Les Watson short cv (if you need a bio and pic you can use all or part of this)
Les Watson is a freelance educational adviser. He was, until recently, interim Director of Information Services at Royal Holloway University of London on a part time basis where he developed a new learning space in the Bedford Library called tlc@bedford. Recently he has also worked as a consultant to the Joint Information Systems Committee e-learning programme on Technology Enhanced Learning Environments and during the past three years has done many presentations and workshops for a wide range of organisations (see here). Les was recently an invited keynote speaker at a series of seminars on Places and Spaces for Learning organised by the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education in Australia. He is also a visiting Professor of Learning Environment Development at the University of Lincoln.
Before embarking on this consultancy career Les was Pro Vice-Chancellor at Glasgow Caledonian University (1999 to 2006) with responsibility for Library, C&IT Services, student services, e-learning, the Caledonian Degree and work based learning all of which were integrated into a University wide Learning Service. At Caledonian Les led the development of the Learning Cafe, REAL@Caledonian, and the award winning Saltire Centre.
In his earlier career he was Dean of Learning and Information Services at the University of Gloucestershire where he had previously been the Head of IT Services. Les started his career as a teacher of Biological Sciences in comprehensive schools in Hull and Gloucester before moving into Higher Education as a senior Lecturer in Computers in Education at Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education (now the University of Gloucestershire).
At Caledonian Les was also the Project Director of the JISC Digital Libraries in the Classroom Spoken Word Project which continues to develop access to streamed digital audio resources and promote their use in the curriculum. Over many years Les has been a regular contributor to Online in the Times Educational Supplement and he has also produced synopsis papers on aspects of Higher Education for the European Parliament, contributed to a number of books on the use of IT in education, and was the author of Multimedia in Schools – the transition from primary to secondary schools for the Scientific and Technological Options Assessment Office of the European Parliament. He is a Fellow of the RSA, has been a member of the Universities and Colleges Information Services Association (UCISA) executive, a former chair of the annual UCISA management conference committee, and a former member of the JISC Board and a registered consultant with the Higher Education Academy. He was recently the lead consultant for the JISC Infonet project on Developing Technology Rich Spaces for Learning, and co-author, with Hugh Anderson, of a report for the JISC on The Design and Management of Open Plan Technology Rich Learning and Teaching Spaces in Further and Higher Education in the UK.