Mr Alastair Irons

National Teaching Fellow 2010 Alastair is a dedicated teacher who "absolutely loves teaching and being in the class room" but finds balancing his time with students alongside his management responsibilities is a challenge. His current teaching focuses on the new discipline of computer and digital forensics which has an excellent level of collegiality across the UK. He is currently vice chair of the British Computer Society's Cybercrime Special Interest group and is a board member of the North-East Fraud Forum. His previous academic career was at Northumbria University and before that he worked as a systems analyst with ICI in Teesside having moved to the north-east from Scotland after graduating in 1984 from Edinburgh University. Alastair's research interests focus on computer forensics and pedagogic issues in higher education with particular interest in student assessment and feedback. He has recently published books on formative feedback and on learning and teaching issues in computing and was also a member of the team who wrote the second version of the Computing Subject Benchmark statement. He is involved with professional bodies in both his subject discipline and educational development. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS), a Chartered IT Professional and a Fellow of the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) and of the Higher Education Academy. Alastair is married and has three young children who he thinks are just the 'most brilliant wee people in the world' who put everything into perspective for him. He learns so much from them everyday as he does his best to be a good dad for them. In his spare time he coaches at the local rugby club where his sons play and his eldest son has recently encouraged him to take up karate!