British Higher Education Institutions Research Articles

Building bridges to Europe: languages for students of other disciplines

British Higher Education institutions have for some time now been promoting Europeanisation policies, offering languages and foreign exchanges as part of their undergraduate programmes. However, the organisation of such programmes and the question of how integrated languages should and can be remain problematic, and the commitment to such programmes varies considerably from institution to institution. This paper argues the case for vocationally relevant language courses for students of other disciplines — focussing on architecture as an example — to enable them to compete successfully as future employees of the Single European Market. It also describes the process involved in developing a vocational or subject-specific language course.

Reconciling conflicting demands in the training of HE teachers ‐ the experience at The Robert Gordon University

Highlights the increasing pressure that British higher education institutions (HEIs) are coming under to provide basic training in tertiary‐level teaching for their academic staff as a result of recommendations made in recent major reports. Identifies some of the (often conflicting) demands and constraints that HEIs are generally confronted with in developing and running such programmes, e.g. striking a balance between competence‐based training and academic education, avoiding making unreasonable time demands on either trainees or trainers, and reconciling the internal requirements of the institution with external pressures and constraints. Examines these various issues in some detail, and shows how they have been resolved within Scotland’s Robert Gordon University, which has been running a highly successful postgraduate course in tertiary‐level teaching for its staff since 1989.

Continuity and Change in the Collegial Tradition

This article has four main purposes: to explore the meaning of the idea of collegiality, to consider its importance in the governance of British institutions of higher education, to examine the pressures for change that have been exerted upon both the collegiate model of the university as well as upon the idea of collegiality, and to ascertain what relevance – if any – the idea of collegiality has in the context of a system of mass higher education. The article is a report upon ongoing research, of which interviews with some fifty Oxford academics and officials form the core of its empirical base. Naturally we welcome feedback. An important subtheme is our attempt to understand the process of change in British higher education. Our analysis suggests that the change process is best understood through an analysis of the interaction between state pressure for change and developments within the character of the academic profession.

Some proposals regarding copyright clearance and digitisation in higher education

Reports the results of a study undertaken to consider the issues relating to the clearance of rights by British higher education institutions for the digitisation of materials published in print. Current licensing models frequently involve prices which librarians find daunting and have no mechanism for recovering from users. There is also considerable variation in pricing of materials. The authors believe that a ‘one-stop shop’ for the clearance of digitisation rights would be a highly desirable development. However, negotiability of rates may be made impossible by the introduction of ‘one-stop shopping’ through a centralised agency. Electronic copyright management system (ECMS) technology for solving the many problems of managing licences for digitised content is not yet proven. Not having ECMS, a strong ‘compliance culture’ will be essential. Users and rights owners want straightforward, simple and, above all, brief contracts for licensing. There is therefore a need for a shared, unambiguous licence vocabulary. The paper suggests a set of definitions of uses and user types. Using these definitions, a matrix of use and users is proposed to show types of activities for which a library may seek to license materials from a publisher and for which a publisher may grant a licence. Many of the problems could be resolved if the suggested ‘one-stop shop’ central agency acted on behalf of publishers in granting digital rights (or acting as a clearing house for requests).

Geography and lifelong learning: A report on a survey of geography graduates

Previous studies have revealed what employers have said they require in terms of career or transferable skills in their prospective employees when they leave university. This paper reports on a survey of groups of geographers who graduated one, five and 10 years ago from two different British institutions of higher education. The students identified the features of their geography training which had been of most value to them in their careers and pinpointed aspects which could have been better developed in their degree courses. Conclusions are drawn about the future of the geography curriculum in the light of the graduates’ views on their ‘graduateness’ and their likely career patterns in the 21st century.

Disseminating development initiatives in British higher education: a case study

The Effective Teaching and Assessment Programme (ETAP) was commissioned and funded by the Higher Education Funding Councils for England, Scotland and Wales and ran during the academic year 1993–4. Its aim was to identify and disseminate best practice in specific subject areas, student support and resource based learning. ETAP supported five projects, each undertaken by a consortium of British higher education institutions. This paper reports an evaluation of the programme based on interviews with leaders of the individual projects, along with a questionnaire survey of potential users of the products of the programme. A framework is offered for interpreting the results of the evaluation. Six different meanings of the word ’dissemination‘ are identified, corresponding to the different degrees to which users actively engage with the materials produced. These distinctions are applied to the data collected and the findings are summarised in terms of the key notions of awareness of what is available, the attitude of teaching staff towards centrally-produced materials, and the accessibility of those materials. The implications of these three concepts are discussed in relation to the technical, organisational and presentational issues which promote or hinder the effectiveness of the dissemination. A number of policy recommendations for Funding Councils and institutions are outlined.

Arena symposium: teaching assistants

Abstract This paper introduces some of the key issues associated with the introduction of a North American style teaching assistant programme into British higher education institutions. The paper outlines the impetus for change, and raises a series of questions regarding institutional policies towards recruitment, employment, induction and teacher training.

Experiences of lecturers helping distressed students in higher education

Abstract Lecturers in higher education frequently attempt to support distressed students, yet most lecturers have no training in counselling. In order to gauge the extent to which lecturers are called upon to help distressed students, a survey was conducted of the experiences and opinions of lecturers in a British higher education institution. The incidence of helping students in distress appeared to be very high, almost all respondents (97%) having advised one or more distressed students during the twelve-month period preceding the survey. Further findings and implications of the survey are discussed.

Experiences of lecturers helping distressed students in higher education

Abstract Lecturers in higher education frequently attempt to support distressed students, yet most lecturers have no training in counselling. In order to gauge the extent to which lecturers are called upon to help distressed students, a survey was conducted of the experiences and opinions of lecturers in a British higher education institution. The incidence of helping students in distress appeared to be very high, almost all respondents (97%) having advised one or more distressed students during the twelve-month period preceding the survey. Further findings and implications of the survey are discussed.

Counsellors' responses to clients' non-attendance at counselling sessions

Abstract Although there has been some study of clients who miss psychotherapy appointments, very little attention has been given to therapists' responses in such circumstances. A questionnaire survey of student counsellors working in British higher education institutions invited them to consider whether or not they would initiate any further contact with each of eight hypothetical non-attenders, described in case vignettes. It was predicted that responses would be influenced both by the subjects' theoretical approach to counselling and by their level of interpersonal dependency, as measured with the Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (Hirschfeld et al., 1977). It was found that the majority of counsellors were not subject to institutional guidelines about contacting non-attenders, and that responses ranged from contacting none to contacting all of the clients. Psychodynamic counsellors were found to be significantly more likely to initiate contact than were humanistic counsellors. There were no significan...

Recent Irish Histories

In 1989, Brendan Bradshaw, reviewing 'the mainstream tradition of Irish historical scholarship as it has developed since the 1930s' suggested that tradition had proved itself inadequate.' It had been unable to deal with either the 'catastrophic dimension of Irish history' or 'the Irish nationalist tradition'. The 'mainstream tradition' identified by Bradshaw is popularly known in Ireland and Britain as the 'revisionist' school and as Bradshaw notes, a signal feature of contemporary Irish historiography is the extent to which a 'credibility gap' has opened up between 'the new professional history and the general public'. (p. 2) The four texts reviewed here are all products of the 'mainstream tradition of Irish historical scholarship' in the sense that they are written by professional historians within Irish and British higher education institutions. All of them share, to a greater or lesser degree, the negativity towards the ideology of Irish nationalism which Bradshaw identifies with the 'mainstream tradition', but the critiques they offer of nationalism vary considerably. Most importantly, although they have many primary and secondary sources in common they are differentiated by their conclusions. Of the four texts reviewed here, Lee's Ireland 1912-1985 and Foster's Modern Ireland 1600-1972 are the most substantial, both in terms of size and of likely impact. They are, however, quite unlike one another in style and

United Kingdom: Freedom of speech in universities, polytechnics and colleges

New legislation, cast in unhelpful and opaque language, imposes a unique legal obligation on British institutions of higher education to maintain freedom of speech in their establishments, and brin...

The Unexplored Art of Designer's Biographies

Nonetheless, the book provides a record of some of the most invigorating contributions that British designers have made to graphics, fashion, interior, and product over the past 10 years or so and is lavishly illustrated throughout. There is a useful section on Designer Biographies, complete with references, and a bibliography which provides further relevant material. As a piece of historical insight the book clearly has flaws, but as a document which may provide future historians of British with some interesting and exciting material it will certainly validate its place on library shelves. Design as a subject area of academic integrity has developed in many interesting ways in the curricula of the specialist undergraduate and post-graduate programs in the few British higher education institutions in which it is practiced. Students approach the subject from a variety of angles, are often at home with primary sources of some complexity, and would recognize many of the historical and methodological shortcomings in the plethora of design history books that are flooding the bookshops. It is to be hoped that their understanding of in terms of meaning, production, retailing, consumption (and history) will eventually provide some corrective to the continuing deluge of books on individual stars, organizations, and styles. The problem is perhaps that the commissioning and publishing of design history is too often allied to the expectations of the profession, itself much concerned with success, media profile, and profitability. Presentation rather than content appears to be the dominant factor in historical publication, and so the future health of the subject, concerned as it is with many wider and more significant issues, may well lie in the forging of closer links with other more appropriate fields of expertise and rigorous inquiry.

The status of communication studies in British higher education

Through questionnaires, interviews, and library research, the authors attempted to identify speech communication courses and programs in British institutions of higher education. They discuss the development of interest in speech communication courses in the context of current trends in higher education. Conclusions indicate a quickening interest in speech communication and related courses, usually under the heading of “communication studies.” There is considerable variety in course titles, content, and departmental responsibility, with interesting emphases and omissions from the American academic viewpoint.

Building research capacity in a practitioner community: framing and evaluating the 'National Action Research Network on Researching and Evaluating Personal Development Planning and e-Portfolio Practice'

This paper evaluates key aspects of the National Action Research Network on Researching and Evaluating Personal Development Planning and e-Portfolio Practice (NARN). This was a National Teaching Fellowship Scheme funded project which ran from 2007-1010 and involved sixteen English Higher Education institutions (HEIs). The context, purposes, theoretical underpinnings and framework for the NARN are briefly explained before the experience of members is explored through an analysis of their own accounts. The NARN was proposed in response to widespread calls for more research evidence to underpin our understanding and implementation of Personal Development Planning (PDP) and e-Portfolio practices, taking its lead from Clegg's (2004) invitation to produce more researched examples of situated PDP and e-Portfolio practice. The NARN was primarily a capacity-building project aimed at developing a community of PDP and e-portfolio practitioners into practitioner researchers. Borrowing heavily on ideas of community and participative inquiry as well as concepts about developing communities of practice, the project placed an emphasis on promoting collegiality, a sense of belonging and the establishment of the project as a safe space in which to discuss research work. It is evaluated here through the thematic analysis of a particular data set of twelve anonymous accounts provided by project members. The NARN project's emphasis on process rather than product or output, mark it apart from most Higher Education (HE) learning and teaching funded projects. Its success carries an important lesson for fundholders, educational developers and HE managers about the funding of more process-based learning and teaching development in HE. It also provides a possible framework for similar capacity-building projects across other communities.

Forming communities of practice

The National Action Research Network (NARN) on Researching and Evaluating Personal Development Planning (PDP) and e-Portfolio was funded through the Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship Scheme in 2007. It brought together a partnership of people from 16 English Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) who were already members of national PDP networks – most significantly the Centre for Recording Achievement. The broader project aim was to develop research capacity among PDP practitioners and in order to help keep this aim manageable, smaller groups based on regional groupings were set up. Although the membership did come together to share experiences at national events, it was thought that the smaller groups would be more manageable units for the more concentrated work of setting up local research projects. Each group member came with an idea for a research project, many of which are exemplified in this special edition, and over the course of the three years regional groups met to review, feedback and build on the research they had been undertaking. This brief article describes the experiences of the three regional groups and concludes that there are a number of characteristics that contribute to the success of a community of practice, including notions of joint enterprise, shared repertoire and mutual engagement, but success in achieving these relies on shared commitments and the development of trust and respect amongst the group members.