University of Essex s6
UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX
BOARD OF THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND COMPARATIVE STUDIES
Wednesday 1 December 2010
(2.00pm – 5.00pm)
MINUTES
UNRESERVED BUSINESS
Chair / Dr Burnett, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Comparative Studies
Present / Mr Cartwright, Professor Cox, Dr Freyenhagen, Mrs Lefley, Mr Lichtenstein, Miss Milne, Mr Mukherjee, Mr Poole, Dr Samson
Apologies / Dr Gurney, Professor Hulme, Professor Rubin, Miss Silburn, Dr Venn
Absent / Dr Fry, Miss Gubasheva
In Attendance / Dr Karen Hulme, Ms Liz Laws
Secretary / Ms Angela Turton, Assistant Registrar
STARRING OF AGENDA ITEMS
Noted / Item 12 was additionally starred. The unstarred items on the agenda were then deemed to have been received or noted and approved as appropriate. / 45/10
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
Approved / The minutes of the meeting held on 27 May 2010. / 46/10
MATTERS ARISING
There were no matters arising. / 47/10
MEMBERSHIP AND TERMS OF REFERENCE (FBHCS/10/11)
Approved / There was an amendment; the International Academy sent one observer rather than two members. / 48/10
DEAN’S REPORT
Working Groups
Reported / The Task and Finish Group would meet to consider issues including diversity of assessment methods, study skills and plagiarism, feedback, and contact hours. The Rules of Assessment Working Party was continuing, and would consider marking standards, using a wider range of marks, letter grades, the operation of examination boards (the use of module-level data at pre-boards), and electronic grids. The Faculty Administrative Review Group was ongoing. / 49/10
Virtual Matters
Reported / ESF and on-line forms were in use. In general the new processes were an improvement. The use of Moodle rather than the CMR was being encouraged. / 50/10
Buildings
Reported / The Teaching Centre was open; the facilities were impressive. The student centre and library extension were still at the planning phase but an architect would be appointed soon. The building would be completed by September 2013. / 51/10
Recruitment
Reported / A five percent increase in student numbers was planned for 2011-12. After that, the position would remain unclear until more was known about the changes to fees for Home/EU undergraduates. Open days and visit days remained important, and indeed should be viewed as equally important as graduation. / 52/10
Income Generation
Reported / The University was considering offering CPD courses, summer schools, short courses, part-time study, more interdisciplinary programmes, 3 + 1 schemes, premium-fee options, and the viability of modules with enrolments of fewer than 10 (both postgraduate and undergraduate). Student members commented that modules with small enrolments should run. Other members noted that the diversity of modules was what made a university attractive to students and that reducing this would harm recruitment, and that if departments had reached the required SSR, then teaching load should be a matter for departments. Others commented that new areas of interest often commenced with small numbers and that if this were not permitted, nothing new would ever develop. It was noted that small but interesting MA modules were often the decisive factor in students deciding a) to pursue a PhD and b) to do so at Essex. Student representatives raised the issue of uncapped module enrolment and indicated their desire to see the cap replaced. Members noted that there were both advantages and disadvantages to capping. / 53/10
PGT Resits
Reported / There were no PGT modules with examinations in the Faculty. The University was considering holding some examinations in January because of the large volume of examinations in the Summer Term and the consequent strain upon staff and facilities. Student members stated that they were not in favour of January examinations, and that administrative problems should not be solved by placing a new burden on students. / 54/10
ISSUES ARISING FROM UNDERGRADUATE EXTERNAL EXAMINERS’ REPORTS (Oral report)
Reported / The BA Humanities external had praised the Dangerous Ideas module and noted that it ‘produced imaginative interdisciplinary work of a high standard’. He congratulated the teaching staff involved. He disliked the use of learning outcomes and preferred to look at the educational development of students. He (and several other externals) indicated dissatisfaction with the limited powers of the external at Essex and felt that the role of the external had become too marginal. He made very positive comments about the detailed feedback provided on coursework (which the board noted appeared to contrast with the NSS/SSS data). One of the History externals also commented upon the diminishing role of the external examiner, and on the use of the full range of marks. The Art History external suggested that more use might be made of Turnitin and felt that students needed more guidance on avoiding plagiarism. One of the LiFTS externals stated that bolder use of fail marks should be made, and he also commented robustly on problems with grids and RPS. He suggested that the University should purchase commercial software. He did not believe that first-year marks should appear on grids in later years and thought that the grids contained too much information which made them difficult to interpret. He also felt that students who did not attend should be expelled at a much earlier stage, and thought that marks should be raised in some cases of extenuating circumstances. The E15 external commented on the excellent feedback given to students. The Philosophy external noted the successful implementation of the dissertation scheme. / 55/10
STUDENT PROGRESSION AND AWARDS (FBHCS/10/12)
Reported / This data was available on-line; members queried the value of producing such a significant amount of paper. Members also felt that too much data had been presented, and would have preferred the ability to select certain items. The Board noted that some first-year students were inadequately prepared for university, or were not entirely committed to it, which explained why failure rates were somewhat higher in year one than in subsequent years. It was noted that although the number of fails had risen slightly, the number of earlier withdrawals had declined. CISH students were more likely than average to transfer to other courses, but this was expected given the interdisciplinary nature of the programmes as well as the language requirements on several of the courses. Art History and CISH had both had small cohorts in recent years but had larger intakes this year. All of the reported increases and decreases were based upon fluctuations in a single year and so were not particularly meaningful. Members felt that longer-term trends would be more significant. The comprehensibility of the data would have been enhanced by the provision of headings at the top of each page. The E15 data was skewed by students who moved from a foundation degree to a top-up year, which created the impression that zero percent of students had remained on the course concerned. / 56/10
PLAGIARISM AND THE USE OF TURNITIN
Reported / Departments used Turnitin differently and felt that this was appropriate. There was no support for a university-wide (or even faculty-wide) policy on this issue. Members commented that Turnitin was time-consuming to use and that quicker, more user-friendly software would be very welcome. There was also no support for encouraging students to use Turnitin on their own work; Turnitin was not an appropriate tool for this purpose. / 57/10
FACULTY RESTRUCTURING PROPOSAL (FBHCS/10/13)
Reported / Postgraduate students in the Department of Philosophy submitted a written statement which was considered. SSLCs in both Philosophy and Art History had discussed the merger proposal. The departments concerned were small and it was felt that the merger would create a stronger unit. Single-honours degrees would continue, and there would still be two RAE units of assessment. Student members indicated that at times they felt that information had not been provided and that they had not always had opportunities to comment. However, there had been meetings with students in both departments as from the Summer Term and student input had been solicited and received. There had been one meeting which student representatives had not been permitted to attend because it consisted largely of reserved business such as discussion of individual staff members’ salaries. The student members felt that the merger was driven by financial exigency, particularly in the wake of the recently announced funding cuts for HE. It was noted that the restructuring issue had been minuted at the previous meeting in May, some time before the funding cuts had been revealed. All of the student priorities submitted by the SU had been accepted, for example, not merging the entire faculty into a single school and not cutting ‘front-line’ services in small departments. There was concern about devaluing the humanities nationally, and the student members called upon the senior management of the University to support humanities disciplines. It was noted that both the VC and the Faculty PVC had publically done so. Students were not in favour of a suite of compulsory interdisciplinary modules. Staff opinion was divided on the matter. / 58/10
NSS/SSS DATA (FBHCS/10/14)
Reported / The data had been presented in the same format as the previous year, and the Board reiterated its comments: ‘the emphasis on increases and decreases of 5% or more was not particularly useful, because a department might for instance increase its score by 5% but still be performing badly in that area if the previous year's rating had been low. Similarly, a decline from, eg, 98 to 93 still would represent a very high level of satisfaction. Members were more interested in overall trends, long-term trends, a more in-depth narrative summary, and areas in which a department's score was anomalous compared with its general performance’. It was noted that the Faculty had an above average performance for teaching and assessment. There were few signs of problems. The data samples were very small. / 59/10
STUDENT MATTERS
Reported / Student members enquired as to whether the Faculty employability and skills group was continuing to meet. The group had concluded. Departments would be conducting their own careers activities, though there would be a careers week for second-year students in the spring. Student members stated that it would be beneficial if coursework submission deadlines were staggered. This would facilitate receipt of feedback prior to completing the next item of coursework, and also would encourage students to work throughout the academic year rather than in short bursts at the end of term. Other members noted that this was the previous system, but that the SU had instigated a change to single deadlines within departments because students had been confused by multiple deadlines and because it had been considered unfair that some students had more time than others to complete coursework. However, departments were not unsympathetic to the request to stagger deadlines and would discuss the matter further at SSLCs. / 60/10
REPORT OF DEAN’S ACTION (FBHCS/10/15)
Received / 61/10
MEMBERSHIP OF ACADEMIC OFFENCES AND PROGRESS PANEL (FBHCS/10/16)
Approved / 62/10
CREATION OF CENTRE FOR LATIN AMERICAN & CARIBBEAN STUDIES (FBHCS/10/17)
Received / 63/10
Angela Turton
Assistant Registrar
December 2010
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