Office for Academic Development

The mission of the Office for Academic Development is to establish and shape a university culture of education where every student can effectively learn in accordance with their abilities and goals. We aim to emphasize inventive and student-centered teaching methods and prioritize excellence in both learning and teaching for all participants involved in the educational process. Our team specializes in pedagogy, educational development, educational technology, and educational research. Our tasks include building a community of instructors, developing their professional skills, providing professional support for curriculum development, as well as supporting and coordinating educational design and development processes.

BBU’s Office for Academic Training and Development - Main Activities

BBU’s Office for Academic Training and Development - Main Activities

Educational methodology innovations

Supporting Educational Innovations: Calling for proposals and coordinating grants supporting instructors’ innovative ideas related to curriculum development, carrying out tasks necessary for updating and modernising training programs.
Implementation of E-learning Developments: Comprehensive e-learning transformation of introductory courses, realization of partial e-learning developments through grants, and creation of digital competency-developing microlearning materials.
"Teaching Methodology" E-learning Materials for Instructors: The aim of our e-learning training series is to introduce our instructors at their own convenience and pace to a wide range of teaching methods, which can diversify and enhance the quality of university education.
Support for Educational Frameworks: Supporting the transition from existing Moodle and Coospace frameworks to the new CoSpace5 framework in close collaboration with the IT Directorate, including testing and coordination tasks.
Developments Based on Digital Competence Assessment: In the fall of 2023, a longitudinal measurement was initiated related to educational development, assessing the digital competence level of the institution's instructors and students. This involves evaluating digital competence using various versions of the DigComp framework and practical tasks related to the everyday use of digital tools in teaching practices. The evaluation will be repeated over three consecutive years, with targeted development opportunities and online training sessions provided for our instructors and students, based on the data gathered.
Digital Education Support: Since the transition to online education, we have developed the simplest and quickest solutions for the emerging challenges faced by instructors. We offer over 40 detailed, user-friendly guides for our instructors, which are continuously updated. We have university subscriptions to multiple educational support software that can be used in curriculum development or directly in teaching.

Increasing methodological awareness

Organizing Workshops for Instructors: Knowledge transfer, skills development, and assessment are all key tasks for instructors. Therefore, when choosing the topics of workshops aimed at their methodological development, our primary focus is on these areas. Our training portfolio comprises group consultations on pedagogical topics, presentation of assessment methods, and questioning techniques both online and offline. At the beginning of each semester, we organize presentations and workshops where we showcase innovative solutions concerning the main teaching tasks of that semester.
Tasks Related to Curriculum Modernisation: We conduct preparatory sessions for our instructors on "Learning Outcome-Based Course Design" via departmental workshops.
Providing Methodological Consultation: Through one-to one consultations with our instructors, we offer methodological counselling tailored to their specific needs. We strive to seize every opportunity to enhance the methodological awareness of our instructors. We support department heads in methodological consultations, where we collectively brainstorm on the harmonization of program and course objectives and address specific questions related to subjects within the department.
Introducing Pedagogical and ICT Innovations: We actively contribute with publications in the field of Higher Education Pedagogy. In addition, at professional conferences (Higher Education Pedagogy Conference, National Educational Science Conference, ELTE Higher Education at a Higher Level Conference, etc.), we frequently share university best practices, innovative ideas and methodological insights.

Building a Community for Instructors and Students

Methodological Mosaic - Monthly Newsletter: In our monthly online publication, we highlight educational methodological events, innovations, and grant opportunities for our colleagues. Furthermore, with our interview series we aim to introduce our colleagues from a methodological perspective.
Knowledge-sharing Community Platform (Coospace): The Educational Methodology Knowledge and Idea Repository is a scene where educational tools, teaching and supplementary materials, together with the explanations of basic pedagogical concepts used at the University are collected and made available to all BBU instructors.
Methodological Picnic - Instructor's Day: One day each semester is exclusively dedicated to and for our instructors. This is when they can explore the methodological innovations in higher education through exciting presentations, informal professional discussions, and interactive workshops.
Higher Education Methodological and Educational Informatics Forum: The working group brings together the education development offices of Hungarian universities, with its primary goals being the sharing of best practices among universities and the representation of interests in higher education pedagogy.
"Welcome aboard" - Mentor Network for Instructor Support: This initiative aims to support the early stages of the university instructor career so that new instructors can fulfill their university teaching duties confidently, using methodologically proper approaches. Each new instructor is paired with an experienced colleague as a mentor and another mentor from the Office for Academic Training and Development. They together assist new colleagues in preparing for their upcoming tasks by introducing them to current and effective teaching methods and providing them with useful advice in course design, among others.
"Open Classrooms Week" Program: Within the program, any instructor can open their class(es) to their fellow colleagues, who, in turn, can attend the open class. It runs for an entire week, each semester. Visiting each other's classes provides a great opportunity for instructors to familiarize themselves with the content of different subjects, learn from each other, and draw inspiration from best practices.
"THANK-A-TEACHER" Program: This program, highly successful among both students and instructors, enables students to convey personal expressions of gratitude to instructors who have positively influenced their university studies, professional or personal development, or served as a source of inspiration. Amid the challenging phase of online education during the Covid pandemic, nearly 400 instructors received a total of 1064 such messages, providing significant encouragement. Based on instructors' feedback, the program has proven to be exceptionally motivating for them. Throughout the nine campaign periods, we have delivered thousands of student thank-you messages directly to the personal mailboxes of our instructors.

Our fellow lecturers can rely upon our assistance in the following areas:

Course design and development
Curriculum development
Structured support related to the "TÉR" (performance assessment) focus areas
Consultations concerning educational challenges
Workshops and training sessions
Drawing up individual development plans
Education-related applications related to education,
and much more...

Platforms Available for Our Instructors
E-learning materials As part of the 'BGE 10 Subject E-learning Project' coordinated by the Office for Academic Training and Development, the comprehensive e-learning transformation of 10 large-scale introductory courses has been completed. These courses include Business Statistics, Statistics and Probability Theory, Marketing, Economic Mathematics, Decision Making with Quantitative Methods, Business Law, Organizational and Human Management, Introduction to the Economics of Commercial Service Enterprises, Corporate Economics, and Fundamentals of Sustainable Tourism.
BBU Educational Methodology Knowledge and Idea Pool: It was created to bring together teaching methodology tools, course materials, resources, and fundamental pedagogical concepts used across the University. As each BBU instructor is automatically granted access to this pool, it serves as a shared space for knowledge transfer. It is continually updated with methodological guides, a glossary, editable templates, and downloadable samples.
Workshops for Instructors: Knowledge transfer, skills development, and assessment are all key tasks for instructors. Therefore, when choosing the topics of workshops aimed at their methodological development, our primary focus is on these areas. Our training portfolio comprises group consultations on pedagogical topics, presentation of assessment methods, and questioning techniques both online and offline. Additionally, we conduct online and offline workshops and software presentations to facilitate the successful launch of each semester.
Teaching Methodology E-learning Modules for Instructors: The aim of our e-learning series is to introduce instructors to various teaching methods that can enrich and enhance university education. The curriculum currently includes 13 methods, ranging from the Socratic method, fostering critical thinking, through video creation to formative assessment and flipped classrooms. These platforms and initiatives demonstrate our dedication to fostering the ongoing development and enhancement of teaching methodologies and pedagogical approaches among our instructors at BBU.

Platforms Available for Our Instructors

E-learning materials

As part of the 'BGE 10 Subject E-learning Project' coordinated by the Office for Academic Training and Development, the comprehensive e-learning transformation of 10 large-scale introductory courses has been completed. These courses include Business Statistics, Statistics and Probability Theory, Marketing, Economic Mathematics, Decision Making with Quantitative Methods, Business Law, Organizational and Human Management, Introduction to the Economics of Commercial Service Enterprises, Corporate Economics, and Fundamentals of Sustainable Tourism.

BBU Educational Methodology Knowledge and Idea Pool:

It was created to bring together teaching methodology tools, course materials, resources, and fundamental pedagogical concepts used across the University. As each BBU instructor is automatically granted access to this pool, it serves as a shared space for knowledge transfer. It is continually updated with methodological guides, a glossary, editable templates, and downloadable samples.

Workshops for Instructors:

Knowledge transfer, skills development, and assessment are all key tasks for instructors. Therefore, when choosing the topics of workshops aimed at their methodological development, our primary focus is on these areas. Our training portfolio comprises group consultations on pedagogical topics, presentation of assessment methods, and questioning techniques both online and offline. Additionally, we conduct online and offline workshops and software presentations to facilitate the successful launch of each semester.

Teaching Methodology E-learning Modules for Instructors:

The aim of our e-learning series is to introduce instructors to various teaching methods that can enrich and enhance university education. The curriculum currently includes 13 methods, ranging from the Socratic method, fostering critical thinking, through video creation to formative assessment and flipped classrooms.

These platforms and initiatives demonstrate our dedication to fostering the ongoing development and enhancement of teaching methodologies and pedagogical approaches among our instructors at BBU.