Dear colleagues,
We’re seeking offers to undertake blind peer-review of the following submissions to the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (JLDHE).
If you would like to complete a review of one of the submissions, please email the designated editorial contact below.
If you haven’t reviewed for us before, please include a brief description of your interest in the topic, your relevant qualifications, expertise and/or experience in relation to the submission (up to 200 words). This might include your knowledge of the subject and/or your experience acting as a peer reviewer for academic papers or as an author or researcher in the field.
Please also join our register of reviewers and list your interests via http://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/user/register.
New reviewers are very welcome! We provide a developmental environment for those interested in this important community service. Why not try something new today?
| No. | Type | Title and abstract | Editorial contact |
| 2129 | Paper | Dynamic portfolio development: innovation with data, metrics, and contextualised insights Higher education leaders operate within increasingly complex environments characterised by competing priorities, including student outcomes, financial sustainability, and policy accountability. Despite the growing availability of institutional data, decision-making is often constrained by fragmentation, overabundance of metrics, and reliance on subjective interpretation. This paper introduces a dual-lens analytical methodology, operationalised through the proprietary Chroma platform, designed to support more coherent and evidence-informed portfolio decision-making. The approach integrates impact-oriented indicators (such as student satisfaction, recruitment, and graduate outcomes) with measures of implementation effort (including cost, retention, and resource utilisation). These metrics are systematically normalised, indexed, and internally benchmarked to reflect institutional context, enabling meaningful comparison across programmes and subject areas. The resulting impact–effort matrix provides a dynamic visualisation of relative performance, supporting prioritisation and strategic alignment. Distinctively, the methodology emphasises internal benchmarking and configurability, allowing institutions to align analytical weightings with evolving strategic priorities. A practitioner case study illustrates how the approach can surface structural patterns, inform curriculum redesign, and enhance decision-making transparency. The paper argues that such contextualised, adaptable analytics can strengthen institutional leadership by providing a structured yet flexible framework for navigating complexity and supporting sustainable portfolio development. | Suparna Ghose: suparna.ghose1@aru.ac.uk |
| 2089 | Paper | Making learning development visible through programmatic support for Communities of Practice This paper presents a case study which illustrates how learning development (LD) practice can be made visible through institutional mechanisms that recognise Communities of Practice (CoPs). In higher education, LD is often distributed across academic, professional, leadership, and specialist roles, meaning that LD learning and innovation is typically enacted through peer-to-peer exchanges and collaborations. The dispersed and collaborative nature of LD work frequently exacerbates its institutional invisibility. In this case study, we draw on our research to show how peer-led educator CoPs in higher education can make LD practice visible through shared language development, cross-boundary networks for learning and sharing and collective outputs. We discuss how our findings are informing the development of [authors’ institution]’s Educator Capability Framework and Program. We reflect on a case study on how mechanisms for recognition and support for CoPs can enhance the institutional visibility of LD practice. | Steve Briggs: steve.briggs@beds.ac.uk |
| 2087 | Opinion piece | Making the case for learning development with stakeholder interests in mind The learning development function features prominently in higher education, yet there is little consensus on its impact, which can lead to inconsistencies in engagement, usage, and allocation of resources. This opinion piece outlines core concerns of key stakeholder groups – students, academic staff, and administrators – and explores approaches to gathering evidence, engaging in conversation, and crafting messages that address each group’s interests and promote buy-in. | Suparna Ghose: suparna.ghose1@aru.ac.uk |
| 2112 | Paper | Learning Development as strategic infrastructure: digitising mandatory assessment and feedback training to advance equity, quality, and institutional impact This case study demonstrates how Learning Development (LD) can underpin institutional initiatives, illustrated through the digitisation of mandatory Effective Assessment and Feedback (EAF) staff training. Originally a four-hour face-to-face workshop, EAF was redesigned as a fully asynchronous, interactive, accessible programme to meet escalating demand. The LD-led redesign used storyboard-driven design and embedded knowledge checks to ensure meaningful engagement, integrating assessment literacy, design principles and feedback practice aligned with sector guidance. Asynchronous delivery addressed barriers of time and place while improving sustainability. Evidence indicates immediate impact: 610 staff completed the training in the first three months, compared to approximately a year under the workshop model. EAF’s implementation coincides with sustained NSS assessment and feedback gains, rising from 71% in 2021 to 89% in 2025, seven points above sector average. While causal attribution is not claimed, well-designed asynchronous training can serve as meaningful strategic infrastructure and can be transferable for LD practitioners. | Mohamed Maher: mohamed.maher@liverpool.ac.uk |
| 2121 | Paper | What counts as good causal evidence? Outcome harvesting and the case for purpose-sensitive evidence in Learning Development Education-focused roles in higher education face growing pressure to evidence their impact. For this, the Office for Students’ Standards of Evidence (SoE) have taken centre stage in determining what ‘good’ evidence looks like. The SoE define causal evidence (Type 3) narrowly, reserving it for designs that use comparison or control groups. We argue that this framing disadvantages learning development and allied work: many outcomes are systemic, shaping the policies, cultures, and curricula that affect everyone, and thus admit no comparison group. Yet comparison groups are only one way to warrant a causal claim; such claims can also be supported by tracing how an outcome came about and weighing the rival explanations against it. We illustrate this through an evaluation of an institutional Education Career Track using Outcome Harvesting. The approach produced a credible, contribution-focused account of impact without constructing a comparison group. We thus suggest that methodologies like Outcome Harvesting present a valuable and transferable framework for evaluating the impact of education-focused roles in higher education. | Laura Barnett: l.barnett@surrey.ac.uk |
| 2132 | Paper | A ripple effect: reflections on the value, impact and reach of Learning Development from ALDinHE’s Steering Group This paper shares the voices of seven members of the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE) steering group, drawing on their experienced-based insights into how the value and impact of Learning Development work can be evidenced effectively. A collaborative auto-ethnographic approach (Chang, 2013) was adopted to reflect on the vignettes. Our implementation of this method first allows each author’s voice to be heard individually, before being synthesised into collectively agreed themes in the concluding remarks. We present the output as an amalgamated set of reflections, drawn from diverse individual experiences, on how Learning Development practitioners recognise and capture examples of valuable and impactful practice in a way that is relatable to a wider audience. The paper is designed to make space for the reader to consider, to reflect and to adapt the ideas and perspectives surfaced and shared, and thereby contributes meaningfully to the evolution of LD. | Laura Barnett: l.barnett@surrey.ac.uk |
| 2222 | Paper | Talking a field into existence: podcasting as knowledge mobilisation in Learning Development This paper examines podcasting as a form of knowledge mobilisation in Learning Development (LD), a practice-based field whose scholarship is often overlooked by conventional impact metrics. Drawing on a framework analysis of fourteen episodes of the Anonymised podcast, we explore how practitioners become scholars and contribute to the development of the field. Three themes emerged: scholarship begins in practice; professional and scholarly identities develop together; and podcast conversations create opportunities for reflection, knowledge production, and intellectual experimentation that formal publications rarely capture. We argue that the podcast functions as a knowledge broker, making visible the relational and collaborative processes through which LD knowledge is produced, shared, and sustained. In doing so, it not only disseminates scholarship but actively contributes to the formation of LD as a scholarly field. | Steve Briggs: steve.briggs@beds.ac.uk |
| 2123 | Paper | This is the way I go about things: neurodivergence in higher education and the need for systemic change This article presents the results of a year-long qualitative study of neurodivergent teaching and learning at the University of Anon, UK. Our study found that many neurodivergent people’s experience of education is not liberatory and fulfilling, but rather is characterised by ableism, a lack of support and understanding, and numerous physical, emotional, and psychological obstacles to learning well. We argue that neurodivergence-inclusive teaching will be fully facilitated only when, sector-wide, all staff members and decision-makers work in a committed and ongoing fashion to develop all educators’ understandings of neurodivergence and pedagogy. The article outlines some of the key issues, challenges, and solutions described by neurodivergent participants in our research study and details actions that educators of all kinds can take to bring about much-needed systemic change. | Elaine Hills: e.hills@brighton.ac.uk |
| 2156 | Paper | Towards a vision for EDI in learning development: autoethnographic reflections on belonging, equity, and practice in higher education Drawing on collective autoethnographic accounts from learning developers and practitioners in UK higher education (HE), this paper explores equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) through practitioner reflection. Guided by the question, ‘What does EDI mean to you as an individual in the context of your role?’, the study examines how contributors understand and enact EDI in their professional practice. Findings highlight ongoing inequalities affecting students and staff, including awarding gaps, experiences of marginalisation, and barriers to participation. Contributors emphasise the importance of inclusive pedagogies and learning approaches that recognise students’ identities and lived experiences. Belonging emerged as a relational concept shaped through inclusive curricula, co-creation, and support practices. The reflections also foreground learning development (LD) as a ‘third space’ practice that fosters dialogue, partnership, and engagement with EDI. Collectively, the findings highlight the complex, context-dependent nature of EDI and its connection to broader aspirations for justice, equity, and inclusive transformation within HE. | Elaine Hills: e.hills@brighton.ac.uk |
| 2170 | Opinion piece | Beyond more choice: a construct-preserving framework for inclusive assessment design: insights from language education Offering learners multiple assessment formats is often framed as an inclusive response to diversity. Yet choice can become inequitable when alternative modes generate different evidence of achievement or introduce hidden linguistic, cultural, performative, technological or collaborative demands. This opinion piece proposes the Construct-Preserving Assessment Choice (CPAC) Framework, a practical decision process for inclusive assessment design. Drawing on Universal Design for Learning, inclusive assessment, and assessment-validity scholarship, CPAC guides educators to identify the construct, specify required evidence, examine what each modality reveals or obscures, audit hidden demands and establish defensible boundaries for choice. Three conceptual scenarios—a multimodal menu task, a simulated interview, and an open-book reflective assessment—illustrate how the framework can inform design decisions. Although developed through language education, CPAC has relevance across higher education. Inclusion should be judged not by how many options are offered, but by whether those options preserve intended learning without rewarding hidden advantage. | Maggie Scott: maggie.rachael.scott@gmail.com |
| 2182 | Paper | Learning development across organisational levels: exploring its institutional contribution within a CTL Learning Development (LD) is typically understood as a service for students, distinct from Academic Development (AD) work with staff. Centres for teaching and learning (CTL) complicate this distinction, increasingly theorised as third-space institutional units spanning both domains. This study examines how LD initiatives are organised across micro, meso, and macro levels within a CTL, and how participants perceive LD’s positioning in relation to AD through interviews with six staff in an established CTL and three faculty, supported by observational and documentary data. Participants described LD as an interconnected system that, when institutionally embedded, may shape wider teaching and learning practices, rather than operating solely as direct student support. This may therefore contribute to debates on the relationship between LD and AD by identifying institutional embedding as a condition for LD’s inclusion within CTLs’ broader AD portfolio. | Maggie Scott: maggie.rachael.scott@gmail.com |
| 2143 | Opinion piece | On selective metrics sceptics, and values as alibis: scrutinising metrics, moral language, and professional judgement in Learning Development Much HE discourse explores the drawbacks of using externally imposed metrics to evaluate and improve practice, preferring instead values-led professional judgement. However, questions of the accountability and contestability of judgement in Learning Development have received less scrutiny, especially the role of moral language in shielding such judgement from challenge. This article argues for appropriate use of metrics in a field where studies of impact remain few, and for vigilance about how the language of values can affect the rigour of professional judgement. Calculations or spreadsheets can conceal values in the guise of objectivity. But value-laden judgements can themselves operate as covert metrics – sorting like a metric but without a metric’s legibility. Morally loaded language can convert contestable judgements into opaque verdicts that are socially costly to question. In this way, moral vocabulary such as harm, justice or inclusivity can also become a technology of concealment – a principled stand using values as alibis to escape contestation and scrutiny. | Angela Newton: a.j.newton@leeds.ac.uk |
N.B. it is essential to be respectful of the writers of submissions to our journal, especially when they are at the draft stages. Please do not comment publicly on the list or elsewhere on any aspect of the paper titles or abstracts above.
We look forward to hearing from you!
With warm wishes on behalf of the Editorial Board,
Chad
Dr Chad McDonald
Managing Editor, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education