A community of practice in action: SEDA as a learning community for educational developers in higher education

Abstract

The Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) was formed in 1993 combining a number of predecessor organisations, including the Standing Conference for Educational Development and the Staff Development Group of the Society for Research in Higher Education. It was later joined by the membership of the Association of Educational Training Technology, SEDA Scotland and Flexible Learning in Higher Education. SEDA was set up to support members of the emergent profession of educational development, originally in the UK and subsequently internationally. In this article, the case is made that SEDA became a highly successful community of practice of individuals working in higher education institutions. It is proposed that features of communities of practice as proposed within the literature in the field can be evidenced in SEDA’s activities and in comments collected from SEDA members whose views were sought for this article.

Keywords:

• communities of practice
• staff development
• educational development
• SEDA
• higher education

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Liz Beaty, Phil Race, Diana Eastcott, James Wisdom, Carole Baume, Liz Shrives and Chris Rust.