 So again, a very warm welcome to everyone who's joining us here for our C-mold webinar today. We are going to start with an overview of C-mold accreditation, and I'm going to also share some key tips for completing your portfolio, as well as giving you a lot of links to resources to support you along the way. We're then going to go into Q&A and pick up any individual questions that you might have regarding your portfolio, the journey, or which pathway to choose. So let's jump right in with our overview of our scheme, which was set up to enhance professional recognition for all learning technology professionals across sectors. C-mold is a scheme is informed by the values that we hold as a professional body, which are openness, independence, collaboration and participation, and at the heart of it all are our members. Now I often get asked who C-mold is for, and the simple answer is that you don't have to be called a learning technologist in order for C-mold to make sense for you, and in order for it to be of value, gaining professional recognition for all the important work you do. Whether you have a digital role, a management role, a leadership role, whether you work in FE or vocational education, in schools, in colleges and universities, or you might be in a work-based or industry context, C-mold can help you gain professional recognition for the work you do and reflect on your career development. Now C-mold was set up 10 years ago to provide pathways for peer-assessed accreditation for professionals like you in the UK and internationally, and there are a lot of different benefits for gaining C-mold, including gaining stronger recognition, four-year skills and experience, as well as demonstrating your commitment to and understanding of the importance of the work that you do to critically reflect upon your practice, achievement and expertise, for which very few of us have much time over the last few years, and to receive feedback throughout the accreditation process from your peers. C-mold, as a recruitment criteria, has been used much more on job descriptions as an essential and desirable criteria across different sectors in the past few years. So if you are looking for career development, it is certainly a bonus to be able to evidence that. Now throughout the webinar today, I'm going to talk to you a lot about the core principles of C-mold, which underlie all parts of the portfolio that you are going to be compiling in order to gain your accreditation and really inform what the scheme is about. Upfront is a commitment to communicate and disseminate best practice. Also, the scheme is informed by commitment to unexploring and understanding the interplay between learning and technology, a commitment to keep up to date with new technologies, and an empathy and willingness to learn from colleagues from different backgrounds and specialisms. And one of the things I really enjoy when I see the introductions here is that there are many people from different parts of the UK in a way and further away, but also from different sectors and in very different roles. So one of the things I wanted to ask you all to put in the chat now is how would you describe your role? That might be your job title or it might be your own description, but if you're keen to share it, please do so in the chat now and give us a sense of how you would describe your role. And then we can start thinking about how the work that you do can be related to the C-mold core principles. Fantastic. I can see a few coming in already. That sounds great. Academic technologist, learning technology manager, digital learning designer, senior learning technologist, lead move producer, excellent. So you're getting a sense of who's in the room and what your roles are. Now, if you adjust at the very beginning of setting out on your C-mold journey, you will certainly reflect on which pathway to choose. And there's three to choose from. Associate C-mold, the main pathway, C-mold, and then senior C-mold. And what I'm going to be doing for the next five or 10 minutes is explain to you the different pathways, how to choose them, and what the difference is between them when it comes to the portfolio and the assessment process. There are some core competencies that are relevant for all different pathways. And then there are specialist options and enhanced areas for C-mold and senior C-mold that we build on top for those pathways. So in case you're sitting here thinking, I've got no idea which pathway is the right one for me, hopefully that is one of the questions that we can answer today. Now, Associate C-mold and Senior C-mold joined our accreditation family only a few years ago. And so up to that point, we only had one main pathway, which was the main C-mold pathway. And the reason why the framework was expanded to include three different pathways is simply to reflect how many more people are working in this industry and at how many different levels people are working in this industry. So Associate C-mold as a pathway is designed for early career professionals or professionals who've just moved into a learning technology related role. Typically, candidates have three years experience or less. And many of them only engage with learning technology as a smaller part of their role and have quite a limited range of evidence to draw on. So if you're primarily working as an academic or a lecturer and learning technology is part of your role, but not the main focus, Associate C-mold could be a really good fit. Similarly, if you're just starting out and you're in a role that you haven't been in for very long, again, Senior C-mold would be a very good first step to gain the entry level accreditation. Now, the main C-mold pathway that we're looking at here in the middle is really designed for established learning professionals or educational practitioners. Here, candidates typically have three or more years of experience and engage with learning technology throughout most aspects of their role. Now, we also offer a third pathway, which is Senior C-mold, which is currently the smallest one, because there's the fewest candidates who need all of its requirements. We designed this one for very experienced learning technology professionals or educational practitioners who have a lot of experience and who are really looking for progression from C-mold. This is really for individuals who have management leadership or strategic responsibilities or an equivalent level of impact on others throughout their work. Could also be beneficial for those who have a research focus in a relevant field. So as I said, Senior C-mold is currently the smallest pathway, because we have the fewest candidates who need those requirements. But we are seeing more than 20% of our members now have a focus on management or leadership in their role. And so that is one of the things that we're anticipating will grow significantly over the next 10 years. Now, for all three pathways, there are core requirements that all candidates have to complete. You'll need to write a contextual statement and also address the C-mold core principles. And in order to keep you thinking a little bit about your next steps and how you might want to develop in your professional practice, there's also a future plans section. These are elements of the portfolio that are common to all pathways. Now, there are also some core competencies for all learning technology professionals, and they have four particular sections of the portfolio. Later in the webinar, we're going to talk about how you might explore example portfolios to get a practical sense of what's involved. But each portfolio basically has these four headings. Operational issues, learning, teaching, assessment, the wider context and communicating and working with others. Those four headings as well as the contextual statement and future plans are in all C-mold portfolios regardless of which pathway you undertake. Some of these sections have some subheadings that you need to address. So, for example, for the first one, there are two subheadings. One is to demonstrate an understanding of the constraints and benefits of different technologies and then also to demonstrate technical knowledge and the ability and use of learning technology. While others for all pathways only have one section that you need to address. So, if you think about your portfolio either as a blog or as a document, you would certainly expect to see those headings in that document or on that blog or in that e-portfolio. Now, for those of you who are interested in C-mold and senior C-mold, there are some further experience required. And as you can see, they're built on the core ones that are common to all pathways but they're additional ones. So, for section one operational issues, you would also need to address how you support the deployment of learning technologies. In section two, you need to focus on target learners. In the wider context section, you would need to give a second example of a legislative area policy or standard. And the fourth area remains the same. Also, for C-mold and senior C-mold, give you an opportunity to demonstrate a specialism, something that you're particularly interested in, that is unique to you. But even if it's common across your team, something that you wouldn't expect every person in your role to necessarily be expert in. And this is really an opportunity for you to shine and explore an area that you're most interested and passionate about. You can as a candidate pick your own specialist area. We do in the guidance document also provide a very long list of examples. And as you explore the portfolios in the portfolio bank, you can also search by specialist areas. Now, for those of you who are interested in senior C-mold, it has one additional section, so it's the biggest portfolio. It has the most sections. And that is really where we focus on advanced professional practice that addresses each one of the core principles. There are some indicative examples included here. So, for example, you could have research in blended professional development or leadership focus, maybe promoting equality in learning technology, which could be a wider issue. So those are the sorts of examples that we're looking for. Different to the specialist area that we just talked about, this section of the portfolio senior C-mold candidates need to demonstrate not only the example of their work and its impact, but also how it relates to each of the core principles that we started speaking about at the beginning. So that is one of the most challenging aspects of senior C-mold. Okay, now that was a lot of information in quite a short amount of time. I'm still with me, but I'm just going to summarize the requirements for each portfolio. So, for each section that we've just looked at, you need to provide a description, evidence and reflection. So, let's say you're picking one section, you would describe maybe one or two examples of your work, and then provide the evidence for that, which could be screenshots, links to online resources or certificates, maybe images or even video. And then importantly, you would focus on that example and reflect on it. So those three elements have to be in all sections. I can sound a bit complicated when you look at it from the beginning, but we are going to have quite a few examples for you to have a look at. And I think when you see it in practice, it makes a lot of sense. Different to some other accreditation schemes, this is not sufficient for you to just provide evidence. So, if, for example, you want to show, let's say you have fellowship of advanced HE, and you want to use that as a way to demonstrate your proficiency when it comes to learning teaching assessment, just sending a link to the certificate or linking to that isn't enough. You do need to describe actual practice, you do need to reflect on it, and then you need to provide the evidence to it. So, it is very much based on your professional practice. Even if you've had 20 years or more experience in your role, you will still need to provide evidence and describe examples, saying, I'm overall responsible for X, Y or Z is not sufficient detail for assessors to be able to give you the accreditation, even if it seems implicitly obvious that you have all the experience required. Now, here's a handy table to share you again which sections are required for which pathway, and you can see for those of you who are going for senior C-mold, all boxes are ticked, you're required all sections. Associate C-molds, there's a few that you don't have to complete, but for C-mold itself, there's also a few that you can skip out. But overall, the different pathways are summarized on these two slides. And again, this is included in all the C-mold guidelines that are available online and hopefully have been finding their way to you already. If not, I can share links to that in the chat as well. OK, now I want to give you a quick overview of the submission and assessment process. Let's say you have found the time, you have completed your portfolio, you have submitted it and what's next? Now, first of all, well done you. It is taking a lot of effort to make this portfolio and put it all together. I know I made three full starts over the period of three years. So if you're in the same boat that it's been a while since you had the intention, but you haven't made any progress, I think you're in good company. But let's say you have submitted everything online. There are three deadlines at the end of January, May and September each year, but you can actually submit at any point in time. The submission system is always open, but these are the deadlines for us to start the peer review process. Now, your portfolio will be peer reviewed by two assessors and they undertake the assessment process independently and then confer with each other to agree a joint outcome. They are different outcomes depending on your portfolio. So either you can pass and you also have passed with distinction or your portfolio might be referred for changes to be made, either minor or major corrections required. If your portfolio is referred and you need to make corrections, then you can resubmit it again and generally portfolios pass or you're passed with distinctions on the second try. Very few fail and that is really if a resubmitted portfolio can't be said to be meeting all the requirements. But as I said, that's quite a rare outcome. Great, thanks Steve. You have a question here. Is there a time limit from starting to submitting? That's a good question Steve. So there is a time limit, yes. Once you register for C-mold, you should submit your portfolio within two years. So that is the normal time frame. Obviously in the past two years, life has been quite unusual. So we have been very lenient and given everybody who's asked us an extension of up to a year. But generally because C-mold is about examples of professional practice and we're looking for examples that are relatively recent, generally from the last three to five years of your practice, it doesn't make sense, I think, for that period to be any longer. So I would suggest register and then you've given yourself at least a tentative deadline. Thanks for that question, Steve. I hope that's helpful. Rachel, thanks for your question as well. Right, Rachel, you're absolutely right. Yes, if you submit between the assessment deadlines, let's say you submit on July 1st, we will receive your portfolio immediately and double check it. But the peer review process only then starts on the 30th of September, that's right. So our peer reviewers basically have three assessment cycles a year and that's when they assess portfolios. It is worth noting that due to the disruption caused by the pandemic and there was some severe delays last year, but we are completely back on track and have cleared the entire backlog of assessments so that the current assessment window is running on time and on schedule. And I would expect that to be the same for the rest of the year. And Rachel had a follow-up question. So Rachel, basically the peer assessment takes between one cycle and the next. So if you submit for the 30th of September, you would have your results before the next submission window closes. So basically it's always a three to four month process. We do try and make it faster than three months, but it is dependent on our peer assessors and we have a large volume of submissions. Okay, Kat, you had a question as well. Thank you. Is there a time limit between receiving referral corrections and the required resubmission? Yes, there is, Kat. It is a maximum of one year because of the currency of the work that's being assessed. Generally, people resubmit within the next window so they resubmit after like three to four months. Okay, please feel free to post further questions in the chat as we go along. But I did want to share some tips for completing your portfolio. And this is the last section of the presentation and then we're going to go and look at any other questions that we have. So first of all, if you are getting started or you're at the very beginning, think about the right structure and format that works for you. If you're working in a context where it's gonna take you a lot of time to spend getting ring your evidence if you've worked in lots of different jobs, lots of different platforms, I would suggest choose the structure of a portfolio that is gonna be really easy for you to work in. Some people really spend a lot of time in the design and sort of format of their portfolio which looks beautiful but can be such a time sink. So if you're not sure whether you have a lot of time, use a format that works really well for you. And thank you for the questions that you've posted. I will pick these up in a moment. Also, consider how you want to license your portfolio and what the copyright or other access demands of the portfolio are. The biggest problem people run into when they make their portfolio is that they use an institutionally based system then they might change jobs and then they can't access their portfolio again which can be a real problem. So do think about the structure and the format that works with you and also think about the accessibility of your portfolio. Now, when you start off writing your portfolio consider the tone of it. It needs to be reflective and analytical not solely descriptive. It is personal to you and should be written in the first person. So we're expecting you to literally write I am part of this team and my role in the team is this and I did this and I completed that and this is why I made this decision or this is how I followed these guidance. So you really need to make it very explicit what you've done even if you're part of a team. We did this and we did that should not happen really in your portfolio other than to describe the context in which you work. All the assessors are professionals just like you. So they are completely aware that most of your work will not be happening in isolation but it is very important that you reflect on your individual work and how that went. Many candidates struggle with the reflective part the most particularly if they have very clear institutional measures or failure or success. You could have a very successfully accredited Seamult portfolio just with failures. Seamult is not about sharing just success it is reflecting on your professional practice. If a lot of things went wrong as I'm sure it might have done at times as in learning technology that can always easily be the case you can still include these examples as long as you evidence what the work was describe it accurately and then reflect on it successfully. So you might use some of these prompts to help you with your reflection. You could consider the progress you've made to date think about what you find most difficult and why if you're really stuck go to that part of your portfolio that might be the easiest to complete and really try and use this process as carving out a little bit of time for yourself to think about your professional practice and development. You might surprise yourself and have achieved more than you thought particularly in the past two years. Now if you do get stuck and you're not getting anywhere with your Seamult portfolio we do run Seamult accelerator workshops that are dedicated to help give you a real kickstart into the writing process but also I would recommend the first step would be to take a tour and get inspired by successful portfolios. And in a minute I'm gonna share the links to how to access these and where to go with that. But before we do that I just want to pick up some of the questions that are in the chat. So Steve asked, does Seamult need renewing every few years? And yes, Steve that's completely right. Seamult does need to be kept up to date and there is a light touch review process every three years. Kat had a comment here as well. Excellent, I think we answered your question there. Lisa had a question. Is there a benefit to registering for Seamult at the beginning instead of working on a portfolio and registering when close to completion? Lisa, no, not really. It's up to you. I think many people like to be part of kind of like a distributed cohort particularly if they're the only person in their institution who is doing it. We do have quite a lot of institutional cohorts who go through it together. One thing that would be important to consider is that if anything changes or we have new resources we do email or registered candidates with extra information. So if you're not registered for Seamult then we wouldn't know that you would want to get that information. So I would strongly suggest because we do improve our resources and our guidance all the time that if you aren't registered check frequently on the Seamult website and make sure that you keep up to date with all the guidance. In terms of the question around portfolio renewal so just to say that once your initial portfolio is accredited it is review process every three years. Okay, brilliant. We have quite a few questions regarding the portfolio format which we'll come to in a moment. First I just wanted to give you some answers to frequently asked questions and then we'll go to the Q&A. So we've got maybe two more minutes of this and then we'll go into Q&A. So you can register for any Seamult pathway and you can also progress from associate to Seamult to senior Seamult. And I don't know if many of you have Seamult already and want to progress to senior Seamult but there is certainly guidance for that as well. If you're not sure which pathway to choose have a look on the website for there is more guidance on there and also detailed guidelines for each of the pathways. One question that hasn't come up but we often get asked is whether Seamult is mapped to other frameworks and the answer is yes it is. It is mapped to a number of frameworks including the Blended Learning Essentials curriculum, the UK PSF and a number of the GISC Digital Capability frameworks as well. So if you're already accredited through one of these other frameworks you might well be able to reuse some of the information in order to gain your Seamult portfolio. Okay, as I said there are certainly example portfolios that you can access and I just want to get to the slide with all the different links, perfect. So on our website there is information about Seamult in general as well as all the official guidance. Once you're registered for Seamult you can access the Seamult portfolio register and you can also look at the mappings to other frameworks. So for me, thank you very much for joining this recording part of the webinar. I'm going to stop the recording now and we'll go and pick up all the questions in the chat.