Tag: Universities

Conferences, TEF

How are Students and Lecturers Using Educational Resources Today?

Gold Leaf

[Press Release]
SAGE Publishing and Gold Leaf partner on major study to provide insight into the UK higher education pedagogical environment

Higher Education in the UK is undergoing huge change. Much of this is directly affecting how students, faculty and librarians interact with pedagogical resources. But what impact are these developments having on learning? How is this influencing the type of resources being used in the present-day classroom? More widely, what impact will factors such as the TEF and Brexit have on the acquisition and deployment of pedagogical resources and educational technology?

In the first part of a major study, How are Students and Lectures Using Educational Resources Today, commissioned by SAGE Publishing and conducted by Gold Leaf, researchers Linda Bennett and Annika Bennett unpack these questions. The report offers analysis to help understand trends and practices driving the positive impact of pedagogy on student success in the UK HE environment.

To date, at three of the participating universities (the University of Greenwich, the University of Huddersfield and the University of Surrey), a total of 31 in-depth interviews have been conducted with librarians and academics. 4 student focus groups have also taken place from across several disciplines.  These have been complemented by three UK-wide online surveys circulated to academics, librarians and students, which attracted responses from across 113 UK Higher Education institutions. This interim report focuses on qualitative results from non‐Russell Group universities. The final report will include qualitative results from Russell Group universities.

The report addresses questions concerning student expectations; pedagogical tools and their representation in resources lists; changed methods of university funding; and the role of publishers and academics.  Interim findings across the wider UK surveys so far include:

  • 81.6% of academics and 62% of librarians believe that the approach to pedagogy at their institutions have changed.
  • The use of the flipped classroom, and an increased focus on technology-enhanced learning were the most‐mentioned catalysts for change, together with concern over existing teaching standards.
  • Textbooks (both print and electronic) and journals continue to be the most listed resources mentioned by academics, librarians and students.
  • Asked about their institution’s policy on who should pay for learning resources, 49% of the librarians, 42% of academics and 39% of the students said that students could and should be able to obtain all the resources they needed from the Library. Only 4% of librarians and 9% of academics said that their institution paid for essential texts for each student.

Kiren Shoman, Editorial Director, SAGE, said:

“SAGE is keen to take responsibility for learning how changes in education are impacting the communities we serve. Since our founding we have been driven by the recognition that education is vital to a healthy society, and we continue to work with our academic community to support their engagement with education and to best address their wider needs. We have been delighted to work with Gold Leaf as an independent research consultancy to explore the current landscape and best understand how we can support and address the challenges and changes in higher education resourcing and teaching today.”

Linda Bennett, Founder of Gold Leaf, commented:

“Gold Leaf feels very honoured to have been chosen to carry out the research for this important study.  Working on it has been a privilege and the results are fascinating.  I’d like to say how grateful we are to everyone who has supported it, especially Kiren and her colleagues at SAGE and the many academics, librarians and students from Greenwich, Huddersfield and Surrey who have participated.  We have started work on the second report now and look forward to sharing it with the HE community in a few months’ time.”

You can find out more about the report and follow the study as it progresses by sending an email to info@goldleaf.co.uk.

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Part One of the report is being presented at the ABT Conference sponsored by the Booksellers Association on 10th and 11th May.

Part Two of the study will be completed in the autumn of this year.

For further information on either parts of the study please contact info@goldleaf.co.uk.

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About SAGE Publishing

Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE is a leading international provider of innovative, high-quality content publishing more than 1,000 journals and over 800 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. Our growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence. Principal offices are located in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC and Melbourne. www.sagepublishing.com

About Gold Leaf

Gold Leaf was set up in 2001 to provide business development support and market research to the academic publishing and academic librarian communities as well as academia itself.  It has published several important studies about pedagogies, electronic resource provision and the changing role of libraries as well as many bespoke reports for individual clients. Gold Leaf facilitates a number of librarian advisory boards worldwide.  More information about Gold Leaf may be found at http://www.goldleaf.co.uk/index.html

 

TEF

TEF (and KEF?) – the latest developments and what it means for publishers

Gold Leaf

tef logo

Since the announcement of TEF results in June, the publishing industry has been relatively quiet on this subject (partly because of summer holidays). However, the Higher Education sector has been very busy during this period.

First of all, the TEF’s official name has changed from “Teaching Excellence Framework” to “Teaching Excellence and Student Outcome Framework”, though the acronym is to remain ‘TEF’. A “lessons learned from year 2” document was published in September, and the year 3 framework was announced earlier this month. In addition to these developments, a pilot on subject level TEF has been set up, to run during the current academic year; 30-40 institutions are involved. However, none of the results from this exercise (or names of participating institutions) will be published.

The changes identified via the “lessons learned” document are to be implemented immediately in the TEF year 3 round.  The most striking of these is certainly the decision to cut the significance of the NSS results by 50%. It could have a direct impact on the many prestigious institutions which this year were disappointed to receive Silver or Bronze, largely owing to bad NSS results. It may be possible for some of these institutions to re-apply and be rewarded with a better outcome in 2018. Another factor that might contribute to better results (and has been campaigned for by the Russell Group and others) is the introduction of benchmarking, which will help institutions where metric data did not give a true picture of life on campus, especially at institutions with high levels of part-time students, such as the Open University.

To offset the reduction in contribution of the NSS results, there will be three new main additions to the data collected for year 3: the inclusion of grade inflation metrics (the details of this to be confirmed); numbers of student contact hours (as a weighted metric); and the inclusion of Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data (more about this in a future post). All these changes signal a move away from trying to measure student satisfaction and towards the capture of more concrete outcome data.

…and then there’s KEF: at the HEFCE conference 2 weeks ago, Jo Johnson (Minister for Universities and Science) announced the introduction of a third framework, to sit along the REF and the TEF. The Knowledge Exchange Framework is being introduced to measure knowledge transfer and commercial outcomes, and will be yet another metric that universities will have to get their heads round.

What does all this mean for publishers and the book trade?

As was discussed at the ABT conference last May, there is a strong imperative for publishers and booksellers to lobby for more influence in contributing to the TEF  – especially now that the focus has moved away from NSS results: the newly introduced metrics have less direct relevance to the information sector. However, the impact of content, data and information provision on the quality of teaching cannot be denied, and it is only right to assert that the voices of those in our industry should be heard when such a key initiative is in progress. The Office for Students (OfS) – the new regulatory body for Higher Education, which will start taking charge in 2018 – is proposing from 2019 to make the TEF compulsory for all Higher Education Institutions that have more than 500 students. This is one more reason why publishers and booksellers should not underestimate the importance of the TEF for UK universities, but be willing to explore all possible opportunities to take an active role.

 

TEF

A quick overview of TEF results

Gold Leaf

 

TEF results thumb

Earlier this week, ‘providers’ (i.e. participating universities and colleges) were informed by HEFCE of their Year 2 TEF results, and at midnight today all the results were made public on the HEFCE website. Alongside the final results all metrics data and written submissions have been made public, too (although universities have the right to appeal if they object to the category in which they were placed until 27th January 2017, and some are expected to do so).

So, have there been any surprises? Yes and no. It was expected that newer, more teaching-led universities like Aston and Loughborough would lead (and both of them did indeed receive a Gold status), and that traditional “red brick” universities would come out lower in the ranks. This has partially been the case.

Of the Russell Group universities, for example, the results have been a bit of a mixed bag. The majority of these 24 institutions obtained Silver status, with six of them being awarded Gold (University of Birmingham, the University of Exeter, Imperial College London, the University of Leeds, Newcastle University, and the University of Nottingham). However, three were merely given Bronze  – the University of Liverpool, the University of Southampton and – most notably – the London School of Economics. It has been revealed that most Russell Group universities ranked in the lower end of Silver, whilst the six Gold institutions only narrowly made it across the benchmark.

Which brings us to the next point: the metrics. It has widely been said that existing metrics are unsuitable for measuring teaching excellence; the publication of the results now demonstrates the important role the written submissions, which are heavily focused on qualitative data, have played. Without undertaking a detailed analysis it is difficult to say exactly why, but anecdotal evidence shows that the universities with ‘weaker’ metrics managed to obtain higher scores by submitting persuasive ‘soft’ information. For example, Durham University had a similar dataset to Nottingham, but ‘only’ received Silver status, compared to Nottingham’s Gold; in fact, Nottingham’s scores on student satisfaction were quite a bit below the set benchmark for Gold.

Clear winners of the TEF exercise are the colleges of Creative and Performing Arts. Most of them received Gold status, despite many not scoring very high on the employment and employability metrics (the latter is obviously owing to the nature of courses they teach).

What does all this mean for the publishing industry? At present, it’s difficult to gauge, but it’s worth noting that this new TEF status has been awarded for three years. Re-submissions will be accepted, but none of the Gold institutions is expected to take the risk of losing its standing. However, there have been claims that Gold might be both a blessing and a curse – some universities have already announced budget cuts for projects designed to improve student satisfaction: after all, they did receive Gold, so clearly no further improvements are needed?!?

To determine the full extent of opportunities and impacts for the publishing industry, a full analysis of the metrics and – most importantly – the written submissions will need to be carried out. Gold Leaf will do more work on this over the summer.

A quick look at just half a dozen of the submissions shows that the Library seems to feature quite prominently in the more successful ones; and while provision of learning resources tends not to play a direct role, some universities found it worthwhile to highlight their participation in EBA or PDA purchasing schemes, and / or the direct relationship with publishers they enjoy.

This could be a good starting point for a more detailed analysis of submissions.  We’ll keep you posted!

 

A list of the TEF results for the institutions that participated in the report “Resource Provision in Higher Education: Implications of the TEF and related initiatives” can be found below.

If you have any questions or wish to purchase a copy of the full report, please send us an email.
Gold Leaf also offers entirely customised seminars to individual companies featuring a 4-hour seminar on the TEF in your offices.
We would be delighted to support the industry in taking the study forward by working with individual publishers or booksellers or with syndicated groups on the future developments of the TEF, its metrics and the implications on learning resources.
We look forward to hearing from you.

 

University of Aberdeen Opted out
University of Bedfordshire Silver
BPP University Bronze
University of Cambridge Gold
Cardiff University Silver
University of Edinburgh Opted out
University of Gloucestershire Silver
University of Greenwich Silver
University of Huddersfield Gold
Imperial College London Gold
King’s College London Silver
Kingston University Bronze
University of Lincoln Gold
University of Nottingham Gold
Nottingham Trent University Gold
The Open University Opted out
Oxford Brookes University Silver
University of Reading Silver
University of Salford Bronze
Sheffield Hallam University Silver
University of St Andrews Gold
University of Surrey Gold
University of Sussex Silver
University College London Silver
University of Westminster Bronze
University of Worcester Silver
Writtle University College Bronze
University of York Silver