SRHE News Issue 19– January 2015

SRHE News Issue 19 January 2015 Editorial: Was that a foul REF? by Rob Cuthbert

The Research Excellence Framework, the UK’s latest version of research quality assessment, reached its conclusion just after the SRHE Research Conference. Publication of the results in mid-December led to exhaustive coverage in all the HE media, and there is even more analysis in this issue of SRHE News.

In the Research Season 2008-2014 the controversy was not so much about who ended up top of the league, but whether the English premier league can still claim to be the best in the world.

Big clubs were even more dominant, with the golden triangle pulling away from the rest and filling the top league positions. But controversy raged about the standard of refereeing, with many more players being labelled world class than ever before. Referees supremo David Sweeney was quick to claim outstanding success, but sponsors and commentators were more sceptical, as the number of goals per game went up by more than 50%.

During the season transfer fees had reached record heights as galactico research stars were poached by the big clubs before the end of the transfer window. To secure their World University League places the leading clubs were leaving nothing to chance. It was a league of two halves. After positions based on research outcomes had been calculated there was a series of adjustments, based on how many people watched the game (impact), and how big your stadium was (environment). This was enough to ensure no surprises in the final league table, with big clubs exploiting their ground advantage to the full. And of course after the end of the season there is usually a further adjustment to ensure that the big clubs get an even bigger share of the funding available. This process, decreed by the game’s governing body, is known as ‘financial fair play’.

Some players had an outstanding season - astronomers were reported to be ‘over the moon’ at the final results, but not everyone was happy: one zoologist confided that he was ‘sick as a parrot’. The small clubs lacked nothing in effort, especially at Northampton, where they responded superbly to their manager’s call to put in 107%. But not everyone can be a winner, research is a results business and as always when a team underperforms, some clubs will be quick to sack the manager, and many more will sack the players.

Scepticism about the quality of the league lingers among the game’s governing body, suspicious about high scoring, and there is a risk that the money from the Treasury will finally dry up. The game may not have finished yet, but some … some people are running onto the pitch, they think it’s all over. It is for now.

1 Contact us

SRHE News Editor: Professor Rob Cuthbert [email protected] (00 44) 1275 392919 Rob Cuthbert is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England, Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics [email protected], Editor, Higher Education Review www.highereducationreview.com, and Chair, Improving Dispute Resolution Advisory Service www.idras.ac.uk.

Editorial policy

SRHE News aims to comment on recent events, publications, and activities in a journalistic but scholarly way, allowing more human interest and unsupported speculation than any self-respecting journal, but never forgetting its academic audience and their concern for the professional niceties. If you would like to suggest topics for inclusion in future issues, to contribute an item, or to volunteer a regular contribution, please contact [email protected]. We aim to be legal, decent, honest, truthful, opinionated and informed by scholarship. We identify named individuals with their employing institutions. News content is written by the editor except where authors are identified or sources are acknowledged. Comments and suggested additions to editorial policy are welcome.

Future editions of SRHE NEWS

Copy deadline for SRHE News Issue 20: 31 March 2015

Contributions and comments from SRHE members keep News in touch with what is going on in higher education research around the world: please let the editor know of any personal news or contributions you would like to submit for future issues. Just email [email protected]

2 Contents

Editorial: Was that a foul REF? by Rob Cuthbert ...... 1

Government and Higher Education Policy ...... 5

Policy and Funding in England ...... 5

Policy and Funding in the US ...... 8

Private and For-Profit Higher Education ...... 9

Strategy, Leadership, Governance and Management...... 10

Teaching, Learning and Assessment ...... 11

Students ...... 12

International research on the student experience: power, methodologies and translation by Camille Kandiko Howson ...... 12

The student experience in England: changing for the better and the worse? by Paul Temple ...... 14

Widening participation ...... 15

Quality, Standards, Performance, Evaluation ...... 16

Research ...... 17

Research into higher education ...... 18

Libraries, Publishing and Information Technology ...... 18

Publishing ...... 18

Ethics and Academic Freedom ...... 19

Ethics and Integrity ...... 19

Plagiarism ...... 20

Academic freedom ...... 20

Global Perspectives ...... 21

Australia ...... 21

Policy and Funding in Australia by Marcia Devlin ...... 21

China ...... 22

3 Europe ...... 22

Society News ...... 23

New SRHE member portal for Routledge Taylor & Francis journal access ...... 23

SRHE Annual Research Conference 2014 (10-12 December) ...... 23

SRHE Newer Researcher Conference 2014 (9 December) ...... 24

SRHE Research & Scoping Awards 2014 ...... 24

SRHE Newer Researchers Award 2015 – Closing date: 31 March ...... 25

Forthcoming SRHE Network Events ...... 26

Forthcoming SRHE Professional Development Workshops ...... 27

And Finally … ...... 28

Small ads ...... 28

Ian McNay writes …...... 29

4 Government and Higher Education Policy

Policy and Funding in England

Cost of teaching postgraduates is higher than undergraduates, and other shock news Consultants KPMG, commissioned by HEFCE to investigate the costs of postgraduate provision, have so far come up with a series of less than surprising headlines: • there are significant economies of scale in teaching postgraduates. • the staff cost of PGT is more than twice the staff cost at undergraduate level. • the cost of delivering postgraduate teaching at specialist postgraduate institutions is lower than at institutions providing both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. • laboratory-intensive PGT courses are generally more expensive than classroom-based subjects. • there are economies of scale from having large numbers of overseas students on PGT courses. In Donald Rumsfeld’s terms, these were perhaps the ‘known knowns’, but no doubt another phase of expensive consultancy will tell us more. At least it eased the way for Government to introduce loans for postgraduates as well as undergraduates, for those wishing to live even more of their lives in debt.

Higher Education Commission report says HE funding is the worst of both worlds The latest report from the HE Commission focused on the financial sustainability of the HE system in England, was officially launched on 24 November 2014. It said:

‘The current funding system represents the worst of both worlds. The government is funding HE by writing off student debt, as opposed to directly investing in teaching grants. This has created a system where the government is investing, but not getting any credit for it, damaging the perception of the public value associated with higher education. Students feel like they are paying substantially more for their higher education, but are set to have a large proportion of their debt written off by the government. Universities are perceived to be 'rolling in money’ in the eyes of students, as their income from tuition fees has tripled, yet the cuts to the teaching grant are not well understood by students and a fixed fee cap means an annual erosion of real terms income. We have created a system where everybody feels like they are getting a bad deal. This is not sustainable.’

On Critical Education on 27 November 2014 Andrew McGettigan pointed out the risk that the existing commitment to uprate the loan repayment threshold might not be honoured in future, and noted the widespread suspicion about such risks: ‘In 2013, when we covered the idea that interest rates might be changed retrospectively for borrowers, hundreds of thousands of people viewed the Guardian's site in 24 hours.’ The Commission also said that paying for undergraduate expansion by selling more loans would not work:

‘… a sale would be undesirable. ... It will be poor value for money for the taxpayer, and this is not a sustainable method for funding higher education. The amount of student debt is set to rise dramatically over the next 10 years and continually selling off tranches of debt to fund higher education is going to be very difficult. There are few organisations that can buy this amount of debt, the market will begin to saturate, and more extreme financial engineering will be needed to sell off the debt. … The government will find it hard to get value for money and the loan book is a valuable income stream. Holding onto it will protect students and provide future opportunities for the Government.’

5 As reported in previous issues of SRHE News, the Government at first appeared to be proposing to fund expansion by selling student debt, but in Summer 2013 Secretary of State Vince Cable decided against any debt sales for the time being.

The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement and its implications for HE For those wishing to revise before the exam, Andrew McGettigan had a reminder of the story so far on student loans in England, in The Observer on 12 October 2014., and in a WonkHE blog post on 13 October 2014 Colin McCaig (Sheffield Hallam) reflected on his own research about student number controls and realized that their ‘strange death’ was perhaps because student number controls in the English HE ‘market’ had been: ‘a mechanism that completely failed on its own terms; no fee differential; no redistribution of high grade students; no downward pressure on less prestigious institutions. Time, therefore, for Plan B – the opening up of a demand-led system which may – or may not – bring down average tuition fees across the wider sector, but at least restores freedom of movement to institutions.’

When the Autumn Statement finally arrived (in very late Autumn) the always reliable Andy Westwood (GuildHE) instantly blogged on WonkHE on 3 December 2015 that:

‘Osborne has found political space to make some new commitments. In spending terms they either recycle cash – such as new devolution deals or cash that doesn’t appear on the current balance sheet. The extension of HE loans to PG students is one such announcement. But other than a value of up to £10k, available for any course and for the under 30s, there isn’t that much detail. The Treasury expects 40,000 of them from 2016-17 but the exact details of how this will work will be ironed out in a consultation early next year – everything we know so far is here.

Of the £5.9 billion committed to science capital in the next parliament (2016-21) … only a minority looks to be new. … Interestingly £2.9 billion of this pot is earmarked for the ‘grand challenges of our time’. That will raise eyebrows in the sector and the spirits of Haldane (as well as Barnett) will get an airing over the next weeks and months.

… for Osborne, it’s an opportunity to build his beloved Northern Powerhouse. So it’s ‘a massive, quarter of a billion investment in a new Sir Henry Royce Institute for advanced material science in Manchester, with branches in Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield.’ And another £100 million or so for the Hartree Big Data centre at Daresbury and more for other projects based in Newcastle and Sheffield. But it’s not all the North. London via the British Library is getting the £42 million Alan Turing Centre. … overall … two big themes … are consolidated in this Statement. Firstly, Osborne is continuing to cut and cut an already scorched earth until 2020. … Secondly, this is an increasingly interventionist Treasury … From materials science and big data to space exploration, regional orchestras and children’s telly – the Treasury is the real Department for Universities and Science these days and Osborne is undoubtedly its chief minister. So if you’re not talking to George or to his Treasury colleagues, you’re in trouble – cast somewhere in the undefined, but massive, departmental savings and efficiencies that will dominate the next Parliament. The next Spending Reviews and Budgets look bloody. Unless George has a deal to do, then he doesn’t have much for you at all. Except for pain.’

Politicians, please don’t screw it up That was the message from Matthew Hilton, who until recently was the civil servant heading Higher Education in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, but has now moved to Kingston University as Deputy VC and Secretary. Old habits obviously die hard, because he wrote a blog for

6 WonkHE on 15 January 2015 taking a classic civil servant position – the system is wonderful when the politicians don’t make a mess of it:

‘Let’s look at where we are now. Fundamentally, I don’t think there is (necessarily) a great deal wrong with the way the rules for HE in England are currently set up. The evidence seems to suggest a healthy enough sector, managing its way pretty successfully through some turbulent economic times. Arguments should and will continue about the specifics of policy. But as for some of the noises we hear about long term lack of viability and holes in financial modelling stretching out generations into the future? Come off it. There’s a mixing up of apples and pears here, of stocks and flows, of facts and politics. For example, as a matter of fact, the government could reduce the RAB charge to whatever it wanted at a stroke, and within the existing overall policy framework, just by adopting a different approach to the financial management of the student loan book. If interest rates, repayment levels etc. were able to flex in line with the macro-economic context, the RAB issue would go away. But the politics doesn’t allow for that. The requirements that matter are not those of rational economic behaviour, but of the need to manage all the angles in a way that keeps the politics on track.’

That was more than enough to get Andrew McGettigan fulminating in his response on the Critical Education blog on 16 January 2015:

‘It's true the estimated loss on student loans could be managed 'at a stroke' by using the government's powers to alter their terms (repayment thresholds, repayment rate over that threshold, interest rates and write off period). These terms are 'administrative matters' that the government is able to change using secondary legislation: they are not fixed in the loan agreements that are signed. But the 'rational economic behaviour' invoked here is the power of this particular lender to generate more repayments from the borrower.

The lending agreement for traditional commercial loans fixes the nominal repayments and the period of repayment in advance at the point of agreement (you know what your outgoings are in cash terms even if you don't know the real value of that cash payment in the future). Income contingent repayment loans are different. You do not know what your nominal payments will be for the thirty years after you graduate, because they are determined by income and the four factors listed in the previous paragraph.

Hilton's is the latest in a series of gripes from former BIS denizens about the RAB charge and the debates it engenders about sustainability. But these debates are the quid pro quo for excluding loans from calculations of the deficit (annual loan issues are not 'spending'; repayments are not 'revenues'). Loans are categorised as 'financial transactions': you no longer have your £10bn+ outlay categorised as spending but estimates of related loss - the difference between discounted repayments and loans issued - therefore comes to the fore. (With a graduate tax - which would possibly 'flex' in line with the broader fiscal position - that categorisation would change and outlay and repayments would be spending and tax receipts).’

Speaking of politicians screwing it up and gripes from former BIS denizens about the RAB charge somehow brings us to David Willetts, former Higher Education Minister, who has now become a visiting professor at the Policy Institute at King’s College London.

Requisite variety Gavin Moodie’s (RMIT) article in Higher Education Quarterly 69(1): 3-36, January 2015 (first online 4 September 2014) said that the US has a more diverse HE system than Australia, which in turn is more diverse than the UK: ‘However, diversity is hard to define, harder to measure and even more difficult

7 to compare between countries. Most empirical analyses of the diversity of higher education systems use categorical variables, which shape the extent of diversity found. This study examines continuous variables of institutions’ enrolment size and proportions of postgraduate, fulltime and international students to find the extent of variation amongst doctoral granting and all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. … The paper argues that the extent of government involvement in higher education is not so important for institutional variety as the form that it takes. More tentatively, the paper suggests that the more limited the range of institutions for which government funding is available the stronger government involvement is needed to have variety among the limited range of institutions for which government financial support is available.’

Policy and Funding in the US

Obama proposes to make the first two years of community college free President Obama in his State of the Union message on 9 January proposed federal support covering 75% of the cost of tuition and fees for the first two years of community college, with participating states covering the remainder of the cost. The proposal follows similar initiatives in Tennessee, where a Republican governor has introduced a statewide scheme, and in City Colleges of Chicago. Students would be expected to meet admission requirements and maintain their academic eligibility. The full story and analysis was in Inside Higher Education on 8 January 2015.

Getting away with mergers A series of mergers engineered by Hank Huckaby, the chancellor of the University System of Georgia, has reduced the number of colleges in the system to 29 from the 35 existing when he became Chancellor in 2011. The latest and perhaps most controversial is the merger of Georgia State university with Georgia Perimeter College, a mostly two-year institution. This will create the largest university in Georgia when it is finalised in early 2016. Georgia State is a research university in Atlanta with 32,000 students and a $750 million budget. Georgia Perimeter is a suburban college with 21,000 students on five campuses around Atlanta offering mostly two-year degrees. The plan is to modernise Georgia Perimeter and help it improve its graduation rates. At present only 6.4 percent of its first-time students seeking a two-year degree graduate from the college within three years, whereas ‘Georgia State has become a national model for increasing its graduation rate and graduating black and Hispanic undergraduates at the same rates as their peers.’, as Ry Rivard reported for Inside Higher Education on 7 January 2015. The usual fears rapidly surfaced on both sides, with Georgia State students and alumni fearing their degrees would be devalued and others worrying that Georgia State would restrict Georgia Perimeter’s open-door admissions policies and deny opportunities to many disadvantaged state residents.

The merger is the latest in a considerable series: • Waycross College and South Georgia College became South Georgia State College • Macon State College and Middle Georgia College became Middle Georgia State College • Gainesville State College and North Georgia College & State University became the new University of North Georgia • Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University became Georgia Regents University • Kennesaw State University and Southern Polytechnic State University became the new Kennesaw State University

8 Private and For-Profit Higher Education

How can we regulate the HE market? The difficulties of regulating a newly diverse HE market have been explored in previous issues of SRHE News. Government asked HEFCE in 2013 to tackle the problem, leading HEFCE on 5 September 2014 to publish its first register of higher education providers, describing the powers that providers regulated in England have, and the controls that apply to them. It is launched alongside an updated ‘operating framework for higher education’, which explains the arrangements for regulating higher education providers in England. Providers are listed on the register where they have one or more of the following features: • They directly receive grants for higher education. • They have courses which have been specifically designated by the Government as eligible for the purposes of English student support funding. • They are ‘higher education institutions’. • They have the power to award one or more type of UK higher education degree. The register does not list all HE providers; in particular, it does not include providers who offer higher education through a franchise arrangement only. This is regulated through the lead provider, which is included on the register.

HEFCE is keenly aware that its powers and influence are limited, especially as its funds for teaching disappear. One of the problems is picking up the pieces after an institutional collapse. HEFCE HE Policy Adviser Lucy Ryder’s blog post on 20 January 2015 reflected on what should happen to the students when an HE provider is no longer able to meet their commitment to deliver a course or programme. ‘Protecting students in the event of course, institutional or corporate failure is a complex and difficult issue. Countries such as Australia and Ireland have legislated to protect international students studying in their countries. In England the protection that is available to students is, like the constitution, uncodified, but HE providers have responsibilities to their students, which they take very seriously and they generally act accordingly.’ Translation: HEFCE has done all it can, beyond that we’re relying on wishful thinking.

The question of provider failure is in sharp focus thanks to the US experience of the failure of Corinthian, a leading for-profit provider. Corinthian Colleges went out of business when the Education Department in Summer 2014, imposed stricter financial oversight of the company, with conditions the company was unable to meet. The federal government is trying to find a way out of the messy collapse and proposed in November 2014 to sell 56 campuses to the nonprofit ECMC Group. However the proposed sale has raised widespread concern, and 46 organizations signed a letter on 17 December 2014 expressing reservations about the proposed sale. Signatories included the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the Institute for College Access and Success, and the Service Employees International Union. The letter proposed five conditions for any new system of colleges to meet, including a first year dropout rate of no more than 33%, and immediate publication of all faculty names and credentials. Concerns about ECMC’s track record included reports of unsatisfactory treatment of borrowers by ECMC’s student-loan-servicing arm and worries about protecting current students’ interests.

Meanwhile Salter, another for-profit education company, agreed to pay Massachusetts $3.75million to settle claims that it engaged in deceptive marketing practices, as The Boston Globe reported. The state attorney general, Martha Coakley, announced on 12 December 2014 that the Salter chain, which is owned by Premier Education Group LP, had claimed its admissions process was selective when it wasn’t and had misrepresented job-placement rates. Salter chief executive Gary Camp disputed the allegations but said the company had agreed to change its practices and offer career counseling for current and former students in 2015.

9

Strategy, Leadership, Governance and Management

London Institute of Education merges with University College, London At its meeting on 25 November 2014 the Council of the Institute of Education, University of London, (IoE) confirmed that it would merge with University College, London (UCL), after discussions lasting more than two years. From 2 December 2014 the IoE’s formal title became ‘UCL Institute of Education’ and it became a single-faculty school of UCL.

Discourse, metrics and CorpSpeak Andy Lockett (Warwick), Mike Wright (Imperial College) and Andrew Wild (Nottingham) had an article (first published online on 4 September 2014) in the British Journal of Management Volume 26, Issue 1, pages 78–92, January 2015. ‘The Institutionalization of Third Stream Activities in UK Higher Education: The Role of Discourse and Metrics’ used a longitudinal research design, involving archival, survey and contemporary interview data, to look at UK HE 1994-2008. They showed how a new organizational practice diffused through the use of discourse and metrics around commercialization but over time was threatened on pure economic criteria. Actors then worked to institutionalize the new practice, reshaping both discourse and metrics to ensure that they were robust so that they could align with the interests and values of major stakeholders. In addition, actors worked to align discourse and metrics, as any misalignment between the two would have undermined the institutionalization of the new organizational practice.

Louise Katz (Sydney) was ‘Against the corrosive language of Corpspeak in the contemporary university’ in her Article published online on 27 November 2014: ‘The particular focus is on the deleterious effects of corporatising language within universities. I reflect upon how this language is used to express notions of value and to shape identity … I examine language-based conceptual inadequacies, misrepresentations, and what Bourdieu terms ‘unconscious inclusions’ – within many contemporary universities. I then consider what style of language, what other attitudes and approaches, actually support the university as a learning place with a specific cultural role, rather than presenting it as another ‘multi-output organisation’.

Susan Price to step down as Leeds Beckett VC Professor Susan Price, Vice Chancellor of Leeds Beckett University, announced on 6 October 2014 her decision to retire at the end of September 2015. She had been VC at Leeds Beckett University – previously Leeds Metropolitan University – since 2010.

Governors force University of North Carolina System President to go The president of the University of North Carolina system has been forced to resign by the system’s governing board, according to reports in The News & Observer, a Raleigh newspaper. Thomas W Ross has been in post for four years, facing the damaging scandal over fake courses for athletes at Chapel Hill flags (reported in SRHE News 18), repeated budget cuts on the system’s 16 campuses and disagreements with the majority-Republican board about how the system should be managed. Ross, 64, will officially step down in January 2016 and a joint statement by the Board and Mr Ross said: ‘Though the timeline President Ross had for transition is different from that of the board, he fully understands, appreciates, and accepts the prerogative of the Board of Governors to select the president of the university.’ The board softened the blow with a salary increase for his last year (to $600,000, compared with his base pay in 2013 of $525,000).

10 King’s is dead, long live King’s College King's College London has given up on a proposed rebranding that would have encouraged people to call the institution King's London, Times Higher Education reported. Students and alumni had campaigned against the plan, questioning its cost and purpose.

New book by Bowen and Tobin advocates reduced role for academics in governance Two of the comparatively grand and comparatively old men of HE research in the US have a new book, Locus of Authority: The Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education, which among other things argues that faculty should not be member of governing boards. In the book William G Bowen, president emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University, and Eugene M Tobin, a senior program officer at the Mellon Foundation and former president of Hamilton College, argue that college and university shared governance structures are slow and suboptimal and 21st century higher education needs a new model involving ‘horizontal thinking’ and a networked approach to problem solving. Although they agree that faculty should be involved in all kinds of ways in shared governance they say that faculty members should never have a seat on a governing board because of the risk of conflict of interest.

Staff

An article by Andrew T Graham (Bolton) in the Journal of Further and Higher Education. published online 12 December 2014, said that links between academics’ performance and workload management had been assumed rather than shown, and examined their conceptual connections. The article, ‘Academic staff performance and workload in higher education in the UK: the conceptual dichotomy’, attributes the link to 1989 government legislation that introduced neo-liberal managerialism into the sector. Graham examines the literature surrounding workload management and staff performance in the sector to try to establish whether the two have been conceptually linked and to answer the main question: what does ‘performance’ mean in relation to an academic role and how is this related to an academic’s workload within the post-92 higher education sector? The results show that the literature is dichotomous both in terms of the two areas being discrete and also in the conceptual stance taken by writers in each area. Whilst there are inferred links between workload management and performance, these have not been explored.

Teaching, Learning and Assessment

How and whether to teach skills for Business Studies An evidence-based take on the old question of teaching skills – bolt-on or integrated – was reported by Jason MacVaugh (Hull), Anna Jones (Glasgow Caledonian) and Stephanie Auty (Freelance statistical data analyst) in their article in the Journal of Further and Higher Education Volume 38, Issue 6, 2014 pages 755-772 (first published online 26 February 2013). The article, ‘Implicit, stand-alone or integrated skills education for undergraduates: a longitudinal analysis of programme outcomes’, reports the findings of a longitudinal investigation into the effectiveness of skills education programmes within business and management undergraduate degree courses. During 2005-2011 a large business school in the south-west of England used two distinct approaches to skills education. Final grades for the core modules for business and management students showed a clear divide in success between those who participated in an integrated skills programme during their first year and the comparatively poorer performance of those who attended either a stand- alone skills module or, in some cases, no skills module at all. The conclusion was that privileging skills in curriculum planning brings measurable benefits and ensures that skills which educators agree to be important are practised in context by learners.

11 Students

Postgraduate loans Rick Muir blogged for WonkHE on 5 November 2014 about the case for Government-backed postgraduate student loans. He didn’t have to wait long; the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement in December 2014 announced just such a scheme.

As fees go up, part-time student numbers go down The limitations of UK Government policy fixation on the experience of full-time undergraduates was shown by new data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) published on 15 January 2015. Part-time enrolments have fallen by 22% in the two years since fees were tripled to £9000. In the latest year, 2012-13 to 2013-14, total student numbers were down by 41,000, mainly because of a fall in undergraduate enrolments (down by 2%) and part-time student numbers, which fell by 8%.

Consumer rights Jim Dickinson (University of East Anglia Students’ Union chief executive) thinks that HE needs to wake up to the implications of the Consumer Rights Bill wending its way through Parliament in October 2014, as he said in his blog for WonkHE on 17 October 2014. He said it would make universities live up to their promises and finally do something to improve feedback to students. So it was no surprise that he was positive about the Which? Report on HE, in a follow-up blog on WonkHE / on 23 November 2014. The report, A degree of value – Value for money from the student perspective, can be downloaded here. He would have liked it to go further: ‘… it avoids the really radical stuff that would give students real power – like: • The right to switch provider after the first year • The right to appeal a result based on academic judgment • An independent complaints ombudsperson in every HEI • The right to proper funding of the independent advocacy function for students in every HEI (via the SU) Nevertheless, it’s a well-researched, thoughtful and important contribution to the debate and one which the Competition and Markets Authority will doubtless be studying in detail following the publication of their latest consultation. And refreshingly, it’s a contribution that ultimately has the interests of students at its heart, rather than the rather staid, institutional and sector-focused efforts in this space in recent months.’

International research on the student experience: power, methodologies and translation by Camille Kandiko Howson The SRHE Student Experience Network featured a discussion at the 2014 SRHE Conference exploring international dimensions of student experience research. Three international speakers provided examples of topics and challenges faced when conducting international and comparative research:

Madeleine Kapinga Mutatayi , from Congo DRC, Kinshasa, Phd student, Department of Educational Sciences Center for Instructional Psychology and Technology at KU Leuven, Belgium.

Dr Johanna Annala, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, University of Tampere, Finland

Dr Rebecca Schendel, Lecturer, Institute of Education, UCL, UK

12 The event was chaired by Student Experience Network co-convenor Camille Kandiko Howson with co-convenor Matthew Cheeseman in spiritu.

The Student Experience is growing in importance around the world (Barber 2013), whilst at the same time decreasing in common understanding, shared definitions and research coherence. This may be due to the variety of foci of research into the student experience, including: • Curricular (learning gains, assessments, breadth and depth) (Douglass et al 2012; Crosling et al 2008) • Co-curricular (additional opportunities, such as community engagement, study abroad, and industry collaboration and employability) (Mourshed et al 2012) • Extra-curricular (accommodation, lifestyle, sports, societies, politics) (Thomas 2012; UNITE 2014)

These levels are then further compounded by levels of analysis, including individual, group (such as minority groups and international students), institutional (on topics such as governance, engagement and satisfaction), and inter/national (such as access, progression, labour market and rankings). Following the paradox of globalisation, and as countries around the world position higher education in society (such as dropping tuition fees in Germany and dramatically increasing them in the UK), what key issues about the student experience are of relevance across higher education research, beyond national politics and policies?

Two questions were used to stimulate topics for discussion: what research questions are not being asked about the student experience?; and what research and evidence could promote productive, effective educational models of higher education? Across national contexts, the importance of measuring and researching learning emerged strongly. Several delegates raised troublesome issues when Western views of educational research and practice were used in other contexts. This encompassed staff and student perceptions of the learning environment and their relationship to each other, in terms of culturally-bound classroom and research practices. This highlighted power issues between staff and students, particularly the notion of students’ publicly challenging or critiquing staff, even in confidential research settings. A fundamental question arose about different national and cultural interpretations of the concept of student voice, and the need for more comparative work about what student voice means in practice in different political contexts, inside and outside of the university setting.

The challenges of borrowing, or imposing, Western views were also discussed in relation to methodologies, particularly the use of large-scale surveys. The US-based National Survey of Student Engagement offered both the opportunity for comparative research of student engagement and student learning using a validated tool but researchers noted that many of the underlying theories are culturally-bound, such as ‘ideal’ forms of engagement between staff and students and notions of democratic participation, particularly in non-Democratic settings. From East Asia to Africa to the Middle East, different perspectives and modes of interaction were discussed. Related methodological issues were challenges in translating English-based research resources into other languages and cultural settings.

A useful framework picked up from conference presentations was that of using ‘powerful knowledge’ and ‘powerful understanding’ when crossing borders, using international methods and tools and in partnering with colleagues.

This seminar concluded with a desire to share opportunities for collaboration and participation in exploring these areas of research. This entry is a start to this endeavour, welcoming comments and proposals for projects that could carried out in multiple national contexts and engage the

13 international higher education research community. So please comment, share and get in touch with one another!

Barber, M., Donnelly, K., and Rizvi, S. (2013) An Avalanche is coming: Higher Education and the Revolution Ahead, London: Institute for Public Policy Research Crosling, G., Thomas, L. and Heaney, M. (2008) Improving Student Retention in Higher Education- The role of teaching and learning, London: Routledge Douglass, J. A., Thomson, G., & Zhao, C. M. (2012). The learning outcomes race: the value of self- reported gains in large research universities. Higher Education, 64(3), 317-335. Staddon, E., & Standish, P. (2012). Improving the student experience. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 46(4), 631–648. Mourshed, M., Farrell, D. And Barton, D. (2012) Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works, Washington, DC: McKinsey Center for Government Thomas, L. (2012) Building student engagement and belonging in Higher Education at a time of change: a summary of findings and recommendations from the What Works? Student Retention & Success programme, London: Paul Hamlyn Foundation UNITE (2014) Living and Learning in 2034- A higher education futures project, University Alliance and UNITE.

SRHE member Dr Camille Kandiko Howson is Senior Lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Head of Student Engagement at King’s Learning Institute, King’s College, London, and co-convener of the SRHE Student Experience Network.

The student experience in England: changing for the better and the worse? by Paul Temple

When the present English tuition fee regime was being planned, there were plenty of voices from inside universities warning that it would change the nature of the relationship between students and their universities for the worse. Students would, it was feared, become customers, rather than junior partners in an academic enterprise. Indeed, this was what the Government’s 2011 White Paper, Students at the Heart of the System, seemed to look forward to: “Better informed students will take their custom to the places offering good value for money” (para 2.24) – in other words, they would, it was hoped, act like normal consumers. Has this happened?

Recent research undertaken on behalf of the Higher Education Academy by Claire Callender, Lyn Grove, Natasha Kersh, and me, in a sample of English universities in early 2014, suggests that, to a significant extent, it has. (I reported on this at the SRHE Conference in December 2014.) There has been a widespread change perceived by staff (note this caveat) in student attitudes towards higher education with – it is widely reported - a more instrumental approach to the benefits students expect from it.

‘The student experience’ has become an organising theme in institutions: this is a new managerial approach, which can have real benefits for students when applied sensitively - or it can lead to a damaging ‘them-and-us’ culture as far as academic staff are concerned if it leads to excessive centralisation and top-down performance management. There can also be a reinforcing spiral of expectations. Higher fees and, in many institutions, an overriding priority to recruit students, seem to have persuaded some higher education managers to regard students as consumers. In turn, this has encouraged students to view themselves as paying customers. As the Higher Education Commission has commented in its recent report, Too Good to Fail, ‘Introducing market forces to a

14 sector that does not operate as a market puts the financial sustainability of the sector at risk; the Commission recommends retreating from this notion.’ This warning may be too late for some institutions.

Treating students as customers when it comes to the kinds of facilities on offer on campus seems entirely justified. But it seems not always to be easy to distinguish between managing catering and managing teaching and learning. The notion of engaging students in their learning, and of the co- production of knowledge between staff and students, is a very different model to that of the client- contractor. Yet there is a danger that customer-related changes in non-academic areas may seep into academic areas.

A clear distinction emerged in our research between the selecting, research-intensive universities studied and the recruiting, teaching-focused ones. The student-as-customer idea appeared to be firmly embedded in the latter group of institutions: it is not exaggerating to say that a new binary line has been created by stealth, with students often unaware of where a particular institution is placed in relation to the line: universities’ marketing activities certainly won’t provide a guide. The results of the 2014 REF seem likely to reinforce this divide, with a handful of major research universities scooping the research funding pool and moving ever-further from the rest. When exactly was it agreed that the future of higher education would be like this?

SRHE member Paul Temple, Centre for Higher Education Studies, Institute of Education, University of London.

Paul Temple’s new book, The hallmark university: distinctiveness in higher education management, was published in 2014 by the IOE Press.

Widening participation

The first significant HE decision of the new coalition government in the UK was to abolish Aimhigher, a successful national network for collaborative outreach, and to replace it with a much more expensive National Scholarships Scheme which was, as widely expected, completely ineffective at widening access and participation. The previous government had laid the groundwork for what was effectively a bipartisan decision, but within three years the mistake was clear, and now government has completed its U-turn with the decision to establish a series of national networks to help more young people access higher education.

The National Networks for Collaborative Outreach (NNCO) http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2015/news99631.htmlscheme will deliver a nationally co-ordinated approach to working with schools, universities and colleges to help people access higher education. 200 local and regional providers of higher education have come together to form 35 local networks, ensuring comprehensive coverage across England. Each network will appoint a single point of contact to help teachers and advisers find out about higher education outreach activity in their area and to provide general advice about progression into higher education. Three more networks will offer advice and support to specific groups of students at national level, including older learners wishing to continue or return to study and care leavers.

The scheme was first announced in November 2013, when former Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts set out changes to the National Scholarship Programme from 2014-15 onwards. He said: ‘By bringing forward from 2015-16 the planned reduction of £100 million in funding for the NSP we are able to redirect £25 million to establish a new network to support

15 collaborative outreach.’ £22 million is provided for the academic years 2014-15 and 2015-16; the remaining £3 million will fund the rolling-out of the Higher Education Access Tracker, a sector-owned service which enables institutions to track learners through the education system and measure the success of their interventions.

Quality, Standards, Performance, Evaluation

HEFCE to consult on future of Quality Assurance On 7 October 2014 the higher education (HE) funding bodies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland announced they would seek views on future approaches to the assessment of quality in higher education. They would then invite tenders under a joint procurement exercise ‘to develop innovative approaches that are risk-based, proportionate, affordable, and low burden’. A Steering Group to oversee the whole process, including the tender specification, would include representatives from the sector, the NUS and the funding bodies. The existing quality arrangements will continue in 2015-16; any new arrangements will operate from September 2017, but with some pilot activity in 2016-17. In Scotland, which tends to do these things much better, the Scottish Funding Council in partnership with Universities Scotland and NUS Scotland will be separately reviewing the approach to assessment of quality for Scottish universities in a parallel process on a similar timescale.

In QAA’s statement on 7 October you could see the bruises: 'HEFCE has informed us that it intends to consult on the future of its quality assessment arrangements … The UK higher education sector is world class. The arrangements adopted to fulfil HEFCE’s statutory responsibilities should build on the established principles and strengths of the current system of independent quality assurance and co- regulation, which serves the needs of the funding councils and higher education institutions, is always on the side of the student and underpins the strong international reputation of UK higher education. A core strength of the current UK-wide framework is that it goes beyond the statutory duty of individual funding councils, and embraces standards, enhancement and the quality of public information. This provides independent assurance for students and safeguards the public interest in the quality of higher education. This is what QAA, an independent charity, was established in 1997 to do. QAA has internationally recognised expertise in providing quality assurance and enhancement to an exceptional standard. In recent years, we have continued to adapt the quality assurance framework to meet the needs of a growing and dynamic sector, working with HE, FE and alternative providers. We look forward to continuing the development of quality assessment, protecting the public interest and supporting the UK higher education sector's international reputation for excellence.'

In the circumstances ‘How did it come to this?’ was a very reasonable question, posed by Colin Raban (AQM Ltd, Sheffield) (previously Edge Hill) and David Cairns (QA Research Ltd, Tewkesbury, previously one of the most reflective and thoughtful of QAA officers) in Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education Volume 18, Issue 4 pp112-118, first published online 9 December 2014. Not only has HEFCE announced its intention to invite tenders for the contract currently held by QAA, the Australian government is promoting a Bill to curb the activities of the equivalent body, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. Their article compared the two agencies, drawing upon debates and developments in Australia to interpret recent changes in QAA's relationship with universities focusing, in particular, on the significance of the UK Quality Code for Higher Education and the new single review method – Higher Education Review (not to be confused with the blameless journal of the same name). Raban and Cairns suggest that QAA's current crisis may have been precipitated by its failure to attend to the concerns of its members (Universities UK and the

16 other representative bodies), and propose three basic principles which should govern the design of any new method for the review of UK higher education institutions.

The funding bodies announced the membership of the Quality Assessment Review Group , chaired by HEFCE Board member Professor Dame Shirley Pearce CBE, former Vice-Chancellor, Loughborough University, and then issued a discussion document on 15 January 2015. We watch with keen interest, something you can’t always say about QA.

Research

Grade inflation in the REF John O’Leary, the creator and still the editor of The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, blogged for WonkHE on 18 December 2014 under the headline ‘REF results marred by fears over grade inflation’ , opening his piece with the line: ‘Officials had to fend off allegations of grade inflation as the first Research Excellence Framework showed a jump of more than 50 per cent in the proportion of top grades’.

Mark Leach, editor of WonkHE, blogged http://www.wonkhe.com/blogs/the-research-excellence- framework-fascinating-flawed-and-essential/that ‘it is clear that there has been substantial grade inflation in the results – everyone knows it, but it’s not in many people’s interests to say so. But some of the inexplicably large jumps in proportion of 4* and 3* research speak for themselves and vice chancellors of every stripe will freely admit this is the case (anonymously, of course). On the face of it, this helps feed the desired narrative that we are “doing more, better” – but ultimately it undermines the sector’s credibility and bargaining power with an austerity Treasury that simply will not buy it.’

Andrew McGettigan’s Critical Education blog about the REF on 21 December 2014 reinforced the message: ‘How though does it appear to the Treasury? … the sector has already had its cards marked with the decision to set undergraduate tuition fees at or around the maximum. Friday's report from KPMG for HEFCE indicates that on average £8000 should be sufficient with classroom subjects perhaps needing only £6000. … The switch from direct institutional grants to higher tuition fees spared the HE sector from austerity felt in other publicly funded services; that trick can only be done once. (£800million emergency cuts planned for 2015/16 were only averted because the Treasury allowed the accounting conventions for student loans to be changed this April). In the research budget, the obvious candidate is the 'Quality related' funding (the distribution of which is determined by REF results) … but the new Science, Innovation and Growth strategy (a new joint HMT/BIS document released last Wednesday) states: “We will maintain stability and commitment to the core principles as advocated by stakeholders this includes the dual support system.” Given how hard it is to find any reference to non-STEM subjects in that new strategy, I would guess that the scrutiny is on the QR budget for those subjects. We should also chuck into the mix the announcement that Paul Nurse is to lead a review into the other side of the dual track - the research councils. His terms of reference are here. … My own sense, again as an outsider, is that these questions indicate a preference for the big science, great technologies and tech transfer 'third mission' of the Autumn Statement and other recent Treasury announcements about 'northern powerhouses'; they might prove more troublesome for the AHRC and the ESRC.’

HEFCE consultation on metrics for research assessment Jude Hill, Policy Adviser at HEFCE, blogged about the recent HEFCE consultation on metrics for research assessment, suggesting that although the overall response to the consultation was negative, possible developments included: using baskets of qualitative and quantitative indicators;

17 embedding equality and diversity; working harder to find metrics which identify the value of early- career researchers; weighting by age; involving the sector in future changes; learning lessons from REF2014, where clear equality and diversity guidance benefited (early-career) researchers and those with complex circumstances; and, training for assessors and researchers.

Research into higher education

Economics is becoming an elite subject for elite UK universities On the Impact of Social Sciences blog on 14 November 2014 James Johnston and Alan Reeves (West of Scotland) reported their research, finding that new universities have retreated from offering economics programmes even as student numbers rose substantially. They argued that the role of research evaluation exercises cannot be ignored in this development and that there is a widening gulf between new and old universities. Moreover, the study of economics is being restricted along class lines, with students from disadvantaged backgrounds more likely to attend new universities and thus less likely to have access to economics programmes.

Libraries, Publishing and Information Technology

Publishing

Quantifying the costs of open access in the UK On The Scholarly Kitchen blog on 8 December 2014 Rick Anderson noted that ‘Research Consulting, a UK consultancy, was recently retained jointly by London Higher and SPARC Europe to examine what it costs UK institutions to comply with the open access (OA) requirements laid out by various UK research funders, especially Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The need to measure these costs had become acute because HEFCE announced earlier this year a new and slightly more stringent set of OA requirements to which journal articles and conference proceedings (in all disciplines) must adhere if they are to be eligible for submission to the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), by which the research performance of UK institutions is evaluated. The resulting report was based on responses to a web-based survey and “relies on institutions’ estimates of time spent on open access,” including costs of staff time, overhead investments, and other direct expenditures involved with implementing the RCUK’s policy—however, explicitly excluded from this calculation is the cost of article processing charges (APCs) that are levied on the majority of “gold” OA articles. (The APC expenditure figures reported here are artificially low anyway, since they “relate only to those costs met from RCUK block grants and managed by university libraries and research offices”—not to APCs paid with local funds). … key findings … : • £9.2m cost to UK research organizations of achieving compliance with RCUK Open Access Policy in 2013/14 • The time devoted to OA compliance is equivalent to 110 full-time staff members across the UK • The burden of compliance falls disproportionally on smaller institutions, who receive minimal grant funding • The cost of meeting the deposit requirements for a post-2014 REF is estimated at £4-5m • Gold OA takes 2 hours per article, at a cost of £81 • Green OA takes just over 45 minutes, at a cost of £33 • There is significant scope to realize efficiency savings in open access processes’

18 The publishing empire strikes back Jennifer Howard reported in The Chronicle on 18 October 2014 that publishers had won a reversal of an earlier court ruling that favoured ‘e-reserves’ at Georgia State University. The question at issue was: How much copyrighted material can students be given in online course reserves before they exceed the boundaries of educational fair use? In May 2012 a District Court ruling was in favour of Georgia State, but in a 129-page decision the Court of Appeals sent the case back for further consideration. The appeals-court judges considered how district Judge Evans had applied the four factors commonly used to assess fair use: the nature of the use, the nature of the work being used, how much of it is used, and whether that use might affect the market for the work. They said the lower court had been wrong to weigh all four factors equally, and that it had misapplied two of them. The Appeals Court also rejected the baseline set for how much content could be safely posted without violating copyright (10 percent or one chapter of a copyrighted work), arguing instead for individual analysis of each instance of alleged copying. The decision also set aside the 1976 Classroom Guidelines and related precedents as binding authorities in this kind of modern digital case.

Ethics and Academic Freedom

Ethics and Integrity

Another US elite college in trouble with a course for athletes After the long-running problems at North Carolina Chapel Hill, reported in SRHE News 18 (November 2014), Dartmouth College has accused 64 students of cheating in a ‘Sports, Ethics, and Religion’ course, initially designed to help athletes struggling with first year academic work. Randall Balmer, chair of the Religion department, discovered in October that absent students in his class were passing their clickers to classmates who were present to answer in-class questions on their behalf. Most of the students involved were suspended for a semester. There were 275 students in the class and at least 43 had handed clickers to other students. The story was reported in local newspaper Valley News.

And another ‘The University of Texas has launched an investigation into allegations that a former student-athlete received help with high-school coursework prior to his enrollment in the university,’ the University said, according to the Austin-American Statesman. ‘The university recently learned of these allegations from The Chronicle of Higher Education as well as a similar general allegation about an unnamed former student-athlete.’ The Chronicle story by Brad Wolverton alleged that the coach concerned, identified only as Mr White, had helped hundreds of athletes cheat over the past 14 years, with athletes being steered to Mr. White by coaches, parents, or handlers. White says he made $40,000 in one year alone through the scheme.

19 Plagiarism

Romanian Prime Minister gives up PhD two years after plagiarism finding The prime minister of Romania has given up his doctoral degree, two years after a panel of academics found he had plagiarized large sections of his dissertation, Reuters reports. Victor Ponta continues to dispute the findings of plagiarism, which he deemed ‘a political decision’ in 2012. Mr Ponta made the announcement in a message posted on his Facebook page addressed to the rector of the University of Bucharest. ‘I have written to you to notify that I give up the doctor of law title obtained in 2003,’ he wrote. ‘This is a gesture that I should have done before, since public allegations about my Ph.D. thesis emerged.’ Mr Ponta suffered a surprise defeat in a recent presidential election and subsequently reorganised his cabinet.

Indian VC’s PhD thesis ‘goes missing’ After criticisms of the quality or originality of PhD theses by several VCs in Indian institutions, Kerala University has admitted that the thesis by its VC, PK Radhakrishnan, has ‘gone missing’ since his PhD was awarded in 1985. After registering for a PhD in 1977 as a full-time candidate he later switched to part-time and completed his research in chemistry on “Studies in rare earth chemistry – rare earth complexes of some pyrozol-5 ones” in 1985. Plagiarism has been alleged in the PhD by Kerala University Pro VC N Veeramanikandan, and MG University has admitted that the thesis for the PhD awarded to Sanskrit University VC MC Dileep Kumar was ‘not in its possession’. There was a Full report on The Times of India site.

Academic freedom

Guns on campus Many US states now allow people to carry guns, and Utah even makes universities and colleges specifically non-exempt from this general law. Kent Anderson bemoaned the chilling effects on academic freedom of speech in a recent Scholarly Kitchen blog post.

20 Global Perspectives

Australia

Policy and Funding in Australia by Marcia Devlin

In his poem, ‘The Hunting of the Snark’, Lewis Carroll points out that if you repeat something often enough, it can become ‘the truth’.

‘Just the place for a Snark!’ the Bellman cried, As he landed his crew with care; Supporting each man on top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.’

I wonder whether some Australian media commentators and politicians have a copy of this poem next to their beds. It is possible that this poem is where they got the idea to repeat statements and assumptions related to a connection between low Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) scores and lower university education standards over and over again until they become accepted, unquestioned knowledge.

The ATAR is a numerical relative ranking of academic performance in senior secondary school. Students are awarded a rank out of 100 that indicates their rank against peers completing school in the same year. The assumptions are that a 'low' ATAR (and definitions of this vary) indicates the student is stupid, lazy or both and that institutions that accept students with low ATARs are of inferior quality and have low standards.

By endlessly repeating such assumptions, what is being exhibited is what former University of Queensland Professor of Education, Eileen Byrne, defined as the Snark Syndrome. The Snark Syndrome is the repeated assertion of an alleged truth that proves to have no credible base in sound empirical research or accredited theory. In simple terms, something is repeated again and again until it is accepted as fact, or as what Byrne calls ‘received wisdom’.

There is no evidence that low ATAR scores inexorably lead to lower standards or poorer university academic outcomes. There is no proof that excluding students with lower ATARs from university programs will raise standards or improve outcomes. The ‘received wisdom’ that high ATARs for everyone will ‘save the day’ is based on assumption, belief and prejudice, and not on evidence or fact.

The evidence and facts do indicate that ATAR scores are correlated with socioeconomic status and social capital. For example, in Australia, poor people in rural areas generally have lower ATARs than rich people in metropolitan areas. But poor people are not stupid and do not compromise educational standards or outcomes. They just have less of the social and cultural capital that counts for school education outcomes (and ATARs).

Does repeating ‘low ATARs means low university standards’ often enough justify the inherent, implicit criticism and demonising of students who do not get high ATARs? No matter how hard they or their teachers work, no more than ten per cent of students’ scores will be in the top ten per cent

21 of scores. That’s how ranking works. However much we might wish it, not everyone can have a high ATAR.

University education is now open to more students than in the past when it was just available to white, upper-class men. This is good for students, their futures, their families, the economy and society. So why do we metaphorically beat up the students who have responded to this opportunity to improve their minds and lives, and the universities who offer them the opportunity to do so?

As far as I am aware, and as Tim Pitman from the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education has recently emphasised, the point of university education is not to validate entry standards but to educate, value-add and ensure high quality outcome standards. So why is there a focus on repeating negative assumptions and inferences about low entry standards, the universities that set them and the people who meet them?

We all know that elements of effective university education and high quality learning outcomes go far beyond the supposed standard at which the students enter the university. Teaching quality, the curriculum, learning support and student support are just some of the most obvious. Yet some continue to be obsessed with entry standards.

In the context of looming federal policy changes for higher education in Australia, simplistic ideas can be seductive. They bring us together and unite us against a perceived common evil. But if we hear them often enough, and they fit with our assumptions, beliefs and prejudices, we may find ourselves uncritically nodding along, muttering about the beginning of the end of civilisation being brought about by low ATAR university entry scores.

In the longer term, simplistic ideas are likely to distract us from evidence-based policy and practice and getting on with the important work of ensuring the highest quality graduate outcomes possible for all students. Surely this should be our focus, rather than Snark-based nonsense?

Marcia Devlin is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Quality) and Professor, Learning Enhancement at Federation University, Victoria, Australia and an SRHE Fellow. A longer version of this article appeared on the website of the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education in Australia.

China

China goes binary China has announced that it will turn 600 public universities, at least half the national total, into institutions of applied learning or polytechnics to produce more technically trained graduates. Yojana Sharma reported for University World News on 12 June 2014 that Lu Xin, a vice- minister in China’s Ministry of Education, announced the policy change at a meeting of college and university leaders at the 2014 China Development Forum earlier this year. She said there would be a ‘gradual transition’ to a dual system.

Europe

How Germany managed to abolish university tuition fees From 2015 there will be no tuition fees anywhere in Germany, after Lower Saxony became the last of the 16 states to abolish fees, as Barbara Kehm described in her blog for The Conversation here.

22 Society News

New SRHE member portal for Routledge Taylor & Francis journal access

As you may know, one of the many benefits of SRHE Membership (see www.srhe.ac.uk/join_us/individual_membership_benefits.asp for the full list) is online access to the Society’s journals, Studies in Higher Education and Research into Higher Education Abstracts. The dedicated on-line portal through which SRHE members gain access to Routledge Taylor& Francis journals has recently been upgraded. You can now: • Browse through Routledge journals and databases included in your SRHE membership package (Teaching in HE, Assessment & Evaluation in HE, European Journal of HE, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, Journal of Marketing for HE, Perspectives: Policy and Practice in HE, and Quality in HE) • Save your favourite and downloaded articles to your online profile • Download the portal app to your smart phone or tablet for quick and easy access to content Simply sign in using your SRHE membership details at www.srhe.ac.uk/members/login.asp and click on the option Online Journal access (Routledge Taylor & Francis) to try it out for yourself.

SRHE Annual Research Conference 2014 (10-12 December)

Our sincere thanks go to all involved in making the December conference such a vibrant and productive event. Over 360 delegates were able to participate, 55% of whom were SRHE members, so this made for a good mix both new and familiar faces.

Highlights included keynotes from Professor Sue Clegg and Professor Jürgen Enders, and video coverage of their keynotes, plus interviews with our very own SRHE News editor, Rob Cuthbert, are available from the SRHE website at www.srhe.ac.uk/conference2014/speakers.asp

Over 250 papers were presented and discussed across numerous strands, along with Research Direction seminars, meet the Editors sessions, book launches, the Society’s AGM and a Presidential Address from Professor Sir Robert Burgess (also available from www.srhe.ac.uk/conference2014/speakers.asp. Feedback has been particularly positive on this busy and varied conference programme, but we are continually looking for areas to improve, so further suggestions are welcomed via [email protected] .

And note the dates for the 2015 SRHE Conference: 9-11 December, at the Celtic Manor Resort, Newport, Wales UK.

23 SRHE Newer Researcher Conference 2014 (9 December)

This event provided an opportunity for postgraduate researchers and those newer to the field of Higher Education research to share their work in a supportive and developmental environment. Over 80 papers were presented and discussed, and Professor Jeroen Huisman from the University of Ghent in Belgium kindly provided the keynote address entitled Higher Education Institutions as (Changing) Organisations (see http://www.srhe.ac.uk/conference2014/newer-researchers- conference.asp for details.

Over 30 research posters were also presented, which added a welcome visual and discursive element to proceedings, and our congratulations go to the two winners of the ‘Best Research Poster’ competition, Jean Farmer from Stellenbosch University in South Africa and David Morning from the University of Northumbria, UK. These posters, along with all the other posters displayed at the conference, can be viewed at www.srhe.ac.uk/conference2014/nr-poster-sessions.asp

Once again, the 2015 Newer Researcher Conference will take place at Celtic Manor, and do note the date: Tuesday 8th December.

SRHE Research & Scoping Awards 2014

As announced at the SRHE Annual Conference, we are delighted to confirm the following:

Three Research Awards of £10,000 each to:

Name Institution Project Title

Greater Expectations of Post-Graduation Futures? A Dr Katy Vigurs Staffordshire Comparative Analysis of the Views of the Last Generation of University Lower-Fees Undergraduates with the First Generation of Higher-Fees Undergraduates at Two English Universities

Dr Richard University of Towards a cartography of impact: Analysing the process of Watermeyer Surrey ‘impact’ peer-review in the REF

Dr Joanna University of Academic Integrity: Exploring Tensions between Perception Williams Kent and Practice in the Contemporary University

24

plus four Scoping Awards of £5,000 each to:

Academic identity and religious identity: cognitive University of Dr Alex Baratta dissonance in students’ higher education learning Manchester and assessment

Deakin University Exploring ‘employability’ in different cultural Dr Cate Gribble Australia. contexts

Murdoch University, Mature-aged men’s experiences of higher Dr Madeleine Laming Australia education: Australia and England compared

Manchester Potential of the Human Capabilities Approach (HCA) Dr Alicia Prowse Metropolitan for strategy development in the Higher Education University. curriculum

Congratulations to all of the above, and our thanks to all those who went to the time and trouble of putting proposals together for the 2014 Award scheme. Further information on the Society’s Awards is available from www.srhe.ac.uk under the ‘Research’ section, and the current plan in to launch the 2015 Research and Scoping Awards in July 2015.

SRHE Newer Researchers Award 2015 – Closing date: 31 March

Don't forget that the closing date for the receipt of proposals for the Newer Researcher Awards is the 31st March 2015. Full details, including eligibility and the definitions of 'newer researcher' for the purposes of this award are available from www.srhe.ac.uk/research/SRHE_newer_researchers.asp Please do also forward or circulate this information to any potentially interested parties within your networks.

SRHE Team Helen Perkins Director [email protected] Rob Gresham Manager Operations and Finance [email protected] Franco Carta Finance Officer [email protected] Nicola Manches Administration Assistant [email protected] François Smit Conference and Events Organiser [email protected]

25

Forthcoming SRHE Network Events

Access and Widening Participation- Joint Seminar with UALL (Seminar 2) Monday 9 February 2015 Researching and Evaluating Widening Participation- University outreach activities and progression to higher education? Speakers: Dr Colin McCaig and Sean Demack, Sheffield Hallam University, Professor Carole Leathwood, London Metropolitan University, and case study by Annette Hayton and Dr Andrew Bengry-Howell, University of Bath Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Access and Widening Participation Wednesday 11 February 2015 From Freshers’ week to Finals: using LGBT student perspectives of higher education to inform research and practice Speakers: Prof.Vicky Gunn, Glasgow School of Art, Eleanor Formby, Sheffield Hallam University and Dr Michael Keenan, Nottingham Trent University Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Student Experience Friday 20 March 2015 Black & Minority Ethnic Student Experience and Attainment Seminar Speakers: Neil Currant, University of Bedfordshire, Dr Anna Mountford-Zimdars and Duna Sabri, King’s College London and Jean Mutton, University of Derby Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Access and Widening Participation- Joint Seminar with UALL (Seminar 3) Monday 23 March 2015 Researching and Evaluating Widening Participation- Learning, teaching and curriculum in higher education Speakers: Professor Penny-Jane Burke, University of Roehampton, Dr Debra Cureton, University of Wolverhampton and case study by Dr Steve Kendall, University of Bedfordshire Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Access and Widening Participation- Joint Seminar with UALL (Seminar 4) Monday 13 April 2015 Researching and Evaluating Widening Participation – Mature and part-time students: Accessing and succeeding in HE Speakers- Professor Alison Fuller and Professor Loma Unwin, Institute of Education ,University of London, Professor Claire Callender and Dr Kerry Harman, Birkbeck ,University of London and case study by Dr John Butcher and Wendy Fowle, Open University Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Access and Widening Participation- Joint Seminar with UALL (Seminar 5) Monday 11 May 2015 Researching and Evaluating Widening Participation- The culture of higher education and the student experience Speakers- Professor John Richardson, Open University, Professor Heidi Safia Mirza, Goldsmith, University of London and case study by Carlton Howson, De Montfort University Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

26

Access and Widening Participation- Joint Seminar with UALL (Seminar 6) Monday 8 June 2015 Researching and Evaluating Widening Participation-Employability and graduate destinations Speakers-Dr Nicola Ingram. University of Bath, Professor Kate Purcell, University of Warwick and case study by Stephane Farenga Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Access and Widening Participation- Joint Seminar with UALL (Seminar 7) Monday 6 July 2015 Researching and Evaluating Widening Participation-Next Steps Speakers Dr Neil Harrison and Professor Jacqueline Stevenson, Sheffield Hallam University and Sharon Smith and Rachael Edgar, University of Kent Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Forthcoming SRHE Professional Development Workshops

Newer Researchers Professional Development Workshop Wednesday 18 February 2015 Research Approaches and Methods Facilitators: Professor Pam Denicolo, University of Surrey and Dr Dawn Duke, University of Surrey Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Newer Researchers Professional Development Workshop Thursday 19 February 2015 Academic Writing Skills Facilitator: Professor Rowena Murray, University of the West of Scotland Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE Fully booked – To be put on the waiting list please e-mail [email protected]

Newer Researchers Professional Development Workshop Friday 20 February 2015 One- Day Writing Retreat Facilitator: Professor Rowena Murray, University of the West of Scotland Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Newer Researchers Professional Development Workshop Wednesday 4 March 2015 Demystifying and Preparing for the Doctorial Viva Facilitators: Professor Pam Denicolo and Dr Dawn Duke, University of Surrey Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Newer Researchers Professional Development Workshop Friday 29 May 2015 An Introduction to Constructivist Techniques: Theory and Practice Facilitators: Professor Pam Denicolo, University of Surrey, Dr Kim Bradley-Cole, University of Reading and Dr Trevor Long Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Newer Researchers Professional Development Workshop Tuesday 2 June 2015 The basics of mentoring for researchers Facilitators: Dr Sam Hopkins, University of Surrey and Dr Mary Dickinson Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

27

Newer Researchers Professional Development Workshop Wednesday 10 June 2015 (am) Doctoral Supervision Dilemmas & Resolutions Facilitators: Professor Pam Denicolo, University of Surrey Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

Newer Researchers Professional Development Workshop Wednesday 10 June 2015 (pm) Doctoral Supervision Dilemmas & Resolutions Facilitators: Professor Pam Denicolo, University of Surrey, Dr Dawn Duke, University of Surrey and Dr Julie Reeves, University of Southampton Venue: SRHE 73 Collier Street, London, N1 9BE

And Finally …

Students out of step over University of Oklahoma Marching Band An unusual advertisement appeared in newspapers in Oklahoma and Texas in October, criticising the marching band that supports the University of Oklahoma American football team. The Tulsa World l reported that to join the band students must sign a pledge not to criticise it in any public way. Some students say that the band, known as the Pride of Oklahoma, has suffered a decline in standards in recent years and the advertisement quoted several students anonymously to this effect.

How to ruin a date with an academic Apparently a tweet about ‘how to ruin a date with an academic in five words’ went viral and hundreds of people made suggestions, as Steve Kolowich reported for The Chronicle of Higher Education on 15 January 2015. Here are some of the suggestions: Yes, but what's the point - (@drreznicek) So? That's just a theory. - (@Beaker_Ben) You should try to relax. - (@jmgabriel72) You're entitled to your opinion.-(@CoreyRobin) I applied for the same funding - (@caferyavuz) I was your reviewer B. - (@blue_and_black1) Let's not talk about research.- (@ImAGradStudent) It’s good to know that Twitter is still serving a valuable academic purpose, and people aren’t just wasting their time. Twitter hashtag #RuinADateWithAnAcademicInFiveWords.

Small ads External examiners, referees, reviewers wanted News will be happy to carry advertisements for external examiners in the broad field of research into higher education, for publishers’ referees, for book reviewers, and so on.

28

Ian McNay writes …

I did not get kidnapped in Kyiv, and the builders have gone, though much remains to be done. So, back to sharing thoughts and comments. You will be expecting me to deal with the REF, given that results came out at the end of last year. I feel somewhat tentative in doing so, given the position of Greenwich in the rankings for Education, especially impact, where my work was part of the submission. But there are some interesting features in the results, not least the grade inflation across all subjects over 2008 results. I am not aware of such a volume of work of world-leading quality, with new paradigms being set and boundaries extended. Perhaps such outstanding global successes are under-reported, or are in fields beyond the social sciences where I do most of my monitoring. What might be called STEM cell research.

What has emerged, almost incidentally, is an extended statement of the objectives of the exercise, which as well as informing the selective allocation of grant, is now recognised as providing accountability for public investment in research and evidence of the benefit of this investment. The outcomes provide benchmarking information and establish reputational yardsticks for use within the HE sector and for public information. Still nothing about improving the quality of research, so any such consequence is not built in to the design of the exercise, but comes as a collateral benefit.

An easy summary of scores against the three elements can be found on the REF web pages – www.ref.ac.uk . My analysis here is only of the Education Unit of Assessment [UoA].

Something that stands out immediately is the effect of the contribution of scores for environment and impact on the overall UoA profile, which, in many cases is very different from the profile for outputs. Both the Open University and Edinburgh more than double their 4* score between the output profile and the overall profile. Durham and Glasgow come close to doing so, and Cardiff and the Institute of Education added 16 and 18 points respectively to their percentage 4* overall profile. Seven traditional universities, plus the OU, had 100 per cent ratings for environment. All submitted more than 20 FTE staff for assessment – the link between size and a ‘well found’ department is obvious. Several ‘research intensive’ institutions that might be expected to be in that group are not there: Cambridge scored 87.5 per cent. Seven, including Leeds, Leicester, UEA, Goldsmiths and Dundee were judged to have no 4* elements in their environment. Three places – Durham, Nottingham and Sheffield had a 100 per cent score for impact in their profile, making Nottingham the only place with a ‘double top’.

Among the less research intensive universities, there were also gains in 4* ratings: Edge Hill went from 2.1 per cent [output] to 9 percent [overall] because of a strong impact profile; Sunderland proved King Lear wrong in his claim that ‘nothing will come of nothing’: they went from zero [output rating] to 5 per cent overall, also because of their impact score.

Scores, like shares, can go down as well as up. Liverpool Hope [up] and Liverpool JM [down] went in opposite directions, which may be more surprising than other pairings such as Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam, or Glasgow and Glasgow Met. Among the higher scoring modern universities, Roehampton went down from 31 to 20 at 4*, but still led the modern universities with 71 percent overall on the 3*/4* categories.

For me, one of the saddest contrasts was thrown up by alphabetic order. Staffordshire had an output rating of 25 percent at 4*; Southampton had 18 percent. When it came to overall profile, the rankings were reversed: Staffordshire went down to 16 because it had no scores at 3* or 4* in either

29 impact or environment; Southampton went up to 31 percent. There is a personal element here: in 2001 I was on the continuing education subpanel. In those days there was a single grade; Staffordshire had good outputs – its excellent work on access was burgeoning, but was held down a grade because of concerns about context issues – it was new and not in a traditional department. Some other traditional departments were treated more gently because they had a strong history. The contribution of such elements was not quantified, nor openly reported in those days, so openness at least allows us to see the effect. I believed, and still do, that, like the approach to A level grades for university entry, contextual factors should be taken account of, but in the opposite direction. Doing well despite a less advantaged context should be rewarded more. My concern about the current structure of REF grading is that, as in 2001, it does the exact opposite, and gives a higher grade profile - and subsequent funding - to units with worse output than some other, less well endowed units who might make better use of extra funds. The message for units in modern universities, whose main focus is on teaching, is to look to the impact factor. Environment is mainly controlled by the directorate, but a research agenda built at devolved level around impact from the project inception stage, may be the best investment for those who wish to continue to participate in future REFs, if any. There is a challenge because much of their research may be about teaching, but the rules of the game bar impact on teaching from inclusion in any claim for impact. That implies no commitment to any link between the two, denying the Humboldtian concept of harmony, and devaluing any claims to research led teaching. As a contrast, on the two criticisms outlined here, the New Zealand Performance –Based Research Fund (PBRF) has, among its aims: • to increase the quality of basic and applied research • to support world-leading research-led teaching and learning at degree and postgraduate level. Might the impending review of REF take this more integrated and developmental approach?

I assume there was monitoring of inter-assessor comparability, but there appears to have been those who used a 1-10 scale and added a zero, and those who went to decimal places, usually equating to simple fractions, for both impact and environment. Many do not get beyond 50/50. The number of staff submitted by the Institute of Education [219] uniquely allows a more ‘nuanced’ set of scores. For output, it is different; even with numbers submitted in low single figures, most scores go to the single decimal point allowed.

Finally, congratulations to Northampton, where 107 per cent of eligible staff were submitted, which makes the traditional point about statistics, so feel free to ignore all of the above.

Just briefly, on Kyiv... it was cold: minus six during the day. It was friendly. It was challenging. One of the project aims is to establish seven centres for leadership development, covering private and public sector organisations and university leadership. The new Law gives universities autonomy. It remains to be seen what this means in practice: one German rector contributing to a project some years ago said he had more and more freedom to spend less and less money as allocated by the state. There are also issues of norms and expectations. One person was adamant that what is needed in Ukraine currently is ‘dominant leadership’- she was selling psychometric testing for leader selection. That recalled the responses I got when in Kirovograd nearly 20 years ago and asked undergraduates for their ideals of good leadership. Stalin, Hitler and Thatcher were the first three replies. I am not sure that that will go down well in universities, even in Ukraine. It did start a discussion on how far there is an equation between ‘strong’ leadership and ‘good‘ leadership.

SRHE Fellow Ian McNay is emeritus professor at the University of Greenwich.

30