JISC

Overview

SusTEACH investigates the transformative impact of ICTs on Higher Education (HE) teaching models and assesses their environmental and life-time impacts. Sustainable, low carbon HE teaching models are part of the carbon reduction strategies needed to meet targets set for HEFCE-funded institutions. As ICT use is responsible for at least 2% of global carbon emissions, it is important to examine the environmental impacts in HE where significant technological changes have led to new teaching models, blending conventional and ICT-based educational models. However there is little research on the whole system environmental impacts of the different models of delivering HE.

Aims and objectives

SusTEACH aims to examine the transformative impact of ICTs on HE teaching systems, assess their environmental impacts and develop an appraisal toolkit that supports the HEI sustainability agenda.

Objectives:

The main SusTEACH objectives are:

1. Establishing a typology of HE teaching models using ICTs;
2. Assessing the relationship between the ICT-intensiveness of such models, their location and carbon footprint;
3. Investigating the role of ICTs in affecting the lifetime carbon impacts of different HE systems at the institutional level; and
4. Disseminating an environmental appraisal toolkit for implementation by HEI at early course and programme development stages to help reduce impacts.

Project methodology

Professor Lane and Dr Caird will manage the SusTEACH project with guidance from the OU Project Advisory Group. Research methods used for primary data gathering include: workshops; telephone interviews with staff; and online questionnaire surveys of students in 4 HEI.

Primary data will be supplemented by existing databases to provide energy/fuel consumption data on the main teaching and learning contexts, including campus and home environments. The environmental impacts of HEI teaching models will be estimated using fossil fuel energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions, and related to the standard UK Credit Accumulation and Transfer (CAT) system to enable comparative assessment.

Anticipated outputs and outcomes

Outputs and Outcomes for SusTEACH include:

• Classification of HE teaching models using ICTs, reflecting type and intensiveness of ICT use;
• Assessment of environmental and life-time impacts of different HE systems;
• Liaison with HEIs to refine the Environmental Appraisal Toolkit and guidance handbook to support reduction of impacts when new courses and programmes are designed and approved in HEI;
• Dissemination of Toolkit as an Open Educational Resource (OER);
• Dissemination of results via workshops, technical report, academic papers and web discussion forum;
• Plans for institutional transformation following internal approval procedures Informing policies on reducing environmental impacts of HEI teaching models.

Technology / Standards used

Standards -The standard UK Credit Accumulation and Transfer (CAT) system identifies 1 CAT point as equivalent to 10 hours total study including writing assignments, field work, etc. and 360 CAT points are required for an UK undergraduate degree and 180 points for a Masters degree. This standard enables normalization of HEI courses in terms of average energy consumption and CO2 emissions per student per CAT point.

Technologies- Existing software-based carbon calculators will be adapted to enable direct comparisons of the environmental impacts for the production and presentation phases of the module development lifecycle in HEI teaching systems.