would people more interested in are sorry wait I think yeah that was something that people were already keen to see on the career support wasn't was to actually hear from people who've studied at SARS and you know what that means but then the question was are is it live no importantly this is our programs are asynchronous they are done so you can do them in your own time so our pedagogy involves a mix of key readings extended readings and video short video introductions that really introduce the topics rather than being kind of comprehensive lectures they are designed to be an introduction to the sorts of issues you need to understand in that week and pointers pointers to what you might find and look for especially in particular readings and that's combined with a set of sets of exercises which are more usually based on multimedia so it may be read these read this report that's a policy focused report rather than academic or watch this video or read isn't this podcast or then do this online exercise and then that the results and experiences of that are then part of the discussion the online discussion in your mind forum and they can be done they can be posted and done at your own in your own time so it recognizes that people are in different places around the world they're in different jobs different opportunities yeah I mean the time differences we try these webinars like this you know when we do live webinars and we've tried doing them three times across a day for different time zones but inevitably people are like yeah that's in my time zone but I'm at work or you know it's really impossible so you know it's nice to have a small audience but we recognize that a lot of people do watch things back on on video and that's how it's designed. Yeah I think we found even from just the last two years and even with students who are technically taking in-person classes that but have moved online that the on-demand aspect of it and being able to watch things back and watch things in their own time really really works with students and I think moving forward I mean obviously that's always the case with the online and distance learning but I think moving forward I think the kind of way that we look at education and the way that we look at delivery of programs will change I think with nearly every university including much more kind of on-demand kind of content and ability to watch things and I even think today's session we've had quite a few people register who will probably watch this session back once we set the recordings out there so definitely I think that really helps and a lot of our students feedback that having that time to really kind of sit and kind of actively listen to something as opposed to thinking okay I've got this small window of time here or you know it's not on my time so at the moment I'm in Australia so for me this is very early in the morning and I can imagine that if you are having to concentrate on like a class that would be particularly hard to do if you were trying to come in from different places so yeah I think that it's the best way to kind of run the program. I should say actually for all those people who are watching after the event if they do have any questions that they can contact feel free to contact either Tom or myself and we'll be very happy to answer you. You'd find our email addresses online. I think Kim you've muted yourself. Sorry so I think that brings us to the end of our session today so thank you so much for attending I hope we answered some of the questions that you might have but as we say all of our details are on the website if you would like to contact with any further questions about the program and we do welcome lots of questions even about particular modules or about kind of the overall program or even about so us in general we understand that there are different things that bring students to us different things that they've seen online but really to kind of get that overarching understanding of a program before you undertake it is really really important and so do feel free to reach out to us do feel free just to go onto the website and look at the open events that we run as well like we've mentioned here there are lots of different seminar series that we're running particularly increasingly online at the moment and they might be really focal to the program that you're thinking of doing or they might be on the periphery of that but just going to give you a little bit more exposure to different areas and much like Tom Thomas said you know you can start off with one idea and kind of one focus and then you can hear something attend a lecture have a meeting with an academic or even with another student who kind of talks about a different aspect that they've seen through the program it kind of ignites your interest and I think that's something that so us really offers our students is that we are very interdisciplinary and though you can come out of your program being you know a real specialist in a particular area if you want to there's also that opportunity to kind of widen your your kind of knowledge and expertise so you can kind of get out from the program what you want we have lots of students who join us who maybe have very specific knowledge in one area and are looking to kind of widen that and then we have others who might have a be from a completely different background but looking to get into a new career path or possibly in their own institution or organization that they work in they're looking to expand and so they're able to kind of get that knowledge so thank you again everybody for joining us and so thank you again yet everybody for joining us and I hope you found this especially really helpful thanks a lot Kim thank you everyone