Academy tunes in to celebrate teaching fellows

An actor turned academic, an expert in plagiarism and a lecturer who led the University of Oxford's engagement in iTunes U are among 50 university staff recognised for their contributions to teaching this week.

The Higher Education Academy (HEA) has announced the winners of this year's National Teaching Fellowships, chosen from 203 nominations submitted by further and higher education institutions in England and Northern Ireland.

Oxford Brookes University has three award winners this year - the maximum number of nominations per institution - while Birkbeck, University of London and Guildhall School of Music and Drama have their first winners.

Those selected include Jude Carroll, principal lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development, Oxford Brookes, and author of A Handbook for Deterring Student Plagiarism in Higher Education, and Stuart Lee, a lecturer in the English faculty at the University of Oxford, whose medieval lectures have been in the top ten higher education downloads in iTunes for the past three years.

The actor, director and academic Paul Raffield, associate professor at the University of Warwick's School of Law, devised the school's first module for English and law students, derived from his interest in early modern legal history and the representation of law in Renaissance drama, while Glynis Cousin, director of the Institute for Learning Enhancement at the University of Wolverhampton, is a former senior adviser to the HEA who has published research on diversity, internationalisation, evaluation and pedagogic research.

David Taylor, deputy director of medical studies at the University of Liverpool, is another winner. A colleague described his teaching approach as one that "combines the incisiveness of a basic scientist, the wit of a comedian, and the compassion of a priest".

Each winner receives an award of £10,000. The awards will be presented in London on 23 September.

rebecca.attwood@tsleducation.com