Frequently asked questions for current EdTA participants

Advice to support current EdTA participants.

An EdTA blog is a first-person narrative that describes an experience of teaching and/or supporting learning at the university. The content of your blogs will be unique to you and they will be focused on your experience with several PSF Dimensions (typically, 1 Area of Activity, 1 Core Knowledge, and 1 Professional Values). 

EdTA blogs are stories about your learning and teaching and should reflect your expertise and context. To get a sense of what others have written about and how the blogs should ‘look’, please see our exemplars (in Participant documents) for your fellowship category. 

For guidance on the PSF, please see the Advance HE Guide for your fellowship category (in Participant documents).   

EdTA current participants - documents list


All recordings of live EdTA sessions can be found on our Media Hopper EdTA playlist. 

Please navigate to Media Hopper (you will need to sign-in), and select the EdTA playlist ‘live sessions’ or ‘Dimension deep dives’ included in the past recordings listed on our website.

You can also find direct links to individual past event recordings on our EdTA current participants events webpage. 


All EdTA participants are given just under 2 years to write and submit a claim for fellowship. You can submit your claim for fellowship at any time and at any submission point during the 2 years. 

Your start date is the date of the ‘Introduction to EdTA’ session that you attended, and your end date will be the assessment panel just before the 2 year mark on the scheme (usually mid-Nov and mid-March). This timeline means that the last chance that you have to submit your claim will be October or February of your second year. 

Please note that local mentoring schemes have different start and end dates. Please contact your local mentoring scheme lead and confirm this information with them. 


In order to be eligible to be actively in the EdTA and meeting our accreditation requirements, you need to be employed or studying at the University of Edinburgh. 

If you know your contract will be ending on a given month, we recommend planning to submit your EdTA claim prior to your completion of work at UoE. If this is not possible, we recommend that you withdraw and take your writing with you to future employment, or complete a direct application to Advance HE. 


In the submission form, we have PSF Dimensions listed at the top of each blog. We do not recommend including in-text labels of the Dimensions as often these are incorrect and can detract from your submission. 


Every mentoring relationship is unique to the individuals. Broadly, you can expect to meet and discuss your submission with your colleague roughly 3 to 5 times over your 2 years of working together, but this is to be mutually decided between mentor and mentees. You can expect your writing to be read and feedback provided (in a way that suits you and your mentor). 

Overall, we advise our mentors to spend about 15 hours, in total, with each mentee and this estimate includes meeting together and feedback. If you feel that you need much more support or advice, we recommend that you attend our quarterly EdTA check-in meetings, annual writing retreats, and reach out to the EdTA team for specific advice and guidance. Your mentor should not be the only source of support during your time working on your submission.


Your options moving forward depend on why you haven’t been able to meet with your mentor. Have you tried reaching out to them? If they’ve been unresponsive to emails, please email the EdTA team to let us know. It is possible that they have taken a leave of absence. 

If you’ve met together, but not connected in a good way, it may be that there is a personality difference. Some mentoring relationships can thrive and others may not. If you can ask and receive feedback on your mentoring work, then we would recommend sticking with it. If your mentor is unresponsive, then please reach out to the EdTA team and we will discuss a new mentoring match. 


The short answer is ‘Yes – any EdTA participant may change fellowship category while being an actively in the scheme’, but, we need to check and record the change. 

We require you to speak with your mentor before changing your fellowship category, as they will have experience that you can rely on to make a good decision. Once you have decided you need to switch categories, you must email the EdTA team and seek permission to change. We will do some quick checks with you via email, and record the change in our records (and if relevant, help you be matched to a new mentor with the right fellowship category). 

There is no extended time (i.e., changing your EdTA end date) offered to those switching categories, unless extenuating circumstances exist to merit further time.


No. All documentation, including the submission form and supporting statements, need to be ‘final copy’ and emailed before the submission deadline. Once this date has passed you cannot alter the content or add a supporting statement. These documents will be sent to our assessors and cannot be altered once submitted. 


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