Professor Christine Rivers
About
Biography
Christine Rivers is Co-Director of the Centre for Management Education at Surrey Business School and accredited Executive Coach and Consultant in Management Education. As part of her CME Director role Christine drives staff development of Management Educators at all levels at Surrey and outside Surrey, playing an integral role in shaping the future of Management Education as a scholarly profession. Christine is also Director for Learning and Teaching (interim) at Surrey Business Schools working closely with Executive Directors at Undergraduate and Postgraduate level to ensure the delivery of an outstanding student experience. At Surrey Christine designed and leads the first credit-bearing PG Cert in Management Education and implemented an internal staff development programme MEP – Management Educator in Practice.
Outside Surrey, Christine consults and collaborates with professional bodies, business schools and higher education institutions. Projects are based on her research expertise around staff development and blended learning design in particular usability in virtual learning environments. Partners include University of Cambridge, University of East Anglia, Chartered Association of Business Schools, Majan College Oman, MCI in Innsbruck, Austria to name a few. Christine’s expertise and knowledge of developing staff and designing meaningful blended learning experiences has been instrumental in supporting the transition of Surrey during Covid-19.
In addition, Christine is SIG Chair for Knowledge and Learning, British Academy of Management, CABS LTSE committee member, Senior Fellow Advance HE and keynote speaker. She is associate editor for Journal of Management Education and reviewer for the journal Academy of Management, Learning and Education. Christine’s full profile can be found here https://www.surrey.ac.uk/people/christine-rivers and Christine can be followed via twitter @CBRivers.
Areas of specialism
University roles and responsibilities
- Co-Director Centre for Management Education
- Director Learning & Teaching (interim) since Aug 2020
Previous roles
Affiliations and memberships
News
ResearchResearch interests
Christine's research focuses on blended learning, learning journey design for hybrid learning, curriculum design and staff development in business and management education. Christine works closely with other business schools nationally and internationally on various educational research projects and contributes to the Business and Management Education community in various roles including conference chair, special interest group/ division chair, editorial board member, guest editor and committee member.
Research projects
ADD philosophy is grounded in five inclusive principles for learning and teaching: Explore, create, collaborate, share and reflect. These principles are equally important for students while learning and academics while designing modules. The ADD method is based on five practical steps, identified throughout years of testing and in-depth research on visual usability:
Step 1. Template and content > Unified structured module design template and consistent approach to embedded content
Step 2. Supporting visuals > Individual conceptual module maps with weekly module maps and use of decorative images for content (e.g. weekly agendas, activities, narratives)
Step 3. Learning icons > Integrated learning icons to enhance student learning and signpost particular aspects in both the VLE and learning materials
Step 4. Narratives > Scaffolded learning through guided activities and captured content accompanied by short narratives and hyperlinked content
Step 5. Learning resource sets > Including sets of bite-size videos and deeper learning materials (activities scaffolded with narratives).
While ADD suggests following these five steps to warrant a holistic student experience, each step can also be implemented separately or over time. ADD is therefore a flexible approach to designing hybrid learning and teaching journeys, guided by questions of value and purpose.
While a consistent, templated approach is advocated for all modules on a particular programme to ensure students are able to easily navigate through modules without getting lost or having to adapt to different structures, the team also strongly believe that module personality and academic voice is crucial. These can be achieved by individual bespoke module maps and narratives to support learning. In addition, where face-to-face time is reduced, the use of narratives often replaces corridor chats and pre and post lecture conversations.
Research interests
Christine's research focuses on blended learning, learning journey design for hybrid learning, curriculum design and staff development in business and management education. Christine works closely with other business schools nationally and internationally on various educational research projects and contributes to the Business and Management Education community in various roles including conference chair, special interest group/ division chair, editorial board member, guest editor and committee member.
Research projects
ADD philosophy is grounded in five inclusive principles for learning and teaching: Explore, create, collaborate, share and reflect. These principles are equally important for students while learning and academics while designing modules. The ADD method is based on five practical steps, identified throughout years of testing and in-depth research on visual usability:
Step 1. Template and content > Unified structured module design template and consistent approach to embedded content
Step 2. Supporting visuals > Individual conceptual module maps with weekly module maps and use of decorative images for content (e.g. weekly agendas, activities, narratives)
Step 3. Learning icons > Integrated learning icons to enhance student learning and signpost particular aspects in both the VLE and learning materials
Step 4. Narratives > Scaffolded learning through guided activities and captured content accompanied by short narratives and hyperlinked content
Step 5. Learning resource sets > Including sets of bite-size videos and deeper learning materials (activities scaffolded with narratives).
While ADD suggests following these five steps to warrant a holistic student experience, each step can also be implemented separately or over time. ADD is therefore a flexible approach to designing hybrid learning and teaching journeys, guided by questions of value and purpose.
While a consistent, templated approach is advocated for all modules on a particular programme to ensure students are able to easily navigate through modules without getting lost or having to adapt to different structures, the team also strongly believe that module personality and academic voice is crucial. These can be achieved by individual bespoke module maps and narratives to support learning. In addition, where face-to-face time is reduced, the use of narratives often replaces corridor chats and pre and post lecture conversations.
Teaching
Christine leads and teaches on he Postgraduate Certificate in Management Education, which is aimed at practitioners, ECR and those without a valid or relevant teaching qualification in Management Education.
Christine has taught on all levels prior predominantly marketing, qualitative research methods and dissertation/ business model projects.
Publications
Peer-reviewed Publications Silver, C. and Rivers, C. (2013), Learning from the Learners: technology acceptance and adoption in understanding researchers' early experiences with CAQDAS packages. A pilot qualitative longitudinal study. submitted to International Journal for Social Research Methods.
Rivers C. and Calic J. (2013), Qualitative Remote Collaboration Analysis, submitted to International Journal of Human Computer Studies
Rivers C., Tan A., Kondoz A., (2009), An Intelligent Information Management Tool for Complex Human Collaboration, In: Open Information Management: Applications of Interconnectivity and Collaboration edited by S. Niiranen, J. Yil-Hietenen, Lugmayr A., Chapter 15, p.113-143
Glaser C., Tan A., Kondoz A., (2007), Direct Interaction with Multifunctional Digital Pens in Collaborative Environments, The International Journal of Technology Knowledge and Society, Vol 4, Nr 3, p.18-28
Peer-reviewed conference proceedings
Rivers C., Silver S., Woodger N., (2011), Camera Set-up, Image Placement and Interactive Devices in Virtual Learning Environments, Increasing the Feeling of Co-Presence and Interactivity in Access Grid mediated sessions, In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Education and Information Systems, Technologies and Applications: EISTA 2011, Orlando, FL, USA, 19-22nd July 2011.
Rivers C., Silver S., (2010), Identifying Aspects of Learning Experience and Usability in CAQDAS - A Longitudinal Case-Study Project, In Proceedings of Qualitative Computing: Diverse Worlds and Research Practices, Istanbul, Turkey, 24-26th February 2011.
Rivers C., Tan A., Calic J., (2009), Combining Activity Theory and Grounded Theory for the Design of Collaborative Interfaces, published by Springer in Lecture Notes of Computer Science (LNCS), HCI international conference, San Diego, July 2009
Glaser C., Tan A. , Kondoz A., (2008), Talk-in Interaction reflects Usability of Virtual Collaboration Systems, in Proceedings of the Third IASTED International Human-Computer Interaction Conference, March 17th-19th 2008, Innsbruck, Austria, p.291-296.
Non-Peer-reviewed PublicationsRivers C, Bulloch S (2011), CAQDAS - A contributor to social scientific knowledge?, in MethodsNEWS Spring 2011, NCRM.
Rivers C, (2010) Qualitative Remote Collaboration Analysis, University of Surrey, UK, PhD Thesis.
Glaser C, (2004), Lifestyle-PR, Applied Public Relations in the Context of the Social Change, University of Vienna, Master Thesis.