2024 Spring Forum
21 – 22 March 2024, completely free, fully online – “Health Librarianship: The Next Generation“.
UHMLG’s 2024 Spring Forum brings together a range of fantastic speakers to look at the future of health librarianship. The conferences spans two half days (21-22 March, 2024), it’s free, online, and registration is open – our core audience is UK / Republic of Ireland health and medical librarians from the Higher Education and NHS / health sectors, but we welcome delegates from any area of librarianship, and from anywhere in the world.
Note: Registration now closed.
Outline Programme
This is the provisional programme – we expect the timings and titles to be broadly as shown, but there may be slight updates as we get closer to the event.
Day 1: Thursday 21 March
- 13:00: Zoom opens for chat / testing
- 13:25: Welcome to the 2024 UHMLG Spring Forum
- 13:30: Martin Compton: I Only Know That I Know Nothing: Why We All Need to be Engaging With AI
- 14:35: Jared Oates: Building Learner Engagement and Impact
- 14:45: Adele Kenny: Enhancing Research Culture at Warwick Medical School
- 15:30: UHMLG Future Planning
- 16:00: Jane Wilkinson: The NHS long-term workforce plan (LTWP) – Impact on HEIs
- 17:00: Close
Day 2: Friday 22 March
- 09:00: Zoom open for chat / testing
- 09:25: Welcome to Day 2
- 09:30: Jasmina Makljenovic: A Journey to Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy
- 10:35: Randomised Coffee Trial
- 11:40: Kari Morley: The Impact of AI on HE: What can libraries do to support students?
- 12:35: Close
The Talks…
I Only Know That I Know Nothing: Why We All Need to be Engaging With AI
Dr Martin Compton, Programme, Module & Assessment Design Lead, King’s Academy, KCL
As much as social media, popular culture and your average person on the South Kensington omnibus might crave it, few issues and phenomena can readily be accepted as completely good or bad. Nuance and complexity define many of the issues we (all of academia from academic staff to professional services to students) grapple with. AI broadly and Generative AI in particular is a fascinating example of how even the most highly educated can lean heavily into binary thinking and become trenchant resistors or ardent evangelists for innovations which we still know very little about in terms of implications broadly as well as for teaching, learning and assessment. In many ways it’s understandable. How are we supposed to make sense of the competing narratives and draw conclusions about utility, relevance and ethics for our own work and the ways in which we support students? In this session, Martin will argue that despite the many (some HUGE) unknowns and ongoing issues, we have an obligation to engage with these technologies to a degree. How and to what extent we need to determine for ourselves but in making this case Martin will offer some examples from his own work and those he supports at KCL.
Enhancing Research Culture at Warwick Medical School
Adele Kenny, Research Culture Officer, Warwick Medical School
The emergence of a more holistic approach towards thinking about research excellence has emphasized the importance of research culture. However, the concept of research culture is somewhat complex, influenced by the inherent diversity in research activities, communities, and settings. Moreover, to enhance research culture, it’s important to understand what it means to a community. With this in mind, an open invitation was afforded to members of the WMS community of staff (researchers and research enablers) and students to participate in one or more of a series of semi-structured ‘research culture cafes’. Participants were invited to explore ‘what’ research culture means, identifying both strengths within our community and where change was required, how such change could be achieved, when, and by whom. Thematic analysis informed the co-creation of a values-driven, action-focused, five-year roadmap in which our people, our community, and our research were all valued.
The NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan (LTWP) – Impact on HEIs
Professor Jane Wilkinson, Associate Dean Education, University of Southampton & Respiratory Consultant at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust
The plan to double the number of medical school places from 7500 to 15000 by 2030/31 will necessitate a radical rethink in the way we train doctors, which ensures that we continue to meet the standards of our professional regulatory body – the GMC-, deliver an excellent student experience and remain competitive in the context of newly developing apprenticeship training models. In this talk, I will outline the challenges of the LTWP in the context of the current NHS climate. I will also explore the challenges and opportunities facing medical schools to deliver the LTWP in partnership with our NHS colleagues.
A Journey To Associate Fellowship Of The Higher Education Academy
Jasmina Makljenovic, Medical Library Assistant, University of Cambridge
What is AFHEA and how to achieve it? The presentation reflects back on the personal experience and the process of writing and applying for AFHEA recognition while working as a Library Assistant at the Medical Library, Cambridge. It explains what the accreditation is and why the decision to apply for it was a good idea.
Providing an overview of the writing journey – including learning how to write reflectively and overcoming challenges – this presentation focuses on how my own thinking and working practice changed during the course of writing my application ; how listing out and quantifying tasks have a real confidence boost and help improve everyday practice.
The presentation answers what personal impact achieving the AFHEA had and offer advice for anyone looking to make an application.
The Impact of AI on HE: What can libraries do to support students?
Kari Morley, Subject Librarian, Anglia Ruskin University
As the initial panic over how AI will drastically change education starts to calm down it’s now time to start thinking about the best ways we can help our students prepare to use AI effectively and ethically both in their studies and in their future careers. The aim of this talk is to provide a brief overview of the ways in which AI tools have changed the way education is being delivered and assessed, and also discuss what needs to be done in order to prepare students for their future careers and working with AI. Academic libraries have an opportunity to help students develop their human skills like critical thinking and problem solving so it’s time we started making plans for how to do that.