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In response to a UK government drive to improve maths teaching in schools, the South West London Maths Enhancement Course (MEC) has been set up though collaboration between three Higher Education institutions (HEIs) to provide an efficient route for non maths graduates in employment to upgrade their subject knowledge and give a smooth transition into teacher training (PGCE).An evaluation of the scheme, measured against Teacher Development Agency (TDA) objectives and success criteria agreed by university staff, involved thematic analysis of focus group discussions and interviews with students and staff during both the MEC and PGCE courses. This has revealed a high level of satisfaction and success related to a number of underlying issues, particularly around student recruitment, curriculum design, peer support and staff collaboration. The model offers an example of practice transferable to a range of programmes aimed at supporting students in the transition between levels and institutions.

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Chaos-based cryptography is a promising and emerging field that offers a large variety of techniques particularly suitable for applications such as image encryption. The fundamental characteristics of chaotic systems are closely related to the properties of a strong cryptosystem. Most research on chaos-based encryption does not concentrate on the aspect of encryption modes of operation. This paper introduces a new chaos-based image encryption scheme using an all-or-nothing transform (AONT) mode of operation. This results in a novel non-separable chaos-based mode which we have implemented and evaluated. Our results show that the AONT mode achieves a security gain with little overhead on the overall efficiency of the encryption.

Assessment of student learning is fundamental in Higher Education (HE) reflecting academic standards and impacting on student satisfaction, position in league tables and graduate employment. Nonetheless, there is a BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) attainment gap, the difference in the proportion of BME and White students who attain a first class or 2.1 honours degree (even when controlled for prior attainment and entry profile), which is persistent across the HE sector. As assessment strategies play an essential role in determining degree attainment, we have reviewed the role of group assessment and whether this form of assessment specifically impacts on the BME attainment gap. Overall, this study provided evidence that assessed group work does not adversely impact BME students. In addition, the performance in BME/non-BME/mixed groups did not suggest any consistent difference, suggesting that the demographic composition of groups does not affect BME performance. Therefore, group work would appear to be an inclusive form of assessment that does not appear to lead or contribute to exacerbating the BME attainment gap.