Papers by Berenice Rivera Macias
Journal of Librarianship and Information Science
Social distancing restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic were declared in Finland in March 202... more Social distancing restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic were declared in Finland in March 2020. Libraries followed Government recommendations resulting in limited library service delivery across a variety of sectors. This research investigates challenges experienced by public, special and academic libraries in the Helsinki metropolitan area focussing on library staff reflections of digital literacy services offered during the pandemic. A multiple case study, with an emergent mixed methods research design was utilised. All data was gathered online due to Covid-19 restrictions: Quantitative data originated from an online survey of library staff; library websites were also audited. Qualitative data originated from semi-structured interviews. Triangulation of the data enabled a clear understanding of digital literacy challenges and responses. Overall, the mixed methods design and the data collection techniques, encouraged reflection upon experience, which in return informed a rich p...
... Qualitative Experiences of a Quantitative Success: Grassroots Experiences of a Mexican Povert... more ... Qualitative Experiences of a Quantitative Success: Grassroots Experiences of a Mexican Poverty Alleviation Programme. By Berenice Rivera Macias. ... Berenice Rivera Macias. Fourth Year Phd Student in the Sociology Department at the University of Essex. Reviews: ...
This paper describes the work we have undertaken to define and make explicit the components and e... more This paper describes the work we have undertaken to define and make explicit the components and elements of good teaching in higher education, and our review of measures of teaching quality. Whilst our students are in a position to see a variety of teaching approaches and styles, academic colleagues have few opportunities to compare their own teaching with that of others. Through interviewing faculty colleagues, recording and analysing teaching sessions, and capturing the reflections of good teaching practitioners, this project aimed to increase the sharing of good practice and contribute to establishing benchmarkes for teaching standards.
Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences, 2009
This paper explores whose interests count and whose interests should be considered in the adoptio... more This paper explores whose interests count and whose interests should be considered in the adoption of technology-enhanced or e-learning in higher education (HE). We look at three key actors in the UK context, which we perceive as a policy-driven system. First, we examine the HE sector and the influential reports by UCISA, JISC and Becta. Second, we look at the response from a post-92 university in relation to its key corporate objectives, mission statements and the outcome of its HEA technology-enhanced learning benchmarking exercise and resulting targets. Third, we report on findings from our research, involving a focus group and online surveys, on staff and students" actual experience of technology-enhanced learning. The findings challenge the university"s and the government"s policy targets.
In this paper I discuss the unacknowledged complexity for embedding the notion of empowerment in ... more In this paper I discuss the unacknowledged complexity for embedding the notion of empowerment in the everyday social practice of indigenous people in a Nahua town in Mexico. This complexity is framed within the implementation of Oportunidades, the ...
Practitioner Research in …, 2010
This paper summarises a study of students' and staff perceptions and experiences of assessme... more This paper summarises a study of students' and staff perceptions and experiences of assessment feedback practice across a post-1992 university. Phases 1 and 2 of the project gathered students' and academic colleagues' views on assessment feedback practice. Focus ...
… and Skills (DFES) Available on line …, 2007
In this study, we seek to address this gap in the literature. We select 65,000 qualifiers from ... more In this study, we seek to address this gap in the literature. We select 65,000 qualifiers from the 2004/05 Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data to include English-domiciled undergraduate qualifiers who started their course of study in 2002/03. This enables us to have ...
This article describes the work we have undertaken to define and make explicit the components and... more This article describes the work we have undertaken to define and make explicit the components and elements of good teaching in higher education, and our review of measures of teaching quality.
Whilst our students are in a position to see a variety of teaching approaches and styles, academic colleagues have few opportunities to compare their own teaching with that of others. Through interviewing faculty colleagues, recording and analysing teaching sessions, and capturing the reflections of good teaching practitioners, this project aimed to increase the sharing of good practice and contribute to establishing benchmarks for teaching standards.
At this presentation we will discuss our findings from an Assessment Feedback Project carried out... more At this presentation we will discuss our findings from an Assessment Feedback Project carried out in a post-92 UK University. In phases 1 and 2 of the project we gathered our students' and our academic colleagues' views on assessment feedback practice in our University. During 2007/08 we carried out focus groups with students and video recorded one discussion for subsequent
This brief report presents progress of work involved in the Good Teaching Project during the acad... more This brief report presents progress of work involved in the Good Teaching Project during the academic year 2010-11.
Our Corporate Plan states that we want students to recommend us to friends, and a significant influence on that is public endorsement of our teaching quality. In 2010 we embarked on the Good Teaching Project (GTP) with the aim of defining and making explicit the elements and components of good teaching in higher education. In addition, we aimed to establish links between our support for the enhancement of teaching quality and good teaching practice and where and how out support may be refined and refocused. This report addresses our progress on the first objective.
Outcomes will be made available through a mini-site, which makes the components of good teaching explicit in a variety of contexts – lecture, seminar, laboratory and studio.
This article looks at the grassroots experiences of Oportunidades, a Mexican poverty alleviation ... more This article looks at the grassroots experiences of Oportunidades, a Mexican poverty alleviation programme. With an ethnographic, sociologically informed analysis of such experiences, I will try to provide a strong argument in favour of generating a multidisciplinary approach and richer consensus that different studies about such programme, for instance, could provide for its better understanding and implementation.
Both qualitative and quantitative studies on Oportunidades have been carried out with the assistance of international and Mexican institutions. The Mexican state, nonetheless, sees beneficial statistics as evidence of an improvement of the poverty levels in Mexico, therefore showing Oportunidades as a success at the international arena. Yet figures are not the only available representations of human lives (some would say they are not a representation at all), they are only figures.
For instance, the programme has been uncritically delivered to the diverse levels of institutional staff, who then deliver it in the same way to the grassroots personnel. There are challenges that are dealt with at the micro-level which can also define the success or failure of the programme. Some of those challenges - diverse ethic background/make-up and plural hermeneutics - and the way they are dealt with might not be represented in the majority of those figures.
By looking at the micro-level of Oportunidades implementation, at the experiences throughout the diverse set of interactions at the grassroots level, I intend to build up an ontologically rich analysis of difficulties which more quantitative analyses might have left aside. Perhaps a growth of research from different qualitative approaches could shed a light on such phenomena and also offer a different, far richer perspective to them. My argument is based on the narrative of two cases of grassroots personnel. Those case studies come from the ethnographic evidence gathered through fieldwork carried out in a semi-rural town in the southern province of Veracruz in Mexico.
This article shall begin with a description of Oportunidades and of the town of Tequila. Secondly, I will present the stories, before closing with a discussion of how this idea may or may not prove important for social policy research.
This paper explores whose interests count and whose interests should be considered in the adoptio... more This paper explores whose interests count and whose interests should be considered in the adoption of technology-enhanced or e-learning in higher education (HE). We look at three key actors in the UK context, which we perceive as a policy-driven system. First, we examine the HE sector and the influential reports by UCISA, JISC and Becta. Second, we look at the response from a post-92 university in relation to its key corporate objectives, mission statements and the outcome of its HEA technology-enhanced learning benchmarking exercise and resulting targets. Third, we report on findings from our research, involving a focus group and online surveys, on staff and students’ actual experience of technology-enhanced learning. The findings challenge the university’s and the government’s policy targets.
This paper summarises a study of students’ and staff perceptions and experiences of assessment fe... more This paper summarises a study of students’ and staff perceptions and experiences of assessment feedback practice across a post-1992 university. Phases 1 and 2 of the project gathered students’ and academic colleagues’ views on assessment feedback practice. Focus groups were then carried out with students and one discussion was video recorded for subsequent use in workshops with faculty colleagues. Students’ and staff’s thoughts
on issues militating against good assessment feedback practice were gathered, commented on, analysed, and reported back to the faculties.
The student focus groups provided interesting insights as to how students perceive and receive feedback which were classifi ed as being related to content, clarity and style. It
was established that, with very few exceptions, issues and good practice in assessment feedback can be generalised across disciplines and, in the main, staff and students share their perceptions of what constitutes good assessment feedback.
Talks by Berenice Rivera Macias
In this presentation I would like to open a dialogue into challenging the notion of empowerment a... more In this presentation I would like to open a dialogue into challenging the notion of empowerment as a desired consequence from Oportunidades, the Mexican anti-poverty and conditional cash transfers programme. A proportion of the beneficiaries are people of indigenous ethnicity in a country where they are excluded from the mainstream mestizo society. Ethnic backgrounds were not taken into account for the design or for the implementation of Oportunidades. Furthermore, Oportunidades is informed by global neo-liberalist policy and funding and in its implementation it attempts to assimilating people of indigenous ethnicities into a capitalist compliant population. Under this premise, I will present empirical examples that question the cost of empowerment of beneficiaries and their families in the case of indigenous people.
Current research on Oportunidades distinguishes beneficiaries’ groups by their ethnic background (mestizo/indigenous), and thus provides a wealth of analyses based on the context of the beneficiaries (González de la Rocha 2010, Gutiérrez et. al. 2008, Sedesol 2008). The research reports provide areas for improvement that refer, to certain extent, to ethnic blindness in Oportunidades. However important those recommendations are, they do not actually elaborate on the effects that empowerment, for instance, may have on the worldviews of beneficiaries and their families who are indigenous. My perception is that there is need for more research justifying the need for taking into integrating the worldviews of different ethnic groups and the knowledge that they could actually bring into the education, health and consumption components of conditional cash transfers programmes such as Oportunidades.
This paper is an invitation to discuss ways in which an institutional strategy can foster the enh... more This paper is an invitation to discuss ways in which an institutional strategy can foster the enhancement of
learning, teaching and assessment through the adoption of a new virtual learning environment (VLE). As a result of a VLE Review (2008), our institution has developed and piloted a new VLE (2009-10) and is now undertaking its first roll-out. During the VLE Review, we identified that the dominant use of the VLE was as a repository while a minority of tutors used the communicative, collaborative and assessment features of the VLE and cloud-based tools1. However, the majority of tutors and students asked for a VLE that is more learnercentred.
Our VLE Review was informed by and the research triangulated with national and international reports2.
At our institution, there is a strong drive towards a higher adoption of technology-enhanced learning through the
VLE, which is expressed in a number of corporate targets. We responded to these targets with an institutional
strategy, which differentiates the adoption process into five strategic delivery arenas:
1. Information,
2. Academic Processes,
3. Content,
4. Collaboration / Communication, and
5. Assessment.
The strategy also proposed that the decision on how much of each arena is delivered online should be discussed
and agreed across delivery teams (pathway and modules) and at Faculty level. As a result, every Faculty put forward its baseline requirements which they expected to be fulfilled for every delivered module.
We are currently carrying out an internal audit using student surveys, system data, and collecting good practice with the aim of finding out which features of the VLE have been widely adopted and received good feedback. We also keen to recognise practices that take the VLE beyond the "traditional" repository use.
This paper will present our main findings and invites a discussion on strategic approaches to encourage the use of learning technologies to support more learner-centred, situated and constructivist approaches.
1 Richter, UM, Rivera Macias, B., 2009. Whose interests count? The university under pressure to keep abreast of national developments in technology-enhanced learning., ELiSS, 1 (3), 1-32
2 Anglia Ruskin University, 2010. Tailoring a bespoke Virtual Learning Environment with the support of the JISC e-Learning programme. JISC. [Last accessed 22/08/2011]
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/elearningcommsevaluation/JISC%20Anglia%20Ruskin%20case%20study%2011%2011%2010.pdf
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Papers by Berenice Rivera Macias
Whilst our students are in a position to see a variety of teaching approaches and styles, academic colleagues have few opportunities to compare their own teaching with that of others. Through interviewing faculty colleagues, recording and analysing teaching sessions, and capturing the reflections of good teaching practitioners, this project aimed to increase the sharing of good practice and contribute to establishing benchmarks for teaching standards.
Our Corporate Plan states that we want students to recommend us to friends, and a significant influence on that is public endorsement of our teaching quality. In 2010 we embarked on the Good Teaching Project (GTP) with the aim of defining and making explicit the elements and components of good teaching in higher education. In addition, we aimed to establish links between our support for the enhancement of teaching quality and good teaching practice and where and how out support may be refined and refocused. This report addresses our progress on the first objective.
Outcomes will be made available through a mini-site, which makes the components of good teaching explicit in a variety of contexts – lecture, seminar, laboratory and studio.
Both qualitative and quantitative studies on Oportunidades have been carried out with the assistance of international and Mexican institutions. The Mexican state, nonetheless, sees beneficial statistics as evidence of an improvement of the poverty levels in Mexico, therefore showing Oportunidades as a success at the international arena. Yet figures are not the only available representations of human lives (some would say they are not a representation at all), they are only figures.
For instance, the programme has been uncritically delivered to the diverse levels of institutional staff, who then deliver it in the same way to the grassroots personnel. There are challenges that are dealt with at the micro-level which can also define the success or failure of the programme. Some of those challenges - diverse ethic background/make-up and plural hermeneutics - and the way they are dealt with might not be represented in the majority of those figures.
By looking at the micro-level of Oportunidades implementation, at the experiences throughout the diverse set of interactions at the grassroots level, I intend to build up an ontologically rich analysis of difficulties which more quantitative analyses might have left aside. Perhaps a growth of research from different qualitative approaches could shed a light on such phenomena and also offer a different, far richer perspective to them. My argument is based on the narrative of two cases of grassroots personnel. Those case studies come from the ethnographic evidence gathered through fieldwork carried out in a semi-rural town in the southern province of Veracruz in Mexico.
This article shall begin with a description of Oportunidades and of the town of Tequila. Secondly, I will present the stories, before closing with a discussion of how this idea may or may not prove important for social policy research.
on issues militating against good assessment feedback practice were gathered, commented on, analysed, and reported back to the faculties.
The student focus groups provided interesting insights as to how students perceive and receive feedback which were classifi ed as being related to content, clarity and style. It
was established that, with very few exceptions, issues and good practice in assessment feedback can be generalised across disciplines and, in the main, staff and students share their perceptions of what constitutes good assessment feedback.
Talks by Berenice Rivera Macias
Current research on Oportunidades distinguishes beneficiaries’ groups by their ethnic background (mestizo/indigenous), and thus provides a wealth of analyses based on the context of the beneficiaries (González de la Rocha 2010, Gutiérrez et. al. 2008, Sedesol 2008). The research reports provide areas for improvement that refer, to certain extent, to ethnic blindness in Oportunidades. However important those recommendations are, they do not actually elaborate on the effects that empowerment, for instance, may have on the worldviews of beneficiaries and their families who are indigenous. My perception is that there is need for more research justifying the need for taking into integrating the worldviews of different ethnic groups and the knowledge that they could actually bring into the education, health and consumption components of conditional cash transfers programmes such as Oportunidades.
learning, teaching and assessment through the adoption of a new virtual learning environment (VLE). As a result of a VLE Review (2008), our institution has developed and piloted a new VLE (2009-10) and is now undertaking its first roll-out. During the VLE Review, we identified that the dominant use of the VLE was as a repository while a minority of tutors used the communicative, collaborative and assessment features of the VLE and cloud-based tools1. However, the majority of tutors and students asked for a VLE that is more learnercentred.
Our VLE Review was informed by and the research triangulated with national and international reports2.
At our institution, there is a strong drive towards a higher adoption of technology-enhanced learning through the
VLE, which is expressed in a number of corporate targets. We responded to these targets with an institutional
strategy, which differentiates the adoption process into five strategic delivery arenas:
1. Information,
2. Academic Processes,
3. Content,
4. Collaboration / Communication, and
5. Assessment.
The strategy also proposed that the decision on how much of each arena is delivered online should be discussed
and agreed across delivery teams (pathway and modules) and at Faculty level. As a result, every Faculty put forward its baseline requirements which they expected to be fulfilled for every delivered module.
We are currently carrying out an internal audit using student surveys, system data, and collecting good practice with the aim of finding out which features of the VLE have been widely adopted and received good feedback. We also keen to recognise practices that take the VLE beyond the "traditional" repository use.
This paper will present our main findings and invites a discussion on strategic approaches to encourage the use of learning technologies to support more learner-centred, situated and constructivist approaches.
1 Richter, UM, Rivera Macias, B., 2009. Whose interests count? The university under pressure to keep abreast of national developments in technology-enhanced learning., ELiSS, 1 (3), 1-32
2 Anglia Ruskin University, 2010. Tailoring a bespoke Virtual Learning Environment with the support of the JISC e-Learning programme. JISC. [Last accessed 22/08/2011]
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/elearningcommsevaluation/JISC%20Anglia%20Ruskin%20case%20study%2011%2011%2010.pdf
Whilst our students are in a position to see a variety of teaching approaches and styles, academic colleagues have few opportunities to compare their own teaching with that of others. Through interviewing faculty colleagues, recording and analysing teaching sessions, and capturing the reflections of good teaching practitioners, this project aimed to increase the sharing of good practice and contribute to establishing benchmarks for teaching standards.
Our Corporate Plan states that we want students to recommend us to friends, and a significant influence on that is public endorsement of our teaching quality. In 2010 we embarked on the Good Teaching Project (GTP) with the aim of defining and making explicit the elements and components of good teaching in higher education. In addition, we aimed to establish links between our support for the enhancement of teaching quality and good teaching practice and where and how out support may be refined and refocused. This report addresses our progress on the first objective.
Outcomes will be made available through a mini-site, which makes the components of good teaching explicit in a variety of contexts – lecture, seminar, laboratory and studio.
Both qualitative and quantitative studies on Oportunidades have been carried out with the assistance of international and Mexican institutions. The Mexican state, nonetheless, sees beneficial statistics as evidence of an improvement of the poverty levels in Mexico, therefore showing Oportunidades as a success at the international arena. Yet figures are not the only available representations of human lives (some would say they are not a representation at all), they are only figures.
For instance, the programme has been uncritically delivered to the diverse levels of institutional staff, who then deliver it in the same way to the grassroots personnel. There are challenges that are dealt with at the micro-level which can also define the success or failure of the programme. Some of those challenges - diverse ethic background/make-up and plural hermeneutics - and the way they are dealt with might not be represented in the majority of those figures.
By looking at the micro-level of Oportunidades implementation, at the experiences throughout the diverse set of interactions at the grassroots level, I intend to build up an ontologically rich analysis of difficulties which more quantitative analyses might have left aside. Perhaps a growth of research from different qualitative approaches could shed a light on such phenomena and also offer a different, far richer perspective to them. My argument is based on the narrative of two cases of grassroots personnel. Those case studies come from the ethnographic evidence gathered through fieldwork carried out in a semi-rural town in the southern province of Veracruz in Mexico.
This article shall begin with a description of Oportunidades and of the town of Tequila. Secondly, I will present the stories, before closing with a discussion of how this idea may or may not prove important for social policy research.
on issues militating against good assessment feedback practice were gathered, commented on, analysed, and reported back to the faculties.
The student focus groups provided interesting insights as to how students perceive and receive feedback which were classifi ed as being related to content, clarity and style. It
was established that, with very few exceptions, issues and good practice in assessment feedback can be generalised across disciplines and, in the main, staff and students share their perceptions of what constitutes good assessment feedback.
Current research on Oportunidades distinguishes beneficiaries’ groups by their ethnic background (mestizo/indigenous), and thus provides a wealth of analyses based on the context of the beneficiaries (González de la Rocha 2010, Gutiérrez et. al. 2008, Sedesol 2008). The research reports provide areas for improvement that refer, to certain extent, to ethnic blindness in Oportunidades. However important those recommendations are, they do not actually elaborate on the effects that empowerment, for instance, may have on the worldviews of beneficiaries and their families who are indigenous. My perception is that there is need for more research justifying the need for taking into integrating the worldviews of different ethnic groups and the knowledge that they could actually bring into the education, health and consumption components of conditional cash transfers programmes such as Oportunidades.
learning, teaching and assessment through the adoption of a new virtual learning environment (VLE). As a result of a VLE Review (2008), our institution has developed and piloted a new VLE (2009-10) and is now undertaking its first roll-out. During the VLE Review, we identified that the dominant use of the VLE was as a repository while a minority of tutors used the communicative, collaborative and assessment features of the VLE and cloud-based tools1. However, the majority of tutors and students asked for a VLE that is more learnercentred.
Our VLE Review was informed by and the research triangulated with national and international reports2.
At our institution, there is a strong drive towards a higher adoption of technology-enhanced learning through the
VLE, which is expressed in a number of corporate targets. We responded to these targets with an institutional
strategy, which differentiates the adoption process into five strategic delivery arenas:
1. Information,
2. Academic Processes,
3. Content,
4. Collaboration / Communication, and
5. Assessment.
The strategy also proposed that the decision on how much of each arena is delivered online should be discussed
and agreed across delivery teams (pathway and modules) and at Faculty level. As a result, every Faculty put forward its baseline requirements which they expected to be fulfilled for every delivered module.
We are currently carrying out an internal audit using student surveys, system data, and collecting good practice with the aim of finding out which features of the VLE have been widely adopted and received good feedback. We also keen to recognise practices that take the VLE beyond the "traditional" repository use.
This paper will present our main findings and invites a discussion on strategic approaches to encourage the use of learning technologies to support more learner-centred, situated and constructivist approaches.
1 Richter, UM, Rivera Macias, B., 2009. Whose interests count? The university under pressure to keep abreast of national developments in technology-enhanced learning., ELiSS, 1 (3), 1-32
2 Anglia Ruskin University, 2010. Tailoring a bespoke Virtual Learning Environment with the support of the JISC e-Learning programme. JISC. [Last accessed 22/08/2011]
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/elearningcommsevaluation/JISC%20Anglia%20Ruskin%20case%20study%2011%2011%2010.pdf
The Good Teaching Project is informed by the higher education (HE) sector and our institutional context, as well as findings at Faculty and departmental levels, with regards to support for the enhancement of learning and teaching practice, as well as views on good teaching practice. This project links support for the enhancement of teaching quality and good teaching practice. It does so by studying the ways in which the current support complements or not the existing good teaching practice across Anglia Ruskin University and ways in which the needs for support are and can be addressed.
The objective of this session will be to enable delegates to find out about the project's findings so far and to discuss with the researcher the challenges for defining excellent learning and teaching practice.
I use elements from my doctoral research case study on the micro-level experiences of Oportunidades in a semi-rural town inhabited by people of Nahua indigenous ethnicity, where the implementers were mestizo and the beneficiaries Nahua. I carried out the fieldwork in 2003 and 2004 and, at that time, very little research looked critically into the ethnic blindness of conditional cash transfers in their design and implementation. By the loose term of ethnic blindness I refer to the exclusion of content relevant to the indigenous recipients’ way of life within Oportunidades, for instance. In fact, the information that is given throughout the programme’s implementation is based on western views on health, education and consumption, assuming that all beneficiaries share or should achieve the desired western worldview, as is the case with most of the mestizo population in Mexico.
Current research on Oportunidades distinguishes beneficiaries’ groups by their ethnic background (mestizo / indigenous), and thus provides a wealth of analyses based on the context of the beneficiaries (González de la Rocha 2010, Gutiérrez et. al. 2008, Sedesol 2008). The research reports provide areas for improvement that refer, to certain extent, to ethnic blindness in Oportunidades. However important those recommendations are, they do not actually elaborate on the effects that empowerment, for instance, may have on worldviews of beneficiaries and their families who are indigenous. My perception is that there is need for more research justifying the need for taking into account the worldviews of different ethnic groups and the knowledge that they could actually bring into the education, health and consumption components of conditional cash transfers programmes such as Oportunidades.