The Vice-Chancellor's Professional Services Awards 2023

The Teaching Support Group, comprising staff from the Centre for Teaching and Learning, IT Services and the Libraries, was recognised at the Vice-Chancellor’s Professional Services Awards on Tuesday 21 March 2023. 

The awards recognise the extraordinary contribution that colleagues in administrative, professional and support roles make to the University, and to furthering Oxford’s academic mission.

The Teaching Support Group was shortlisted for the Collaborating Across Oxford Award: for a group of people who have worked in a collaborative way across the collegiate University, especially those who have embraced the aims and values of Professional Services Together.

Award winners and finalists with the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey CBE and the Registrar, Gill Aitken. Photo: Ed Nix

The group was convened in early 2020 as an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic to coordinate central teams with a remit to support digital education.

Specialists from the Centre from Teaching and Learning, IT Services and the Libraries worked collaboratively to support staff and students across the collegiate University who were required to quickly move to online and hybrid teaching and learning.

Staff in the group focussed on shared communications, coordinating overlapping provision and identifying gaps to ensure guidance and training were complementary - all of which helped teaching staff and students during a difficult time. 

Marion Manton, Head of Digital Education, Centre for Teaching and Learning

Since first coming together to meet this urgent need, the group has continued to work collaboratively to help implement improvements across digital education sites and services - from short discussions on specific digital technology improvements to University-wide initiatives such as the Digital Education Technologies User Group.

The group is also playing a key role in the realisation of prioritised actions from the Digital Education Strategy 2023-27 - the investment of which is being provided largely by the Digital Transformation programme and the IT Development Plan. A current example of this is the recruitment, induction and training of four new digital education assistants to directly support academic departments.

More information about the Vice-Chancellor's Professional Service Awards is available on the Staff Gateway.