With the fast development of mobile technologies, mobile learning has been adopted by more and more students and staff in higher education institutions. However, most students and staff tend to explore mobile learning as individuals, and there is a lack of systematic exchange of ideas and strategies related to mobile learning among them. This chapter reports on a project on building a mobile learning community (MLC) to promote mobile learning in a Hong Kong tertiary institution. The research questions are as follows: ‘What are the key factors in building a successful mobile learning community?’ and ‘How can the effectiveness of the MLC be evaluated?’ The key factors identified in building a successful mobile learning community are recruitment of community members, establishment of a mobile learning community website as a platform for exchange of ideas, organization of sharing seminars/workshops, making an impact on students’ learning and on staff development. The evaluation of the effectiveness of the mobile learning community will also be deliberated. It is hoped that this chapter can provide some practical guidance and useful references for those who wish to establish a mobile learning community in their institutions in order to promote Scholarship of Learning & Teaching (SoLT).

Higher education institutions around the world have increasingly been concerned with staff professional development (SPD) programmes for academic and teaching (A/T) staff. Since its establishment in 1994, an education university in Hong Kong (which we will refer to as the University) has offered primarily teacher education to foster the development of quality teachers. To meet the demand for students’ holistic and whole-person development for the twenty-first century, the University has sought to broaden the range of programmes offered, introducing the concept of ‘Education-Plus’. Under the ‘Education-Plus’ vision, the University has been expanding non-education programmes rapidly since 2010. Many new A/T staff with limited teaching experience have been recruited, needing professional development (PD) to enhance their skills and knowledge. Since 2013, the Centre for Learning, Teaching and Technology (LTTC) has designed and developed an SPD programme to allow A/T staff to enrich their PD and ultimately enhance student learning. The evaluation of the current SPD programme activities revealed that the PD activities were beneficial to A/T’s teaching and their PD, but the question has arisen as to whether the current SPD programme is effective, e.g. whether A/T staff have obtained and applied new knowledge and skills to teaching. This paper will discuss the design of the current SPD programme and analyze its activities. The design outlined in ‘Three Stages of Professional Development: The Cycle of Change’ (Bellanca, 2009) will be referred to in order to develop an effective SPD programme. The paper will also design and propose a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of the SPD programme and its implementation cycle.