Quality of teaching

Policy Futures in Education Volume 11 Number 6 2013 www.wwwords.co.uk/PFIE

660 http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2013.11.6.660

Becoming an Academic for the Twenty-first Century: what will count as teaching quality in higher education

ANNE JASMAN University of Southern Queensland, Toowomba, Australia EDDIE BLASS Learning Innovations Hub, University of New England, Armidale, Australia STEVE SHELLEY University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT This article explores quality in university teaching using a ‘futures’ perspective. In a recent article by Blass and colleagues, a number of scenarios were developed to explore the type of higher education workforce that might be needed within the UK by 2035. In discussion of these scenarios – leading knowledge creation, responsive knowledge creation, regional conglomerates, no government funding and total government funding – the team were mindful of how these scenarios would impact on academic work and the workforce needed to undertake different and perhaps a more differentiated set of work roles, responsibilities and ways of working. However, the issue of what counts as quality within these possible scenarios was not considered. In this article the definitions and differentiation of teacher and teaching quality are explored. Recent trends in Australian and English higher education policy in relation to teaching quality are also discussed. Teaching quality is then considered in relation to the underlying values and assumptions that might operate within each of these scenarios about teaching. The authors then speculate on the impact this would have on what might count as quality in teaching in 2020, and what academics may have to face within each of these scenarios in relation to their work roles, ways of working and opportunities for career progression. In conclusion, the authors suggest that the concept of ‘teaching’ in higher education may need to be radically reconsidered to match the needs of students whatever scenario may develop in higher education.

Introduction

This article explores the intersection between two important discourses found in the higher education policy and research literature. The first is on possible futures for universities and the sector as a whole, and the second relates to the quality assurance of teaching within universities. This policy analysis has been carried out in order to open up a ‘third’ space to legitimise and promote discussion by academics regarding key issues associated with the changing nature of their work in higher education.

There is little research into the expectations and aspirations of university academics as they enter the academy or even of those who are already working with universities. Some research has been carried out to explore induction into the university sector – for example, for those moving from the professions. However, this does not investigate academic work from the individual’s perspective, particularly the academic’s goals and aspirations around what they will do and how they will do it. Research is more likely to focus on the individual’s transition into a new context and how they are initiated as a new academic into the culture of a particular university. This is very much an apprenticeship model, where the academic is learning on the job.

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It would appear that there is an acceptance that this should continue, with academics today normally expecting to do some work within research, whether pure, applied or practice/action based, or teaching and learning, management and administration and, increasingly, community engagement. This is ‘business as usual’ in the higher education sector. Neither the university nor the academic appears to give priority to embedding professional learning for quality teaching as part of career development. Rather, quality teaching is one of the three or four key criteria used by the university to judge quality both at the institutional level and the individual academic level for quality assurance, benchmarking, and individual recognition and reward through promotion.

However, in the scenarios for the future of higher education discussed later in this article (see Blass et al, 2010a), the possible diversification of mission and vision across the higher education sector is discussed as a way of exploring some potential differences in ways of working and progressing in the university sector. In this article we do not assume that the academic workforce will continue to be engaged in such a limited range of roles and responsibilities as it is now.

We focus on recent concerns about the quality of teaching rather than analysing the policy and research discourse on academic work as a whole as in the original article. These concerns are framed within the five possible future scenarios outlined by Blass et al (2010a). Our viewpoint in this article is of these scenarios being the backdrop to academic work in the future, and we explore the development of quality teaching as part of academic work and the implications of these scenarios for individual academic work, progression and career development.

This focus has been chosen as it is significant within policy discourses (Bradley, 2009) and research over the last decade (Barrie & Ginns, 2007; Brown et al, 2007; Jasman, 2009;; Schuck et al, 2008) and as evidenced by the establishment of national bodies such as the Higher Education Academy in the England and the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.

Although the original ‘Futures’ research was conducted within the UK, there is evidence from recent policy publications that there has been significant investment into improving the quality of teaching and learning in higher education in both England and Australia. In order to test the wider application of the scenarios for higher education, we therefore discuss what might count as teacher and teaching quality within higher education in both Australia and England in the future. However, before such an analysis is conducted it is essential to understand how teaching quality is currently constructed and understood in the two higher education systems considered within this article – namely, those of Australia and England. First, we clarify the difference between teaching and teacher quality as these terms are often used as one and the same in the literature. We then tease out the degree of consistency in transnational articulations of teaching quality in higher education with reference to the research literature before exploring the similarities and significant differences between policy discourses and research into higher education teaching quality in these two countries. We then consider how these might be disrupted by changes in the sector as articulated by each of the five scenarios identified by Blass et al (2010a) and the implications for academic work in the future.

Teaching Quality in Higher Education: the cases of Australia and England

Teacher and Teaching Quality – is there a difference?

Jasman (2010) states that ‘using the terms [teacher quality and teaching quality] interchangeably can cause confusion when discussing questions of how best to recognize quality’. In this article the terms are used as follows:

Teacher quality is understood through the qualifications required, standards met and characteristics of teachers that demonstrate the level of expertise which can be drawn on in working to achieve particular outcomes within a particular context. Teaching quality describes the quality of a teacher’s work within a particular context – in other words, how that teacher’s expertise is used in practice (Jasman, 2010, p. 80).

In this article we are specifically addressing teaching quality, which relates to what the academic actually does in context. Interest in the quality of teaching from a policy perspective appears in the 1990s when universities were urged to codify teaching quality in order to: 1. articulate more explicit criteria and standards of good teaching for appointments, confirmation

and promotions purposes; and

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2. establish a minimum standard of teaching performance, linked to these criteria, for all levels of appointment and promotion (Ramsden et al, 1995).

These recommendations are still relevant today as ‘universities around the world are exploring the use of teaching performance indicators for performance-based funding and benchmarking purposes’ (Ginns et al, 2007). Ginns et al suggest that the measurement of teaching quality in the higher education sector has two main foci,

on ratings of individual classes, particularly ratings of individual teachers and their practices, [while] other researchers have focused on students’ perceptions of the learning environment across their entire degree, and how these perceptions are related to approaches to study and subsequent learning outcomes. (Ginns et al, 2007, pp. 603-604)

The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) (Ramsden, 1991) is the most commonly used measure in Australian and English universities to seek graduates’ views on the quality of teaching with respect to individual teachers, university programmes and courses. It can be used to provide an accountability measure of individual performance, as well as providing an institutional measure of teaching quality. The questionnaire includes items on good teaching, clear goals and standards, appropriate assessment, appropriate student workload, generic skills and overall satisfaction with degree quality (Ginns et al, 2007). It is based on categories reflecting the elements of teaching linked to a deep approach to learning (Marton & Saljo, 1976a,b) and surveys the experiences of students.

There is limited evidence of a relationship between such indicators of quality teaching and student performance (Crawford et al, 1998), despite extensive validation of the CEQ. Crawford et al (1998) found that students who took a deep approach to study also perceived that the teaching they received was good, the goals and standards were clear, and there was some evidence of independence. These students outperformed those using a surface approach, who found the workload too high and the assessment inappropriate. Other research on teaching quality has drawn on academics’ views of what counts as quality, whilst others have developed criteria associated with individual academic teaching practices (Barrett et al, 1997). Here indicators are associated with descriptions of quality teaching more commonly found in the school sector – for example: 1. provide a clear and empathetic learning environment; 2. promote active student involvement; 3. cater for students’ learning differences; 4. assist students to identify the outcomes of their learning; and 5. engage in self-development. This framework was designed to help academics describe their teaching and to support them in identifying and engaging in appropriate activities to improve teaching quality or to receive recognition or rewards. This is in contrast to the use of such frameworks for accountability purposes. More recently the Higher Education Academy (UK) has developed a Professional Standards Framework for supporting and improving the quality of teaching and learning in higher education. Again these standards more closely reflect frameworks developed for teachers in schools and move away from views of quality derived from surveys of student satisfaction.

The authors have not been able to locate evidence to suggest that these teaching qualities directly relate to student educational outcomes in universities. However, considerable evidence exists to suggest that this is the case in the school sector (Kleinhenz & Ingvarson, 2004) where school teacher characteristics are linked to the external assessment of educational outcomes. In this way, judgements are made as to the quality of teaching linked to student achievement in schools. This also enables comparisons to be made at the level of the teacher, the school, the region and nationally (Jasman, 2010).

If this is also the intention in higher education, it is likely that the focus of quality teaching will move away from the apprenticeship model where academics are supported when entering the university to expecting a proxy of teaching quality, such as a qualification achieved prior to working in the university sector. At the same time the main purpose of quality measures will increasingly be focused on benchmarking and ranking institutional teaching quality rather than focusing on an institutional and individual improvement agenda. These trends are already in evidence within Australia.[1] A brief overview of recent policy trajectories relating to teaching

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quality in higher education in Australia and England now follows to identify similarities and differences in recent policy trajectories.

Australia

The CEQ (Ramsden, 1991) was designed to collect graduate views on teaching quality at the institutional level. It also provides a significant source of data used in the assessment of institutional teaching quality for the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund (LTPF). The indicators used included: success – through progress and retention rates; outcomes in terms of full-time employment and part-time or full-time further study; and satisfaction relating to graduate generic skills, good teaching and overall graduate satisfaction. These measures of satisfaction are potentially those most closely linked to a proxy view of what students consider quality teaching and are drawn from the responses to selected questions in the Course Experience Questionnaire.

In 2003, a series of higher education reforms was legislated for in Australia by the Department of Education, Science and Training, where quality improvement was seen in terms of providing ‘incentive to improve performance and greater accountability’ (DEST, 2002). The first set of incentives focus on institutional benchmarking through the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund. This fund uses a subset of CEQ questions to provide data for analysis and comparison of universities. In 2007-08 both excellence and improvement in learning and teaching were rewarded. The second external incentive has an improvement focus for the quality of teaching. The Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) and the Australian Awards for University Teaching, as well as local university schemes, recognised quality teaching, offering rewards to individual academics. Up until it ceased operations in 2012, awards and recognition by ALTC were based on a nominations process where awardees were supported by key institutional personnel. The Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) has not taken over this remit.

More recently, following another review of higher education (Bradley, 2008), the government established a new national body for regulation and quality assurance: the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), which commenced its work in 2010. The ALTC led on a Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Project for TEQSA, to develop by the end of 2010 a set of academic standards in six discipline groupings with discipline communities and their representatives. With the demise of the ALTC, the progress and work of TEQSA may now be redirected to focus more clearly on accountability.

The new quality assurance processes are currently framed on the basis of an assessment of student learning outcomes and thus are moving away from surveys of student satisfaction to measures of student performance. This approach appears even more closely aligned with the school education model, as a website for ‘My University’ will be developed to complement the ‘My School’ website (http://www.myschool.edu.au/). This latter site compares the performance of schools largely in terms of educational outcomes relating to national tests of mathematics, English and science. How this will translate to the university sector is unclear, but there are several bases that could be formulated for data collection, such as performance against common criteria for all universities such as the student achievement in relation to graduate attributes.

England

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) plays a major role in quality assurance of teaching quality through the quality assurance framework (QAF). This framework has included an institutional audit, a collaborative provision audit and publication of teaching quality information (TQI) (accessed September 2008) which includes the National Student Survey (NSS) (accessed September 2008) and the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey (accessed September 2008). As argued elsewhere (Schuck et al, 2008; Jasman, 2010), there is very little evidence to suggest that there is any link between the measurement of quality through the use of student feedback questionnaires and any improvement of teaching quality and/or student learning outcomes.

While the TQI was originally designed and used to assure the quality of teaching, from 2011 a new quality assurance framework has been used. Wide consultations have been held with key

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stakeholders, including employers, academics and students. The nature of this quality assurance framework is unclear at this time, particularly following the change in government in 2011 and the ongoing restructuring of the teacher education sector. As was the case in Australia through the ALTC, the Higher Education Academy (HEA) alongside HEFCE provides individual recognition of teaching quality through its Associate and Fellowship schemes. Its mission is stated as follows:

We support the sector in providing the best possible learning experience for all students. We do this by working with individual academics to give them access to professional recognition, advice and support, as well as networking and development opportunities to enhance their teaching. (http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/aboutus; accessed 1 June 2010)

The UK Professional Standards Framework [2] and accredited programmes for training also support teaching quality. Here the framework provides descriptors in six areas of activity: design and planning; teaching and/or supporting student learning; assessment and feedback; learning environment, student support and guidance; integration of scholarship, research and professional development activities; and evaluation of practice. The core knowledge included within the framework identifies subject material, methods for teaching and learning, how students learn, use of appropriate technologies, methods of evaluating the effectiveness of teaching and the implication of quality assurance and enhancement for professional practice. Professional values focus on respect for individual learners.

The academic is also expected to have a commitment to incorporating research, scholarship and professional practice processes and outcomes into their teaching; developing learning communities; encouraging participation; acknowledging diversity and promoting equality of opportunity; and continuing professional development and evaluation of practice. Again the question of how these data might be used beyond helping individual development is unclear, but this represents a much greater level of specification than is currently in use in either England or Australia. This indicates a trend towards greater codification and criteria that supports the development of individual academics (or perhaps their qualification prior to practising in higher education).

Current Trends: what counts as teaching quality?

Four purposes for determining teaching quality emerge from these brief descriptions of research and policy trajectories in Australia and England. First, there are the purposes of government accountability to demonstrate that public funds are being used effectively and efficiently. Alongside this are purposes associated with institutional positioning (as well as national positioning) in the global higher education marketplace through benchmarking exercises. The third set of purposes is in relation to academic promotion; and finally, teaching quality measures support an improvement agenda relevant to the individual academic. These last two purposes are closely related since improving teaching quality is relevant to both promotion and career progression, but also can result in external recognition and reward for demonstrating the enhancement of the quality of teaching and the impact on student experience and educational outcomes.

The criteria for codifying and reporting on quality teaching are still contested (Devlin & Samarawickrema, 2010). Even though these purposes are presented as distinctive, what counts for quality in each varies and provides only a partial component of overall judgements about a university or academic. What might be the position of quality teaching in the future? Five future scenarios for the higher education sector are now described to provide a context for discussions of what might count as teaching quality in each case.

Future Scenarios: what are the implications for quality teaching in higher education?

Given the current uncertain situation in relation to government direction on individual and institutional accountability measures, this would be an appropriate time to both interrupt and disrupt ‘business as usual’. The following scenarios [3] are derived from a HEFCE-funded research project, ‘The Future of Higher Education Provision in the UK: workforce implications’ (Blass et al, 2010b) [4], and they are used first to contextualise the relative importance of teaching within each

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of the scenarios before concluding with a more general discussion of current trajectories influencing what might count as quality teaching in the future.

Scenario 1: Leading Knowledge Creation

The key driver for this scenario is a shift in values associated with recent economic events resulting in an increase in student debt aversion. This will impact on whether future students and potential academics choose to engage in higher education or not. In this scenario the number of students opting to go into higher education will reduce as they decide not to take out student loans or manage continuing debt on graduation. They are more likely to study part time and seek to accredit small ‘chunks’ of study to create a qualification. The higher education sector becomes smaller, with undergraduate provision serviced by what is now the further education sector. This provides small, transferable modules of study. In this context, ‘teaching’ will be more flexible, with a wide variety of study options determined by the student. Each module will be self-contained. Quality teaching will occur when academics can identify the best way of supporting learning in relation to the student’s needs and context.

In this scenario higher education focuses on postgraduate qualifications, and the academic who wishes to work in this area will enter through the traditional route of research degree and postdoctoral fellowships. Although publicly funded, this sector must also interface with business and industry to ‘sell’ its research. New roles in higher education will emerge such as public relations, communications with business, brokering and selling ‘knowledge’ created by the university.

Undergraduate teaching quality is not a priority as this is now the job of those working in further education where teaching is focused on student employability with the curriculum closely linked to vocational, technical and professional qualifications. What will count within the university sector is supervision, mentoring and building research capacity, although there may be some limited expectations to teach in an undergraduate programme. The focus is on the quality of support in research training and development and management of the researcher’s performance, and judgement about ‘teaching’ quality will be closely linked to metrics for excellence in research. Progression will not be achieved through quality teaching.

Scenario 2: Responsive Knowledge Creation

In this scenario the driving force behind the change within the sector as a whole is in relation to changing values associated with discipline-based knowledge – we move from ‘just in case’ to ‘just in time’ and ‘just for here’ research. A dual sector will emerge where 80% of universities work within the applied sector. In this scenario it is essential to have experience from outside higher education within business, industry, the professions or other activities outside university settings. In the other 20% of the sector it is almost ‘business as usual’, but here the rewards are much less than now, and whilst academics may pursue their own agendas with relative freedom, they will sacrifice the financial rewards they currently enjoy for doing such work. In this scenario, the redbrick and post-92 universities are securely funded by corporate collaborations and government funding for teaching. But the nature of teaching in these institutions will be very different.

They offer a variety of study options which means that more students can be accommodated within smaller building space, as blended learning and block delivery become the norm and many courses are delivered in off-site hubs, such as corporate premises, local schools in the evenings and hotel conference facilities. Most students are part-time. (Blass et al, 2010a, p. 447)

Again teaching quality is less of a priority for the academic when compared with the business and entrepreneurial activities of the university endeavour. In this context it would appear that the technical and vocational approach to teaching becomes more common than now. The university satisfies the workforce needs of the economy. In this context teaching quality is judged by how well the students can make the transition from university to work, be this in corporate, public or third- sector areas, in business, professional or vocational occupations. Given the focus of universities in this scenario, opportunities to progress through teaching are extremely limited.

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Scenario 3: Regional Conglomerates

The key driver for change in the sector for this scenario is the current combination of funding cuts and the continuing shift in staff expertise within higher education. Currently only 45% of staff employed in the sector are academics. In this scenario there is the danger of intense and damaging competition between universities for students, staff and resources. This would not be sustainable in the longer term and we suggest that this level of disruption in the sector would result in a transformation of provision. In this scenario we suggest that the academic has a lower status in society and, given the culture of knowledge sharing and networking, the team becomes more important than the individual. This most closely mirrors current information and communication technology (ICT) scenarios built around open access to knowledge. The purpose of the conglomerate is educationally driven for a sustainable society, contributing more to democracy, the region and community outreach than is currently the case. These organisations are also likely to have flatter management structures. But how would this impact on what counts as quality teaching?

In this scenario it is more likely that the role of academics is fundamentally different. In the context of a regional conglomerate there is little competition in the provision of particular degrees. Teaching can be a team activity where the outcomes for students are paramount. This is more of a ‘service’ role where collegial and collaborative approaches to teaching and learning build sustainable, relevant and highly contextualised learning opportunities. Describing and judging the quality of teaching by individuals is of little importance as the focus is on the quality of learning outcomes for students, and the opportunities for career progression are limited.

Scenario 4: No Government Funding

This is the closest to a ‘business as usual’ scenario, where the higher education (HE) sector increasingly has to fund its activities through fees, external sources and other entrepreneurial activities. Here the university provides academic services to clients paying for this work. Most students are part time and study online, at weekends or in the evenings. The traditional academic role of research continues but is based on earning potential to the university and teaching has a very low priority. In this scenario the quality and standing of the university is reflected largely through its research performance and earning capacity. Academics spend very little time on teaching unless they are attracting media attention and can charge more for enrolment in their course or degree programme. Within this framework it is possible for a ‘star’ teacher, who is charismatic, entertaining and well known, to attract students willing to pay for a celebrity performance. In the main, however, teaching is done by those with recent ‘real-life’ experience, and this is a very attractive option for recent retirees to top up their retirement income, so it is not difficult to recruit into teaching. Quality teaching in this context is judged largely by an academic’s earning potential through attracting students or their performance within a media context.

Scenario 5: Total Government Funding

This at first glance might appear to be the most attractive option. This scenario suggests that undergraduate education will be available to all who wish to study up to Level 4 (an undergraduate degree), through levying a 2.5% National Education Tax. The student body would be diverse, and in terms of university work there would be the opportunity to pursue different pathways in teaching, research and third-stream activity. In this scenario students would be able to move freely across institutions to accumulate credit and quality would be seen in terms of student satisfaction. There would, of course, be increased accountability at the institutional level given that the taxpayer is footing the bill for potentially everyone to access higher education.

This would be similar to the current situation in the English National Health Service where customer satisfaction takes precedence as a measure of quality over and above the quality of patient treatment or outcomes. This measure of quality would align closely to current models such as the Student Experience Questionnaire. Quality would be important for government accountability but more at the institutional level of ensuring retention and value for money. It is possible to envisage that quality teaching would be important in attracting students to a particular

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institution and that academics might choose a career pathway leading to a leadership role in relation to teaching. The quality of teaching here would be valued as this is recognised as a key priority for universities as student enrolments will guarantee a funding stream. Teaching quality will also be important for building workforce capacity through engagement in life-long and life- wide learning.

The Future in 2020 and 2035: will we still be talking about quality teaching?

Earlier in this article it was argued that by considering the intersection of two dominant discourses in relation to teaching quality in higher education, a third space could be created for academics to discuss the possible and probable scenarios for teaching in the university sector and what counts as quality within these. This is one way to challenge current ‘taken-for-granted’ practices for accountability at individual, institutional, national and international levels. This analysis is not encouraging. The position and value placed on teaching quality within four of these five scenarios is much less than is current today – it is only really valued within higher education within the fifth scenario of total government funding.

In the first two scenarios, the status of the teaching in higher education is diminished. Research becomes critical as a means for universities to maintain control of knowledge creation, support their entrepreneurial activities, and thus ensure continuing funding streams. In the third scenario the role of academics in teaching is associated with changes in the role of universities, with teams rather than individuals being recognised for quality. However, teaching is not highly valued in this context either, as financial and resource pressures increase the numbers of students and access to open knowledge sources means that the ‘knowledge’ of academics becomes less important than their ability to support student learning processes. In the fourth scenario, it is a user-pays model. In this context the users or students will have increasingly easy access to knowledge and teaching again becomes less valued within the academy. The cult of celebrity is possible in teaching, aligned more with teaching as entertainment than with teaching to support learning.

In the final scenario quality in teaching in the short term may be found in the ability of the academic to be flexible and work in a variety of environments with variable-sized groups using all possible mechanisms for interaction assuming that face to face is no longer the norm and that blended and wholly online delivery of courses increases. In this scenario students become individual and independent learners where quality teaching is about identifying what support and feedback the student needs right now, that is relevant to his or her particular workplace or learning context. The role of the academic is still seen as valuable in relation to student learning, as they can offer an authentic and relevant approach to engaging with the available knowledge. They are about managing knowledge effectively.

The five scenarios are offered as one way to disrupt assumptions and values that underpin current formulations of quality in teaching and to suggest alternative ways of thinking about and demonstrating what teaching quality might and perhaps should be in the twenty-first century. We may also want to think about the possible impact of new ways of knowledge acquisition and meaning making and the fact that, in the future, these may no longer be within the remit of schools and universities. Knowledge Works provides some suggested roles for learning agents, whether in schools or universities, and challenges our assumptions as students or academics about teaching (and learning) in the twenty-first century:

Learning Fitness Instructor – Learning fitness instructors will help learners build and strengthen the basic cognitive, emotional, and social abilities essential to learning by using simulations, biofeedback, and hands-on activities to reduce stress, hone mental capabilities, and learn brain- friendly nutrition.

Personal Education Advisor – Assigned by certified local education agencies, such as schools, resource centres, and libraries, or selected and contracted by families, personal education advisors help families create, nurture, and maintain personal learning ecologies.

Community Intelligence Cartographer – Community intelligence cartographers will tap the collective intelligence of their local communities. They will leverage social networking strategies

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to develop swarms and smart mobs in order to identify emerging learning opportunities in the community, organize community members, and locate community resources.

Education Sousveyor – Education sousveyors will keep the learning process transparent and will stimulate public discussion around it. Through mechanisms such as blog posts, pictures, podcasts, and videos, they will keep learning on the forefront of stakeholders’ minds.

Social Capital Platform Developer – Social capital platform developers will link the social capital infrastructure to teaching and learning practices and outcomes. They will use tracking programs to provide an accounting of people’s contributions to open education resources and collaborative processes.

Learning Partner – Students who test for compatible personalities but who have different cognitive strengths will be matched to support each other throughout the year, maintaining a constant thread amid shifting peer relationships.

Learning Journey Mentor – Learning journey mentors will work with personal education advisors, learning fitness instructors, community intelligence cartographers, and assessment designers to co-create and navigate learning itineraries with small groups of students.

Assessment Designer – Using social networks and insights into cognitive functioning, assessment designers will create appropriate methods for evaluating media literacy, learning discovery journeys, and other innovative forms of instruction. (http://www.futureofed.org/forecast/)

If these roles do emerge in education generally, then higher education institutions have a long way to go in reconceptualising not only quality measures but also whether teaching as we practise it today is a sustainable construct. Quality teaching at the individual academic level can no longer be about preparing an interesting, conceptually clear and well-constructed lecture which includes appropriate media and ICT, given to a class of 200 students at 10.00 am on Monday. Quality cannot be judged by the ratings of those students who chose to complete the evaluation forms. What is quality for the ‘new’ student working full time, who has family responsibilities and is studying online in the evenings and at weekends? This presents an ongoing challenge to academics and those interested in knowledge creation, management and distribution which should be the subject of further research relevant to the increasingly diverse contexts in which ‘learning’ at this level takes place.

Notes

[1] Evidence of this trajectory can be found in the announcement in Australia on 30 January 2011 by Prime Minister Gillard that the Australian Learning and Teaching Council would cease operation in 2012.

[2] http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ourwork/professional/ProfessionalStandar dsFramework.pdf

[3] Since the presentation of this paper at the INCULT conference in June 2009, the political and economic context in England has undergone a significant shift. The scenarios articulated here in 2009 continue to be relevant, but in the short term we will probably see a move towards the scenario of no government funding. The authors, however, believe it is possible for other major political, economic and policy shifts to favour other scenarios in five to ten years’ time. We, therefore, have provided possible impacts for all scenarios rather than assuming Scenario 4 will be dominant long term.

[4] http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rdreports/2010/rd04_10/

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ANNE JASMAN is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Queensland. She has varied research interests focusing on professional learning. These include the accreditation and recognition of professional expertise, academic and professional work-based learning, the development of academics as researchers and quality issues in teaching and learning. She has worked in policy, research and academic roles in both Australia and the United Kingdom. Correspondence: [email protected]

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EDDIE BLASS is Executive Director of the Learning Innovations Hub at the University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia. She is responsible for overseeing the academic development, learning technology development and academic skills support areas across the University. Her research field is the future of higher education. Correspondence: [email protected]

STEVE SHELLEY is Principal Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Senior School Research Tutor in the Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. He lectures and researches in vocational education and training and in the changing context of public services. His 2005 book, Working in Universities: the realities from porter to professor (Humming Earth), informed the early stages of the research project from which this article is derived.