Contents and Welcome

Welcome to the Winter Term edition of Connections. As always we have an interesting and varied mix of articles some of which focus on very specific approaches to teaching and learning and others which are more wide ranging. During the autumn the MSOR Network successfully delivered the Induction Course for New Lecturers and eleven workshops for Postgraduates Who Teach. We are now focusing on developing the legacy of the Network prior to our expected end date of 31 July 2012. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those staff who have already left the network, for all their hard work and support – Ewan Crawford, Janet Nuttall, Robert Surowiec and Laura Harvey. But we still do have work to do. Thanks to support from the HE STEM programme, sigma and in partnership with the Higher Education Academy the CETL-MSOR Conference 2012 - Sharing Good Practice in MSOR Teaching and Learning will take place on 12th to 13th July 2012 at the University of Sheffield. The call for abstracts and registration are now open, see www.mathstore.ac.uk/conference2012. I am also pleased to confirm that the MSOR Network, on behalf of the Higher Education Academy, will be publishing a further edition of Connections in its present form (including printed copies). This is expected to be published in the summer term, so please continue to submit articles for inclusion. Dagmar Waller Assistant Director