Probing the Boundaries of Higher Education

Edited by

Frank McMahon & Tom Claes

Probing the Boundaries of Higher Education

Edited by

Frank McMahon & Tom Claes

Oxford, United Kingdom

Dr Robert Fisher Series Editor

Advisory Board Dr M argaret Sönsor Breen Revd Stephen Morris Professor Margaret Chatterjee Professor John Parry Professor Michael Goodman Dr David Seth Preston Dr Jones Irwin Professor Peter Twohig Professor Asa Kasher Professor S Ram Vemuri Dr Owen Kelly Professor Bernie W arren Revd Dr Kenneth W ilson, O.B.E

Volume 12 A volume in the At the Interface project ‘The Idea of Education’

First published 2005 by the Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval systrem, without permission in writing from the publishers.

ISBN: 1-904710-11-5

Contents Introduction PART I

Changing Landscapes and Ambitions of Education Aspirational Higher Education: Real Outcomes Jan Parker

3

Realizing the Ideal: The Scholarship of Engagement in Post-Modern Universities Jayne R. Beilke

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The Changing Nature of the Research/Teaching Nexus in the ‘Modern University’ Tom Claes

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The Role of the Czech Public University in an Innovation-Based Era: From Academic Socialism to Academic Capitalism Anna Vitásková

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Edu-Business Trudi Cooper

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Defining ‘The University’: From ‘Ivory Tower’ to ‘Convenience Store’ Tom Claes

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Partners in Education: The Role of the Academic Library Nancy Levesque

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Linking Law to Biotechnology through an Inter-Disciplinary Process Marcel Dubé

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The Changing Landscapes of Education: The Integration of Pre-Registration Nursing Education Within Higher Education Anne Grant PART II

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Changing Structures of Education A Scholarship of Teaching and the Idea of Education in Schools and Teacher Education Caroline Daly, Norbert Pachler and David Lambert

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Music Technology in Higher Education Carola Boehm

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The Music Curriculum in Primary Schools and its Effects on Teachers and Pupils Georgia N. Nikolaidou

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One Approach for Defining a Procedure for Development of College Curriculum Dragoslav Perić, Olivera Nikolić, Miloš Milanković, Slobodan Obradović and Vesna Marković

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Measuring Aspects of Student Satisfaction with Course Provision Peter Long, Tony Tricker and Margaret Rangecroft

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Student Expectations – How Do We Measure Up? Tony Tricker

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Who Do You Think You Are? Analysing the Potential Development of a Professional Ethos within PG Cert (post-compulsory education sector teacher training) Students Elaine Fisher and Kevin Fisher

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Building and Delivering the Virtual MBA: A Case Study of Organisational Learning Inna Geoghegan, Carmel Moynihan and Dr. Rick Ladyshewsky

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Introduction In 2002 Rob Fisher and David Preston inaugurated a series of Global Conferences on the Idea of Education. They felt that current pressures on Higher Education threatened the very idea of education that lies at the heart of Higher Education in general and of university education in particular. The conferences were designed to be a locus of intense debate on and investigation of the idea of liberal education and its fate in the transforming landscape of Higher Education. Committed to this tradition of liberal education, the inherent value of the pursuit of learning and the principle that knowledge must be an end in itself, the conference series broadly examined the nature and aims of university education, its guiding principles, its practical functions, and its role in society. The first two the Global Conferences were held in Oxford, at Mansfield College - the first from Wednesday 3rd of July to Thursday 4th of July 2002, the second from Friday 4th July to Saturday 5th of July 2003. The third Global Conference was organised in Prague at CERGE-EI and ran from Monday 9th of August to Wednesday 11th August 2004. Papers, reports, presentations, and workshops were invited on the following themes: • • • •

• • •

What a university should be; where the idea of what a university is should come from; what higher education ‘is’; what the aims of higher education should be; what language best expresses the idea of education. The nature of education; the role of liberal arts education; ‘instruction’, ‘training’ and ‘vocational training’; the changing roles of and between universities, colleges, and polytechnics; the ‘usefulness’ of education; the ‘value’ of education; learning and distance learning; learning and open learning. The changing landscapes of education; ‘students,’ ‘pupils,’ ‘learners’ and ‘customers;’ ‘lecturer,’ ‘teacher,’ ‘tutor,’ ‘mentor;’ the rise and impact of student services; course review and evaluation; modularisation; the costs of education. The ‘business’ of the university - academic freedom and the rise of managerialism; wealth creation; intellectual capital; intellectual copyright; knowledge and research; knowledge and teaching; the preservation of knowledge in libraries, museums, galleries; the diffusion of knowledge through publishing, multimedia, and the Internet. External issues impacting on education: funding education; private sector involvement; government involvement; Academic Audit; Research Assessment Exercise; QAA; Teaching Quality Assessment. Internal issues impacting on education: key skills, transferable skills; access to education - ties with schools; life-long education; adult education; returning to learning; education as a ‘right’; fees, grants, and loans. The role of the university in society; the contexts of the university; the needs of society; reconceiving the place and work of the university.

This eBook brings together a selection of the presentations made at these conferences. The eBook is designed to be a snapshot of what actually happened at the conferences. The selected papers are for the most part reprinted as presented at the conferences. David Preston edited two volumes in which developed versions of selected presentations were published: The Idea of Education (2003) and Contemporary Issues In Education (2005). Both were published by Rodopi. Jan Parker, writing about the UK, is concerned about the commodification of higher education and the limited aspirations of students. Even more depressing is the fact that many university teachers share the limited approach. This can lead to a downright collusion in a downward spiral of input by both parties on the grounds that they want to do the minimum in order to get the award, we want to push as many people as possible through the course. She advocates a model of higher education based on engaged disciplinary communities. Jayne Beilke traces the evolution of American universities to the point where Boyer has concluded that “the campus is being viewed as a place where students get credentialed and faculty get tenured, while the overall work of the academy does not seem particularly relevant to the nation’s most pressing problems” She analyses the role of service learning in re-connecting universities with communities and the obstacles that prevent a more rapid growth of service learning. In particular, the development of new delivery systems (on-line education) is destroying the traditional community of learners; this places an onus on academic staff to create and maintain a community as it exists within the institution and its surrounding neighbourhoods. Tom Claes analyses how European Union economic ambitions have transformed universities into key players in the national innovation-systems. This in turn has led to massive changes in how universities are financed and how funds are allocated internally, involving more competitive funding and closer alignment or research with perceived societal needs. Ironically, success in gaining research funds may encourage universities

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Introduction

__________________________________________________________________________________________ to move staff away from teaching towards concentration on research, abandoning the Humboldtian ideal of staff teaching and researching. While Claes cites a recent European expert group that saw merit in maintaining the traditional research-teaching nexus, he does not seem to be convinced that the trend towards a growing rift between teaching and research will be avoided. Trends in the former communist country of the Czech Republic, researched by Anna Vitaskova, echo some of the ideas of Beilke and Claes. She concluded that transformation in the Czech Republic is now driven by the creation of a knowledge-based society. This in turn requires entrepreneurial universities that interact with non-academic knowledge producers, encourage practical knowledge and achieve timely diffusion of innovation. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in Australia, the practice of using business management tools to ensure quality in universities is criticised by Trudi Cooper. These quality management tools assume a customersupplier relationship in which quality is based on meeting customer expectations; this is quite inappropriate for a higher education setting. In his second contribution to this collection Claes uses analytical ethics to analyse the debate on the nature of the university. He contrasts the Traditionalist and Innovative models of universities, thereby highlighting many of the changes that have taken place in universities in recent decades (in the role of professors, allocation of research funding, management of institution, etc.). He concludes that the university has become one of the centrepieces of our culture. For that reason, he is not surprised that laying claims on the term “university” is so important and that the word “university” is a prize well worth winning. While many of the contributions have highlighted elements of the crisis facing universities, Marcel Dube strikes a more optimistic note in his description of a new inter-disciplinary degree in Law and Biotechnology in Canada. He sees this development as fulfilling the idea of Herbert Spencer that the great aim of education is not knowledge but action. Are we moving into a brave new world of inter-disciplinarity? To illustrate that this move to new modes of teaching and learning will not be all plain sailing, we have Anne Grant’s description of the difficulties that faced nursing educators in Ireland when they moved the study of nursing into a traditional university. The differences in culture and organisation structure in Nursing Schools and universities were great and the first moves towards integration caused stress for nurse educators. But Grant remains optimistic that nurse teachers will in time find their niche in higher education. Meanwhile, Carola Boehm describes the problems that have faced Music Technology as an inter-disciplinary study in UK universities (and she sees these problems as extending both well beyond British shores and beyond Music Technology). While there are problems in its integration in discipline-specific structures, she advocates a possible solution in “Vertical Centres for Teaching and Research”. More evidence of the brave new world, this time in regard to teacher education, is offered by Daly, Pachler and Lambert in their description of the development of an innovative Masters degree in Teaching at London’s Institute of Education. Their work is also based on Boyer’s “scholarship of teaching” (see references to Beilke above) but their approach seeks to develop a shared knowledge construction at a distance through computer-mediated communication. They concluded that unless such novel ways to teacher development are conceived and unless higher education teacher education is prepared to re-conceptualise its role, purpose and nature, lifelong teacher learning is in danger of remaining mere rhetoric. Georgia Nikolaidou also advocates the use of ICT, this time to aid the teaching of music to Primary school children. One of the effects of the Bologna Process on higher education is to encourage greater alignment of curricula in similar programmes in different European countries. Peric et al have developed a mathematical approach to measuring the differences between programmes, as an aid to determining whether programmes are suitable for student exchange programmes. While their model was developed in respect of Engineering programmes in Serbia, it may be applied more generally. Long et al start their contribution by maintaining that UK students increasingly perceive themselves to be customers of a service (because of the funding arrangements and other factors) and that this has been the case in postgraduate education for some time. Students as customers require quality service to match their needs and so Long et al sought to develop a “service template”, particularly to serve postgraduate distance students. In a related paper, Tony Tricker, who is part of the “et al” in Long et al, provides an analysis of how student expectations have changed over the last three decades. Elaine Fisher and Kevin Fisher have researched the views of teachers within Further Education in the UK, in the context of extensive changes in the environment in which they work. They have sought to discover the culture of the sector and the views of practitioners on what may be useful in producing a professional ethos. Money and recognition figured strongly in the responses. Their work is continuing as a longitudinal study. Linking all of these contributions was a strong sense of agreement that major changes are occurring in the life of universities. Some saw the changes as threatening and requiring a concerted effort to resist them; others, perhaps bowing to the inevitable, described strategies that embraced the changes and sought to re-define the role of the university. It was clear from the contributions from many countries that the changes were not confined to a few countries, but rather were widespread within Europe and North America.

Introduction

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ The conferences were sponsored by Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Learning Solutions and BRG. The editors would like to thank all the participants who made these three conferences such a stimulating and engaging experience. The Idea of Education project is currently being refocused and a number of other Higher Education projects previously organised as a part of the At the Interface conference series are combined into a single project - still to be entitled The Idea of Education.

Tom Claes Ghent, Belgium [email protected]

Frank McMahon Dublin, Ireland [email protected]

Part I Changing Landscapes and Ambitions of Education

Aspirational Higher Education: Real Outcomes Jan Parker Abstract: Students today need, but often do not know that they need, more from Higher Education than they are frequently offered. A discourse of commodification, of strategic learning, of minimum effort leads to disengagement and dissatisfaction in high as well as low achievers. Instead, this paper argues, students need to be brought into and engaged in the challenging community of practice that is a discipline. They, as honoured but temporary guests, must be allowed to play on and with disciplinary identity, with disciplinary writing. But in order for disciplinary education to produce real outcomes, modes as well as expectations of assessment will have to change. Assessment has to allow for risk and transformation in order for students to experience the growth, challenge, development and autonomy that is their right as well as their privilege. Key Words: disciplinarity, commodification, massification, outcomes, skills, engagement, community of practice, play, access. 1.

Cleverness, Higher Order Skill or Wisdom?

Classical Athens, the School of Greece, attracted professional pedagogues (called, often derogatively, Sophists, i.e. ‘clever men’) from around the Greek speaking world. It was a cut throat business: they had to compete for customers and it was important to ensure that the commodity was priced right. We mainly know of their activities from a hostile witness, Plato, whose master, Socrates, resolutely refused to charge on the grounds that all he did was ask questions and converse (i.e. he had no commodity to offer and he saw the path to wisdom as a dialogic and self-reflective process - I’ll come back to this dichotomy later). In Plato’s dialogue Protagoras, a young man wakes Socrates up at the crack of dawn begging for his help to get him access to the best HE institution in the world - to the teacher Protagoras who has just arrived in Athens. Socrates asks him what technê (higher order skill) he expects to get out of it? After all, if he signs up for a medical education, he will get the technê of medicine, if for sculpting or painting, the technê of a painter or sculptor. So what will he get for his money from Protagoras? He doesn’t know - apart from the ambivalent quality - sophia (knowledge, knowingness). They go to the great man, to ask him. Protagoras says he will get two things: every day he will get better and better (his technê is progressive) and the thing he will get better at is knowledge of everything that will make him successful when he graduates - effective at home and in the City. “Do you really want to hand over yourself, and your money, on those terms?” asks Socrates to his 17 year-old friend. The writer clearly expects the answer no - wisdom is something very different from cleverness and from any such technê: it comes from rigorous scrutiny of the ‘examined life’, a scrutiny engaged in collaboratively, in discussion, dialogue, dialectic. (In modern terms: from participation in a self-questioning, reflective learning community.) It shapes the student for the rest of his life.1 What worries me is that the commodified rhetoric that universities in the UK were encouraged to adopt has become so pervasive that the above anecdote, a reductio ad absurdum as Plato tells it, reads very differently to a modern teenage audience thinking of making similar, and similarly expensive, choices about higher education. This is not at all to see 17 year old applicants as positively opting to see higher education as a commodity. But they are exposed to sadly few alternative discourses. A limited yet intensive programme of student interviews2 revealed a worrying number of students in young Hippocrates’ position - they had applied for university with high hopes and a very vague idea of what the course was for, and in their first and second year were still waiting for someone to show why they were there. Someone; not some course, subject, programme because courses, subjects and programmes are objects (they may even be the latest ‘independent learning objects’). Objects are passive - they are delivered, studied, monitored. But objects are also not in themselves of value: they have a market value, to be sure, a market value that can be realised when they are put up for sale in independent learning environments (via ‘distributed learning’ [sic] outlets). But what these students lacked and wanted and needed was a relationship with an academic community, with teachers as they forged new knowledge and were engaged in the shaping of the discipline, with teachers who were passionately involved. What was really distressing was that that was what their teachers wanted also. They themselves had progressed through an apprenticeship, an initiation, into a discipline community and deplored their students’ lack of involvement. “All they want is spoon-feeding” was the cry, with endless anecdotes about “students nowadays’

Apirational Higher Education

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ “ unwillingness to use the library, use the reading list, go outside the syllabus, follow up suggestions. I concluded, as these were the teachers whose very students were simultaneously complaining about lack of involvement, of being lost, of feeling ‘unworthy’/not up to it, that there was gulf of misunderstanding rather than a difference in wants, between teachers and students. It is not that students are unworthy, they are (to borrow the title of that very fine US film about growing up), ‘clueless’. They have been put through a system that rewards consistent meeting of often arbitrary performance targets and unless they choose professional or vocational degrees, which have carefully honed performance targets, they do not know how to do otherwise. This can lead to downright collusion in a downward spiral of input by both parties on the grounds that they want to do the minimum in order to get the award, we want to push as many people as possible through the course. 2.

Massification Means Commodification?

Some of this is the inescapable result of a move from elite to mass higher education: the teachers interviewed had all flourished and chosen to continue in a small disciplinary community where they could be shaped by the masters (sic) by whom they were taught. But I wish to register a strong objection to the presumption that commodification and massification of HE necessarily go hand in hand - that the one enables the other I don’t see the connection, except one of convenience - it seems easier to scale up a product than an intimate engagement in a community of practice. There are two discrete demands of government in the UK as elsewhere: one that HE should contribute to the employability of the nation’s 18-30 year olds, the second that more than 50% of those 18-30 year olds should have access to HE. I do not understand where the dogma came from that employability = skills training, a commodity compatible with the universities’ function and mission. Not, as I understand it, from employers, who have always had and are expert in graduate training. These, when asked, seem to want the traditional liberal education qualities such as independence of thought, intelligence, flexibility of mind, initiative born of self-confidence and self-possession and (perhaps new?) assimilation and presentation skills and the ability to deal with and contribute to the organisation. My sense from Quality Assessment review visits is that such qualities are developed in those who engage with the department in all its pluralities and is not developed in those who become, or are, strategic learners: whatever the latters’ formal skills portfolio. Research into ‘informal’ and ‘social’ learning - trying to account for the rich leaning that takes place outside the timetable - emphasizes that the learning group, the cohort or team, the community provide the means for much deep and long lasting learning. And provides the skill of flexible and group working that many employers say they rate highly. Commodification in truth is not what is wanted by students, teachers or employers - it is what the institutions want to provide in order to meet the demands government and of their managers’ business plans. It down to a way of coping with [and perhaps, in a funny way, protecting the academic community from?] the large numbers of students who pass through our institutions. These are by common consent “less academic” than we were; there is a school of thought that trained as they have been to be canny customers of education rather than disciples, commodification is what they want. Or at least a defined correlation of effort to reward/result. 3.

Engagement Not Skills?

That may be so; all I can say is that as a Humanities teacher I haven’t experienced it, seen it on review visits or recognised it in my teenagers’ friends. No student has complained of poor correlation, of inadequate skills development, though they have complained of being lost, underengaged and unstretched; many have attributed their later happiness to the teachers of Byzantine iconography, Dark Age archaeology, Modernist poetics, Renaissance lyric et al. It is true that incoming students know and can imagine less about the shape of the disciplines. And a large number of them will be going through into HE who would not have considered doing so even 10years ago. I think this a triumph - and one that we in HE ought to celebrate rather than bemoan. But, we ought also firmly to say “thank you and no more” to the very focused, training models of education that have brought us this rich influx of young people. 4.

Return to the Disciplines

What is missing in the skills and accreditation agenda as far as I can see and as far as my interview data show, is an aspirational paradigm: why should any undergraduate student acquire subject knowledge and skills? Programme specifications lay down progress though 1st, 2nd and 3rd year to Masters, doctorate and professional competences - a sausage machine of progression entirely proper to Medicine and other professions where all those entering seek to qualify: a tiny number of those admitted to HE. Some students are motivated by such a model, they want to acquires skills and exercise their intellects in a competitive environment where they can

Jan Parker

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ measure and gain recognition for their progress, perhaps regardless of the subject studied. But very many are not and start very soon to ask why they are spending their time and money. I suspect that the answer found by some institutions (because we have the best clubs, won’t tax you if you become a strategic learner, and you can live away from home and postpone life decisions until you graduate with a 2.1) will soon prove to be financially unviable; the government’s answer: because you (along with 50% of your peers) will be qualified to gain graduate employment, already is. We in HE will have to offer more: and that more, I propose, is a new discipline-based education. When I was part of the government initiated systematic review of teaching I was part of many teams charged with evaluating teaching in my subject area - Classics - in many different kinds of institutions. Each prepared a mission statement, laying out the overarching terms by which they wished to be judged. Most departments offered bland politically correct criteria: effective teaching of skills and content that led to employable graduates. But one, refreshingly stated that its mission was to ‘mediate a challenging encounter” with the discipline. Judged by that criterion, it succeeded magnificently - students past and present came to open meetings to testify that they had had long lasting and life changing experiences in the course. And while I may think that not surprising - I teach Greek tragedy to students who year after year say that my texts are some of the most important they had ever read - it needs restating that this life changing curriculum content is material written in a “dead” language 2500 years ago….. And that is the point, I think: the challenge was of the new, the strange, the alien; the mediation was by people who cared passionately both about the material and the challenges it offered and the encounter was with like-minded students in carefully prepared but finally autonomous work groups. The discipline can be seen as a community of elite scholars only caring about their research and the status and future of their discipline in the Academy (and there are some such) but can also be experienced as a close knit community (learning community and community of practice combined). And students experience ‘disciplined’ higher education as welcome and temporary guests in such a community, where all share in a common love for and engagement with the subject. The all important point was the education offered was one of engagement in a process - of enquiry, shared endeavour, developing common interests - rather than any product. (Although this particular course produced wonderful outputs in the form of versions of Greek drama staged and filmed by the student teams themselves…) And that is the essential difference, as Socrates maintained, between education and training, in that the former is about valuing the process in itself while the latter is valued according to whether it delivers results. A return to disciplinary education means more than just abandoning multi- or inter- (really, non-) disciplinary modules: it means valuing each week of the students’ engagement with the community. And I would like to claim that such engagement provides a transformatory experience. 5.

Access to the Disciplines

Such disciplinary education is not at all an elite or elitist programme or one aimed at producing researchers in the future. On the contrary, I am arguing that disciplinary higher education is inclusive and provides benefits perhaps especially for those who will not go on with the subject, except in terms of lifelong interest. I am here drawing inspiration from three examples of transformation effected by courses designed for a newly enlarged and more pluralistic intake into HE, from South Africa and the US. In Cape Town, the need to plan access courses for a largely unschooled Black population led to a complete reconceptualisation of the academic structure.3 Rather than generic academic skills modules, domain-specific integrated courses in conceptual thinking were required which cut across traditional groupings of subjects and provided a curriculum based on epistemology. This is radical and revitalizing: any course that goes to the heart of the question - what is knowledge in this discipline? How is it made, communicated, changed? - offers the student the chance to transform not just themselves but the discipline they are engaged with. In Australia, a group of universities spearheaded by Monash developed a transition package for incoming students. To do this they interviewed Faculty staff, asking what they expected and wanted in and of their incoming students. It soon became clear that the disciplines and subject areas had very different conceptions of disciplinary practices - of what they wanted in their student writing, what kind of intellectual skills they required and developed. What seemed universal criteria - clarity of argument for example - turned out to be very far from universal in application and in judgement. Indeed, what constituted an argument varied from the compilation of evidence to the development of a free standing piece of writing deemed “cogent” by its clarity of thought and expression. Finally, academic conventions which varied from discipline to discipline - such as citation, which could be seen as superficial aspect of presentation - when investigated actually signaled to be different conceptions of what was knowledge. On-line skill courses, as they were built up by support and disciplinary staff together, became an introduction to disciplinary practices. In the US, a programme of ‘Writing in the disciplines’, developed in the elite liberal arts college of Cornell, led when disseminated across Public and State colleges to a sharpening of pedagogic focus on the

Apirational Higher Education

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ practices (here writing) rather than the knowledge base of the discipline. What started as a first year writing class soon turned into the central pedagogical strategy at Cornell: the principle being that academics do not “do” science, economics, English and then write it but rather they “write the discipline”. The discipline is that which is written, and so is that which is constructed by the community of writers. It is fluid, dynamic, changing, various - and multivoiced. That being so, students are first inducted into the discipline by writing it - and thereby writing its discourses, its concerns, its academic agenda; they become from the start an integral part of the discipline. The teachers on this Program, which now covers all 4 undergraduate years, are a mixture of senior academics (including a Nobel prize winning chemist and an critic of international renown) have recorded, enlighteningly, their year on year experience of writing the discipline in company with their students.4 The other teachers are doctoral students who as in this country are employed as cheap and plentiful additional labour. But in Cornell, they are taught to teach on the Program by being given a set of ideals and paradigms, not instructions or material; they teach their own special area of study at the time they are themselves writing it for the academic community. They teach the students to write the discipline at the moment they are faced, starkly, with the job of doing the same. This I think is the model for access courses: a coming together of the most senior and most junior academics in the common task of enthusing and engaging the newest recruits in the practice of the ever newly described discipline. I don’t privilege writing and would offer this as ‘Learning in the Disciplines’ or ‘Modelling in the disciplines’. 6.

Disciplines and Play

The perhaps paradoxical value of disciplinary education, I would argue, is that contra Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, disciplines allow students to play. For disciplines are at the same time communities of reproduction (offering norms and gatekeeping standards of rigour and validity) and production (constantly making and disseminating new knowledge). When it comes to writing a research dissertation or article or Finals essay, students may be prudent in operating within disciplinary conventions. But their engagement over the undergraduate years is as a temporary guest in a community that they can criticize and question. This is to develop the idea of the university as a playspace: we seem to have lost a sense of education as play and replaced it by a model of progressive training from Nursery school to tertiary institution. Winnicott wrote of play as exploration, of the trying out of other identities, of acting and putting on masks safe from having to commit to them or take responsibility.5 Ancient Greek culture saw the period of late puberty as a sacred space: girls in parts of Greece went into the wilderness and lived as, played at being, an animal (eg Artemis’ ‘little bears’) or an adolescent boy or attendants of the god/dess. Athenian boys we know trained in manly arts but on the eve of adulthood became part of a ritual group, the ephebeia. It has been convincingly argued that it is the ephebes, the about-to-be-men, who trained for months to act, sing and dance the chorus in the Greater Dionysia Tragic festival. The chorus in a Greek tragedy has a group persona (women, slaves, old men, girls etc - never adult males) which changes in each part of the trilogy. So after months of training the group would take on, once, for the God of theatre and for the Athenian state, the persona of three dependent characters. As a non-combatant, the chorus sing, experience and comment on the tragedy unfolding on the stage above, tragedy that involves the death and suffering of heroes and kings. This ‘playing the other’, this experiencing and trying out the masks of others’ lives and others’ states, was thought to be the ultimate rite de passage for the adolescent: not some final weapon training or war camp…Watching Greek tragedy was perceived in the Athenian state to be ‘lifelong learning’; the resultant state, ‘catharsis’ (= cleansing) comes from vicarious experience that is the deeper for being allowedly vicarious. While it is not at all clear what Aristotle meant, it is something to do with willing suspension of identity and the taking on, for a time and a space, of another’s suffering. I don’t want to take this as a direct model of education, but I think the understanding of a sacred space for ‘playing the other’ and of there being a period between childhood and adulthood where the adolescent is old enough to understand identity and the consequences of taking responsibility but can safely play at doing so, should be brought back into our sense of the highest form of Higher Education. Play of any kind comes from keeping an openness to different scenarios, different meanings, different endings. Adulthood in Greek tragedy is signalled when only one end, one identity, one viewpoint is possible. There is a tradition in secondary education to privilege and reward tightly focussed, one-dimensional arguments that say what needs to be said. Higher Education, is, or should be, about problematising and exploring rather than proving or concluding. But there are implications about the sort of judgments that can be given, or asked for at the end of such education. In secondary education, as listening to any news programme around A level results time will show, marking is considered to be objective: x marks for y number of correct points. Marking Higher Education narratives is not about the amount of right material but about breadth, depth and complexity of narrative

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ achieved. Criteria and consensus can be arrived at, but they are not simple and it is a betrayal of the students’ real achievement to pretend that they are. 7.

Conclusion: Real Outcomes

I have tried to outline various aspects of an aspirational model of Higher Education, based on engaged disciplinary communities. There are various enemies to my model: a generic template of the purposes of HE, a primarily skills-based or commodified conception of HE and, equally but perhaps less obviously an overscholarly model of the university as a training ground for the researchers of the future. I started by arguing that the rebirth of the aspirational university could start from the ‘transitional course’ in which new students could be brought into the disciplinary community. But the continued development of the student in that community depends on their development: on their development as practitioners, as writers; on their growing sense of themselves as autonomous. That development is frequently inhibited by the feedback they receive. If they are to develop fully they must be allowed to develop away from a judgmental or authoritarian figure. The adolescent ceases to grow as an adolescent when forced into adopting one voice, or when their actions and narratives cease to be play and start to be judged. I finish, very proudly, with an extract from a student who wrote some months after graduation, when he was settled. His email can be read as revealing the incoherence, in formal terms, of the education he had received, because the assessment (Finals examination) did not adequately judge or reward his development. But I prize it as a testimony to the real outcome of a humane, challenging encounter with my discipline’s texts. I finish with this as a voice in the ongoing, vital, Campaign for Real Education: so much more difficult a campaign to fight than that for Real Ale! On that last week of intensive Tragedy work I had more exciting, surprising and plain big ideas about literature than ever before. The effort was emphatically worth the result, if not vice versa. So, anyway, that’s why I needed to say thank-you - you injected the lot of us with an unanticipated appetite for the whole thing right from the first meeting last June. The better half of Euripides still awaits reading on my bookshelf, and I actually think it’ll happen (though maybe slowly). May even finish Aeschylus someday(!). Unless it wants to trawl through my notes, the world will have to live without my triumphant tying-up of Sylvia Plath, Caligula, Primo Levi and Arcadia in one (rather baggy) bag, but I enjoyed every minute (actually not an exaggeration, I realize) of pulling it together.

Notes 1. Plato, Protagoras 318-319. 2. Jan Parker, “Students Falling Foul of Teachers’ Expectations,” Teaching in Higher Education, (forthcoming). 3. Digby Warren, “Curriculum Design in a Context of Widening Participation,” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 1(1) (2002): 85-100. 4. Jonathan Monroe (ed.), Writing and Revising the Disciplines (Cornell: Cornell UP, 2002). 5. D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982).

References Monroe, Jonathan (ed.). Writing and Revising the Disciplines. Cornell: Cornell UP, 2002. Parker, Jan. “Students Falling Foul of Teachers’ Expectations.” Teaching in Higher Education, (forthcoming). Warren, Digby. “Curriculum Design in a Context of Widening Participation.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 1(1) (2002): 85-100. Winnicott, D.W. Playing and Reality. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982. Jan Parker Humanities Higher Education Research Group Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology Open University, UK [email protected]

Realizing the Ideal: The Scholarship of Engagement in Post-Modern Universities Jayne R. Beilke Abstract: In Scholarship Reconsidered, Ernest L. Boyer advanced the notion of a “scholarship of engagement” that would “recognize that teaching is crucial, that integrative studies are increasingly consequential, and that, in addition to research, the work of the academy must relate to the world beyond the campus.”1 By connecting institutions, faculty, and students to the wider community, the ideas and ideals of a liberal education can be instrumental in the formation of a more civil society. Boyer’s new paradigm promised to expand the range of scholarship undertaken by college and university faculty by identifying four general areas of scholarship: discovery (traditional research), integration, teaching and service. The scholarship of engagement as envisioned by Boyer, however, has been largely relegated to “servicelearning,” a pedagogical strategy whereby students perform community service in order to fulfil a course requirement. Colleges and universities in the 21st century will be transformed by the admission of an increasingly diverse student body, the presence of an unstable global political landscape, exacerbated disparities of wealth and poverty, and environmental crisis. At the same time, colleges and universities in the United States are capitulating to student requests for nontraditional delivery systems (distance and on-line education), thereby mandating a new definition of a “community of learners.” In fact, the very role of “student” is in the process of being redefined from that of a learner to that of a consumer of education. Within this context of transformation, faculty themselves must assume the responsibility for maintaining community within the institution and, at the same time, expanding that community to “the world beyond the campus.” Using Boyer’s paradigm as a starting point, this paper examines the possibilities and contradictions of the realization of a scholarship of engagement. It includes an historical overview of the idea of higher education in the United States and discusses the challenges of achieving community through education in a fractured society. Keywords: higher education (U. S. A.); scholarship of engagement; service-learning 1.

Review of the Literature

Literature related to the scholarship of engagement falls into three distinct categories. Boyer, primarily, is concerned with the redefinition of scholarship itself: i.e. transforming the role of the university in public life by engaging faculty and students for the common good. In “The Scholarship of Engagement,” Boyer remarks that “increasingly, the campus is being viewed as a place where students get credentialed and faculty get tenured, while the overall work of the academy does not seem particularly relevant to the nation’s most pressing…problems.”2 According to Boyer, in order “to sustain the vitality of higher education in our time a new vision of scholarship is required, one dedicated to the renewal of society itself.”3 Secondarily, the abundant literature on “service-learning” focuses on integrating community service with teaching, research, and service.4 Service-learning is defined as “a course-based, credit-bearing educational experience in which students a) participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and b) reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility.”5 Service learning is variously considered to be a component of the scholarship of engagement, a means of applying theory to practice, or a strategy for integrating theory and practice. Finally, the third category of the scholarship of engagement concerns itself with civic literacy, primarily through the teaching of “citizenship” and civic responsibility and advocating participation in government. Tangentially, this scholarship advocates the fostering of community as a means of strengthening democracy and muting individualism.6 In order to understand the obstacles to the realization of Boyer’s ideal, it is necessary to briefly review the historical context of American education as well as the development of the professions. 2.

Historical Context

Although the history of American higher education begins with the establishment of the Colonial colleges such as Columbia, Harvard, and Yale, American colleges and universities did not come into their own until an Act of Congress established the land-grant colleges in 1862. Prior to that, American higher education

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ was concerned with the production of leadership: in a democratic society, from where would leadership emanate? In addition, the Founding Fathers (in particular, Benjamin Franklin) placed an emphasis on the pragmatic. Knowledge had to be utilitarian and usable rather than decorative. The establishment of the land-grant colleges was the first step in ensuring the application of knowledge to agricultural and technical problems that faced a largely agrarian society. As the United States grew, a variety of institutions sprang up that offered practical education in all manner of skills: surveying, farming, animal husbandry, and so forth. This aspect of higher education strengthened as a result of massive social changes such as immigration and urbanization during the late nineteenth century. The Progressive Era (1890-1920) ushered in the rise of mass production, the standardization of parts, and the application of Taylorism (or scientific management) to all facets of American life, factory, home, and school. In addition to practical knowledge, colleges and universities were imbued with the expectation of applying practical knowledge for the public good. This expectation perhaps found its best expression in the Wisconsin Idea. In 1909, the journalist Lincoln Steffens wrote an article entitled “Sending a State to College.” According to Steffens, the University of Wisconsin at Madison offered “to teach anybody-anything-anywhere.”7 Scholars who felt a moral obligation to make a difference in society through their research were drawn to the University of Wisconsin. Undergirding the university’s partnership with the populace of Wisconsin is its placement. The university and state capitol, representing the demos, or people of Wisconsin, are figuratively connected to each other by State Street. From the university, county extension services developed which transmitted the knowledge of the university into rural communities. As late as the 1950s, it was not unusual for homemakers to call the “home economist” or the extension agent for help in canning vegetables or solving problems related to gardening, farming, or stock raising. But American universities also began to embrace the rise of specialization that was a descendant of the Progressive Era. Influenced by European higher education (particularly the German model), the American university that developed in the late nineteenth century began to value specialization over generalization. Research institutions based upon Johns Hopkins University (established in 1876) gave priority to knowledge attained through scientific experimentation. Thus, a tension was created that eventually eclipsed the Wisconsin Idea as a model of research institutions. In addition, R. Eugene Rice points out another Progressive Era influence: that is, the professionalization of faculty work. 3.

Formation of a Professional Identity

Citing historian Burton J. Bledstein, Rice suggests that “newly formed professional identities provided middle-class Americans with a basis for authority, opportunities for mobility, and standards for judging merit and success.”8 Scholarship was, therefore, increasingly fragmented into professions and disciplines that were controlled by professional associations. Universities, in a sense, became “placeholders” for the new professional scholars. One’s allegiance as a scholar was directed toward one’s professional organization or specialization rather than to the institution (college or university) of employment. Moreover, the division between “town and gown” was further exacerbated by a sense that colleges and universities were isolated and insulated from each other. According to Rice, the period 1957 to 1974 generated an “assumptive world” of the Academic Professional that included the following consensus about what it meant to be an academic professional in the fullest sense. This assumptive world developed during the post-1945 period when colleges and universities were experiencing unprecedented enrolment growth, increased levels of financial support, and elevated social status. Perhaps most importantly, there were academic appointments available to match the growing numbers of recently minted doctorates. Rice’s assumptions are as follows:9 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Research is the central professional endeavour and focus of academic life. Quality in the profession is maintained by peer review and professional autonomy. Knowledge is pursued for its own sake. Pursuit of knowledge is best organized by discipline (i.e. by discipline-based departments). Reputations are established in national and international professional associations. Professional rewards and mobility accrue to those who persistently accentuate their specializations. The distinctive task of the academic professional is the pursuit of cognitive truth.

Having been firmly established within the American academy, the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s would challenge the authority of the assumptive world. The United States can take credit for very few educational innovations. Notable exceptions are the comprehensive high school and the junior high school, both of which came about as a response to the imperatives of the Progressive Era. To that short list, I would add a third: the community college. Coming of age during the 1960s, community colleges were “popular” in every sense. A significant feature of these two-year institutions was their commitment to an open door admissions

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ policy. Prospective students did not have to take a battery of tests or interest inventories in order to enroll in classes. The tuition and fees were generally more affordable than those of four-year institutions, and student financial aid was readily available. Community colleges grant two-year terminal associate of arts/sciences degrees and credits transfer to four-year institutions. Community colleges had immediate appeal to first generation (those who are the first in their family to enroll in post-secondary education) and racial and ethnic minorities. The curriculum is a mixture of general studies, technical courses, and courses offered for community interest. For example, one could enroll in a non-credit course on floral arrangement, obtain a two-year degree in automotive repair, or transfer general studies courses to a four-year institution. The experiment of open admissions was attempted by other institutions as well (notably, the City College of New York) partially in order to quell the passions of racial minorities during the 1960s Civil Rights movement. Major universities across the country began to found programmes in ethnic studies, women and gender studies, and to create multicultural centres on campus where racial and ethnic minorities could gather and plan programming. As modern universities began to move into the post-modern period, the assumptive world would seem incongruent. 4.

The Post-Modern World

Modernity is fundamentally about order, rationality and rationalization - the very tenets of the Progressive Era. By creating more rationality, one is creating more order, and the more ordered a society is, the better it will function. According to Mary Klages, modern societies rely on continually establishing a binary opposition between “order’ and “disorder,” so that they can assert the superiority of “order.” But in order to do this, they have to have things that represent “disorder.” In other words, there has to be a dialectic. Modern societies thus continually have to create/construct “disorder.” In western culture, this disorder becomes “the other” - defined in relation to other binary oppositions. Thus, anything non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-hygienic, non-rational, etc. becomes part of “disorder,” and has to be eliminated from the ordered, rational modern society.10 Post-modernism is the critique of grand narratives, the awareness that such narratives serve to mask the contradictions and instabilities that are inherent in any social organization or practice. In other words, every attempt to create “order” always demands the creation of an equal amount of “disorder,” but a “grand narrative” masks the “constructedness of these categories by explaining that “disorder” really is chaotic and bad and that “order” really is rational and good. Postmodernism, in rejecting grand narratives favours “mini-narratives,” stories that explain small practices, local events, rather than large-scale universal or global concepts. Postmodernism plays out in the area of research methodology, as well, with the rise of qualitative research rather than quantitative. Rather than hypothesis formation and statistical sampling, researchers increasingly began to utilize case studies, personal interviews, and reflective journals. For historians, the voices of those who had been left out of the grand historical narrative - minorities, women, and the poor - became the focus of historical inquiry and historiography.11 Finally, postmodernism is concerned with questions concerning the organization of knowledge. In modern societies, knowledge was equated with science, and was contrasted to narrative; science was good knowledge and narrative was irrational. Knowledge, however, was good for its own sake; one gained knowledge, via education, in order to become knowledgeable in general, to become an educated person. This is the ideal of the liberal arts education. In a postmodern society, however, knowledge becomes functional - one learns things, not simply to know them, but to be able to use that knowledge in some applicable manner. As Madan Sarup points out, educational policy today puts emphasis on skills and training rather than on a vague humanist ideal of education in general.12 Not only is knowledge in postmodern societies characterized by its utility, but knowledge is also distributed, stored, and arranged differently in postmodern societies than in modern ones. Specifically, the advent of electronic computer technologies has revolutionized the modes of knowledge production, distribution, and consumption in our society (indeed, some might argue that postmodernism is best described by, and correlated with, the emergence of computer technology, starting in the 1960s, as the dominant force in all aspects of social life). In postmodern societies, anything that cannot be translated into a form recognizable and storable by a computer, i.e. anything that cannot be digitised - will cease to be knowledge. In this paradigm, the opposite of “knowledge” is not “ignorance,” as it is in the modern/humanist paradigm, but rather “noise.” Anything that doesn’t qualify as a kind of knowledge is “noise;” and, as such, is not something that is recognizable as anything within this system.13 Postmodern philosophy constitutes a paradigm shift manifested in a new worldview: “This postmodern shift involves rethinking some very sacred beliefs and structures that have been firmly entrenched in human consciousness…humanity is moving to a new zone of cognition with an expanded concept of the self-inrelation.”14 In this regard postmodernism offers an explanation for the breakdown in the meta-narrative of history, to make room for non-mainstream viewpoints from multi-cultural perspectives. Emerging curriculum models emphasize interdisciplinary courses, open-ended systems, intergenerational and interprofessional

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ relationships, Socratic dialogue, multi-dimensional assessments and multiculturalism. Technology is viewed as a useful tool in helping teachers facilitate and implement these new curricula.15 Moving into the 1990s, then, higher education is confronted with the effects of economic recession, a dearth of academic positions, financial retrenchment at public universities, and the emergence of the information age. The timing was right for a re-examination of the scholar as well as that of higher education itself. In 1990, Boyer released his call to redefine scholarship. Calling for faculty to move beyond the “teaching vs. research” debate, it “reframed the notion of scholarly work by emphasizing what faculty do with knowledge, whether they are engaged in the advancing of knowledge in a field, integrating knowledge through the structuring of a curriculum, transforming knowledge through the challenging intellectual work involved in teaching and facility learning, or applying knowledge to a compelling problem in the community.”16 It calls for nothing less than a connection of scholarship and community, research and societal needs. It promised to balance the emphasis on teaching, research and service in a coherent manner. Faculty priorities are now being challenged and, in many institutions, substantially changed. The contexts in which faculty work - the financial constraints, the technological environment, the basic assumptions about work itself - are being transformed. But we are only now beginning to rethink the ways in which faculty careers are arranged and the serious organizational implications of these changes in regards to faculty careers have not been addressed. Changes in the academic workplace will force a new set of characteristics to form the assumptive world of the academic professional. According to Rice, the following shifts will be necessary in the post-modern university:17 FROM: TO:

maintaining a primary focus on faculty; an emphasis on the professional autonomy of faculty; highly individualistic ways of working; career dependence; and a perception of colleges and universities as worlds set apart a primary focus on learning; increased faculty involvement in academic institution-building; greater collaboration; career resilience; and greater faculty responsibility for public life and the quality of democratic participation.

There has been little scholarly attention paid to scholars who have attempted to embrace Boyer’s scholarship of engagement in the post-modern university. The Faculty Fellows Program sponsored by the Campus Compact offers insight into the multidisciplinary perspectives of faculty who have been involved in its implementation at public universities in the Midwestern United States. 5.

Faculty Fellows Program

Established in 1985, Campus Compact emanated from discussions held among various university presidents regarding a civil society, the redefinition of the role of the university, the intrinsic value of connecting students more closely to communities, and the university’s responsibility to foster civility and democracy both individually and collectively.18 The Indiana Campus Compact (established in 1993) inaugurated the Faculty Fellows Program in 1995 with initial funding from the Corporation for National Service under the Learn and Serve America Higher Education program area. The goal of the programme is to support faculty efforts to do the following: offer a service learning course; design a research, scholarly, or artistic project relating to the service performed or the practice of service learning; or perform professional service for a community agency. Significantly, the Program is intended to be mutually beneficial to students, the institutions and the community while also fostering the extension of scholarship through service-learning courses and community services. Beyond the classroom, the goal is to develop a climate more favourable to the scholarship of engagement among university administrators and within professional organizations.19 The 2000 class of Indiana Campus Compact Faculty Fellows consisted of eight faculty members representing the academic disciplines of nursing, mechanical engineering, social foundations of education, history, economics and social work. All of the Fellows held tenure-line positions at public institutions ranging from research institutions and comprehensive universities to regional campuses that award undergraduate and master’s degrees. Grounded by the philosophical and pedagogical belief systems of their disciplines, each Fellow interpreted Boyer’s definition of the scholarship of engagement within the context of his/her discipline. The experience of the 2000 Faculty Fellows revealed both the opportunities and the challenges associated with integrating the scholarship of engagement across a range of academic disciplines. The projects initiated by this group of Faculty Fellows provided examples of the variety of ways community-based scholarship and learning can be successfully implemented into the curriculum. All of these projects enhanced community-university cooperation, addressed pressing and salient community and social problems, expanded the range of scholarship of each faculty member, and provided new and important learning experiences for the students who participated in them. The results confirmed the commitment of the Fellows to expanding, enhancing and institutionalising the practice of the scholarship of engagement within the university. Despite their

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ successes, the recorded reflections of each Fellow affirm the difficulties that this goal presents. The obstacles arise from a number of sources, including a rigidly narrow or inflexible definition of the scholarship of engagement, institutional lethargy and lack of support (particularly within research-oriented institutions), and disciplinary resistance to an engaged scholarship. Surmounting these obstacles, the Fellows believe, will require nothing less than the construction of a new professional identity within the academy. Defining the scholarship of engagement remains difficult. In many disciplines - particularly within education - the scholarship of engagement has become synonymous with service learning and is employed primarily as a pedagogical tool or technique for enhancing experiential learning. By focusing primarily on pedagogy, service learning overlooks the need to enhance community-university cooperation and utilize university resources and faculty expertise to effect positive social change. In addition, such a narrow definition often fails to engage scholars as researchers and defines community-oriented projects that have no direct connection to the university classroom as something other than an engaged scholarship. What is needed, then, is a broader definition of scholarship of engagement that stresses the inter-connections between academic scholarship, classroom learning, and social change. In this broader view, service learning would be only one component of an engaged scholarship that provides a rich and productive linkage between the university and the community. Perhaps the best examples of this broader interpretation of scholarship of engagement can be found within the “helping professions,” particularly nursing and social work. Both fields have traditionally included a clinical component for the application of theory and practice. Embraced by the accrediting bodies of the nursing and social work professions, community-based learning and scholarship has become an integral part of the curriculum in both fields. Indeed, social work most closely conforms to a broad definition of engaged scholarship because of its traditional concern for community uplift, charity and concern for society’s most vulnerable members. A broader definition of the scholarship of engagement faces greater obstacles within the social sciences, applied sciences and humanities where disciplinary assumptions and imperatives can undermine its more farreaching implications. For example, an economics professor argued that the premises of economists particularly their emphasis upon rational, self-interested individuals - make the community orientation of engaged scholarship alien. Moreover, a socially engaged scholarship runs the risk of falling victim to the ideological battles within the profession. Likewise, an engineering professor noted that engineers place far greater emphasis on the technical training of engineers than on “soft” subjects that emphasize the development of teamwork or the social consequences of engineers’ problem-solving decisions. As a result, within engineering the scholarship of engagement must be justified in terms of pedagogy, particularly the opportunity for student experiential design. Within disciplines such as history, the community orientation of engaged scholarship often leaves scholars indifferent. While the pedagogical benefits of experiential learning are on occasion praised, there seems to be little direct connection between many historians’ scholarly work and the transformative social goals of the scholarship of engagement. An equally significant obstacle is institutional. Within research-oriented universities there is often a low priority placed upon community-based research. The reward and support systems at such universities emphasize traditional academic scholarship and research in exchange for programmes, projects and products that are associated with community-oriented academic work. There is some evidence that the scholarship of engagement is better tolerated at comprehensive colleges and universities and regional campuses, which place greater emphasis on teaching and service. Yet even here, placing the emphasis on the pedagogical benefits of community-based projects often loses the broader social goals of an engaged scholarship. Indeed, it may be for this very reason that service learning has become the dominant paradigm of the scholarship of engagement. The consequence, however, is that community oriented work must often be packaged as pedagogy in order to receive institutional support. Notwithstanding the institutional roadblocks to a greater acceptance of an engaged scholarship, the biggest obstacle lies within the disciplines themselves. The scholarship of engagement will not experience a greater recognition from the university until it finds a more complete integration within the respective academic disciplines. Though this will be more difficult in some disciplines than others, it is imperative that the process begin as soon as possible. The scholarship of engagement provides perhaps the best opportunity for reconnecting the university and community and enabling the university - and its faculty and students - to become active participants in the political debates generated by contemporary social issues. Central to this process is a redefinition of our academic identity. As an education professor suggested, that new identity would need to be less closely allied with disciplinary professionalism than civic professionalism, “in which practicing professionals are more oriented toward the development of community than the development of their professional discipline or practice.”20 The efforts of the 2000 Indiana Campus Compact Faculty Fellows provide concrete articulations of this new civic professionalism, which combines the roles of scholar, teacher, and community member. Their efforts offer proof that an engaged scholarship can transcend the pedagogical orientation of service learning and enable universities and the faculty and students who work and learn within

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ them to play a more vital role in the communities in which they reside. But they also caution that greater acceptance of the scholarship of engagement within higher education will require nothing less than an expanded definition of the term, a reorientation of professional identity, and a re-ordering of institutional priorities. 6.

Conclusion

For those universities who were initially attracted to the Boyer model, the exigencies of the postmodern period have caused retrenchment. The climate of American higher education during the 21st century is marked by fierce competition for students, the demand for greater use of on-line and distance education, and an every-growing reliance on technology as an instructional delivery system. Economic recession has led to public (state-funded) institutions passing along a greater share of the cost of an education to students in the way of higher tuition and technology fees. These factors have led to a redefinition of scholarship itself: “The thoughtfully structured lecture and the relationships with professors deeply steeped in the knowledge of a field and capable of extending its boundaries will always have honoured places in the pedagogical repertoire of our colleges and universities, but we are on the verge of a “sea change” in the instructional role of faculty.”21 The transmission of knowledge over the Internet and by television has led to the loss of community afforded by the classroom. It has replaced the give-and-take of the classroom, the lively exchange of ideas, with anonymity and isolation. Colleges and universities in the 21st century will be transformed by the admission of an increasingly diverse student body, the presence of an unstable global political landscape, exacerbated disparities of wealth and poverty, and environmental crisis. At the same time, colleges and universities in the United States are capitulating to student requests for non-traditional delivery systems (distance and on-line education), thereby mandating a new definition of “a community of learners.” In fact, the very role of “student” is in the process of being redefined from that of a learner to that of a consumer of education. Within this context of transformation, faculty themselves must assume the responsibility for maintaining community within the institution and, at the same time, expanding that community to “the world beyond the campus.” Realizing the ideal of a scholarship of engagement in the post-modern college and university will require a rededication on the part of scholars to the creation and maintenance of community as it exists within the institution and its surrounding neighbourhoods.

Notes 1. E.L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1990), 75. 2. Ibid, 15. 3. Ibid, 23. 4. See for example R.G. Bringle and J.A. Hatcher, “A Service-Learning Curriculum for Faculty,” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 2 (1995): 112-122. Also B.A. Holland, “From Murky to Meaningful: The Role of Mission in Institutional Change,” in Colleges and Universities as Citizens ed. R.G. Bringle, R. Games and E.A. Malloy (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995), 48-73. E. Zlotkowski, Successful Service Learning Programs: New Models of Excellence in Higher Education (Boston: Anker, 1998); and E. Zlotkowski. “Linking Service-learning and the Academy: A New Voice at the Table,” Change 280 (1996), 21-27. 5. Bringle and Hatcher, 112. 6. See for example R. Bellah, R. Madsen, W.M. Sullivan, A. Swidler, and S.M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). Also Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone,” Journal of Democracy 9 (1995): 65-78. 7. R. Eugene Rice, “Making a Place for the New American Scholar.” New Pathways Working Paper Inquiry 1 (Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education, 1996), 5. 8. Ibid, 8. 9. Ibid, 8-9. 10. Mary Klages, “Postmodernism,” 21 April 2003, (20 July 2004). 11. Ibid. 12. Madan Sarup, An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism (Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1993). 13. Ibid, and Klages. 14. P. Slattery, Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era (New York: Garland Publishing,

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ 1995), 17. Quoted in Mary L. McNabb, “Perspectives about Education.” North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. (20 July 2004). . 15. Ibid. 16. Rice, 26. 17. Ibid, 21. 18. Z. Gamson, E. Hollander and P. N. Kiang, “The University in Engagement with Society.” Liberal Education 84 (1998) 20-26: 20. 19. R.G. Bringle, Richard Games, Catherine Ludlum Foos, Robert Osgood, and Randall Osborne, “Faculty Fellows Program: Enhancing Integrated Professional Development through Community Service,” American Behavioral Scientist 43 (2000): 886. 20. Jose’ Rosario, Professor of Education, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. Faculty Fellows Retreat, Spring, 2000. Indianapolis, Indiana. 21. Rice, 26.

References Bellah, R., R. Madsen, W.M. Sullivan, A. Swidler, and S. M. Tipton. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Boyer, Ernest L. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1990. Bringle, Robert G. and Julie A. Hatcher. “A Service-Learning Curriculum for Faculty.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 2 (1995): 112-122. Bringle, Robert G., Richard Games, Catherine Ludlum Foos, Robert Osgood, and Randall Osborne. “Faculty Fellows Program: Enhancing Integrated Professional Development through Community Service.” American Behavioral Scientist 43 (2000): 882-894. Gamson, Zelda F., E. Hollander, and Peter N. Kiang. “The University in Engagement with Society.” Liberal Education 84 (1998): 20-26. Holland, B.A. “From Murky to Meaningful: The Role of Mission in Institutional Change.” In Colleges and Universities as Citizens edited by R. G. Bringle, R. Games and E. A. Malloy, 48-73. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995. Klages, Mary. “Postmodernism.” 21 April 2003. http://colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html Putnam, Robert D. “Bowling Alone.” Journal of Democracy 9 (1995): 65-78. Rice, R. Eugene. “Making a Place for the New American Scholar.” New Pathways Working Paper Inquiry 1. Washington DC: American Association for Higher Education, 1996. Sarup, Madan. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993. Slattery, Patrick. Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era. New York: Garland Publishing, 1995. Zlotkowski, E. Successful Service Learning Programs: New Models of Excellence in Higher Education. Boston: Anker, 1998. Zlotkowski. E. “Linking Service-learning and the Academy: A New Voice at the Table.” Change 280 (1996), 21-27.

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Realizing the Ideal

__________________________________________________________________________________________ Jayne R. Beilke Department of Educational Studies Ball State University Muncie IN 47306 USA [email protected]

The Changing Nature of the Research/Teaching Nexus in the ‘Modern University’ Tom Claes Abstract: Traditionally, the research/teaching nexus is seen as the heart of the modern university. The basic argument of this paper is that recent changes in the type of preferred research and the way in which this research is carried out has some fundamental consequences for the identity of this ‘modern university.’ I will focus mainly on the European level and on the policies and trends that have shaped the university landscape from the last decades of the 20th century onwards. Zooming in on European trends allows us to transcend national perspectives. I will consider three, interrelated, questions: What are the main characteristics of the new economic rationale for the university?; What are the emerging dominant types of university research that accompany this new rationale?; and, How does this influence the research and teaching mission of the university? I conclude by raising some questions and concerns regarding this modern university, suggesting that this modern university faces some problems that threaten its traditional identity. Key Words: University, education, research, teaching 1.

The Research/Teaching Nexus in the Modern University

The ‘modern university’ operates within a larger social, cultural, intellectual, political and, last but not least, economic context. The contemporary university becomes more and more embedded within an economic project, tailored to the needs of individual nation-states and regions. Scarce financial resources and the need to promote economic growth deeply influence the dominant models in science policy, and hence the ways of financing and organizing the university. Traditionally, the research/teaching nexus is seen as the heart of the modern university. The basic argument of this paper is that recent changes in the type of preferred research and the way in which this research is carried out has some fundamental consequences for the identity of this ‘modern university.’ I will focus mainly on the European level and on the policies and trends that have shaped the university landscape from the last decades of the 20th century onwards. 2.

A New Economy, A New Policy: A European Perspective

Ever since the beginnings of what later would become the European Union, the political agendas behind the drive and process towards unionization have been heavily shaped by economic motives and considerations. During the eighties and the early years of the nineties, this economic imperative crystallized into the creation of a single market. Recently this process has been crowned by the introduction of the Euro. From the mid-nineties onwards this economic imperative was further translated into policies regarding the need for innovation, the creation of an ‘information society’, and the reorganization of higher education and research. In 1995 the European Commission published the Green Paper on Innovation, anchoring one of the new buzzwords firmly at the top of awareness of politicians, entrepreneurs, social partners, and of the general public.1 Successful innovation was seen as one of the key factors in economic growth, and research, development and the use of new technologies (RTD) as key elements in innovation. These ideas, of course, were hardly new, nor innovative themselves, but the adoption of the principle of innovation as one of the central concerns of the EU and the ensuing actions, programmes and legislation have had a profound influence on the European universities, research institutes of all kinds, and on Higher Education in general. When “innovation is at the heart of the spirit of enterprise”2 and the management of scientific breakthroughs and technological achievements into industrial and commercial successes is considered to be one of the central levers of innovation, then the management of the producers of innovative knowledge and technologies becomes paramount. The focus on research and technology within the economic context of innovation and development fundamentally influences how one of the traditional missions of the university, i.e. scientific research, is organized, financed, carried out, etc. The 1993 White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness, Employment3 that laid the basis for the future focus on innovation, also paved the way for another crucial development in EU policy affecting universities, research institutes and Higher Education: the propagation of the Union as an ‘Information Society.’ And a newly installed Information Society Forum stated that education and training should be quickly revised so that learning institutions are more responsive to the need of the emerging industries. Ideas like these blend in with the analyses and proposed guidelines made in the 1995 White Paper on Education and Training.4 By the end of the nineties two important projects were well underway: the creation of a European Research Area (ERA) and of a European Higher Education Area - a Union of Research and a Union of

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The Changing Nature of the Research/Teaching Nexus in the ‘Modern University’

__________________________________________________________________________________________ Knowledge under the aegis of a what could be called a Union of Economic Innovation. These and other projects were even more closely knitted together during the Lisbon European Council of 13 and 14 March 2000 where an agreement was reached on a new strategic goal for the Union: “to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.”5 3.

A New Economic Rationale for the University

These European trends mimic and reinforce trends on the level of the individual EU member states. The university has become one of the key-players within the national innovation-systems. In order to be able to play this role properly, the university has to adapt itself to this changing environment, and adjust its traditional missions of teaching, research and service to society accordingly. We witness the creation of the entrepreneur-university encompassing a ‘third mission’ of economic development in addition to research and teaching, and the emergence of an entrepreneurial culture within academia. This culture is by no means limited to a special class of universities that focus on applied research or professional disciplines. According to Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff the introduction of entrepreneurialism is a global phenomenon. The concept of the entrepreneurial university, so they argue, envisions an academic structure and function that is revised through the alignment of economic development with research and teaching as academic missions.6 The links between science and industry have become both intensified and diversified. Turning away from codified knowledge as the main economic output of research institutes and universities has brought the training function of the university centre stage, for “smart people are the most critical resource to any economy, and especially to the rapidly growing knowledge-based economy”7 and networks between all the economically relevant agents become crucial.8 Scientific research, knowledge and skills, together with favorable economic conditions, are considered the most important long-term levers for creating the knowledge economy and generating wealth. All this has led to the formulation of a new rationale and policy for managing the national and international science systems. Within this system, universities are rapidly becoming the central agents of the public sector research system (PSR), while, at the same time, the role of dedicated research institutes is decreasing. The main targets of the policy mechanisms developed to manage the science base and the PSR are new procedures of evaluation, enhancing co-ordination between the different elements and layers of the system, prioritization, the convergence of management practices and linking PSR with wider economic needs. One of the most important policy mechanisms to ensure this adaptation of the university to the needs of the innovation-driven economy, while at the same time ‘respecting’ its autonomy, is the restructuring of the basic financing mechanisms of the university. It should come as no surprise then, that from the eighties onwards we witness a massive structural change in the financing systems of universities and in the internal allocation mechanisms of funds.9 Millar and Senker, e.g., recently reported that these changes have led to the dominance of the so-called dual support system for research.10 This has led to an expansion of the share of competitive research funds to core funds. These competitive research funds are in most part contract-based and they are highly efficient in indirectly aligning university research with the societal and economic needs referred to earlier and leads to what Aldo Geuna has called a new rationale for university research funding, characterized by a competitive approach to university research behaviour and funding.11 The effects of the growing importance of competitive research financing are diverse and legion, and include, among others, concentration of research means and agendas, collaborative research becoming more and more important, growing importance of intellectual ownership and patents, higher researcher mobility, casualisation of the research work-force, spill-over effects on teaching and the dissemination of knowledge, and a heightened institutional pressure concerning available financial means.12 4.

Emerging Dominant Types of University Research

Changes in the structure for financing research influence what type of research is carried out. The nature of the dominant university research has changed from ‘basic, curiosity driven’ to ‘use inspired,’ from ‘long-term’ to ‘medium or short term,’ from ‘non-targeted’ to ‘targeted,’ and from ‘autonomous’ to more and more ‘collaborative.’ These changes in dominant university research are legitimized by means of ‘new’ insights concerning the nature of research. During the forties and fifties, the legitimization of the expansion of the public financing of the university was based on the linear innovation model referred to earlier. The universities, so was thought, turned out ‘useful knowledge,’ based on ‘disinterested basic research.’ Applied research, therefore, was considered extraneous to the university. Vannevar Bush, the main advocate of this perspective, even stated that

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ applied research tended to push out basic research. From the seventies onwards this axiomatic dichotomy between ‘basic’ versus ‘applied’ research has been called into question and new models of knowledge and knowledge production have been developed, like, e.g., Holton and Sonnert’s notion of ‘Jeffersonian Science’, Donald Stokes’s model of ‘Pasteur’s Quadrant’ and Michael Gibbons defense of Mode 2 research.13 5.

The Changing Nature of Research - Teaching Nexus of the University

The combination of research and teaching within the same institution and by the same group of faculty is the traditional hallmark of the von Humboldtian, or ‘modern university.’ This combination of research and teaching can profit the students14 - on condition, of course, that the research university has to be committed to deliver the teaching. However, there is some evidence that research universities and researchers are shrinking away from their teaching mission. It is a fact that teaching can sometimes interfere negatively with the research productivity of faculty and hence of the research institutions. Research oriented faculty, a recent study revealed, are more likely to view their research commitment as being competitive with teaching, and some aspects of the teaching negatively impact research.15 Although most faculty continue to positively value the classic connection between research and teaching, staff and institutions “are almost invariably keen to engage in research - because it provides strong esteem drivers and is perceived to bring broadly based institutional and individual benefits and this desire is reinforced by external assessment and public funding approaches.”16 Research brings in respect and money, and with this money a certain ‘autonomy’ can be bought, enabling the research universities to even better their research track record. There is evidence that these trends are fundamentally altering the university landscape whereby the top research universities are outcompeting the bulk of the rest of the universities. Top-universities have adapted themselves better to the new economic rationale for the university and to the new funding schemes that have been set up to steer this process, than most other, often newer, universities. Aldo Geuna identifies three groups of universities.17 The top-level universities have adapted themselves well to the new situation. The less research-productive universities become more and more marginalized within the ever-increasing competitive academic environment. These universities are forced to focus themselves on technological research or on teaching. In order to survive, these universities have to make do with whatever financing they can get. And this will become increasingly difficult, since money comes with research, and only secondly from teaching. The relevance of these bottom-level universities will become local. The biggest group of universities are situated between the top and the bottom. They, however, will have to choose: either adapt to the new model of knowledge production, and hence to the new economic rationale of the university, or become a teaching institution. It could very well be the case that in the future the academic landscape will become more and more polarized: on the one hand we have the successful and rich research universities, on the other hand the teaching universities. Lacking in sufficient research and confronted with the massification of higher education, these teaching institutions will have to sell their teaching capacities in order to earn money. This scenario is already partly visible in the trends of reform in higher education in European countries up to the start of the Bologna Process (1980-1998).18 6.

From ‘Education’ to ‘Educability’

The pressures put on the modern university seem to endanger the traditional Humboldtian synthesis of research and teaching in the university. Universities that focus on research have to adapt to the changing financing structures by boosting their research efforts, which often means tailoring their teaching mission downwards. Universities that perform badly on the research aspect get pushed even further down the road because of the well-known Mattheus effect that is associated with the new research and output based financing structures for higher education. According to some, this has led to a ‘crisis’ and even to ‘the end’ of the university as we (have) know(n) it. Perhaps the ‘idea of a university’ as exemplified by the Humboldtian university is itself an anomaly and a gross oversimplification of the real, complex and ever evolving field of different types of academic institutions, all labelled as universities. Perhaps, and even probably, there have always been ‘different types’ of universities from the moment in history these institutions proliferated. If this is indeed the case then it would be too simple to speak of ‘the end of the university.’ We would be lamenting the ‘disappearance’ of a kind of institution that actually never existed, except perhaps as a idea and ideal. However, the loosening of the ties between the research and the teaching mission of the university, as a result of the new economic rationale for the university of contributing to innovation and the information society, could very well threaten something more fundamental then the mere disappearance of an idea. Even the new roles of the university within the knowledge economy, information society and innovation system for which the new rationale was developed in the first place could be counteracted by the effects of the strained relations

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The Changing Nature of the Research/Teaching Nexus in the ‘Modern University’

__________________________________________________________________________________________ between research and teaching. In a recent report on “Higher Education and Research for the ERA: Current trends and challenges for the near future” a STRATA-ETAN European Expert Group on foresight for the development of higher education/research relations stated that two of the main features of the knowledge society are the exponential rate with which knowledge accumulates, and the ever more rapidly changing technologies and work environments. Within the knowledge economy, the nature and organization of labour is getting more and more complex. In such a context, so the expert group affirms, workers need to have learned to learn. They call this the notion of ‘educability.’ Furthermore, the knowledge workers must have the capacity to adapt but also be creative in rapidly changing working environments. This they call employability,’ or, even better, ‘sustainable employability.’19 Although this ‘newspeak’ may to some signal the demise of a commitment to the more traditional goal of education to become ‘enlightened citizens’ and competent professionals as exemplified by the Humboldtian programme, the expert group strongly underscores its opinion that the core competencies that appear central to this new concept of employability, like critical thinking, analysing, arguing, independent working, learning to learn, problem-solving, decision-making, etc. “quite clearly” benefit from the “old Humboldtian emphasis on the virtues of research-teaching cross-fertilisation,.” Because, as it turns out, the list of ‘employability’ competences overlap largely with the competencies involved in the exercise of the modern research activity. The ‘traditional’ model, therefore, “remains surprisingly relevant in the current context.”20 One of the challenges the expert group signals for higher education in this respect is providing for research-based teaching and active researchers as teachers not only on the graduate level but on the undergraduate level as well. However, if our review of the recent trends and developments within higher education, is correct, the rift could even become more profound, not only between undergraduate and graduate levels within a single university, but between universities as well. Curiously, this line of questioning is largely absent from the debate initiated only this year by the European Commission on “the role of the universities in the Europe of knowledge”…

Notes 1. European Commission, Green Paper on Innovation, COM (95) 688, 1995, 13. 2. Ibid, 13. 3. European Commission, White Paper: Growth, Competitiveness, Employment. The Challenges and Ways Forward into the 21st Century, 1993. 4. European Commission, White Paper on Education and Training, 1995. 5. European Council, Presidency Conclusions: Lisbon European Council, 23 and 24 March 2000, 2000. 6. Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff, “The Dynamics of Innovation: From National Systems and ‘Mode 2’ to a Triple Helix’ of University-Industry-Government Relations,” Research Policy 29 (2000): 109-123. 7. Richard Florida, “The Role of the University: Leveraging Talent, Not Technology,” in Science and Technology Yearbook 2000, eds. Albert H. Teich et al. (Washington, DC: AAAS), 363-373. 8. OECD, The Knowledge-Based Economy (Paris: OECD, 1996), 14. 9. Jacqueline Senker, et al., European Comparison of Public Research Systems (Brussels: European Union, 1999). 10. Jane Millar and Jacqueline Senker, International Approaches to Research Policy and Funding: University Research Policy in Different National Contexts. Final Report. Prepared for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) (Brighton: SPRU, 2000). 11. Aldo Geuna, The Economics of Knowledge Production: Funding and Structure of University Research (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999), 22. 12. Jonathan Cave, et al., Modalities of R&D Funding: A Comparison of EU Member States (Brussels: European Commission, 1999). 13. Gerhard Sonnert and Gerald Holton, Ivory Bridges: Connecting Science and Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002); Donald Stokes, Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997); Michael Gibbons et al., The New Production of Knowledge: Science and Research in Contemporary Societies (London: SAGE Publications, 1994). 14. J M Consulting Ltd. and Associates, Interactions Between Research, Teaching, and other Academic Activities (London, 2000). 15. Esther E. Gottlieb and Bruce Keith, “The Academic Research-Teaching Nexus in Eight AdvancedIndustrialized Countries” Higher Education 34 (1997): 397-419. 16. J.M. Consulting Ltd. and Associates, 1. 17. Aldo Geuna, 53. 18. EURYDICE, Two Decades of Reform in Higher Education in Europe: 1980 Onwards (Brussels: EURYDICE European Unit, 2000). The definition of Higher Education includes both University and Non-

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ University higher education institutions. 19. STRATA-ETAN Expert Group, Higher Education and Research for the ERA: Current Trends and Challenges for the Near Future (Brussels: European Commission, 2002), 10. 20. Ibid, 40

References Cave, Jonathan, Erik Frinking, Kerry Malone, Wouter van Rossum, Robbin te Velde and Paul Stoneman. Modalities of R&D Funding: A Comparison of EU Member States. Brussels: European Commission, 1999. Etzkowitz, Henry and Loet Leydesdorff. “The Dynamics of Innovation: From National Systems and ‘Mode 2’ to a Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relations.” Research Policy 29 (2000): 109-123. European Commission. White Paper: Growth, Competitiveness, Employment. The Challenges and Ways Forward into the 21st Century. Brussels: European Commission, 1993. European Commission. White Paper on Education and Training. Brussels: European Commission, 1995. European Commission. Green Paper on Innovation. Brussels: European Commission, 1995. European Council. Presidency Conclusions: Lisbon European Council, 23 and 24 March 2000. Brussels: European Council, 2000. EURYDICE. Two Decades of Reform in Higher Education in Europe: 1980 Onwards. Brussels: EURYDICE European Unit, 2000. Florida, Richard. “The Role of the University: Leveraging Talent, Not Technology.” In AAAS Science and Technology Policy Yearbook 2000, edited by Albert H. Teich, Stephen D. Nelson, Ceilia McEnaney and Stephen J. Lita, 363-373. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2000. Geuna, Aldo. The Economics of Knowledge Production: Funding and the Structure of University Research. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999. Gibbons, M., C. Limoges, H. Nowotny, S. Schwartzman, P. Scott and M. Trow. The New Production of Knowledge: Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London: SAGE Publications, 1994. Gottlieb, Esther E. and Bruce Keith. (1997) “The Academic Research-Teaching Nexus in Eight AdvancedIndustrialized Countries.” Higher Education 34 (1997): 397-419. J. M. Consulting Ltd. and Associates. Interactions Between Research, Teaching, and other Academic Activities. Final Report to the Higher Education Funding Council for England as part of the Fundamental Review of Research Policy and Funding. London, 2000. Millar, Jane and Jacqueline Senker. International Approaches to Research Policy and Funding: University Research Policy in Different National Contexts. Final Report. Prepared for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Brighton: SPRU, 2000. OECD. The Knowledge-Based Economy. Paris: OECD, 1996. Senker, Jacqueline, Katalin Balazs, T. Higgins, Philippe Laredo, Emilio Munoz, Maria-Jesus Santesmases, Juan Espinosa de los Monteros, Bianca Poti, Emmanualle Reale, M. di Marchi, Anna Maria Scarda, Ulf Sandström, Uwe Schimank, Markus Winnes, H. Skoie and Halla Thorsteinsdottir. European Comparison of Public Research Systems. Brussels: European Union, 1999. Sonnert, Gerhard and Gerald Holton. Ivory Bridges: Connecting Science and Society. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 2002. Stokes, Donald E. Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ STRATA-ETAN Expert Group. Higher Education and Research for the ERA: Current Trends and Challenges for the Near Future. Brussels: European Commission, 2002. Tom Claes Department of Philosophy Ghent University Belgium [email protected]

The Role of the Czech Public University in an Innovation-Based Era: From Academic Socialism to Academic Capitalism Anna Vitásková Abstract: The purpose of this study was to build a group consensus among educational experts as to what the future role of the Czech public universities in an innovation-based era will be. Experts forecasted the most probable events for the Czech public university in the arenas of knowledge production, knowledge professionalization, and knowledge diffusion. Following a modified classical Delphi technique, selected Czech educational experts (n =12) were asked to fill out three rounds of web-based questionnaires containing 58 statements divided into three sub-themes: (1) knowledge production (22 statements), knowledge professionalization (26 statements), and (3) knowledge diffusion (10 statements). The overall findings of the study revealed a high level of consensus toward the necessity of creating an entrepreneurial university, characterized by direct market activity, and entrepreneurial ethos and behaviour, as the most suitable type of Czech public universities for an innovation-based society. More specifically, the Delphi experts agreed upon the following stream of trends: (a) the importance of purposeful networking and collaboration with non-academic knowledge producers; (b) the importance of contextuality and practicality of produced knowledge; (c) the need for transformation of the institutional culture of the public university from a hierarchical to a heterarchical environment; (d) the increased access to higher education; (e) the need for new teaching and learning methods; (f) the importance of developing students’ specialized knowledge as well as general skills; (g) the need for global, issue-oriented, trandisciplinary curriculum; (h) the need for building new communication bridges between academia and society; and (i) the importance of the timely diffusion of innovation. Key Words: Czech higher education, knowledge-based society, knowledge production, knowledge professionalization, knowledge diffusion The inner logic of the ongoing socio-economic transformation in the Czech Republic is now driven by one major world megatrend: the creation of a knowledge-based society.1 A knowledge-based society is generally characterized by “the ability to manage knowledge creatively in response to market-articulated demands and other social needs.”2 In a more simplistic term, a successful knowledge-based society is driven by innovation. In this sense, maximum utilization of embodied (i.e., formal education) and disembodied (i.e., research) human capital is a prerequisite for the continuous production of innovation.3 In this era of innovation-based societies, large public research universities are expected to be the main sources of power due to their set up to produce and diffuse knowledge, and develop human capital. All these three university products are closely interrelated; for instance, there is a clear connection between the improved competencies and skills of the labour force and the generation and diffusion of new knowledge.4 The Czech Republic, which has been widely praised in the West for a smooth transition from a totalitarian and closed system to a pluralistic and open one, belongs among the twenty countries in the world with the best growth and innovation prospects.5 According to the 2002 European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) indicators, for instance, the Czech Republic scores equal or above the EU mean when compared to the EU for the number of employees in high-tech manufacturing industry, high-tech services, and the total expenditures on research and development, and information and communication technology as a percentage of GDP,6 in 1998, approximately 34% of the Czech workforce consisted of highly skilled knowledge workers.7 In this respect, the Czech Republic is ahead of such economically strong countries as Canada (32.8% of knowledge workers), United States (32% of knowledge workers, but estimated elsewhere as (40%), and Japan (16.1% of knowledge workers).8 Without a doubt, the future success of the Czech Republic will be even more profoundly associated with the primary outputs of universities. Therefore, if the Czech Republic aspires to maintain its privileged position among the world’s most developed societies, it must now begin to analyse the future of its public higher education through forecasting the most probable future trends in terms of the knowledge production, diffusion (disembodied human capital) and professionalization (embodied human capital). The primary purpose of this study, thus, was to forecast possible future directions for the Czech public university in an innovation-based era. In other words, this research project sought to build consensus among Czech educational experts as to what will be the most probable trends and events in terms of university knowledge production, knowledge professionalization, and knowledge diffusion. To achieve this objective, I selected one of the most effective methods for short-range, as well as long-range forecasting - Delphi. Delphi is a

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ method of collecting subjective judgments from experts about future events; typically these judgments concern topics for which there is no hard data or well-established theory available.9 The set of assumptions used to establish the plausibility of the forecasted events is based on retroductive logic (i.e., expertise, experience, and insight) rather then either inductive or deductive reasoning. Following a modified classical Delphi technique, selected Czech educational experts (n=12) were asked to fill out three successive rounds of web-based questionnaires containing 58 statements divided into three subthemes: (1) knowledge production (22 statements); (2) knowledge professionalization (26 statements); and (3) knowledge diffusion (10 statements). These statements were derived from the newest trends and analysis of the knowledge-based literature. The experts were asked to rate each statement on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree responses. To each response, a numerical value was assigned and a standard univariate procedure (i.e., the group mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and interquartile range) was calculated for all three rounds. Then, I arranged the statements from the highest level to the lowest level of group consensus. To specify the degree of consensus, I created three categories of high, moderate, and low consensus. Typically, in Delphi studies, high consensus is assumed to have been reached when between 60% and 80% of participants agree with a particular statement.10 For the purposes of this study, the statements that reached an agreement level of 60% or higher, and had a mode of either 4.0 or 5.0, were considered high consensus responses. The statements that reached an agreement level between 30% to 59%, and had a mode of either 3.0 or 4.0, were considered moderate consensus responses. And finally, the statements that reached an agreement level 29% or lower, and had a mode of either 2.0 or 3.0, were considered low consensus responses. The overall findings of the study almost unambiguously revealed consensus toward the necessity of creating an entrepreneurial university - one that combines direct market activity and market-like behaviour and ethos - as the most promising type of the Czech public university for an innovation based society. An evergreater dependence of society on the continuous knowledge and innovation production, the importance of the commercialisation of research findings, and increasing autonomy are indeed one of the characteristic features of the entrepreneurial university that were agreed upon by the experts. More specifically, in terms of knowledge production, the Delphi experts agreed upon the following stream of trends: (1) the importance of purposeful networking and collaboration with non-academic knowledge producers; (2) the importance of contextuality and practicality of produced knowledge, and (3) the need for transformation of the institutional culture of the public university from a hierarchical to a heterarchical or egalitarian environment. Networking and collaboration are growing phenomena that will also significantly contribute to the pressure to re-design the occupational identity of academic researchers. While the traditional academician has not been faced with the dilemma of successfully reconciling the intersection of business and research, the emerging trends suggest that the academic researcher of the innovation-based society forms a new, hybrid occupational identity comprised of both academic and entrepreneurial skills. Therefore, I argue there will be an emergence of a new breed of successful “academic capitalists”. Consequently, the issue of networking (formal or informal) relies intensively on the building of mutual trust in the production of knowledge, especially since competition in the transmission of new knowledge will become more profound. The production and diffusion of knowledge is often quite difficult in university-industry relations wherein conflicting, and often competing, interests, philosophies, and cultural barriers make the development of mutual trust difficult. The second emerging theme is the increasing demand to produce knowledge that is context-specific, determined by specific economic or societal factors and needs, and thus available for immediate practical use and application.11 The strong consensus regarding the practicality of knowledge also confirms the trend of creating knowledge that transcends its disciplinary boundaries. Agreement among the experts regarding this issue implies a radical change in the institutional landscape; the previously clearly defined boundaries of individual academic disciplines may either become increasingly fuzzier to the point of possible future disappearance or become submerged under new transdisciplinary fields. Finally, the third emerging theme is the call for radically transforming the university from within. Czech public universities are currently functioning under an outdated, hierarchical, exclusive, professorialcentered (tenure determines power and position), institutional model, operating through inflexible, if not stagnant disciplinary and departmental structures. The statements supporting the new entrepreneurial spirit of flat hierarchy, egalitarianism, inclusivity, transdisciplinarity, application-oriented processes, negotiated processes as to what counts as knowledge, flexibility, and adaptability to change received a high degree of consensus among the Delphi panellists. In terms of knowledge professionalization (this concept is rooted in the Western liberal notion of an autonomous and independently acting professional or expert who is not controlled by bureaucratic procedures, and whose knowledge is valued in all layers of society, i.e., knowledge and innovation workers), the Delphi experts showed a high degree of consensus with statements advocating the development of such autonomous and independently acting knowledge and innovation workers. The experts envisioned the following three trends as

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ being critical to this improvement: (1) the increased access to higher education; (2) the importance of developing students’ specialized knowledge as well as general skills, and (3) the need for global, issue-oriented, transdisciplinary curriculum. The first emerging theme, one that speaks directly to the trend of massification of higher education, is the necessity of increased access to higher education. Currently, the proportion of adults with higher education in the Czech Republic is only 11% which is well-below, for instance, the OECD average (18%) or that of the U.S. (37%).12 Apart from creating more opportunities for students and widening participation in higher education, experts also expressed a high level of consensus with statements on university mechanisms conducive to the development of students’ skills typically associated with the characteristics of knowledge and innovation workers, i.e., those who are skilled at working with de-materialized resources such as knowledge, information, and data. Such skills cannot be developed in a vacuum or on a theoretical level; hence the call for a curriculum that reflects a direct connection to global as well as local reality. And finally, the consensus regarding knowledge diffusion centered around two major themes: (1) the need for building new communication bridges between university and society; and (2) the importance of the timely diffusion of knowledge. Not only will public universities have to design an effective means of communication with the non-academic environment, whatever that might be, but they also will have to solve the ever-pressing issue of capturing or externalising tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is often a rich source of innovative or creative materials, so that it can be further utilized in new contexts or “higher ontological levels.”13 Experts also agreed on the notion that a highly specialized language, the language that Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont (1998) call “fashionable nonsense” is often loaded with unnecessary discipline-specific jargon which further leads to hyper-specialization and fragmentation in science.14 As far as the timely transfer of knowledge into a society, quite consistently with the knowledge management literature, the experts expressed their high level of consensus with statements pertaining to the role of networking, cyclical forms, and technologies in knowledge transfer. All in all, my research findings can be summarized into one simple sentence: In an innovation-based society, the Czech public universities will have to become entrepreneurial universities characterized by direct market activity, and entrepreneurial ethos and behaviour. I call this evolutionary trend a movement from academic socialism to academic capitalism. Yet, the concept of entrepreneurship is not an easily accepted idea among some academicians, who equate this notion with losing traditional academic values and norms of behaviour (i.e., freedom, autonomy, prestige), and thus fear the possibility of creating one single academic chain of “McUniversities.”15 These concerns seem to be unfounded since market mechanisms also expand the horizon of research by allowing independently and autonomously acting researchers to actively market and propagate their research ideas. Researchers “do not helplessly drift wherever the market leads them” but instead they actively create funding opportunities by “selling ideas to the funding agencies.”16 To conclude, my research quite explicitly confirmed the notion of the entrepreneurial university as the most appropriate path for the new future. Despite the personal stance one is willing or compelled to take on this controversial issue, I believe that pre-emptively addressing such globally emerging challenges should enable educational leaders and other policy makers to not only deflect some of the anticipated problems, but most importantly, to begin to design the most desirable future for Czech higher education.

Notes 1. Adolf Filacek, Jiri Loudin and Stanislav Provaznik, University Education and Science and Research: Transformation Changes in the Czech Republic (Paper presented at the meeting of the Thematic Meetings Education, Training and Skills, Vienna, Austria, 2000), 1. 2. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Managing National Innovation Systems (Paris: OECD, 1999), 9. 3. Paul Michael Romer, “The Origins of Endogenous Growth,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 8 (1994): 3-22. 4. Pedro Conceicao and Manuel V. Heitor, “Universities in the Learning Economy: Balancing Institutional Integrity with Organizational Diversity,” in The Globalized Learning Economy, ed. Daniele Archibugi and Bengt-Ake Lundvall (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001), 82-95. 5. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD in Figures: Statistics on the Member Countries (Paris: OECD, 2002), 1-9. 6. European Commission, Innovation Scoreboard 2002, (10 August, 2003). http://trendchart.cordis.lu/Scoreboard2002/html/eu_member_states/eu_memeber_2.1html 7. Nancy Beck, The Next Century: Why Canada Wins (Toronto: Harper Business, 1998), 6. 8. Ibid. 9. Norman Crolee Dalkey and Olaf Helmer, “An Experimental Application of the Delphi Method to the

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Use of Experts,” Management Science 9 (1963): 458-467. 10. Barbara Anner Lindman, Consensus of Educational Administrators on Administrators on Admission Requirements, Professional Instruction, Internship Features, and Evaluation of Candidate Competency for Alternative Routes into Teaching Licensure: A Delphi Survey (Digital Dissertation Abstracts. UMI No. 9517374, 1994), 95. 11. Michael Gibbons, “A Commonwealth Perspective on the Globalization of Higher Education,” in The Globalization of Higher Education, ed. Peter Scott (London: Open University Press, 2000), 70-87. 12. Petr Mateju and Natalie Simonova, “Czech Higher Education Still at the Crossroads,” Czech Sociological Review 39 (2003): 393-410. 13. Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, “Managing and Measuring Knowledge in Organizations,” in Knowing in Firms: Understanding, Managing, and Measuring Knowledge, ed. Georg von Krogh, Johan Roos and Dirk Kleine, (London: Sage), 146-172. 14. Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science (New York: Picador, 1998), 3. 15. Martin Parker and David Jarry, “The McUniversity: Organization, Management and Academic Subjectivity,” Organization 2 (1995): 319-338. 16. Oili-Helena Ylijoki, “Entangled in Academic Capitalism? A Case-Study on Changing Ideas and Practices of University Research,” Higher Education 45 (2003): 307-335.

References Beck, Nancy. The Next Century: Why Canada Wins. Toronto: Harper Business, 1998. Conceicao, Pedro and V. Manuel Heitor. “Universities in the Learning Economy: Balancing Institutional Integrity with Organizational Diversity.” In The Globalized Learning Economy, edited by Daniele Archibugi and Bengt-Ake Lundvall, 82-95. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001. Dalkey, Norman Crolee and Olaf Helmer. “An Experimental Application of the Delphi Method to the Use of Experts.” Management Science 9 (1963): 458-467. Filacek, Adolf, Jiri Loudin and Stanislav Provaznik. University Education and Science and Research: Transformation Changes in the Czech Republic. Paper presented at the meeting of the Thematic Meetings Education, Training and Skills, Vienna, Austria, 2000. Gibbons, Michael, “A Commonwealth Perspective on the Globalization of Higher Education.” In The Globalization of Higher Education, edited by Peter Scott, 70-87. London: Open University Press, 2000. European Commission. Innovation Scoreboard 2002
2.1html>

Lindman, Barbara Anne. Consensus of Educational Administrators on Administrators on Admission Requirements, Professional Instruction, Internship Features, and Evaluation of Candidate Competency for Alternative Routes into Teaching Licensure: A Delphi Survey. Digital Dissertation Abstracts. UMI No. 9517374, 1994. Mateju, Petr and Natalie Simonova. “Czech Higher Education Still at the Crossroads.” Czech Sociological Review 39 (2003): 393-410. Nonaka, Ikujiro and Hirotaka Takeuchi. “Managing and Measuring Knowledge in Organizations.” In Knowing in firms: Understanding, Managing, and Measuring Knowledge, edited by Georg von Krogh, Johan Roos and Dirk Kleine, 146-172. London: Sage. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Managing National Innovation Systems. Paris: OECD, 1999. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. OECD in Figures: Statistics on the Member Countries. Paris: OECD, 2002. Parker, Martin and David Jarry. “The McUniversity: Organization, Management and Academic Subjectivity.”

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Organization 2 (1995): 319-338. Romer, Paul Michael. “The Origins of Endogenous Growth.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8 (1994): 3-22. Sokal, Alan and Jean Bricmont. Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science. New York: Picador, 1998. Ylijoki, Oili-Helena. “Entangled in Academic Capitalism? A Case-Study on Changing Ideas and Practices of University Research.” Higher Education 45 (2003): 307-335.

Edu-Business Trudi Cooper Abstract: Commercially derived quality management methods have been used in higher education throughout the world. This paper examines the similarities and differences between the contexts of education and business and the significance of the different relationships that pertain in each sphere. The findings of the research are significant for future approaches to quality management both in higher education and in other non-commercial sectors. Key Words: Universities, quality, stakeholders, customers.

1.

Introduction

In recent years concerns have been expressed about quality in higher education.1 The most common response to these concerns has been to apply quality management methods to higher education as if the same relationships pertained in higher education as in commerce. This paper uses the findings of an Australian study of quality management in higher education to elucidate the tensions that arise from a poor fit between the assumptions of quality management in higher education, and the roles, purposes and relationships found within higher education. The study also identifies tensions between the explicit purposes for higher education as outlined by the Australian government, and the tacit purposes assumed within commercial quality management methods. In particular, commercial quality management assumes that businesses have a primary purpose of profit making, and that businesses relate to purchasers as customers. When commercial quality management methods are applied to higher education, sometimes a stakeholder relationship replaces the customer relationship found in commercial contexts. The paper examines the implication of stakeholder relationships for the use of commercially derived quality management methods. 2.

History and Purposes of Australian Higher Education

Australian universities since World War II have been reformed a number of times. The Whitlam government came to power in the 1970s with a social justice agenda and enacted a bill that abolished student fees in Australian universities and extended role of Federal government in higher education. In the 1980s the Hawke government began a second wave of reform that enabled the conditions that supported the use of commercial quality management methods to evaluate Australian higher education. Ostensibly, the primary intention of the Hawke Labor (left of centre) government was to use higher education as the driver of economic growth, and to reduce Australian economic reliance on primary production, and to expand the knowledge economy within Australia.2 To promote this change more students had to be persuaded to extend their education beyond the age of compulsory schooling, and this required an expansion of university places. Subsequent Coalition (conservative) governments have continued this policy direction, but neither the Labor nor Coalition governments have wanted to maintain the 1987 level of government per capita funding for student places. The reforms to universities, begun in 1987, resulted in the amalgamation of colleges of advanced education and institutes of technology with universities, which ended the binary system of higher education in Australia, and began the progressive shift of cost burden away from governments and towards students. This ‘massification’ of higher education in Australia prompted concerns from universities, students and employers about whether the quality of education could be maintained when per capita funding to support students’ education had been reduced. The response of both Labor and Coalition governments has been to institute quality management based upon methods used in industry. English models of university education provided the most dominant influences that shaped the Australian idea of university. Other writers have illustrated that throughout history universities have changed, and have had varying emphasis on academic, practical and vocational missions. David Preston3 illustrates that, historically, English universities incorporated the two contrary ideas: that university education was concerned with separation from the practical concerns of the world; and, the idea that university education should develop and support practical and vocational skills in students. More recent research findings about students’ orientation towards learning, collated and summarised by Liz Beaty, Graham Gibbs and Alistair Morgan, show that students have multiple, and changing, expectations of purpose of university study.4 It is possible to develop a typology of conflicting purposes in higher education according to whether the purposes of education emphasise social change or conservation of social norms, and according to whether the purpose of education is primarily to benefit the students or to benefit society in general. Such a typology produces four distinctive categories labelled here as ‘normative/individual’ orientation, ‘normative/societal’

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ orientation, ‘transformative/individual’ orientation, and ‘transformative/societal’ orientation. A normative/individual orientation develops students’ individual learning within the bounds of existing cultural expectation and values. This produces what is conventionally referred to as ‘the cultured man’ (sic). A normative/societal orientation develops students to accept existing social values and to serve both industry (or empire) and the professions without challenging fundamental cultural, economic and professional values. A transformative/individual orientation encourages students to seek new knowledge for its own sake even when such knowledge is contrary to social values and respectability, and even when such knowledge has no obvious economic or social utility. A transformative/societal orientation encourages students to pursue education as a means of both personal and social transformation, to transform both self and society to promote personal liberation in a more humane society. Table 1 provides some examples of how different purposes in higher education support different roles and relationships between students and staff in higher education.5 Table 1: University orientation, pedagogy, roles and relationships

3.

1: University education for student development

2: University education for social/ economic development.

Pedagogic orientation

Student development

Academic staff role

Teachers and mentors

Assure minimum skill competence and right attitudes and values of graduates Assessors of professional competence and work skills

Student staff relationship

Student as student

Student as trainee

University Relationship with industry

University ‘civilizes’ industry through educating its future leaders according to normative cultural values

University responsive to needs of professions and industry

3: University education as cultural development within civil society Excellence in academic discipline

4: University education as emancipative transformation of society and individuals. Consciousness raising, social activism, political change

Experts on transmitting knowledge and producing new knowledge; Student as scholar; student as disciple Higher education ignores industry

Partners in learning

Student as learning partner, colleague Higher education transforms people who transform society including industry and commerce,

Quality Management, Roles, Relationships and Purposes in Industry

Research by Kim Cameron and Wesley Sine into different meanings of ‘quality’, as used in the literature on quality management, identified six distinct and different meanings.6 The technical meanings of ‘quality’ also differed from the meaning of quality found in everyday life.7 In commercial contexts perceptions of quality are almost always referenced directly or indirectly to customers’ expectations, expressions of satisfaction or perceptions of the product. These technical definitions of quality explicitly or implicitly assume a ‘customer relationship’, and are applicable only when organisations have ‘customer relationships’ with the people they serve. The primary purpose of business is to sell goods or services profitably to customers. One question posed in this research asks what happens when the methods of quality management, premised upon customer relationships and profit making, are used in higher education where the relationships and purposes assume different goals and purposes. 4.

Research Methods and Findings

This research analysed three types of documentation on Australian higher education to ascertain how purposes, roles and relationships were described in each type of documentation and to find out what assumptions were made about quality. The first document set examined comprised official government policy documents from the period 1999 to 2003. The second set of documents comprised the quality plans of five Western Australian universities for 2001. The third set of documents comprised the reports produced by panels that evaluated individual courses according to the requirements of the Australian Universities quality management

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ system.8

The research found that, following the direction initiated in the West report,9 in documents of the Kemp era (1999-2001) students were explicitly referred to as ‘customers’, but that in the Nelson era, 2002 onwards, there was no explicit mention of students as customers of universities.10 Throughout the entire period however, the performance measures used by universities relied for meaning upon the implicit assumption that students have a customer relationship with universities. In some policy documents of the Kemp era, and as a dominant theme in the Nelson era, claims are made that universities have a ‘stakeholder’ relationship with various groups in society, and that universities ought to be responsive to the wants (or needs?) of stakeholder groups. There is no consistent agreement about who the stakeholders are, or how universities ought to balance conflicting stakeholder demands. The five university quality plans analysed showed that universities expressed their goals in terms of traditional educational purposes such as student development, community service and public good. The quality plans, however, made use of commercial quality management methods and identified performance indicators expressed in the language of business. When the language of business was used to describe the performance indicators by which universities would measure their success, it was found that the purposes, roles and relationships of business were tacitly assumed. The five universities sampled had different explicit purposes. Despite this, all five universities, in the evidence they presented to support claims of quality relied on the same three performance measures required by central government reporting. The three measures used were: the course experience questionnaire (CEQ), which measures students’ satisfaction; student progress and attrition data (SPU), which is commonly interpreted as if it is either a valid ‘efficiency’ measure or as the proxy for student satisfaction; and, the graduate destinations survey (GDS), which is interpreted as a proxy measure of employer satisfaction. All universities interpreted the meaning of two of the measures as if students had a customer relationship with universities and the meaning of the third measure as if students were products of universities.11 The common interpretation of this data is thus dependent upon the tacit assumption that universities have a customer relationship with either the students or employers, but also contains a contradiction that simultaneously requires students to be products and customers. The reports produced by panels applied the Australian Universities quality system12 to evaluate courses, and these reports identified that there were some difficulties when management methods such as ‘business excellence’ were applied in university contents. Panels were uncomfortable with the idea that students were customers of universities. Panels also rejected the idea that it was possible to determine the quality of a university course primarily on the basis of whether courses satisfied or retained students. 5.

Implications of Research Findings Three questions are posed by this research. These three questions are: 1. 2. 3.

Can students have a customer relationship with universities? Can the relationship between students, universities, academic staff and society be satisfactorily conceptualised in terms of stakeholder relationships? Can commercial quality management methods be adapted to substitute ‘stakeholders’ in place of ‘customers’?

There are tensions between the conceptualisation of students as customers and the purposes for Australian universities espoused by government. While some of the government supported goals were concerned with individual student development (a normative/individual role for universities) many of the government objectives for universities described societal goals or purposes (a normative/societal orientation) or even transformative roles for universities. There is a clear tension between the idea that students have a customer relationship with universities, and the intention that universities should have a societal orientation, and a role in economic development and change for the benefit of Australian society. In answer to the first question, the research shows that the government has an ambivalent attitude towards the idea of students as customers of universities. Although government policy offered explicit support for this way of conceptualising the relationship between universities and students in 1999, since that time there has been no explicit mention of students as customers. A contradiction emerges because the ‘technical’ meanings of quality identified by Cameron and Sine, tacitly depend upon a customer relationship for interpretation of the meaning, for quality, of measures such as ‘customer satisfaction’. The indications are that government does not want to commit itself to full support for the idea that students are customers of universities even though it is convenient, at times, for government to lend partial support for this idea especially when it wishes to convince students (and their parents) that students should pay more for their higher education. This research concluded that universities are not able to offer a customer relationship to students, because the purposes of universities are couched in terms of both individual and societal benefit rather than solely individual benefit.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ The concept of stakeholder relationships between universities and other parties at first appears to overcome these difficulties. So, is it useful to conceptualise the relationships between universities and other parties as stakeholder relationships? Andrew Weiss identifies a number of difficulties with stakeholder theory.13 There are philosophical difficulties concerned with conflicts of fundamental values between the assumptions of stakeholder theory and the assumptions of capitalism. Capitalism privileges the economic interests and rights of individual parties to a contract above social and community interests. Stakeholder theory strengthens the rights and claims for consideration of social and community interests of those not directly involved in a commercial transaction, but whom the transaction may affect directly or indirectly. Weiss also identifies practical difficulties concerned with the application of stakeholder theory in real situations. If a public interest role for universities is maintained, then the theoretical difficulties identified by Weiss are less problematic for universities than for commerce. The practical difficulties, however, are particularly relevant for universities. Practical difficulties are concerned with: determination of who should be included as a stakeholder; issues of how it is possible to identify and press the interests of stakeholder groups; diversity of interests within stakeholder groups; the issue of whether universities should respond to stakeholder wants or needs where these differ; and, issues of the resolution of conflicts between stakeholder groups and within stakeholder groups. The most significant difficulties relate to the apparent assumptions that stakeholder interests are homogeneous, and the problem of resolution of conflict between the interests of different stakeholder groups and sub-groups. In relation to Australian universities, there is no evidence in the documentation that any of these issues have been adequately considered. Analysis of the documents showed that those interpreting data assumed that students’ wants were homogeneous and simple (and sometimes assumed that these wants were known to them without reference either to students or to research into students’ perceptions). Assumptions about student wants were simplistic and contrary to the findings of educational research. Even though various documents suggested that universities were (or aspired to be) responsive to stakeholders, no adequate mechanisms for stakeholder consultation were described. In theory, it might be possible to overcome these difficulties. Weiss claims that stakeholder theory tends to strengthen managerial power,14 and the research reported here supports his interpretation in the university context. It might be argued that the practical difficulties with stakeholder theory are resolvable and that stakeholder theory need not strengthen managerial power, if there were more commitment to an open and responsive engagement with all stakeholders. If we assume for the time being that this is theoretically possible, (even though the documents showed that this was not how practice was emerging in Australian universities), then if becomes relevant to ask the third question about whether commercial quality management methods can be adapted to incorporate the concept of stakeholders in place of customers. To answer this question it is necessary to return to some of the philosophical differences between the ‘customer relationship’ and the ‘stakeholder relationship’. Weiss argued that stakeholder theory was philosophically incompatible with market capitalism because stakeholder theory lends support to the argument that the rights and interests of parties to a transaction other than the buyer and seller are relevant in deciding how and whether a transaction should proceed. This is recognised to a limited degree within the existing system of market capitalism in western democracies, where market forces are moderated by legislation that restricts commercial freedom, for example, environmental protection, trade description, and consumer protection legislation. Stakeholder theory supports the claims of those others than the buyer and seller, in a more comprehensive way. A position of stakeholder rights conflicts with the basis of commercial quality management because quality is directly or indirectly referenced to customer perceptions and wants, and this creates problems for the substitution of ‘stakeholder’ for ‘customer’ in commercial quality management methods. My analysis of Cameron and Sine’s categories indicated that all except one of the technical meanings of quality in commercial quality management are implicitly referenced to a customer relationship, where preferences, want, desires, perceptions or values of (the majority of) customers provide a single reference point for judgement about quality.15 If ‘stakeholders’ are substituted for ‘customers’, because stakeholders interests are likely to conflict there are multiple reference points. This can be illustrated in the context of universities where a course may be designed well to meet the needs of a profession, but be unpopular with students (as, for example, recent concern that some university engineering courses are unable to attract sufficient students to their courses). Conversely universities may offer courses that are popular with students but offer no easily discernible social benefit, (as might be argued for some course innovations such as the degree course in Surf Science and Technology, or even some more established university offerings). In each case the universities may be able to completely satisfy a single customer group (for example, students, or employers, or a professional body), but be unable, or incompletely able, to satisfy the expectations of other groups. 6.

Conclusions Inconsistencies in the documentation examined showed that there was ambivalence, discomfort and a

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ reluctance to accept the concept of students as customers of universities, despite some explicit claims that students have a customer relationship with universities. The goals of universities were broader than a desire simply to respond to the wants of students. The performance measures used by universities to measure their progress towards their goals, however, were implicitly dependent upon an assumption that students had a customer relationship with universities (indicated by the fact that data were interpreted as if students had a customer relationship with universities). Stakeholder theory is more consistent with the multiple goals and public good aspirations of universities, but in practice the concept of stakeholders has been used tokenistically to lend support to the aspirations of politicians and university management. The use of commercial quality management methods is not compatible with stakeholder theory because commercial quality management methods use the ‘customer’ as the single reference point for quality and this cannot encompass the competing wishes and desires of multiple stakeholders and stakeholder groups. The implications of this research are far reaching because this conclusion implies that commercial quality management methods cannot be satisfactorily applied to universities either in Australia or in many other countries, because of the social and ‘public good’ objectives of universities. This implies that different and more suitable methods must be found for assessing the contribution and quality of university activities. The findings also suggest that commercial quality management methods are likely to be equally inappropriate as an evaluation tool in other non-profit ‘public good’ context with social objectives, such as non-profit community organisations and public institutions, where alternative suitable means to assess quality need to be developed.

Notes 1. See, for example, Don Anderson et al., Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Australian Higher Education: An assessment of Australian and International Practice (Canberra: DETYA, 2000); and Grant Harman and V. Lynn Meek, Repositioning Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Australian Higher Education (Canberra: DETYA, 2000). 2. Simon Marginson and Mark Considine however, argue that the real policy driver was the desire by government to contain and mask youth unemployment, see Simon Marginson and Mark Considine, The Enterprise University: Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 28. 3. David Preston, “The Evolution of the English University Mission,” 2002, (4th May 2003). ; and David Preston, Technology, Managerialism and the University (Fife, Scotland: Glenrothes Publications, 2001). 4. Liz Beaty, Graham Gibbs and Alistair Morgan in Chapter 5 “Learning Orientations and Study Contracts,” in The Experience of Learning: Implications for Teaching and Studying in Higher Education, 2nd ed., ed. Ference Marton, et al. (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1997) summarise the research findings about students’ orientation towards learning (see especially pages 76-83) and make use especially of the PhD research of E. Taylor (1983) and their own studies of orientation of Open university students in the UK. 5. Typologies of this type tend to polarise some differences and hide others. The typology presented in this paper has the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. See Alvesson and Deetz in their discussion of the Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan’s social paradigm typology: Mats Alvesson and Stanley Deetz, “Critical Theory and Postmodernism Approaches to Organizational Studies,” in Handbook of Organization Studies, ed. S. Clegg, W. R. Nord and C. Hardy (London: Sage Publications, 1996), 195-198. 6. K. Cameron and W. Sine, “A Framework for Organisational Quality Culture,” Quality Management Journal 6(4) (1999): 7-9. The analysis by Cameron & Sine was undertaken as part of a research project concerned with organisational culture. The application of Cameron & Sine’s analysis of different concepts of quality to higher education is discussed in Trudi Cooper, “Concepts of ‘Quality’: and the Problem of ‘Customers’, ‘Products’, and Purpose in Higher Education,” in Quality Conversations: 25th Annual International Conference of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, ed. Goody, J. Herrington and M. Northcote (Canberra: Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, 2002), 145148. 7. Discussed in Trudi Cooper, Australian Universities and Quality Management: A Critical Review, Edith Cowan University, Unpublished doctoral thesis, in progress. 8. The details of this policy are described in DETYA, The Australian Higher Education Framework (Canberra: DETYA, 2000), 16-17. 9. Roderick West, Learning for Life: Final Report (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1998). The West report is premised upon the belief that Australian universities should have a customer relationship with students and there are multiple references to students as customers. 10. There are multiple references to students as customers in DETYA. 11. Cooper, 149-150, for discussion of students as customers or products 12. See footnote 8

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ 13. Andrew R. Weiss, “Cracks in the Foundations of Stakeholder Theory,” Electronic Journal of Radical Organisational Theory 1(1) (1995): 1-15. 14. Ibid, 6. 15. See footnote 6.

References Alvesson, Mats and Stanley Deetz. “Critical Theory and Postmodernism Approaches to Organizational Studies.” In Handbook of Organization Studies, edited by S. Clegg, W. R. Nord and C. Hardy, 191-217. London: Sage Publications, 1996. Anderson, Don, Richard Johnson and Bruce Milligan. Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Australian Higher Education: An assessment of Australian and International Practice. Canberra: DETYA, 2000. Beaty, Liz, Graham Gibbs and Morgan, Alistair. “Learning Orientations and Study Contracts.” In.The Experience of Learning: Implications for Teaching and Studying in Higher Education, 2nd ed., edited by Ference Marton, et al., 72-86. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1997. Cameron, K. and W. Sine, “A Framework for Organisational Quality Culture.” Quality Management Journal, 6(4) (1999): 7-25. Cooper, Trudi. “Concepts of ‘Quality’: and the Problem of ‘Customers’, ‘Products’, and Purpose in Higher Education.” In Quality Conversations: 25th Annual International Conference of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, edited by A. Goody, J. Herrington and M. Northcote, 144-151. Canberra: Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, 2002. (Available from ). DETYA. The Australian Higher Education Framework. Canberra: DETYA, 2000. Harman, Grant and V. Lynn Meek. Repositioning Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Australian Higher Education. Canberra: DETYA, 2000. Kemp, David. Higher Education: Report for the 1999 to 2001 Triennium. Canberra: DETYA, 1999. Marginson, Simon and Mark Considine. The Enterprise University: Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Marton, Ference, Dai Hounsell and Noel Entwistle. The Experience of Learning: Implications for Teaching and Studying in Higher Education, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1997. Preston, David S. “The Evolution of the English University Mission.” 2002. (4th May 2003). Preston, David. S. Technology, Managerialism and the University. Fife, Scotland: Glenrothes Publications, 2001. Weiss, Andrew R. “Cracks in the Foundations of Stakeholder Theory.” Electronic Journal of Radical Organisational Theory 1(1) (1995): 1-15. West, Roderick. Learning for Life: Final Report. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1998. Trudi Cooper School of International Cultural and Community Studies Edith Cowan University Joondalup Australia [email protected]

Defining ‘The University’: From ‘Ivory Tower’ to ‘Convenience-Store’ Tom Claes Abstract: Recent changes in the organisation and financing of universities affecting both their research and their teaching mission have provoked intense debate on how the university should be organised, echoing Edward Shills’ call for ‘saving its soul.’ Figuring predominantly in these discussions are ‘definitions’ of what a university really is. In this paper some of these discussion on the nature of the university will be analysed from the viewpoint of analytical ethics. Charles S. Stevenson developed a model for analysing moral discourse and discussion that is highly informative when applied to the discussion on the nature of the university. I will argue that in many cases persuasive definitions are central to the discussion. The applicability of other insight from the analysis of moral discussion - e.g. his distinction between agreement/disagreement in belief and attitude - will be explored. From this we can conclude that the battle for the university is a moral discussion, and that ‘the university’ behaves like a moral term. Key Words: University; Persuasive definitions; The Idea of A University; Charles L. Stevenson The academic community is deeply divided when it comes to defining ‘the university.’ We all ‘know’ what a university is but the problems begin when we try to specify its unique nature. Hanna Holborn Gray is right when she distinguishes between the history of the institution on the one hand and the history of the ‘idea of the university’ on the other hand. In a sense, there is no such institution as ‘the university,’ but only universities in an ever evolving and changing history. ‘The idea of a university’ is hard to define because different viewpoint exist on what a university should be. The definitions offered have as much to do with rhetoric, as they are descriptive. 1.

“Words are prizes which each man seeks to bestow on the qualities of his own choice…”1

In this paper, I will focus on an often-neglected argumentative move in the contemporary debate on the present status and future of the university. The institution we have come to call ‘a university’ has been subject to many changes. Some critics warn that recent changes could lead to, or have lead to the decline or even death of ‘the university.’ According to some, this university is ‘in ruins.’2 Others argue that the ways in which universities are adapting to the ‘new needs and aspirations’ of our times reinvigorate an outdated version of the institution, boost its relevance and reaffirm its raison d’être.3 Figuring predominantly in these discussions are ‘definitions’ of what a university really is. These definitions are as much rhetorical in nature, as that they are descriptive. The institution may change, but one thing stays more or less the same: not many would like to drop the term ‘university’ altogether. Often the term ‘university’ is coupled with another term. One speaks of, e.g., the ‘research university,’ the ‘technical university,’ the ‘company university,’ the ‘service university,’ the ‘innovative university,’ even of the ‘commercial convenience-store university,’ and of course of the ‘bricks and clicks universities,’ ‘networked university,’ ‘e-university,’ and so on. Perhaps the least noticed, but most often used label for the contemporary university is ‘the modern university.’ One reason for the continued use of the term ‘university’ lies in the fact that naming some kind of institution ‘a university’ amounts to bestowing it with dignity. Those who want to reform the institution can profit from claiming the term and using it for the new type or the altered version of the institution. Those who resist and denounce the changes can profit from denying the new or altered institutions the title of university. Calling some institution ‘a university’ and/or denying others the right to do so, is therefore an important move in the ongoing debate on the status of the present university and on its future. The descriptive meanings that by means of definitions, circumscriptions, etc. are given to the term ‘university’ are important moves in the debate on how the contemporary university should be valued, how it ‘really’ should be organized, what its functions and mission(s) should be, etc. Charles Leslie Stevenson has labelled this type of argument ‘persuasive definitions’. We will use his analysis of this kind of definition to analyse some aspects of the ongoing debate on ‘the death of the university.’ The argumentations for or against certain types of university can be structured along the lines Stevenson identified in the discussions for or against persuasive definitions. From this analysis we will learn that the descriptive sentence “X is a university” has much in common with overtly evaluative sentences like “X is good.” The seemingly descriptive term ‘university’ functions within the sentence as an evaluative term. Discussions on the ‘the death of the university’ are evaluative discussions.

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Defining ‘The University’: From ‘Ivory Tower’ to ‘Convenience-Store’

__________________________________________________________________________________________ But first, let me illustrate the theoretical point of this paper with a real life example. Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at Warwick University, claims that we are ‘victims of vocabulary.’ In a recent article in The Times Higher Education Supplement he warns us about the ways in which many today ‘misuse’ the term ‘university’.4 In a sense, he is warning us about the ‘persuasive definitions’ given by those who favour the recent changes in the university. In doing so he presents us with his own ‘persuasive definition’ of what a university ‘really is.’ The term ‘university,’ so he claims, is becoming increasingly debased. He strongly opposes those who broaden the - presumably ‘original’ or ‘authentic’ - meaning of the term and take universities to be ‘giant, greying high schools,’ i.e. in essence teaching institutions, and adds “[t]hat it is not sensible to allow indefinite broadening of the notion of a university.” He continues: A reason to care about linguistics is that when words lose their exact meaning it can presage a blurring of the role and usefulness of the objects to which they attach. In other words, if we ruin the word university, then that may one day help ruin the physical university. Indeed, this is actually happening. Bit by bit, the strength of our universities is being reduced, and one of the reasons is a dilution of the intellectual standards required of an organization for it to be allowed to call itself a university. (…) Real universities are research institutions. They are primarily places for discovering how our world really works. Real universities are not, repeat not, primarily places of teaching. (…) Real universities are vital for teaching. Real universities’ ideas fill the textbooks that everyone else reads. It follows immediately from all this that the university of life, the university of new Labour, the university of industry and all the rest, are at best a watering down of the clarity of the English language. At worst, they distort people’s understanding.5 With one sweeping argument, based on the affirmation of a version of the traditional meaning of the term ‘university,’ Oswald discards the legitimacy of political and industrial interference with the university and the changes that result from this. Oswald claims that “when everything is included in a category, you no longer have a category. You have an inefficient, all encompassing blandness.”6 I would not call the ways in which the term ‘university’ is used today inefficient. On the contrary, both parties use the term ‘university’ as a sophisticated argument, cashing in on the laudatory emotional meaning of the term. Apparently, not only the ‘university is in ruins,’ but also ‘the concept of university is ruined.’ And both could very well have something to do with each other… 2.

Persuasive Definitions

A.

Types of (Dis-)Agreement and Evaluative Discussion

In his work on ethics Stevenson distinguishes between (dis-)agreements in belief on the one hand and (dis-)agreements in attitude on the other hand. Ethical (dis-)agreement - and by extension all evaluative (dis)agreement - according to Stevenson, is of a dual nature: “[t]here is almost inevitably disagreement in belief (…); but there is also disagreement in attitude.”7 The predominant role of the (dis-)agreement in attitude in evaluative discussions is illustrated by the following observations: “[d]isagreement in attitudes determine what beliefs are relevant to the argument (…) [and] [e]thical argument usually terminates when disagreement in attitude terminates, even though a certain amount of disagreement in belief remains.”8 Attitudes and beliefs are intimately related. Believing what is the case often influences how we evaluate something. However, two people can disagree on the correct appreciation and evaluation of some situation even though they fully agree on the facts about that situation. Stevenson’s views on the methods of evaluative discussion follow from this. Evaluative disagreement often involves a disagreement in beliefs. A first step in evaluative discussions, then, consists in ‘getting the facts right.’ This may, but not necessarily so, align the attitudes of the parties involved and resolve the discussion. There is no logical bridge from having certain beliefs to having certain attitudes. But the discussion does not have to end there, nor is it the only way in which evaluative discussion takes place. The disputants can use words with a strong emotive meaning in order to influence each other’s attitudes. In ethical discussions, according to Stevenson, moral terms are used for this purpose. Calling something ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘right,’ ‘rude,’ ‘worthwhile’ etc., and getting the listener in accepting the characterisation, is a very powerful argumentative and rhetorical device in influencing attitudes. Since (dis-)agreement in attitude is fundamentally what is at stake in a moral discussion, this device is well suited for moral discussions. But using words with strong emotive meanings is central to all kinds of evaluative discussions. This brings us to the role of persuasive definitions in evaluative discussions. Applying a strong emotive term to something is important in a discussion. But people not always agree on the precise descriptive meaning of such a term, even when they agree on the emotive meaning of the term. They can leave it at that, but what mostly happens in this type of situation, is

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ that one more or less ‘claims’ the legitimate use of the (emotive) term by ‘giving the term a greater precision within the boundary of its customary vagueness.’ This is the persuasive definition ‘at work.’ If you succeed in getting your definition accepted, already you will have gone a long way in ‘convincing’ the other and in getting him to redirect his attitudes. B.

Persuasive Definitions Defined In his Ethics and Language, Stevenson defines the term ‘persuasive definition’ as follows: In any ‘persuasive definition’ the term defined is a familiar one, whose meaning is both descriptive and strongly emotive. The purport of the definition is to alter the descriptive meaning of the term, usually by giving it greater precision within the boundary of its customary vagueness; but the definition does not make any substantial change in the term’s emotive meaning. And the definition is used, consciously or unconsciously, in an effort to secure, by this interplay between emotive and descriptive meaning, a redirection of people’s attitudes.9

Persuasive definitions are very powerful moves in a discussion:10 “[t]o choose a definition is to plead a cause (…).”11 When you succeed in getting the definition accepted, the other party will probably be led to agreeing with your standpoint. Persuasive definitions ‘work’ thanks to the initial ‘vagueness’ of the term defined and due to the combined use of the descriptive and strong emotional meaning. Persuasive definitions aim at redirecting the attitudes and interests of the listener. The speaker wants to align the favourable and unfavourable attitudes of the listener with his own. They operate within a context of disagreement in attitude. Most persuasive definitions are in fact doubly persuasive: ‘it takes away emotive meaning here, and adds it there.’ It dissuades the listener to admire or dismay a certain set of characteristics and induces him to admire or dismay another set of characteristics. Persuasive definitions can be cumulative. In this case we have a multiple use of persuasive definitions. This contributes to the force of persuasion. Definitions often include words that are vague words themselves and have a strong emotional meaning of their own. These words can be persuasively defined as well. This process may repeat itself until some relatively definite set of terms is reached. In this case the emotional meaning of all the definitions is combined.12 According to Stevenson, persuasive definitions are often recognizable from the words ‘real’ or ‘true’ employed in a metaphorical way - cf. Oswald’s argument. Using these kind of adjectives can lend extra credibility to the altered descriptive meaning, and hence can boost the persuasive effect. The use of these adjectives, however, is in my view not necessary. Redirecting the descriptive meaning of a term without the use of this kind of adjective can even contribute to the stealthy nature of the persuasion and subsequent change in attitude of the listener. C.

Extending Stevenson’s Model

For the purpose of this paper I would like to extend the notion of ‘persuasion’ as used by Stevenson. Often, the definition and redirection of attitude is overt and direct. Furthermore, on Stevenson’s account only he who changes the descriptive meaning is using a ‘persuasive definition.’ I think both options are too limited and can safely be extended. Stevenson focuses on salient examples of the persuasion. However, sometimes a persuasive definition is ‘hidden’ underneath a larger argument, making it less salient but not less effective. One does not have to explicitly ‘define’ a term. The shift in descriptive meaning can be achieved in a much more subtle way by gradually adding new characteristics, stressing some characteristics, dumping or attenuating the centrality of other characteristics by not mentioning them or denouncing them as irrelevant, etc. Also, when the descriptive meaning of the term is vague enough, both parties - i.e. he who wants to change the descriptive meaning as well as he who wants the stick to a more traditional meaning, are engaging in persuasion by means of a ‘definition.’ There are some elements in Stevenson’s analysis that lend some force to these extensions of the concept of persuasive definition in this way. In order for this type of persuasion to be possible, the emotive and descriptive meanings of the term have to be relatively independent of each other. Often this is an effect of the pragmatic history of the term, e.g. by using it metaphorically instead of literally. Both parties then are ‘redirecting’ descriptive meaning. The ‘traditionalist’ wants to restore or affirm the ‘original meaning.’ The ‘innovator’ formulates a different definition, albeit within the boundaries of some limiting conditions. I will call these conditions the ‘semantic horizons’ of the term. This double extension of Stevenson’s concept in my view respects what is fundamental in a persuasive definition, i.e. trying to change or influence attitudes by redirecting descriptive meaning.

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Defining ‘The University’: From ‘Ivory Tower’ to ‘Convenience-Store’

__________________________________________________________________________________________ D.

The Debate on the University as an Evaluative Discussion

Empirical findings are relevant to evaluative discussion since they are often the result of disagreements in both beliefs and attitudes. However, the relevance of empirical data is limited. Agreement in belief does not necessarily lead to agreement in attitude. And people can differ on what a term descriptively means, and thus also on the applicability of the term. Does this mean that no further rational methods can be employed in evaluative discussions? According to Stevenson this is not necessarily the case, for persuasive definitions themselves can be supported by reasons. Stevenson distinguishes between four types of evaluative discussions. In the first two types the disputants focus on empirical claims. Although persuasive definitions are central to their line of arguing, the definitions of the evaluative terms themselves are not contested. This is either because both parties agree on the definition, or because their disagreement remains unnoticed. In the next two types of discussion, the disagreement on the definitions employed by the disputants becomes apparent. The definitions then become central to the discussion. The discussion on the present status of the university can be structured as an evaluative discussion and chartered out along the lines we just identified. One a first level we encounter an evaluative discussion on the present state of the institution: should we have a negative or a positive attitude towards it? Does it merit our approval? We encounter a first type of evaluative discussion on the modern university when both parties agree on the defining characteristics of ‘the university,’ but disagree on the facts. In this case, a disagreement in attitude is a result from a disagreement in belief. An example of this type of discussion is when one party depreciates the modern university based on the factual claim that nowadays academics no longer enjoy academic freedom. The other party agrees that academic freedom is a necessary characteristic of ‘the university,’ but claims that this academic freedom is preserved in the modern university. In a second type of discussion, the disputants use partly overlapping definitions of the university. Both parties focus on that or those characteristic(s) of a university they both include in their definition and disagree on its/their factual status. In this case, the difference in the definition often remains unnoticed. On a next level, the discussion focuses on the definitions used. One possibility consists in attacking the definition of the opponent by pointing out that the characteristics he includes in his definition has some consequences or implications the opponent himself disvalues. Instead of attacking the definition of the opponent, one can also strengthen the reasonability of one’s own definition by pointing out consequences or implications of the characteristics that are favoured by the opponent. The parties disagree in their appreciation of the modern university and try to influence each other’s attitudes. They try do achieve this by presenting persuasive definitions of what a university ‘really’ is. Take for instance the situation when the opponents offer conflicting persuasive definitions of ‘the university.’ In this case, (argument type 3) one party could try to influence the attitudes of the other party by showing that, temporarily granting the definition of his opponent, this opponent is mistaken about the factual status of the modern university. We have a fourth line of discussion when the parties involved disagree in attitude and try to influence each other by attacking the reasonableness of the definition of the opponent and/or by supporting one’s own persuasive definition. These are the kind of strategies that are used in an evaluative discussion. Although sometimes the evaluative nature of the discussion can be somewhat covert, as, e.g. in ‘neutral’ articles that deal with issues like in the first two cases, ‘behind’ or ‘beside’ the factual (di-)agreement - the (dis-)agreement in belief - the discussions are essentially about (dis-)agreements in attitude. The latter is the most important aspect of this kind of discussion. This is of utmost importance. The (dis-)agreement in attitude determines which empirical data are the relevant facts, and when and whether the discussion reaches a conclusion or not. The term ‘university’ often functions in these discussions as an attitude-influencing device. The primary reason for using the word is its capacity to dynamically influence attitudes. As such it sides with other emotionally laden words like ‘culture,’ and other evaluative words like moral terms such as ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ etc. The sentences “X is good,” “X is not good,” and “X is a university,” “X cannot rightly be called a university,” have more in common than at first sight one might think. The way in which the term ‘university’ is used is very often as a persuasive word; speaking about what ‘constitutes’ a university amounts to giving a persuasive definition of it. Persuasive definitions are possible, because the emotional meaning has become relatively independent from the descriptive meaning and this descriptive meaning has become sufficiently vague. However, the definitions offered have to be anchored in a linguistic practice and have to be located within what could be called ‘the semantic horizons’ of the term.13 The concept of ‘a university’ has this kind of ‘semantic horizons’ as well.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ E.

Semantic Horizons of ‘The University’

The birth of ‘the university’ is a very complex historical process in which its structure, identity and mission have been appropriated and reappropriated to the different ‘needs, structures and aspirations of different times and settings.’14 The institution we know at the beginning of the 21st century, as a ‘university’ is the outcome of a long historical process in which knowledge/research and teaching at the highest level became combined within one institution. Two inspirational models were influential in creating the modern version of the university. On the one hand we have the ‘liberal arts’-based model of Cardinal Newman, on the other hand we have the ‘science’-based model of von Humboldt. In both models ‘liberal-arts’ as well as ‘science’ play a major role. Newman did not oppose scientific research, but he did put education at the heart of the university. Von Humboldt also combined both functions, but he placed research at the heart of the university. Von Humboldt’s model has probably been the most influential in shaping the modern university. It did not eliminate the liberal arts tradition but anchored it in and wedded it to the research mission of the university. It was to be a decisive moment in the birth of the university. Gray believes that the transition from tradition to science as the source of intellectual authority lies at the basis both of the birth of the modern idea of the university, and of the reactions to that idea. Still more recent changes generated a set of new expectations that opened up the way to a proliferating series of ideas of the university.15 All these ‘ideas’ of the university can be located within the ‘semantic horizons’ of ‘the university.’ These semantic horizons are the result of its empirical as well as of its ideological history and of the new expectations Gray was talking about. We can schematise them as follows:

Future / Innovation ÇÈ Training

—

Research

—

Science

Society

Individuality

Innovative

{ Liberal Arts —

Bildung

—

Education ÇÈ History / Tradition

Traditional The core of the modern university is its research-based teaching. During the post-war period these ‘defining attributes’ have been subject to negotiation. Probably the most important of these is the addition of or the stressing of ‘third mission,’ the innovative function of a university, i.e. its role in promoting societal well being, technological advances and economic benefits. In general, the trend moves from the southwest from the schema to the northeast. The organization and legitimisation of the modern university is future and innovation-oriented. Students are taught and trained based on and in preparation of research and science in an institution that is open to the needs - of a predominantly economical and technological nature - of the society it is located in. The ideals of education, Bildung and character formation, liberal arts and individuality have increasingly lost predominance in the idea of a modern university. 3.

‘The University’ Is Dead, Long Live The University

In the remainder of this paper some connections between Stevenson’s theory about the dynamic nature of evaluative discourse and discussion on the one hand, and the debate on the contemporary university on the other hand, will be explored. Stevenson’s model provides us with a frame for analysing the discussions on ‘the death of the university.’ First, I will reconstruct the basic argument and definition of the Traditionalists and Innovators. These arguments and definitions have to be distilled from the texts. A.

Traditionalists and Innovators

In his review of Bill Reading’s influential account of ‘the university in ruins,’ Dominick LaCapra makes a distinction between two ‘models of academe:’ “a market model and a model of corporate solidarity and

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Defining ‘The University’: From ‘Ivory Tower’ to ‘Convenience-Store’

__________________________________________________________________________________________ collegial responsibility. (…) The two models are in turn related to two ideal types of faculty member, what might be called the entrepreneurial globetrotter and the local hero.16 He succinctly formulates the two extreme ‘poles’ that dominate the current discussion on the university. The extremes can be linked to the model of the semantic horizons of the university-concept. The model of corporate solidarity and collegial responsibility is linked to the western side of the model, while the market model is situated on the eastern side. The extremes LaCapra identifies in academic life are linked to two extreme definitions of what a university is. I will dub these the ‘Traditionalist model’ and the ‘Innovative model.’ B.

The Basic Arguments Outlined

The title of this subsection is taken from an opinion piece by Ronald Barnett that was recently published in The Times Higher Education Supplement.17 How, he asks, is the university to understand itself? This is no easy question because according to Barnett The university as a concept is no more. Amid diversity there may be no one thing that any ‘university’ has in common with its neighbour. Amid entrepreneurialism, the university has no responsibility: it becomes what market chances offer it. Either way, there is nothing that binds ‘universities’ together for which they stand. As a concept, therefore, the university is empty.18 But Barnett, like so many others, is not willing to leave it at that, because “allowing the idea of the university to collapse does matter. Indeed, we need an idea of the university more than ever (…).”19 His option is to construct and defend a novel idea of ‘the university,’ one that is ‘attuned to the craziness of the world that we are in.’ This is a typical move by the Innovators in the discussion on the university - although some would drop the term ‘craziness,’ of course. The innovators, then, formulate a novel idea of the university. Their redefinition of the university (idea) includes selecting a set of relevant characteristics, evaluating the existing institutions on the basis of these characteristics and presenting it as a normative ‘ideal’ for the future. However, there are, of course, those who deny that the ‘concept of the university’ is a dead one. According to them, there is nothing, or at least nothing major wrong with the idea of a university that has been around ‘for ages.’ The problem is not that there is no longer a tenable and/or applicable concept of the university. The real problem is that today, some, most, or all of the institution that are called universities have changed up to the point that they cannot be rightly called ‘a university’ any more. According to the traditionalists, the ‘real,’ ‘authentic,’ ‘original,’ etc. university has some defining characteristics. When one looks at the contemporary university, most or all of these key characteristics are no longer satisfied. Therefore, these institutions cannot be called ‘universities’ any more, except perhaps in a dangerously extended or metaphorical sense. After all, ‘MacDonald’s Hamburger University’ is not a real university, is it? As we saw earlier, according to Stevenson, in evaluative discussions the disputants try to change each other’s attitudes. Although this process is in essence one of influence, of attitude change, the attitudinal aspect of the process is not wholly unreasonable. Agreement in belief can produce an agreement in attitude. In the first two types of evaluative discussion we identified earlier, discussion about the facts, about empirical matters, are central to the discussion. However, the connection between the two types of agreement is not of a logical nature. Agreement in belief does not necessarily lead to an agreement in attitude. The connection is psycho-logical. The successful employment of persuasive definition is a very powerful argumentative device for influencing attitudes and evaluations. But even these definitions can be backed up and attacked by reasonable arguments. Let us take a closer look at the definitions involved and the argumentative moves that are open to the opponents. The definitions offered here are not exhaustive and can be extended. They are, of course extreme formulations. The definitions focus on the ‘three missions’ of the university, i.e. teaching, research, and service to society, the students, the faculty and the kind of institution a university ‘really is.’ C.

The Traditionalist Model

We find one of the purest post-war formulations of the traditionalist model in the writings of Michael Oakeshott. In his 1950 article ‘The idea of a university,’20 he takes issue with those who argue that the (then) contemporary universities are not as clear as they ought to be about their ‘function.’ Oakeshott summarizes his views on the university as follows: A university, like everything else, has a place in the society to which it belongs, but that place is not the function of contributing to some other kind of activity in the society but of being itself and not another thing. Its first business is with the pursuit of learning - there is no substitute which, in a university, will make up for the absence of this - and secondly, its concern is with the sort of education that has been found to spring up in the course of this

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ activity. A university will have ceased to exist when its learning has degenerated into what is now called research, when its teaching has become mere instruction and occupies the whole of an undergraduate’s time, and when those who came to be taught come, not in search of their intellectual fortune but with a vitality so unroused or so exhausted that they wish only to be provided with a serviceable moral and intellectual outfit; when they come with no understanding of the manners of conversation but desire only a qualification for earning a living or a certificate to let them in on the exploitation of the world.21 Gordon Johnson - who is president of Wolfson College, Cambridge - recently makes a similar point. Reviewing the 1997 autumn issue of the well known journal Daedalus22 [1997 #4150 /h] entirely devoted to the Academic profession in the United States, he writes about the thoughts the articles might evoke: For some, these essays remind them of ways in which higher education is not just about delivering a service, nor of pressing people into grey uniformity, but of stimulating while disciplining the mind. Universities are the guardians of objectivity, disinterestedness, tradition, aesthetic appreciation and the unending search for new knowledge and better understanding. True, some academic controversies may not do much more for humanity than those medieval wrangles about the number of angels that could be accommodated on the point of a pin. But there is a sense in which there is a real bottom line: civilized societies need educated citizens and educated citizens come from the values fostered by academics in real universities (…). 23 Writing nearly 40 years later than Oakeshott and a few years earlier than Johnson, in a different context of discussion, Allan Bloom would formulate a similar idea(l) of a university.24 One of Bloom’s main concerns was with how the crisis affected the social sciences. It was here that according to him ‘society’ had infiltrated the university the most and damaged the key function of a university. The natural sciences, according to Bloom, present a different story altogether. The problem with the natural sciences is their isolationist stance. During the nineties, of course, even the ‘natural sciences’ would come under a mounting pressure for aligning their research with societal, mainly economical, needs, thereby giving rise to complaints about the loss of free inquiry in this field of research as well. D.

The Innovative Model

The OECD summarizes the forces leading up to the modern university and the effects of these forces. According to the OECD, a ‘market’ approach has strongly influenced the development of the modern university: Students are consumers or customers with wants (such as marketable skills - competencies or skills certified through degrees or diplomas), and service providers (e.g. universities) compete in order to satisfy them. This approach also affects the research function of universities and accompanies the trend to contract-based research funding and closer links with industry. Government and industry are customers with wants (particular research projects, at a competitive price, within a specified time frame), and service providers (universities among others) compete in order to satisfy them. Universities stand to gain recognition and prestige, increased influence in the community, and continuing support from government or funding agencies, with opportunities for further expansion and growth.25 Both the teaching/educational mission and the research mission of the university seems to be ‘temporarily under construction.’ The market forces the OECD refers to, are complemented with other forces from a more intellectual nature. Bloom lamented that today’s students no longer believed that ‘truth’ was possible, nor even desirable. Relativism, in all its guises, is not only the factual ideology of the students (and of those academics he despises); it has become a positive ideal. The current appearance of this relativism is postmodernism. Important as these developments on the intellectual and philosophical plane may be, the growing affirmation of what has been called ‘the third mission’ of the university, and the tailoring of the university to the needs of society, to me seems more important at the institutional level. The modern university has become a key player in the economic fabric of a nation and region. This shift has been analysed from an epistemological perspective26 and from an institutional perspective.27 The introduction of the ‘third mission,’ and the emergence of the ‘entrepreneurial university,’ has implications beyond the fact that the university is doing business itself. It has repercussions for the way the university is organised and operated; it influences deeply its research mission by reorganizing the types of research that are conducted and by shaping the funding structures of the university; it reorganises academic life.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ And probably as important as the former is the way the entrepreneurial format shapes the way students are taught, the kind of education they receive and the kind of people they deliver, i.e. the future academic entrepreneurs and non-academic workforce. In a recent article, aptly titled “The future of the university and the university of the future: evolution of ivory tower to entrepreneurial paradigm,” some, like Henry Etzkowitz welcome the arrival of this new entrepreneurial university.28 This results in the creation of a new ethos, a new “entrepreneurial culture within academia.” This change is not limited to some universities. The paradigm shift is not confined to certain parts, faculties or departments of existing universities. It permeates the totality of the university. Entrepreneurial universities operate within what is called the knowledge-based society and economy. Buzzwords of the day are ‘knowledge based economy,’ ‘managing the science base,’ ‘the management of science systems,’ ‘the global research village,’ etc.29 What kind of student and what kind of education, teaching, training, etc. can we expect to bloom in this new academic climate and institution? In a recent paper on “Higher Education Relevance in the 21st Century,” Michael Gibbons outlines his views on how the universities as educational institutions (should) adapt to the rising predominance of what he calls ‘mode 2 knowledge production.’ It can be read as an epistemological counterpoint to Etzkowitz’ ‘entrepreneur-university.’ In Gibbon’s opinion, the university will be transformed from a disciplinary institution into a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary institution. Not only the type of knowledge produced is changing. Institutional organisation will change as well: “[u]niversities in the future will comprise a small core of faculty and a much larger periphery of experts of various kinds that are linked to universities in diverse ways. Universities will become a new type of ‘holding institution’ in the field of knowledge production. Perhaps their role will be limited to accrediting teaching done primarily by others while, in research, playing their part by orchestrating problem-solving teams to work on fundamental issues.”30 Apparently, universities have become ‘service providers’ while students, government (society), and industry have become ‘customers.’ ‘Usefulness’ and ‘convenience’ are the new values that inform university teaching and research. But this is not all. Finally, the university as a ‘place’ - one of the basic tenets of the traditional collegiate model - is threatened as well. ‘The traditional University’ is a physical place, where you can go to study and in whose buildings you can do research. The communal life of a university centres on its campus. New information technologies could make this ‘campus’ redundant. To some these developments create new possibilities for academic teaching. However, in an influential thesis about the impact of information technology on the university, Eli M. Noam warns us that these technologies could very well lead to the end of the university as we know it.31 These then are the contours of the Traditional and Innovative models of the university. The differences between the models are profound and wide ranging. However, both models of the university can be situated within what I have called the semantic horizons of the concept of the university. Based on our review of the different models involved in the discussion on the status of the university, we can extract and spell out the underlying persuasive definitions in the discussion. E.

The Traditionalist Definition •

•

•

• •

A university is a place in which young students, the apprentices, do not receive a vocational training, but get an education. Their presence in the university is limited in time. The education they receive is organised as a top-down model in which students are lectured by and are taught via personal interaction with professors. This interaction is localized; it is situated within the physical university buildings. The curriculum is stable, based on tradition, combined with new research findings that are relevant for the kind of education students should receive. The professor is a scholar engaged in the pursuit of learning. He is tenured. He is at the same time a specialist in his own field of research, and a generalist. He is a cultured local hero, firmly affiliated with his home institution to which his allegiance goes. The main goal of his scholarship is contributing to the world of learning and personal enrichment. This is how he earns the esteem from his colleagues and from society. The scholar enjoys full academic freedom. He keeps a theoretical distance and engages in free, unrestricted basic research that is financed by the university on a non-competitive basis. This research is done for its own sake and not because it could turn out to be ‘useful.’ It is a social good, accessible to everyone. The main goals of the university are safeguarding and extending the tradition of the world of learning and producing educated citizens. This is its main contribution to society of the university. Society is ministerial to the university, not vice versa. The university is largely autonomous from society. As an institution, the university is characterised by a collegial model of organisation and interaction. It differs from corporate, market-driven and oriented enterprises. It is a closed, charisma driven world on its own.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ F.

The Innovative Definition •

•

•

• •

G.

A university is a place in which students, the customers, are prepared for their later career. Sometimes this means an academic career, but mostly a career in the knowledge-based society and economy. Some of the students are young, however, a growing part of the student body are adults, engaged in lifelong learning. Teaching and training is laterally organized. It makes use of the latest technological innovations like e-learning. This means that the interaction between student and teacher does not have to be localized in place, limited to the time one spends at the physical university, or personal. The curriculum is based on the latest research, up-to-date, practical, and career-focused. The professor is a dynamic and well-established researcher. SHe is not necessarily tenured, and sometimes part-time affiliated to industrial or other types of research organisations. SHe is an entrepreneurial globetrotter. SHe collaborates with his or her peers, who are often situated in other universities, and with researchers in industry and other research organisation. Allegiance goes to this research group - the invisible college - and peer group. During his or hers academic career, the researcher often changes affiliation. SHe is esteemed by her colleagues and by society, because of the contribution to relevant, cutting-edge research, and his or hers success in securing funding for future research. The researchers actively scout for (additional) research funds. These funds are often earmarked and the allocation of these funds is highly competitive. Collaboration with industry is an important source of research funding. The research is often of a ‘use-inspired’ nature. Because of its possible economic relevance the results are carefully monitored and sometimes patented. Although teaching and research are still considered as central to the university, its ‘third mission’ of societal and economical relevance is its most important contribution to society. The university is ministerial to society, not vice versa. Society holds the university accountable. As an institution, the university is a corporate enterprise, open and alert to the demands of the market and society. It has many features in common with for-profit organisation. It is an open institution that takes up its place and role in the science system of the knowledge-based national economy and society. Attacking and Defending the Definitions

We will restrict ourselves to the third and fourth type of argument in which the persuasive definitions are central to the discussion. (We may have an example of the first type of argument when we would oppose Bloom’s definition and appreciation against Bill Reading’s account of the ‘university in ruins.’) We can find the third type of argument in, e.g., the empirical discussion on the ‘effectiveness of collaborative research,’32 on the real nature of ‘innovation,’ on the claims that ‘secrecy has always been present in academic work, and is not novel,’ or that ‘real universities have never been / always have been really autonomous,’ etc. In short, on the one hand, the Innovators claim that, granted the definitions of the Traditionalists, the traditionalist criteria in reality have never been (fully) met. Therefore, even those institutions the traditionalists label as universities cannot really be called ‘universities’ when evaluated by the traditionalists’ standards. The Traditionalists, on the other hand, argue that, even granted the Innovative definition, the Innovative characteristics are not fulfilled. Therefore, one cannot award them the ‘prize’ of being called a university. Of course, construed in this way, the focus lies on the empirical dimensions of the definitions that are used. But, as we have seen, such disagreement in belief is but part of the story when it comes to an evaluative discussion. At heart lies a much deeper issue, i.e. a fundamental disagreement in attitude towards the contemporary university and its possible future developments. The discussion moves on to a new plane in which the definitions themselves are defended and attacked. These are examples of the fourth kind of argument. The following listing of possible moves in the discussions and references is by no means exhaustive. Traditionalist Arguments The traditionalists can mount the following lines of argument in defence of their definition: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The definition encapsulates the ‘core values’ of the university such as academic freedom, knowledge as a public good, free research, devoted to basic research as an and in itself, etc.; It preserves the ‘real meaning’ of the university;33 The university that conforms to the definition contributes to personal growth of both students and teachers;34 It takes up the central roles of being cultural, intellectual, and critical towards society;35 etc…

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ The traditionalists can attack the definition of their opponents by arguing that: 5. 6.

This definition corrupts the core values of the university, like, e.g. academic freedom;36 The additional characteristics in the definition - like, e.g. the inclusion of the ‘third mission has consequences even the innovators would not appreciate like impoverishing the generation of new, basic research,37 promote a system of research funding that has negative consequence;38 hampering free research;39 turning the university into a corporate enterprise, etc….

Innovative Arguments The innovators can, e.g., defend their definition by claiming that: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Their definition is well suited to the modern world;40 Institutions that fit the definitions efficiently further a worthwhile cause, like regional, economical social development41 and produce a labour force adapted to the knowledge based society and economy;42 The definition is firmly rooted in the history of the institution that is rightly called a university;43 The definition does not corrupt the core values of the university and secures openness against secrecy;44 gives new meaning to notions like academic freedom and free research; generates peer-evaluation on a much wider scale, etc.; The definition takes into account new and reliable research on research like mode 1 vs. mode 2;45 Jeffersonian science vs. Baconian science;46 use inspired basic research;47 Frascati manual definitions of types of research, etc….

The innovators can attack the traditionalist definition by pointing out that: 6. 7. 8. 9.

The traditionalist definition is outdated and does not fit the modern world; Traditionalist institutions hamper a worthwhile cause because so called free-research is economically conservative research;48 and ‘traditional’ academic culture is a block for economic development; The traditionalist definition is in a sense fictitious, taking ideals for a reality;49 The definition is based on faulty ideas about how real research is carried out, e.g. the false opposition basic vs. applied research, etc.

These then are but a few of the possible issues that could arise in the discussion of the status of the contemporary university. The references included are by no means exhaustive. Furthermore, most of the disputants would not embrace fully the extreme definitions I extracted from the texts. These definitions are of course extreme formulations of possible idea(l)s of the university. 4.

“X is Good” = “X is a University”

Stevenson was interested in persuasive definitions because according to him they are powerful rhetorical tools in the process of influencing attitudes. Evaluative language is at home in the complex process of harmonizing interests. Stevenson championed an emotive-prescriptive account of moral and evaluative language. In order to clarify the nature and structure of evaluative sentences, and more precisely the nature of moral claims, he developed what he called ‘working models.’ These are definitions that, according to Stevenson, in part identify the similar function of imperative and ethical sentences. The third of these ‘working models’ goes as follows: “‘This is good’ means I approve of this; do so as well.”50 Moral language aims at influencing people behaviour. Because moral sentences incorporate an imperative, they cannot be proven ‘wrong’ or ‘false’ in any conventional sense, just like the sentence “Close the door” is neither wrong nor false. In both cases, however, this does not mean that we cannot argue intelligently about what is being said and about what is being ‘demanded.’ Realizing the emotive nature of our evaluations, appreciations and of our evaluative language does not mean that we should give up on reasoning about our moral opinions. The emotive meaning of evaluative terms does not preclude any intelligent discussion. On the contrary, it is a hallmark of morality that intelligent and reasonable discussion can and does occur. From these observations, Stevenson proceeds to give an account of ‘the meaning of ethical terms.’ Moral sentences and the use of moral words move us. Calling something ‘good’ or ‘bad’ does not leave us

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ indifferent. Any account of the meaning of the term ‘good’ therefore must reckon with the following requirements: These then are the requirements with which the ‘typical’ sense of good is expected to comply: (1) goodness must be a topic for intelligent disagreement; (2) it must be magnetic; and (3) it must not be discoverable solely through the scientific method.51 It will be obvious from what has been said on the use of the definition of the university that the term ‘university’ operates in much the same way as the term ‘good.’ Like good - or any other evaluative term - the term university is a topic for intelligent disagreement. Calling something a university does not leave us indifferent but moves us. It induces us to appreciate that what is called ‘a university.’ And thirdly, seeking out whether something can rightly be called ‘a university’ cannot be discovered solely on the basis of an empirical enquiry. The university has become a type of institution that inspires awe in those who are outside of it, and bestows dignity and self-appreciation on those who are part of it. A university is something worthwhile over and beyond its concrete inputs, workings and outputs. A university is truly a higher institution and represents an idea and an ideal. Its is: a partially imagined idea that stirred people to envision a sense of the timeless dignity, the enduring worth, the permanence amidst the flux and chaos that reigned elsewhere in the world, of the higher learning and its institutions. [Universities] came (…) to stand for the grand accomplishments of scholastic philosophy and theology, and jurisprudence, for an ideal of the universality and the unity of knowledge, its essential parts ordered in a hierarchy of truth. They stood for the international character of learning, for a community of scholars that transcended all boundaries to constitute a larger republic of learning. They represented the fundamental autonomies and freedoms requisite for the academic world. Their degrees gave life and authority to the profession of teaching, and scholarship and to the other learned professions.52 The university has become one of the centerpieces of our culture. No wonder then that laying claims on the term ‘university’ is so important and that persuasive definition flourish. As is the case with moral terms, the word ‘university’ is indeed a prize - and it is a prize well worth winning…

Notes 1. Charles Leslie Stevenson, Facts and Values: Studies in Ethical Analysis (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1963), 35. 2. Bill Readings, The University in Ruins (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). 3. Henry Etzkowitz, et al. “The Future of the University and the University of the Future: Evolution of Ivory Tower to Entrepreneurial Paradigm,” Research Policy 29 (2000): 313-330. 4. Andrew Oswald, “A Victim of Vocabulary,” The Times Higher Education Supplement, 24 May 2002. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Charles Leslie Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944), 11. 8. Stevenson, 1963, 4-5. 9. Stevenson, 1944, 210. 10. Although they cannot be called fallacious in a strict sense, most logicians warn against the use of them in argumentation. Persuasive definitions are often of a stealthy nature and are very effective in a discussion. In this sense we have to be on our guard when encountering them. However, persuasive definitions are ubiquitous in argumentation; see: S. Hallden, True Love, True Humour and True Religion: A Semantic Study (Lund: Gleerup, 1960). Some interesting recent works include, e.g.: Douglas Walton, “Persuasive Definitions and Public Policy Arguments,” Argumentation and Advocay 37 (2001): 117-132; J Aomi, “Persuasive Definitions in Social Sciences and Social Thought,” in Man, Law and Modern Forms of Life, eds. E. Bulygin, J. et al. (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1985), 187-190 and Keith Burgess-Jackson, “Rape and Persuasive Definition,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (1995): 415-454. 11. Stevenson, 1944, 210. 12. Ibid, 241. 13. Stevenson does not use the term ‘semantic horizons,’ but he implicitly refers to what is meant by the concept when he discusses the perimeters of possible persuasive definitions: “Our linguistic habits are well

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Defining ‘The University’: From ‘Ivory Tower’ to ‘Convenience-Store’

__________________________________________________________________________________________ enough established to rule out certain descriptive meanings as ‘unnatural,’ particularly for extreme cases. (…) The unformulated boundaries of common usage are unquestionably wide enough to permit great numbers of second pattern [persuasive, TC] definitions.” Ibid. 207-208. 14. Hanna Holborn, Gray, “The University in History: 1088 and All That,” The Idea of the University: 2000-2001, Januari 2001, (March 2002). . 15. Ibid, 8. 16. Dominick LaCapra, “The University in Ruins?” Critical Inquiry 25 (1998): 32-33. 17. R. Barnett, “‘The University’ is Dead, Long Live the University,” The Times Higher Education Supplement, 11 Februari 2000. (=2000b). 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Michael Oakeshott, “The Idea of A University,” in The Voice of Liberal Learning: Michael Oakeshott on Education, ed. Timothy Fuller (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), 95-104. 21. Oakeshott, 103-104. 22. Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 126(4) (1997). 23. Gordon Johnson, “Civilising the Bottom Line,” The Times Higher Education Supplement, 24 April 1998. 24. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987). 25. OECD, University Research In Transition (Paris: OECD, 1998c), 15. 26. See, e.g. Michael Gibbons, et al., The New Production of Knowledge: Science and Research in Contemporary Societies (London: SAGE Publications, 1994); Michael Gibbons, “Changing Patterns of University-Industry Relations,” Minerva 38(3) (2000): 352-361; and Michael Gibbons, “Innovation and the Developing System of Knowledge Production,” 2000. (2 August 2001). . 27. See, e.g., Loet Leydesdorff and Henry Etzkowitz, “Emergence of a Triple Helix of UniversityIndustry-Government relations,” Science and Public Policy 23(5) (1996); Loet Leydesdorff and Henry Etzkowitz, “The Triple Helix as a Model for Innovation Studies,” Science & Public Policy 25 (1998); Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff, “The Endless Transition: A ‘Triple Helix’ of University-Industry-Government Relations,” Minerva 36(3) (1998): 203-208; and Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff, “The Dynamics of Innovation: From National Systems and ‘Mode 2’ to a Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relations,” Research Policy 29 (2000): 109-123. 28. Henry Etzkowitz, et al., 2000. 29. OECD, The Knowledge Based Economy (Paris: OECD, 1996); OECD, Technology, Productivity and Job Creation - Best Policy Practices (Paris: OECD, 1998b); OECD, The Management of Science Systems (Paris: OECD, 1999); and OECD, The Global Research Village: How Information and Communication Technologies Affect the Science System (Paris: OECD, 1998a). 30. Gibbons, 1998, ii. 31. Eli Noam, “Electronics and the Dim Future of the University,” Science Magazine, Augustus 18, 1995. 32. David C. Mowery, “Collaborative R&D: How Effective Is It?” Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 1998. 33. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Idea of the University: A Re-Examination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Bloom. 34. Oakeshott, 95-104. 35. Bloom. 36. Philip G. Altbach, “Academic Freedom: International Realities and Challenges,” Higher Education 41 (2001): 205-219. 37. J. Ziman, “Academic Science as a System of Markets,” Higher Education Quarterly 12 (1991): 5768; J. Ziman, Prometheus Bound: Science in a Dynamic Steady State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 38. Geuna, Aldo, “The Changing Rationale for European University Research Funding: Are there Negative Unintended Consequences?” Brighton: Science Policy Research Unit, 1999a; and Geuna, Aldo, The Economics of Knowledge Production: Funding and the Structure of University Research. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999b. 39. David Noble, “Science for Science,” The NEA Higher Education Journal. 40. Ronald Barnett, Realizing the University in an Age of Supercomplexity (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000a); Ronald Barnett, “University Knowledge in an Age of Supercomplexity,” Higher Education, 40(4) (2000c): 409-422; and Ronald Barnett, 2000b. 41. Edwin Mansfield, “Academic Research and Industrial Innovation,” Research Policy 20 (1991): 1-

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ 12; Edwin Mansfield, “Academic Research and Industrial Innovation: An Update of Empirical Findings,” Research Policy 26 (1998): 773-776; Edwin Mansfield and Jeong-Yeon Lee, “The Modern University: Contributor to Industrial Innovation and Recipient of Industrial R&D Support,” Research Policy 25 (1996): 1047-1058; and Y. S. Lee, “Technology Transfer and the Research University: A Search for Boundaries of University-Industry Collaboration,” Research Policy 25 (1996): 843-863. 42. Gibbons, 1998. 43. On internationalisation, see: Aldo Geuna, “The Internationalization of European Universities: A Return to Medieval Roots,” Minerva 36(3) (1998): 253-270; and on the evolution of the ‘university species,’ see: Ben R. Martin and Henry Etzkowitz, “The Origin and Evolution of the University Species,” Brighton: SPRU, 2001, and Ben R. Martin, “The Changing Social Contract for Science and the Evolution of the University,” in Science and Innovation: Rethinking the Rationales for Funding and Governance, ed. Aldo Geuna (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003), 7-29. 44. Teresa R. Behrens and Denis O. Gray, “Uninted Consequences of Cooperative Research: Impact of Industry Sponsorship on Climate for Academic Freedom and other Graduate Student Outcome,” Research Policy 30 (2001): 179-199. 45. Gibbons, et al. 1994; Gibbons, 1999. 46. Gerald Holton, The Advancement of Science, and its Burdens (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), and Gerald Holton and Gerhard Sonnert, “A Vision of Jeffersonian Science,” Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 1999. 47. Donald E. Stokes, Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997). 48. Erik Arnold, Catherine Whitelegg and Ben Thuriaux, Research 2000 or Research 1950? Forskning 2000 and the Future of State Research Funding in Sweden (Brighton: Technopolis, 1999). 49. LaCapra. 50. Stevenson, 1944, 21. 51. Stevenson, 1963, 15. 52. Gray, 4, italics added.

References Altbach, Philip G. “Academic Freedom: International Realities and Challenges.” Higher Education 41 (2001): 205-219. Aomi, J. “Persuasive Definitions in Social Sciences and Social Thought.” In Man, Law and Modern Forms of Life, edited by E. Bulygin, J. L. Gardies and I. Niiniluoto, 187-190. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1985. Arnold, Erik, Catherine Whitelegg and Ben Thuriaux. Research 2000 or Research 1950? Forskning 2000 and the Future of State Research Funding in Sweden. Brighton: Technopolis, 1999. Barnett, Ronald. Realizing the University in an Age of Supercomplexity. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000. (=2000a) Barnett, Ronald. “‘The University’ is Dead, Long Live the University.” The Times Higher Education Supplement, 11 Februari 2000. (=2000b) Barnett, Ronald. “University Knowledge in an Age of Supercomplexity.” Higher Education, 40(4) (2000): 409422. (=2000c) Behrens, Teresa R. and Denis O. Gray. “Uninted Consequences of Cooperative Research: Impact of Industry Sponsorship on Climate for Academic Freedom and other Graduate Student Outcome.” Research Policy 30 (2001): 179-199. Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. Burgess-Jackson, Keith. “Rape and Persuasive Definition.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (1995): 415-454. Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 126(4) (1997). Etzkowitz, Henry and Loet Leydesdorff. “The Endless Transition: A ‘Triple Helix’ of University-Industry-

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Government Relations.” Minerva 36 (3) (1998): 203-208. Etzkowitz, Henry and Loet Leydesdorff. “The Dynamics of Innovation: From National Systems and ‘Mode 2’ to a Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relations.” Research Policy 29 (2000): 109-123. Etzkowitz, Henry, Andrew Webster, Christiane Gebhardt and Branco R.C. Terra. “The Future of the University and the University of the Future: Evolution of Ivory Tower to Entrepreneurial Paradigm.” Research Policy 29 (2000): 313-330. Geuna, Aldo. “The Internationalization of European Universities: A Return to Medieval Roots.” Minerva 36(3) (1998): 253-270. Geuna, Aldo. “The Changing Rationale for European University Research Funding: Are there Negative Unintended Consequences?” Brighton: Science Policy Research Unit, 1999. (=1999a) Geuna, Aldo. The Economics of Knowledge Production: Funding and the Structure of University Research. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999. (=1999b) Gibbons, Michael, C. Limoges, H. Nowotny, S. Schwartzman, P. Scott and M. Trow. The New Production of Knowledge: Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London: SAGE Publications, 1994. Gibbons, Michael (1998) Higher Education Relevance in the 21st Century. World Conference on Higher Education, Paris. Gibbons, Michael (1999) “The Relationship between Teaching and Research in Contemporary Universities.” Keynote Presentation B4 for the AUA Conference 1999. Gibbons, Michael. “Changing Patterns of University-Industry Relations.” Minerva 38(3) (2000): 352-361. Gibbons, Michael. “Innovation and the Developing System of Knowledge Production.” 2000. (2 August 2001). Gray, Hanna Holborn. “The University in History: 1088 and All That.” The Idea of the University: 2000-2001. Januari 2001. (March 2002) Hallden, S. True Love, True Humour and True Religion: A Semantic Study. Lund: Gleerup, 1960. Holton, Gerald. The Advancement of Science, and its Burdens. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Holton, Gerald en Gerhard Sonnert. “A Vision of Jeffersonian Science.” Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 1999. Johnson, Gordon. “Civilising the Bottom Line.” The Times Higher Education Supplement, 24 April 1998. LaCapra, Dominick. “The University in Ruins?” Critical Inquiry 25 (1998): 32-55. Lee, Y.S. “Technology Transfer and the Research University: A Search for Boundaries of University-Industry Collaboration.” Research Policy 25 (1996): 843-863. Leydesdorff, Loet and Henry Etzkowitz. “Emergence of a Triple Helix of university - industry - government relations.” Science and Public Policy 23(5) (1996). Leydesdorff, Loet and Henry Etzkowitz. “The Triple Helix as a Model for Innovation Studies.” Science & Public Policy 25 (1998). Mansfield, Edwin. “Academic Research and Industrial Innovation.” Research Policy 20 (1991): 1-12. Mansfield, Edwin. “Academic Research and Industrial Innovation: An Update of Empirical Findings.” Research Policy 26 (1998): 773-776.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Mansfield, Edwin and Jeong-Yeon Lee. “The Modern University: Contributor to Industrial Innovation and Recipient of Industrial R&D Support.” Research Policy 25 (1996): 1047-1058. Martin, Ben R. “The Changing Social Contract for Science and the Evolution of the University.” In Science and Innovation: Rethinking the Rationales for Funding and Governance, edited by Aldo Geuna, 7-29. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003. Martin, Ben R. and Henry Etzkowitz. “The Origin and Evolution of the University Species.” Brighton: SPRU, 2001. Mowery, David C. “Collaborative R&D: How Effective Is It?” Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 1998. Noam, Eli. “Electronics and the Dim Future of the University.” Science Magazine, Augustus 18, 1995. Oakeshott, Michael. “The Idea of A University.” In The Voice of Liberal Learning: Michael Oakeshott on Education, edited by Timothy Fuller, 95-104. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989. OECD. The Knowledge Based Economy. Paris: OECD, 1996. OECD. The Global Research Village: How Information and Communication Technologies Affect the Science System. Paris: OECD, 1998. (=1998a) OECD. Technology, Productivity and Job Creation - Best Policy Practices. Paris: OECD, 1998. (=1998b) OECD. University Research In Transition. Paris: OECD, 1998. (=1998c) OECD. The Management of Science Systems. Paris: OECD, 1999. Oswald, Andrew. “A Victim of Vocabulary.” The Times Higher Education Supplement, 24 May 2002. Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Idea of the University: A Re-Examination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Readings, Bill. The University in Ruins. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Stevenson, Charles Leslie. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944. Stevenson, Charles Leslie. Facts and Values: Studies in Ethical Analysis. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1963. Stokes, Donald E. Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997. Walton, Douglas. “Persuasive Definitions and Public Policy Arguments.” Argumentation and Advocacy 37 (2001): 117-132. Ziman, J. “Academic Science as a System of Markets.” Higher Education Quarterly 12 (1991): 57-68. Ziman, J. Prometheus Bound: Science in a Dynamic Steady State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Tom Claes Department of Philosophy Ghent University Belgium [email protected]

Partners in Education: The Role of the Academic Library Nancy Levesque Abstract: Academic libraries in the new millennium are leaders in knowledge management and information literacy programmes. Librarians in universities are innovative in their use of the new information technologies to provide access to a range of multimedia sources. Today’s librarians teach students the information handling skills to last a lifetime. This paper discusses the changes in teaching and learning, both in theory and practice. Best practices conducive to student learning are examined for their application to library programmes of service and instruction. The resources and services of The University College of the Cariboo Library are reviewed as an example of a university library striving to meet the challenges of this century. Finally it is suggested that a strong partnership among faculty, librarians and students creates a positive learning environment. Key Words: academic library; librarian - faculty partnerships; information literacy; student learning 1.

New Concepts of Learning

The traditional image of the library as a quiet place of study, housing mostly print collections, is changing. The shifts in education methods, the impact of computer technology, and the diversity of students have caused academic libraries to organize resources and design services and spaces that meet and anticipate the new needs of study and teaching. In their classic study of undergraduate education which reviewed twenty years of research, Chickering and Gamson,1 outlined seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education which contribute to the quality of student learning. These best practices include: active learning; interaction between teacher and students; group work among students; use of different ways and tasks of learning; and feedback from teachers that challenges and encourages students. The findings of Chickering and Gamson support constructivist theories of knowledge. The constructivist models maintain that the learner constructs knowledge rather than passively acquiring it, and that the teacher supports the student’s construction of knowledge.2 Classroom teaching should stimulate and motivate students to find out more, to read, think, discuss and analyse information through the various activities of research. Alone and working with others, students can discover and better understand for themselves the subjects of their courses. Students need to work at their studies before they truly learn. They must build on what they know, make connections among readings and lectures, search, question, and test ideas in order to create meaning for themselves. Faculty continue to provide direction, opportunities and critiques to guide students. The learning, though, is a process that students control and explore, a journey that continues beyond the walls of the classroom. With the increasing growth and changes in knowledge and information technology, students are finding their learning isn’t finished when they complete their formal university studies. The concept of life-long learning is recognized by governments, and employers as crucial to developing workers and citizens who participate fully in society. The British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education’s Issues Paper, Developing Citizens, autumn 2001,3 speaks of the importance of life-long learning as enabling students to contribute to society and the economy. The Issues Paper, The Generic Skills Needed in the Labour Force, Winter 2002,4 reinforces the employability skills set out by the Conference Board of Canada in 1992.5 These skills include competencies in reading, analysing, thinking critically and continuing to learn during a career. The Association of Universities and Colleges in Canada’s survey of Canadian undergraduates, Winter 2000,6 found that active learning in university contributes to students’ ability to think critically, work well independently and in groups, to problem-solve, and to produce written work. The Canadian Government’s recent Innovation Strategy (February 2002),7 contains two initiatives, Knowledge Matters and Achieving Excellence. These are programmes to strengthen access to and excellence in post-secondary education. Both reports emphasize the need for life-long learning, and predict that by 2004, more than 70% of new jobs in Canada will require post-secondary education. These reports describe a knowledge society where workers are effective communicators who collaborate with others and continue their intellectual development no matter what their area of study or job field.

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Partners in Education: The Role of the Academic Library

__________________________________________________________________________________________ Professor Alan Guskin, has written several articles8 on the need to restructure universities in order to focus on student learning. He argues that defining the quality of universities by their reputations, rankings and resources is not a true measure of the real value of a university. The worth of our universities, he suggests, is in the processes and outcomes of what we do. That is, not what is taught, but what is learned. The U.S. National Survey of Student Engagement9 measures these vital signs of a university: the active learning that takes place, the student-faculty-student interaction, the level of challenging and enriching experiences, and the supportive campus environment. In 2001, more than 155,000 first- and fourth-year students at 470 universities were surveyed. The results and NSSE research show that the more students do that is educationally purposeful - reading, writing, research, discussion with teachers and students - the better they learn. How does technology factor into this shift to active learning? Technology extends learning opportunities over time and space. It enables students and faculty to more quickly communicate and access resources far and near. In their 2001 Report, the Canadian Advisory Committee for Online Learning10 asserts that technology can be used to provide access and improvements to education for Canadian students. The Committee observes that ours is a global culture and Canadian students will need to keep learning throughout their lifetime. The Government of Canada’s Report, February 2002, Knowledge Matters11 also encourages e-learning initiatives to expand access to university education. 2.

Today’s University Students

Computers are transforming the world of work and education, and students must be prepared to live, work and thrive in this high-tech era. The power to communicate and network across distances and time makes for a more dynamic and interactive teaching and learning experience. The pace of change in information technologies is accelerating and converging the various media. Students can dissect a frog online virtually; operate through simulation, the valves of a municipal water works system; or stroll down a medieval street. Technology has the potential to link communities across the globe; but first, the infrastructure must be in place. High-speed broadband Internet access varies across the provinces of Canada. For rural areas if access is available, it is invariably expensive and less reliable. Frequently people in rural areas must cope with limited access and less opportunities to participate in education programmes. The Governments of Canada and British Columbia are working to narrow the gap and network more rural communities. Who are the students of this millennium? Our university students represent a diverse mix of ages, cultures and experiences. They are onsite and online, on campus and at a distance, learning at work and at home. Don Tapscott12 calls today’s students the Net Gen. They are curious, self-reliant and able to adapt. He sees a real shift to interactive learning because of students’ familiarity with technology and their use of it to learn and socialize. Statistics Canada, 2001, reports that young Canadians 17-24 years of age are the most connected generation; 85% are Internet users.13 For these students, information seeking happens all the time, at home, work and school. What then are their needs, expectations and behaviours? How and when do they study and work? In Seeking Meaning, author Carol Kuhlthau14 offers insights into the information search process of students. They are often confused and overwhelmed at the start of their research. Kuhlthau’s study indicates that student’s attitudes affect their actions and tasks. She suggests that librarians have a role to play in helping students focus their research activities and to gain confidence in their abilities to control their learning. These are some of the issues facing university libraries today: the changes in teaching and learning, the impact of information technologies, and the nature of student learning behaviours. 3.

The University College of the Cariboo Library

The challenges for The University College of the Cariboo Library are similar to most academic libraries; seemingly infinite needs and finite funds! The UCC Library in Kamloops serves a region larger than the size of Portugal. Located in the south central interior of British Columbia, Kamloops with a population of nearly 80,000 is the largest centre in the UCC region. UCC offers 40 different options within twelve undergraduate degrees, and another fifty diplomas in career, technology and trades programs to 8,500 students. The UCC Library organizes collections and provides access and services that incorporate changes in teaching, learning and information technologies. The UCC Library uses technology to enhance access and services: an interactive computer library classroom; proxy server access to licensed databases; database citations linked to UCC holdings and other partner libraries; direct online requesting of materials from other libraries by our library users; the ariel document delivery system that uses the Internet to transmit journal articles; online Table of Contents of books in

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ the collection; online self-serve features, and more. Online subject guides, forms and tools support students onsite and online, day and night. The UCC Library collaborates with other university libraries, especially the COPPUL consortium, Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries, to increase our resources and extend access and services to students in Canada’s four Western provinces. New projects in development include electronic reserves and e-reference, possibly live across time zones. 4.

The Role of Libraries

In the past few years the Web has had a tremendous effect on the growth of information and the speed of transmission. But the Web is not a library; there is no real organization of information, no archives, filter, or online support. No one can really be sure what is there and how long it will last, or what is missing. And despite its size, the Web represents only a fraction of the world’s knowledge. Academic libraries however, select and organize print and electronic resources, databases and multimedia for quality, relevance and reliability. University library collections span continents and centuries, and preserve and make available to users a wealth of knowledge. Technology alone doesn’t equip students with skills; teachers and librarians must do that. Librarians help students make sense of information, information found in our building and through our databases and web sites; even information we don’t own and haven’t organized, but that students access on the Web. Recent studies of Canadian undergraduate library use by Paul Williams, Heidi Julien and Ethelene Whitmire, confirm that active learners who participate more in class, read, write and study more, are also regular and active library users.15 Courses where library resources and use are integrated into the programme of study and student assignments cause students to understand better the concepts and ideas of their classes. The Association of College Research Libraries Information Literacy Competencies Standards for Higher Education, 2000, is a guide for librarians to develop strategies to teach students how to define their information needs, identify and select resources, evaluate and use information to complete projects and assignments.16 These standards set the goals for academic libraries and define the kind of active learning we want to support and encourage. 5.

Next Steps

What are some strategies that will foster collaboration among faculty and librarians? A good start, and something we have done at The UCC Library, is to survey faculty about their attitudes, expectations and use of library resources and services. The resulting data will inform library planning for collections and instruction programmes. Librarians will follow up with an invitation to faculty and departments to attend an orientation or update session to find out about new databases, library services, and instruction classes. Partnerships like any relationship require involvement and ongoing communication. Librarians should look for opportunities to interact with faculty and collaborate on projects and research that add value to teaching and learning: • • • • • • •

6.

Devise individual and group assignments that prompt students to use and evaluate a variety of resources. Develop research projects that examine how students use online resources. Offer drop-in workshops and hands-on term paper clinics for students. Jointly develop with students Web pages, guides and online tutorials that provide support and direction to learners. Encourage feedback among the library, faculty and students about what’s working, what’s not, what’s missing. Work jointly to establish learning outcomes measures to assess students’ work and progress. Many universities have capstone courses and/or e-learning portfolios that document student learning and achievement. Discuss with students and faculty how best to arrange and use library spaces that support the novice to the expert learner. Libraries today need to incorporate individual and group study areas, classrooms and project/production labs; everything from the quiet Great Reading Room to a busy interactive Information Commons, plus a place to take a break! Partners in Education

Integration is the key to an effective university library programme: integration of resources and services into the curriculum, and integration of library functions within the building.

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Partners in Education: The Role of the Academic Library

__________________________________________________________________________________________ For this to happen, academic libraries need to partner with faculty and with students. Why? What is the purpose of this partnership? To help students learn. We have examined best practices for undergraduate education, the impact of information technologies, and the changing nature of students. If they are to become life-long learners, students need to be more active and responsible for their learning. They need to be engaged in discussions with their teachers, librarians and other students. They need to spend more time examining a variety of resources. And there needs to be a welcoming supportive library for their individual and group learning. Librarians and faculty who involve students in planning courses and assignments and building resource collections, create a synergy that benefits everyone. Library instruction classes, tutorials, guides, and online pages can be jointly developed using the subject specialty of faculty, the information resource expertise of librarians, and the new discoveries of students. The possibilities for partnerships are endless for librarians, faculty and students; to collaborate and create a learning library.

Notes 1. A.W. Chickering and Z.F. Gamson, “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education,” AAHE Bulletin 39 (1987): 3-7; and A.W. Chickering and Z.F. Gamson, “Applying the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education,” New Directions for Teaching and Learning 47 (1991): 1-104. 2. M.P. Driscoll, Psychology of Learning for Instruction (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1994). 3. British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education, “Developing Citizens: The Role of Personal and Social Development in Education,” B.C. College and Institute Student Outcomes Issue Paper, 2(2) (2001): 1-4. 4. British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education, “The Generic Skills Needed in the Labour Force,” B.C. College and Institute Student Outcomes Issue Paper, 2(3) (2002): 1-4. 5. Conference Board of Canada, Employability Skills Profile (Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada, 1993). 6. Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium, Survey (Ottawa: Association of Universities and Colleges in Canada, 2000). 7. Industry Canada, “Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge, and Opportunity,” 2002, (February 12, 2002). <www.innovationstrategy.gc.ca > 8. A.E. Guskin, “Reducing Student Costs and Enhancing Student Learning,” Change 26(4) (1994): 2230; A.E. Guskin, “Restructuring the Role of Faculty,” Change 26(5) (1994): 16-26; A.E. Guskin, “Facing the Future,” Change, 28(4) (1996): 26-38. 9. National Survey of Student Engagement, “The College Student Report,” 2001, (February 21, 2002). <www.indiana.edu/~nsse/>. 10. Advisory Committee for Online Learning, “The E-learning E-volution in Colleges and Universities: a Pan-Canadian Challenge,” February 2001, (February 8, 2002). <www.schoolnet.ca/mlg/sites/acol-ccael/>. 11. Human Resources Development Canada, “Knowledge Matters: Skills and Learning for Canadians,” 2002, (February 12, 2002). <www.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/stratpol/sl-ca/doc/summary.shtml/>. 12. D. Tapscott, “Educating in a Digital World,” Education Canada, 41(1) (2001): 4-7. 13. M. Rotermann, “Wired Young Canadians,” Canadian Social Trends, 63 (2001) 4-8. 14. C.C. Kuhlthau, Seeking Meaning: a Process Approach to Library and Information Services (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1992). 15. E. Whitemire, “The Relationship between Undergraduates’ Background Characteristics and College Experiences and their Academic Library Use,” College and Research Libraries 621(6) (2001): 528-540; A.P. Williams, “Conceptualizing Academic Library Use: Results of a Survey of Continuing Education Students in a Small Canadian Undergraduate University,” The Canadian Journal of Higher Education XXV(3) (1995): 31-47; H. Julien, “Information Literacy Instruction in Canadian Academic Libraries: Logitudinal Trends and International Comparisons,” College and Research Libraries 61(6) (2000): 510-523. 16. Association of College and Research Libraries, “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education: Standards, Performance Indicators, and Outcomes,” 2000, (March 26, 2002). <www.ala.org/acrl/ilcomstan.html>.

References Advisory Committee for Online Learning. “The E-learning E-volution in Colleges and Universities: a PanCanadian Challenge.” February 2001. <www.schoolnet.ca/mlg/sites/acol-ccael/> (February 8, 2002).

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Association of College and Research Libraries. “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education: Standards, Performance Indicators, and Outcomes.” 2000. <www.ala.org/acrl/ilcomstan.html> (March 26, 2002). British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education. “Developing Citizens: The Role of Personal and Social Development in Education.” B.C. College and Institute Student Outcomes Issue Paper 2(2) (2001): 1-4. British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education. “The Generic Skills Needed in the Labour Force,” B.C. College and Institute Student Outcomes Issue Paper 2(3) (2002): 1-4. Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium. Survey. Ottawa: Association of Universities and Colleges in Canada, 2000. Chickering, A.W., and Gamson, Z.F. “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” AAHE Bulletin 39 (1987): 3-7. Chickering, A.W. and Gamson, Z.F. “Applying the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning 47 (1991): 1-104. Conference Board of Canada. Employability Skills Profile. Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada, March 1993. Driscoll, M.P. Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1994. Guskin, A.E. “Reducing Student Costs and Enhancing Student Learning.” Change 26(4) (1994): 22-30. Guskin, A.E. “Restructuring the Role of Faculty.” Change 26(5) (1994): 16-26. Guskin, A.E. “Facing the Future.” Change 28(4) (1996): 26-38. Human Resources Development Canada.. Knowledge Matters: Skills and Learning for Canadians.” (Ottawa: Government of Canada) February 2002. <www.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/stratpol/sl-ca/doc/summary.shtml/> (February 12, 2002). Industry Canada. “Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge, and Opportunity.” (Ottawa: Government of Canada) February 2002. <www.innovationstrategy.gc.ca> (February 2002). Julien, H. “Information Literacy Instruction in Canadian Academic Libraries: Logitudinal Trends and International Comparisons.” College and Research Libraries 61(6) (2000): 510-523. Kuhlthau, C.C. Seeking Meaning: a Process Approach to Library and Information Services. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1992). National Survey of Student Engagement. “The College Student Report.” (Bloomington: Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research and Planning) 2001. <www.indiana.edu/~nsse/> (February 21, 2002). Rotermann, M. “Wired Young Canadians.” Canadian Social Trends 63 (2001): 4-8. Tapscott, D. “Educating in a Digital World.” Education Canada 41(1) (2001): 4-7. Whitemire, E. “The Relationship between Undergraduates’ Background Characteristics and College Experiences and their Academic Library Use.” College and Research Libraries, 621(6) (2001): 528-540. Williams, A.P. “Conceptualizing Academic Library Use: Results of a Survey of Continuing Education Students in a Small Canadian Undergraduate University.” The Canadian Journal of Higher Education XXV(3) (1995): 31-47.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Nancy Levesque University Library Director Thompson Rivers University Kamloops, British Columbia Canada [email protected]

Linking Law to Biotechnology through an Inter-Disciplinary Process Marcel Dubé Abstract: The assessment of higher education curricula always calls for a re-examination of different and alternate ways of learning and thus, of research and of teaching. In the field of vocational learning of Law, the traditional model of learning is evolving because of the growing necessity for lawyers to take into account not only the knowledge of its neighbouring disciplines (Economics, Politics, Ethics, Commerce), but also the know-how, skills, attitudes and even the culture itself of more distant disciplines like Medicine, the Sciences and one of the latest offshoots, Biotechnology. In the past few years, our Law School accepted that challenge and created a new LL.B. programme with a cursus in Biotechnology (baccalauréat en droit avec cheminement en biotechnologie). The purpose of this paper is primarily to discuss the needs for such a cursus in the field of legal education for the Twenty-first Century. Then it will outline the programme that has been set to facilitate the acquisition of that new learning “culture” developed within an inter-disciplinary environment integrating knowledge, collaboration and synthesis. Key Words: Legal Education, Biotechnology, LL.B. Curriculum, Inter-disciplinary Environment, New Learning Culture

1.

Introduction

Since time immemorial, lawyers and scientists are behaving like people living on two different planets. Each group is used to follow its own set of rules, speak its own language, refer to its own traditions, even praise its own truth. Sometimes they have to meet each other, exchange information and even deal together. It is at this very moment they realise how foreign they are to each other and how difficult it is to find the right wave-length to communicate in a co-operative way. For example, consider a criminal case (i.e. a murder case) where the presence of DNA of the person accused is submitted as evidence to the trial judge. You can also think of a patent or any other intellectual property case where the Court has to assess the “patentability “ of a given technical invention or to decide if the patentee’s exclusive rights have been infringed. The strength of the evidence offered will possibly differ depending on which professional will have to evaluate it. For the scientist, the strength of any evidence - and consequently its truth value - is generally established by the frequency of occurrences in the testing results; for the lawyer, the strength of proof is set by a procedural standard that determines its accuracy (beyond reasonable doubt, in most criminal cases), (predominant proof, in civil litigation). To assess the reliability of scientific evidence in Court, the judge and/or the jury need to be enlightened by the testimony and often the conclusions of an expert (i.e. a forensic scientist in criminal cases). On the one hand, will the Court or the members of the jury really understand the scientific language of this expert? On the other hand, will the expert clearly know how to meet the legal standards of the Court? Then, what will happen if, in an adversarial inquiry, each party offers a different set of evidence or opinion based on the assumptions or paradigms of its own expert? Will their respective counsel be able to ask the appropriate questions or plead the right arguments either to confirm or to discredit the evidence adduced? Another set of questions must be asked when a lawyer writes a licence contract for transfer of technology. Will this lawyer be able to put in a legal format the common intention of the contracting parties if he does not understand what is the exact object with which the contracting parties are dealing? 2.

From a Disciplinary to an Inter-Disciplinary Approach

The importance of a basic scientific training in these situations does not seem to require any further demonstration. It is with such an acknowledgement that the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Science (Department of Biology) of our University decided in 1999 to create a new cursus of Law and Biotechnology. The aim was to train the future lawyers to acquire an understanding of the language, the mindset, the habits and even the behaviour of the scientists, and to develop practical approaches to deal with them and even to collaborate with them in litigious or legal oriented transactions. We will in the next few minutes, outline the principal goals of this cursus and explain how an interdisciplinary approach will help in the fulfilment of these goals. But first it seems important to give a short description of the main features of this cursus.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ 3.

Main Features of the Cursus The LL.B. programme with a Biotechnology Cursus is: • • • •

4.

A four-year program; The First Year is entirely devoted to lectures and activities in the field of Law; The Second and Third Years are split between Molecular Biology, Biotechnology and Law lectures, offered either at the Biology Department (on the premises of the Faculty of Sciences) or at the Law School; The Fourth Year involves specific teaching and learning activities all dedicated to an integration of the dual cultures. Main Goals of the Cursus Here are the specific goals assigned to this cursus: To allow students: (Translation) Permettre à l’étudiante ou à l’étudiant: To acquire the fundamental principles and the d’acquérir les principes fondamentaux et les concepts of our legal system as well as all the concepts de notre système juridique ainsi que knowledge required to understand the legal toutes les connaissances qui lui sont nécessaires environment so as to measure the relationship pour bien comprendre le droit qui nous régit et between Law and the Social context; ce, dans une perspective lui permettant d’en mesurer la relation avec la réalité sociale; To acquire the method and the skills inherent d’acquérir la méthode et les habiletés inhérentes to the legal discipline while allowing students à la discipline juridique tout en lui permettant de to gradually develop the skills specific for s’initier graduellement aux habiletés propres à la practising Law; pratique du droit; To become aware of the qualities that de prendre conscience des qualités qui doivent characterise a lawyer’s behaviour, as well as caractériser le comportement du juriste, ainsi que the responsibilities that are incumbent upon les responsabilités qui lui incombent; them; To acquire knowledge in biology with a d’acquérir des connaissances en biologie avec special emphasis on molecular biology; accent mis sur la biologie moléculaire; To be initiated to the disciplines specific to de s’initier aux disciplines propres aux bio-technologies, in order to acquire the biotechnologies, en vue d’acquérir les knowledge, the language and the methods connaissances, le langage et les méthodes qui which will facilitate communication, team faciliteront la communication, le travail en work and dialogue between lawyers and the équipe, la concertation entre les juristes et les professionals working in the field of bio- professionnelles et les professionnels œuvrant technologies; dans le milieu des biotechnologies; To understand the impacts of bio-technologies and, in particular, their social and legal consequences; To grasp the ethical values implied in the questions raised by bio-technologies, in order to take them into account in the problem solving they will face in their professional duties; To develop, from an inter-disciplinary perspective, an integrated strategy allowing them to thoroughly analyse the various aspects of a problem in the field of bio-technologies, in order to find the best avenues of solution; To gradually become autonomous life-long learners in the fields of law and of science, in order to be prepared to follow, throughout their career, the constant evolution of law, of sciences and of technologies.

de comprendre les implications des biotechnologies et, notamment, leurs conséquences sociales et juridiques; de saisir les valeurs éthiques impliquées dans les problématiques soulevées par les biotechnologies, de façon à les prendre en compte dans la résolution des problèmes auxquels la personne sera confrontée dans son activité professionnelle; de développer, dans une optique d’interdisciplinarité, une stratégie intégrée permettant, à la suite d’une analyse des divers aspects d’un problème dans le domaine des biotechnologies, de dégager des pistes de solutions; de devenir progressivement maître de son apprentissage et de sa formation juridique et scientifique afin d’être préparé à suivre, tout au long de sa carrière, l’évolution permanente du droit, des sciences et des technologies.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ We can easily conclude from the reading of these goals that the primary focus of this cursus is on Law training. We want to prepare Lawyers with a biotechnological background, not Bio-technologists or Biologists with a Law profile… Thus, the students of this cursus are full students in Law School and they will be exposed to the whole curriculum that is offered to regular Law students registered in the regular LL.B. program. 5.

Disciplinary Curriculum

That is why, at the very beginning of their studies, they will have to follow a kind of immersion training in Law (what we can call the legal drill or drill of Law), learning the basic rules in both private and public Law, experimenting the processes and methods of Law, discovering and using the Legal research tools, discovering the way lawyers think and even the way they behave; that is why the First Year is an exclusive and mandatory Law programme… 6.

Multi-Disciplinary Curriculum

Starting with the Second Year, - and for the Second and Third years - students of this cursus will follow courses in the Molecular Biology and Biotechnology fields, while they continue their Law studies. For these Science lessons, they will have to go to the Department of Biology (Faculty of science) and follow their lectures along with Science students. With them, they will learn Biology, Genetics, Statistics, etc., experiment in a Biology Lab, even participate as members of the audience in scientific seminar presentations given by Graduate Students in Biology or Biotechnology. These presentations will be followed by a sort of “debriefing period” directed by another Graduate student in Biology, who will explain to these Law students, in a non-scientific language, the purpose and the meaning of the previous presentation and who will field the students’ questions. During that same period of time, at the Law School, in addition to their regular Law lectures, they will be exposed to Law simulations (Moot Courts - Parliament Hearings - Legal Writings) that will usually involve a legal problem with Bio-technological elements: DNA evidence - Technology transfer contracts - Introduction of a new Legislation in the field of Biotechnology, and so on. During those two years, they should then discover how differently each discipline appraises the realities of life and what appropriate steps each discipline proposes as the right answer to a problem. It is only after those parallel classes that will come the time to consolidate and integrate those different approaches. 7.

Inter-Disciplinary Curriculum

During the Fourth and last year of the cursus, the programme should be made up of two different types of learning activities - I say “should be” because the first cohort will be in its Fourth year only in September 2005. Regular lectures offered by the Department of Biology and by the Faculty of Law will round out their disciplinary learning activities, either in Biotechnology or in Law, while the students will also attend four mandatory courses especially designed to give them the opportunity to experiment in what seems to be a real inter-disciplinary process. Everything in these four courses should be set up to give the students as many opportunities as possible to consider their learning material with either the eyes of a scientist or those of a lawyer and even with the eyes of a person with ethical preoccupations. The subject matters themselves should tend to be more complex, raising mixed questions of Biology, Biotechnology, Economics as well as Local or International Law. Here is a list of the courses devoted to this end: • • • •

DRT 600 Ethics and Biotechnology (3 Cr.) DRT 601 Molecular Biology and Law (3 Cr.) DRT 602 Biotechnology and Market 3 Cr.) DRT 630 Integration Seminar (4 Cr.)

Presented in a more traditional setting, the first three courses in the list should however stand out because of the Teaching and/or Learning Methods they will employ, partly because of the specificity of the learning object itself, but mostly because we plan to give the students a real opportunity to look at these matters from different disciplinary points of view. To that end, we will design lectures to be given in a team teaching format (Biologist and Lawyer; Specialist in Ethics and Economist, etc…), each team member presenting the subject-matter from his own perspective and ready to discuss with his colleague in a serene and open-minded dialogue. The lectures should also be problem-oriented, to allow the students to work in co-operative groups, the first group trying to appraise and solve the problem as scientists would do, the second one like jurists, the third

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ one like ethicists or economists… In order to practise “inter-disciplinarity”, they will have to share their own findings in a directed discussion setting and to « negotiate » in order to define the most appropriate solution for the case on which they are working. As for the fourth Course - The Integration Seminar -, we are planning to invite some Law or Patent Offices or Pharmaceutical Firms to suggest a real case they want to be analysed and appraised in an interdisciplinary perspective. The students involved (groups of 3 to 5) will have to examine the submitted case in its every different aspects, collect the pertinent data, make a proper and adapted diagnostic from a scientific, ethical or legal perspective, work on different inter-disciplinary solutions and arrange a final meeting to propose and discuss with their “so called client” what seems to be the most sensible course of action. After this meeting, they will have to write a final report presenting the various steps of their intervention. 8.

Conclusion

How can we link this outline with the general theme of this conference? The main purpose of this presentation was to demonstrate that in these days of telecommunications and globalisation, one essential and basic challenge of Higher Education must be to facilitate communication between the representatives of highly specialised disciplines. Consequently, to develop a better understanding between specialists in a curriculum perspective, programme designers will have to ensure: • • •

that the main characteristics of each discipline involved will be thoroughly transmitted (to acquire a disciplinary knowledge), that the learners will be trained to the different processes each discipline uses to solve a problem (to develop a multi-disciplinary know-how), and that the learner will be aware, respectful and ready to make the most of the different traditions and various behaviours and culture of several disciplines (to integrate an inter-disciplinary attitude).

Since, to quote the Nineteenth Century evolutionary philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), “The great aim of education is not knowledge but action”, new ways of training must not only be taught, but have to be thoroughly experimented. It seems to us that it is the main goal of an inter-disciplinary process and this is the way we have decided to link Law to Biotechnology, at least in a Learning/Training perspective! And, if I may borrow from Tom Claes’ introductory metaphor, I should add that developing an inter-disciplinary process of learning represents one of many ways for Dwellers to cooperate in reconstructing on the Ruins of the traditional University! Marcel Dubé Faculté de droit Université de Sherbrooke Sherbrooke (Québec) Canada [email protected]

The Changing Landscapes of Education: The Integration of Pre-Registration Nursing Education Within Higher Education Anne Grant Abstract: In Ireland, in 2002, the full-scale integration of pre-registration nursing education into higher education began with the commencement of a four-year Bachelor of Science (Nursing) programme. Consequently, lecturers in nursing have been faced with the challenge of coping with transition from a predominantly hospital-based educational programme to a college-based academic degree programme. In integrating nursing with higher education to advance nursing education, the commitment of nurse lecturers has been tested. Nurse lecturers have had to adapt to a new culture while balancing the administrative, clinical, teaching and research demands of the academic role. The teaching context has a significant impact on lecturers’ perceptions of their professional role. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that nurse lecturers are experiencing varying degrees of difficulty in adapting to the recent change in teaching context and work practice. The literature suggests that lecturers may face difficulties when they are asked to change their practices because of the persistence of past images concerning teaching. The context and culture of hospital-based programmes differs greatly from college-based academic degree programmes. Lecturers in nursing find the increased focus on research and change in teaching style particularly demanding. This paper reviews the integration of nursing education within higher education and in particular, the impact that the context of teaching has on the lecturers’ perception of their professional role. A review of material from nursing and educational sources will highlight both the problems and opportunities for nurse lecturers as they perform their academic role. The paper will conclude by making recommendations as to how lecturers can be facilitated to adapt to their changing role. Key Words: nurse education, hospital based education, higher education, transition, teaching context, integration, professional role. 1.

Introduction

A new model that provides a conceptual framework for the organised study of nursing is emerging. In discussing this new model, Fred Greaves notes that: …The extent to which the innovation is effectively implemented will depend significantly on the profession’s reaction to, and ability to cope with, the change mechanisms involved. Traditional practices and assumptions will be challenged, social and organisational interactions placed under stress, operational roles questioned.1 According to Greaves “the success or failure of the implementation of the new model would depend on the extent to which those involved in nurse education developed the change related values and competencies.”2 In recent years, within Ireland, nurse education has undergone major reform. The changes in the preregistration preparation of nurses, as outlined by the Commission in Nursing (1998) includes a transition from hospital-based training to third level education. This reform, made possible by the 1994 National Initiative to move basic nursing and midwifery education to the university level has led to the rapid growth of both undergraduate and graduate degree programmes including those at doctoral level.3 “Teaching is a profession characterised by inherent uncertainty, and learning to cope with uncertainty is a major part of developing professionally.”4 The aim of this paper is to review the literature that analyses the process of integration and to identify the conditions that enhance the integration process. The author will argue that during the transition from the health service to tertiary education, individual nurse teachers and their managers must address problems related to role ambiguity and issues that arise due to changes in teaching context and work practice. 2.

Nurse Education Reform: the Integration of Nursing Education Within Higher Education

Although reform in pre-registration level education commenced in the late 1980s in the United Kingdom with the introduction of links with higher education and diploma level courses, similar reform did not occur in Ireland until the mid 1990s. Before the mid-1990s, student nurses in Ireland undertook three-year

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ apprenticeship-style, certificate-level, training conducted entirely in hospital-based schools of nursing. However, in 1994, links were forged with the higher education sector resulting in the beginning of diploma level education. By 2002, the full-scale integration of nursing into higher education occurred with the commencement of the four-year Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing. The three main issues that integration of nursing with higher education would potentially address were described by Owen as follows: Firstly, he noted that nurses had been disadvantaged in seeking professional recognition and development as the traditional education system was not academically recognised by higher education. Integration would provide joint validation, awarding both academically and professionally recognised qualifications. Secondly, due to the traditional education system, nurses had been isolated from other academic disciplines and from the considerable educational resources of higher education. Integration would facilitate the sharing of skills and knowledge with other allied disciplines and provide access to extensive educational resources. Thirdly, the isolation of the traditional system from mainstream higher education, had suppressed innovative and creative development. Integration would provide opportunities for nurse teachers and students to work within a more creative environment and add to the professional knowledge base.5 Despite the potential advantages of integration, evidence indicates that it is also a complex and difficult undertaking.6 Firstly; the lecturer role in higher education is complex and multifaceted. It includes contractual obligations to pursue excellence in several directions simultaneously, most notably research and scholarship, teaching, and academic management; and for nurse teachers, this role includes the maintenance of professional standing and the provision of professional services.7 Secondly, the inevitable changes in the role and responsibilities of nurse teachers related to nursing education reform require that they contend with the challenges of change, leaving the health service culture and adapting to the culture of higher education. The most serious difficulty of integration may be the anti-academic culture evident within the nursing profession, as noted by Allen and Jolley (1987); the rejection of the academic content of nursing by nurses is a fundamental problem. Allen and Jolley argue that if integration is ever to truly occur, the nursing profession will have to accept that theory enhances clinical skills and practice.8 In Ireland, in July 2002, despite concerns regarding these difficulties, the majority of nurse teachers availed of the historic opportunity to assimilate to the lecturer grade of their affiliated university. This assimilation was voluntary and nurse teachers had the option of returning to the health service after a one-year probation period if they so wished. However, assimilation was contingent on the possession of a Master’s Degree or the acquisition of a Master’s Degree within three years of commencing the new position of nurse lecturer. The integration of nurse teachers was assisted by an induction programme, funding for professional development and support from a nucleus of nurse teachers who had been working in higher education prior to the integration of pre-registration nursing education. 3.

The Impact of the Teaching Context on the Lecturers’ Perception of their Role

Reynolds has described the teacher’s workplace as “a landscape which can be very persuasive, very demanding, and, in most cases, very restrictive.” 9 According to Reynolds, what surrounds a person, what others expect from the person, and what the person allows to impact on him or her greatly affects his or her identity as a teacher. In support of this view, Pertez et al. 10 found in examining the relationship between the teachers’ work context and their views of themselves as professionals that the teaching context has a significant impact on teachers’ images of their professional selves. These concepts or images of self “strongly determine the way teachers teach, the way they develop as teachers, and their attitudes towards educational changes.”11 Images that teachers’ hold concerning their professional role tend to persist over time, thus, they can be counterproductive to the introduction of plans for school reform and in some cases, strong images may undermine the ability to settle into a particular teaching environment.12 Nias also recognised the resilience of teachers’ orientations and suggested that professional development “often require(s) individuals to alter deeply-rooted, self-defining attitudes, values and beliefs; the personal redefinition which this involves is likely to be slow, stressful and sometimes traumatic.”13 Although leadership and credibility of nurse academics is fundamental to improving the status of nursing as they integrate into higher education, little research has been produced in the last decade on the relationship between the process of achieving the stated goals and the role and function of nurse teachers.14 The research that was conducted examined the effects of links with higher education on the teachers of nursing, reviewing both the old and the new roles of these individuals. Despite the fact that these studies were conducted primarily in the United Kingdom, the findings provide a useful source of information for Irish nurse educators as they integrate into higher education. A recurring theme of many of these studies indicates that nurse teachers feel marginalized when links are established with higher education, and that these feelings of being marginalized are symptomatic of the anxiety engendered by the broad process of change. Marginalization is also related to the loss of involvement in traditional clinical organisations and to a perceived lack of status within the university environment. The differences in culture between higher education and the former schools of nursing underpin

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ many of the difficulties associated with integration. In England, a national study conducted over a three-year period, from 1991 to 1994, explored the changing role of the nurse-teacher after the formation of links with higher education. The issues examined in this study included the difficulties related to academic status, the relationships between nurse-teachers and other lecturers in higher education, changes in teaching style and the place of student nurses within higher education. The findings highlight the complex and multifaceted role of the nurse-teacher and the changes that are occurring in the role. The nurse-teachers perceived an increase in classroom and clinical teaching and a greater emphasis on the level and depth of teaching, the specialist nature of teaching and the variety of courses taught at degree and postgraduate level. These individuals predicted that an important new area for the future role of nurseteachers would be research activities.15 Research by Hardiman also found that nurse-teachers expressed feelings such as loss, lack of belonging, anxiety and general unhappiness, and an apparent lack of clarity about the teacher’s clinical role existed with teachers expressing concern that they did not have enough time to visit the clinical areas.16 Similarly, Carlisle et al. drew attention to the challenges encountered by nurse teachers in higher education in the UK, highlighting issues such as cultural differences in the health and education sectors, the stress that nurse academics experience in attempting to balance and prioritise conflicting role obligations, and the perceived lack of academic status for nurse academics.17 Similarly, Barton’s18 study exploring the integration of nursing and midwifery education within higher education, its effect on the self-perceived role of the teachers involved in the integration process and the views of established university academics also found that many of the respondents had been exposed to stress that had resulted in role conflict and that many had felt marginalized. However, nurse teachers who were established in the university before 2002 appeared to be more objective, they expressed broad anxieties regarding the resource demands and research capability of the new department. More recently, a survey of nursing academics in England by Deans et al. 19 indicated that although advances had been made, a number of concerns regarding the development of nursing as a discipline remain including parity of status with other academic areas, resource issues, workload of nurse teachers and the existence of role ambiguity. The culture of the former schools of nursing and contemporary institutions of higher education raises acute and complex problems for the successful integration of nurse-teachers due to basic and profound differences in the cultures of these organisations.20 Schools differ from universities in four ways: work tempo, focus, reward and power.21 In terms of work tempo, Brookhard and Loadman note that time in schools is controlled by administration, whereas in higher education, traditionally, faculty members have control over their time.22 Having control over ones work schedule facilitates flexible working conditions but this may be problematic for some nurse teachers who may not have had much scope to manage their own time in the former schools of nursing. Regarding focus, the focal point of schools is on the application of knowledge, in contrast, the university emphasises the contribution of theory to practice. In schools, teachers derive intrinsic rewards from working with students, whereas in universities rewards tend to be extrinsic, recognition is achieved through the presentation and publication of papers. Although the mission of institutions of higher learning is unique to each setting, the commitment to scholarly approach to education, practice and research creates common bonds across the academic community.23 In universities teaching is only one aspect, other functions include research and service to the community. However, “the scholarship of discovery and research has generally occupied a more prominent and prestigious position on the national agenda than the scholarship of application and teaching.” 24 Hence, although academic excellence is purported to include a range of indicators, genuine rewards for those who do not have strong research profiles is not widely noted by academics.25 Power is the fourth way that schools differ from universities. Although teachers may have personal power in their classroom, expert power is most often granted to the university lecturer due to the fact that the traditional scholarship of the university lecturer is fundamentally underpinned by a research culture.26 A potential problem of role conflict or confusion is predicted for nurse teachers in the process of adapting from a predominantly teaching role of the hospital-based programmes to the research role of the university academic.27 Role ambiguity can be regarded as “a workplace uncertainty under which teachers need to make professional judgements about their own teaching and students’ learning.” 28 The new demands of the teacher role and learning methods may result in increased role ambiguity. Barton29 argues that in the process of integration into higher education, nurse teachers have suffered from role conflict due to the diffuse nature of the teacher role and the characteristics of colleges as institutions. A strong prediction in the literature is that the emphasis on research will cause nurse teachers to prioritise research over teaching. Nurse academics report that they welcome the increased focus on nursing research and nursing knowledge as it may lead to their acceptance in the world of academia and in the international arena. Although this finding reflects a degree of optimism in nurse academics to achieve scholarly recognition, evidence from research by Congdon and French30 also indicates that some nurse teachers may devalue research and publication, viewing it as the process of education, particularly, as they perceive the nurturing element of the teacher-student relationship to be most important. Many of the participants in Congdon and French’s study expressed concern over the fact that their focus on

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ teaching did not appear to be valued by their students or the institution. Similarly, Deans et al. 31found that respondents wanted greater recognition of teaching and practice as valid criteria for academic promotion. These findings are similar to previous research involving teacher-educators conducted by Mahoney and Over.32 and Burroughs-Lange33 that indicated an apparent lack of value for nurturer and motivator roles of the lecturer, It is apparent therefore that the move into the culture of higher education has caused a crisis of conscience for many nurse teachers.34 As Keyzer35 has suggested, the socialisation of nurse teachers into their role in higher education may result in a transfer of traditional academic values and, consequently, a devaluing of teaching and clinical practice may ensue. Maintaining links with the clinical environment is demanding as nurse teachers have many other commitments to fulfil. The prioritisation of tasks becomes difficult resulting in feelings of confusion as the nurse teacher is essentially torn between the clinical and scholastic environment. Ideally, a balanced and contextually appropriate development of all these elements should be encouraged, as they are equally essential to the fulfilment of the mission of higher education. In regard to the nature of teaching, higher education advocates a progressive mode of study and espouses principles of andragogy. As noted by Lea36, in a progressive mode of study, the teacher moves freely between a variety of roles including initiator, catalyst, facilitator, and critic. Hence, in the higher education sector the emphasis is on the teacher as facilitator rather than as a transmitter of knowledge. In contrast, though nurse teachers in the former schools of nursing advocated the use of andragogical principles, Congdon and French37 proposed that “the true experience and understanding of the principles and practice of andragogy may have become confused with the nurturing ethic and the custodial system of hospital life”. Consequently, the literature has suggested that nurse educators may have an inclination toward nurturing (nursing) their students, and hence may face difficulties in adhering to an andragogical approach to education. Comments of many of the respondents in Congdon and French’s study indicated the hierarchical nature of their former working relationships with student nurses in schools of nursing. For example, “I advised and told students what to do…and I spoon-fed them with knowledge” reflect the training rather than educative nature of the preparation of nurses. Congdon and French concluded that some educators appear to retain their need to be responsible for the learning of their students and in that sense nurse them.38 A propensity towards nursing students appears to be a contra-indication to an adult learning approach adopted by higher education in which independent learning and student autonomy are advocated. Overall, on the basis of research conducted to date, it appears that in order to play an effective role in nurse education within higher education institutions, nurse-teachers must acquire a wider educational prerogative and be more proactive.39 4.

Recommendations to Facilitate Nurse Lecturers to Adapt to their Changing Role

The evidence presented here implies that some nurse teachers are unwilling or unable to make the transition to higher education. This raises important issues as to whether teachers who are unable or unwilling to make the new transition should be ignored or aided in the acquisition of the new skills expected of them in the context of current educational reforms. In view of current educational reforms, many nurse teachers may feel threatened and/or apprehensive, and, of course, some may find the transition difficult. Therefore, it is important that nurse lecturers be given appropriate support, education and training to enable them to cope with the pace and magnititude of expected changes. It is equally vital for managers to understand the stress that innovation may engender in staff and the need for the staff to be helped in acquiring the diversity of skills expected of them.40 Looking to theories of social change, the importance of good communications is paramount. Nurse lecturers have to accommodate and adapt to two very different systems of health and education, and to effectively integrate both theoretical and practical issues.41 Communication must be sensitive. As Rogers noted, “if information threatens, it kills support and if it is not understood resistance will be generated.” 42 Collaboration allows teachers to make sense of their work and reduces role ambiguity.43 The concept of collegiality is central to an understanding of university culture. According to Congdon and French collegiality is: Interdependent working conditions developed by scholars, in which they can learn from each other, share and develop their expertise together; and where empowerment, critical reflection, feedback, and commitment to continuous improvement are a recognised part of their professional obligation.44 Hargreaves45 agrees with Congdon and French, noting that collegiality among teachers and between teachers and their leaders has been advanced as one of the most fruitful strategies for fostering teaching development. Campbell46 also argues that the effective implementation of curriculum reform depends on the development of collegial relationships and joint planning among the teaching staff, allowing central guideline to be interpreted and adapted to the context of each school, and building commitment and understanding among

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ teachers responsible for implementing newly devised curriculum. In addition to collaboration, individual lecturers must examine what impact their previous work context may have in shaping their current approach to facilitating student learning. The findings of Peretz et al.47 highlight the need for teachers to understand their own approach to teaching in order to gain insight into their personal theories of the teaching-learning situation and to understand how they view their teacher roles. Issues of personal change can be assessed by professional self-evaluation and self-awareness can be aided by a mentorship system involving already established academic colleagues. Finally, a planned induction to the university system may help to minimise insularity and marginalisation. Induction programmes need to enable new lecturers to understand how the faculty functions as an organisation, to examine what it means to work as a lecturer, enabling them to not only settle into the faculty, but also to understand the ways in which the faculty can be influenced so that their own aspirations may be more fully realised.48 5.

Conclusion

This paper explores the role of the nurse lecturer within a changing policy and curriculum landscape. The process of nursing and midwifery education integrating with higher education emerged due to a complex process of national and local events. A predictable outcome was that such events would result in role stress for the individual teachers. The role of the nurse teacher has been, and continues to be, complex and difficult to define adequately. The complexity of the teacher’s role increases with integration with higher education due to the imposition of a new culture, which requires them to adapt and redefine this role. The view that nurse teachers are prepared for such a change is debatable. The competing responsibilities of teaching the theory and practice of nursing, of facilitating the development of clinical skills, the ongoing pressure for higher degree status, and the added responsibility to conduct and publish research may well be an unrealistic goal to expect of every nurse teacher. To add to the stress and confusion, integration has resulted in major organisational restructuring as the formal arrangement of the traditional schools of nursing bear little resemblance to the organisational structure found within institutions of higher education. Therefore, it is imperative that discussion occurs on the position of nurse teachers in higher education. There is still a need to learn more about the impact of reforms on teachers’ perceptions of their work and how these factors may affect the job that nurse teachers carry out. Continuing professional development through collaborative practice is an important way that schools may deal with other-imposed and self-imposed changes. In addition, recognition of the professional commitment, creative potential and intellectual capabilities of new lecturers will help to establish the foundation for their continued professional learning and harness valuable resources in the ongoing transformation of education. Finally, it is anticipitated that as more integration occurs in higher education, and as nursing matures as an academic discipline, nurse teachers will find their niche within higher education.

Notes 1. Fred Greaves, “Innovation, Changes, Decision-Making and the Key Variables in Curriculum Innovation,” International Journal of Nursing Studies 19 (11) (1982): 11-19. 2. Ibid. 3. An Bord Altranais, The Future of Nursing Education and Training in Ireland (Dublin: An Bord Altranais, 1994), 11. 4. E. Munthe, “Teachers’ Workplace and Professional Certainty,” Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003): 801-813. 5. G.M. Owen, “For Better or Worse-Nursing in Higher Education,” Journal of Advanced Nursing 13 (1988): 3-13. 6. T.D. Barton, “The Integration of Nursing and Midwifery Education Within Higher Education: Implications for Teachers - A Qualitative Research Study,” Journal of Advanced Nursing 27 (1998): 1278-1286. 7. Fry H. et al., A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Enhancing Academic Practice (London: Kogan Page Limited, 1999). 8. Allen P. and M. Jolley, The Curriculum in Nurse Education (London: Chapman and Hall, 1987), 14. 9. C. Reynolds, quoted in D. Beijaard et al., “Reconsidering Research on Teachers’ Professional Identity,” Teaching and Teacher Education 20 (1996): 107-128. 10. M.B. Peretz et al., “How Teachers in Different Educational Contexts View their Roles,” Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2) (2003): 277- 290. 11. D. Beijaard et al., “Reconsidering Research on Teachers’ Professional Identity,” Teaching and Teacher Education 20 (2004): 107-128.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ 12. K. Hawkey, “Image and Pressure to Conform in Learning to Teach,” Teaching and Teacher Education 12 (1) (1996): 99-108. 13. J. Nias, “Teaching and the Self,” in Perspectives on Teachers’ Professional Development, ed. M. Holly and C. McLoughlin, (London Falmer Press, 1989), 155-172. 14. C. Deans et al., “Nurse Education in English Universities in a Period of Change: Expectations of Nurse Academics for the Year 2008,” Nurse Education Today 23 (2003): 146-154. 15. M. Crotty, “The Emerging Role of the British Nurse Teacher in Project 2000 Programmes: a Delphi Survey,” Journal of Advanced Nursing 18 (1993): 150-157. 16. R. H. Hardiman, “Teachers’ Experiences of their Role Following the Implementation of Project 2000: a Qualitative Approach,” Journal of Advanced Nursing 18 (1993): 1023-1032. 17. C. Carlisle et al., “The Changes in the Role of the Nurse Teacher Following the Formation of Links with Higher Education,” Journal of Advanced Nursing 24 (1996): 762-770. 18. Barton, 1278. 19. Deans et al., 146. 20. N. Watson and M.G. Fullan, quoted in D. Stevens “The Ideal, Real and Surreal in School-University Partnerships: Reflections of Boundary Spanner,” Teaching and Teacher Education 15 (1999), 287-299. 21. S.M. Brookhart and W.E. Loadman, “School University Collaboration: Different Workplace Cultures,” Contemporary Education l 61 (3) (1990): 125-128. 22. American Association of Colleges of Nursing, “Defining Scholarship for the Discipline of Nursing,” Journal of Professional Nursing 15 (6) (1999): 372-376. 23. Fry et al., 2. 24. E.T. Sellers, Images of Nursing in Academia: Perceptions of the Discipline of Nursing by Non Nursing Academics (Unpublished doctoral theses, Monash University 1994): 10. 25. D.D. Stevens, “The Ideal, Real and Surreal in School-University Partnerships: Reflections of a Boundary Spanner,” Teaching and Teacher Education 15 (1999): 287-299. 26. Deans et al., 148. 27. Munthe, 801. 28. Barton, 1278. 29. G. Congdon and P. French, “Collegiality, Adaptation and Nursing faculty,” Journal of Advanced Nursing 21 (1995): 748 - 758. 30. Deans et al., 152. 31. D. Mahoney and R. Over, “Teacher Education in Australian Universities in a Period of Change: Predictions and Preferences for the Year 2000,” Higher Education 26 (1993): 147-165. 32. S.G. Burroughs-Lange, “University Lecturers’ Concept of their Role,” Higher Education Research and Development 15(1) (1996): 29-47. 33. Barton, 1279. 34. D. M. Keyzer, New Nursing and Education - A Redefinition of Roles Within the Division of Labour in Nursing Education (Cardiff: University of Wales Central Council, 1992), 18. 35. C. Lea quoted in D. Brandes and P. Ginnis, A Guide to Student Centred Learning (UK: Blackwell, 1986), 112. 36. Congdon and French, 748. 37. S. Camiah, “New Skills required of Nurse Tutors In the UK: A Study Within Two Project 2000 Pilot Schemes for Pre-registration Nursing Courses,” Nurse Education Today 18 (1998): 93 - 100. 38. Ibid. 39. Owen, 3. 40. E. M. Rogers, Diffusion in Innovation (New York: Free Press, 1962), 12. 41. Munthe, 802. 42. Congdon and French, 758. 43. Hargreaves quoted in Congdon, 748 - 758. 44. Ibid. 45. J. Kuzmic, “A Beginning Teacher’s Search for Meaning: Teacher Socialisation, Organisation Literacy, and Empowerment,” Teaching and Teacher Education 10 (1994): 15-27.

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References American Association of Colleges of Nursing. “Defining Scholarship for the Discipline of Nursing.” Journal of Professional Nursing 15(6) (1999): 372-376. An Bord Altranais. The Future of Nursing Education and Training in Ireland. Dublin: An Bord Altranais, 1994. Allen, P. and M. Jolley. The Curriculum in Nurse Education. London: Chapman and Hall, 1987. Barton, T.D. “The Integration of Nursing and Midwifery Education Within Higher Education: Implications for Teachers - a Qualitative Research Study.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 27 (1998): 1278-1286. Burroughs-Lange, S.G. “University Lecturers’ Concept of their Role.” Higher Education Research and Development 15 (1) (1996): 29-47. Beijaard, D., P.C. Meijer and N. Verloop. “Reconsidering Research on Teachers’ Professional Identity.” Teaching and Teacher Education 20 (2004): 107-128. Brandes, D. and P. Ginnis. A Guide to Student Centred Learning. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. Brookhart, S.M. and W.E. Loadman. “School University Collaboration: Different Workplace Cultures.” Contemporary Education 61(3) (1990): 125-128. Camiah, S. “New Skills Required of Nurse Tutors In the UK: A Study Within Two Project 2000 Pilot Schemes for Pre-registration Nursing Courses.” Nurse Education Today 18 (1998): 93 - 100. Congdon, G. and P. French. “Collegiality, Adaptation and Nursing Faculty.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 21 (1995) 748 - 758. Crotty, M. “The Emerging Role of the British Nurse Teacher in Project 2000 Programmes: a Delphi Survey.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 18 (1993): 150-157. Carlisle, C, S. Kirk and K.A. Lurker. “The Changes in the Role of the Nurse Teacher Following the Formation of Links with Higher Education.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 24 (1996): 762-770. Deans, C., G. Congdon and T. Sellers. “Nurse Education in English Universities in a Period of Change: Expectations of Nurse Academics for the Year 2008.” Nurse Education Today 23 (2003): 146-154. Fry, H, S. Ketteridge and S. Maeshall. A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Enhancing Academic Practice. London: Kogan Page Limited, 1999. Greaves, F.D. “Innovation, Changes, Decision-making and the Key Variables in Curriculum Innovation.” International Journal of Nursing Studies 19(11) (1982): 11-19. Hardiman, R.H. “Teachers’ Experiences of their Role Following the Implementation of Project 2000: a Qualitative Approach.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 18 (1993): 1023-1032. Hawkey, K. “Image and Pressure to Conform in Learning to Teach.” Teaching and Teacher Education 12(1) (1996) 99-108. Keyzer, D.M. New Nursing and Education - A Redefinition of Roles Within the Division of Labour in Nursing Education. Cardiff: University of Wales Central Council, 1992. Kuzmic, J. “A Beginning Teacher’s Search for Meaning: Teacher Socialisation, Organisation Literacy, and Empowerment.” Teaching and Teacher Education 10 (1994): 15-27. Mahoney, D. and R. Over. “Teacher Education in Australian Universities in a Period of Change: Predictions and Preferences for the Year 2000.” Higher Education 26 (1993): 147-165. Munthe, E. “Teachers’ Workplace and Professional Certainty.” Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003):

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ 801-813. Nias, J. “Teaching and the Self.” In: Perspectives on Teachers’ Professional Development, edited by M. Holly and C. Mc Loughlin, 155-172. London: Falmer Press, 1989. Owen, G.M. “For Better or Worse-Nursing in Higher Education.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 13 (1988): 3-13. Peretz, M.B, N. Mendelson and W.K. Friedrich. “How Teachers in Different Educational Contexts View their Roles.” Teaching and Teacher Education 19(2) (2003): 77- 290. Rogers, E. M. Diffusion in Innovation. New York: Free Press, 1962. Reynolds, C. in D. Beijaard, P.C. Meijer and N. Verloop. “Reconsidering Research on Teachers’ Professional Identity.” Teaching and Teacher Education 20 (1996): 107-128. Stevens, D.D. “The Ideal, Real and Surreal in School-university Partnerships: Reflections of a Boundary Spanner.” Teaching and Teacher Education 15 (1999): 287-299. Sellers, E.T. Images of Nursing in Academia: Perceptions of the Discipline of Nursing by Non Nursing Academics. Unpublished doctoral theses: Monash University, 1994. Watson, N. and M.G. Fullan “Beyond School District-University Partnerships” in The Ideal, Real and Surreal in School-university Partnerships: Reflections of a Boundary Spanner, edited by D Stevens, Teaching and Teacher Education 15 (1999): 287-299. Anne Grant University College Dublin Ireland [email protected]

Part II Changing Structures of Education

A Scholarship of Teaching and the Idea of Education in Schools and Teacher Education1 Caroline Daly, Norbert Pachler and David Lambert Abstract: In this paper we contribute to the continuing re-conceptualisation of the intellectual component of teacher education. In doing so we offer a progress report on the pilot year of a new type of higher education course at Masters level taught at the Institute of Education, University of London. The Master of Teaching (MTeach) award is a departure from longestablished ideas about teacher education, differing from more traditional Masters courses (including Master of Education [MEd] courses) in its ‘delivery’ mode and locus of control, and is based on the notion of shared knowledge construction at a distance through computermediated communication (CMC). Participants are not preoccupied with the acquisition and critical analysis of established orthodoxies and epistemologies in the field, but are concerned to develop a ‘scholarship of teaching,’ by which to understand more deeply their practice in the context of a learning culture. The paper examines how the knowledge base of the course lies in the interactive environment of the electronic forums themselves: these forums help constitute and mediate a ‘professional learning academy,’ at the centre of which lies the notion of corporate professional responsibility for teacher learning within an interactive environment. Key Words: Teaching, education, professional communication, scholarship, masters degree 1.

development,

computer-mediated

Introduction

Our interest in the scholarship of teaching derives from the work undertaken by Ernest Boyer and Eugene Rice in the early 1990s identifying this as one of the four scholarships (discovery, integration, application and teaching).2 Subsequent efforts to develop the field have encouraged us to take ideas across the frontiers that exist between the ‘phases’ of education, from primary to higher education (HE),3 and in this sense we are concerned with lifelong learning.4 Our direct concern is with the education and training of primary and secondary school teachers, and the support afforded to their early professional development by the new ‘Master of Teaching’ degree at the Institute of Education, University of London.5 However, pervading all this is the ‘idea of education,’ especially how the idea is encountered by school age students. Our working assumption is that the idea of education is elusive and very difficult to nurture without thoughtful, skilful and autonomous teachers, who are informed and have been well prepared. But even this is not enough as we shall see, and the notion of the scholarship of teaching is designed to suggest not only the complex web of knowledge, understanding and skills that teachers require to be excellent practitioners but also other capacities and dispositions towards learning that take us beyond traditional discourses of efficiency and effectiveness. The paper is in three parts. A series of fairly brief discussions in the first part of the paper attempts to locate the MTeach within the context of ‘professional learning communities’ and more specifically in debates that distinguish levels of intellectual engagement in teaching. The second part attempts to locate the pedagogy of the MTeach in a wider theoretical and conceptual framework. The third part provides a deeper discussion of classrooms as social spaces, which become the source of learning for new teachers situated in an electronic networked learning community. 2.

A Scholarship of Teaching

This paper self-consciously treads gingerly into a large, complicated and quite ill defined field of enquiry. For example, our initial comments imply links to discussions on teacher identities and teachers’ beliefs, images and conceptions of their work. Entwistle et al. (2001) review much of this literature and provide a ‘nested hierarchy’ of categories arranged to show how teachers can expand their awareness of teaching through increasing the complexity of their conceptions.6 Such growth involves shifts in epistemologies but also in teachers’ theories of learning - indeed, it traces how teaching moves from an activity whose orientation is primarily with subject/content to one which is essentially learning centred. Considerations such as these are also entwined with ideas of professionalism, which again we acknowledge but into which we carefully avoid being enticed too deeply at this stage. It is perhaps sufficient simply to note, as others have shown, that the designation ‘professional’ fails to convey a stable and agreed state.7 The term has various connotations, but nevertheless we agree with those - and there are many - who say that teaching certainly ‘feels’ like a profession according to most criteria. This is significant as it provides purchase to the notion of shared professionalism. Much of what follows depends on long established (but not necessarily successfully realised) theories of schools as social organisms in which individuals are not understood

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ as discrete elements of a machine-like operation, but as active participants.8 Specifically, we are interested in what can be done to nurture participation in what Hargreaves terms the ‘knowledge creating school.’9 There is possibly no greater challenge facing teacher educators and trainers today, whether located in the schools themselves or in HE: An effect of recent educational reforms has been to discourage teachers from engaging in the process of professional knowledge creation by which, in rapidly changing social conditions in schools and society, the profession generates new knowledge to become more effective… (The) dissemination of existing good practice is an inadequate basis for making a success of schools in the knowledge economy: we need to generate better knowledge and practices.10 We have used the term scholarship of teaching primarily because we feel it successfully captures the sense of autonomous, yet collegiate, professional operation on which the knowledge creating school depends. And yet, as Hutchings and Shulman have also noted, we are aware that the term may be off-putting and even confusing.11 For those who see teaching as quintessentially a practical activity, scholarship, in the sense that it denotes ‘research’ and the contentious evidential basis for policy development,12 may be perceived as an unwelcome adjunct to an already impossible job. There are many, practitioners and managers alike, who would be most cautious about the addition of scholarly activity to the loads of new or early career teachers (and note that the Master of Teaching was devised mainly to serve the needs of early professional development [EPD]). This paper, therefore, explores the notion of the scholarship of teaching and attempts to exemplify its meaning and its potential to describe an aspect of what we call ‘practitioner capacity.’ Although it would probably be pleasing from the reader’s point of view to be supplied with definitions of these terms, we will resist the temptation to provide them, because we see this as work in progress. However, some distinctions can be made. Scholarship of teaching implies more than excellent practice, for although we want to escape the limits of the old binary divide between practice and theory, we do want to emphasise the intellectual content of teaching, the hinterland so to speak behind an impressive performance. Hutchings and Shulman go further and distinguish the scholarship of teaching from ‘scholarly’ (or perhaps ‘reflective’) teaching,13 which they characterise as an extension of excellent classroom practice, for example when teachers are informed by current ideas in their field, or when teaching is open to peer review. Thus, the term scholarship of teaching contains a more ambitious notion than is captured by reflectivity, thoughtful practice or hinterland. In Hutchings and Shulman’s words: A scholarship of teaching is not synonymous with excellent teaching. It requires a kind of ‘going meta,’ in which faculty frame and systematically investigate questions related to student learning - the conditions under which it occurs, what it looks like, how to deepen it and so forth - and do so with an eye not only to improving their own classroom but to advancing practice beyond it.14 The authors observe that not all teachers will (or should) engage directly with the scholarship of teaching, even though many more could (and should) be given the opportunity to do so. Engagement in the scholarship of teaching is, however, a condition for the advancement of excellent teaching at all levels - the scholarship of teaching, in other words, has the potential to serve all teachers (and students). A reasonable question at this point concerns how this might be accomplished - both the engagement and the pedagogic leadership it implies. Many initial teacher education (ITE) courses may claim, however implicitly, to induct new teachers into the kinds of dispositions towards their work that provide the basis for engagement in the scholarship of teaching. However, we suspect that a single postgraduate training year, governed by external national standards,15 can never provide sufficient support and guidance for any meaningful notion of the scholarship of teaching to take hold. This, partly, explains the creation of the MTeach. 3.

Education, Schools, and Teacher Learning

In planning the MTeach we have been concerned with the idea of education in its widest sense. Broadly speaking we find much that is exciting and true in Guy Claxton’s analysis of lifelong learning16 - not only in terms of what young people need in order to become effective learners for the rest of their lives in a rapidly changing, risky and uncertain world, but in terms of how teachers need to address their role (and therefore, how they are to be prepared). It almost goes without saying, that the way the current school curriculum in England is designed (fairly rigidly and attached to high status tests), and the way schools are organised (in largely unfriendly environments, physically and economically, and in intensive competition with each other inter alia through published league tables), does not foster confidence in the school system’s ability to produce well prepared and informed citizens. As Claxton writes,

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ The vast majority of adults involved in education know that schools are not equipping young people to face the complex demands and uncertainties of the 21st century…One 19-year-old woman spoke for many when she said: ‘A lot of the time at school they teach you the knowledge, but they never teach you how to learn.’17 What interests us as teacher educators is education as a process engaged in by people in order to understand themselves as learners. What we are passionate about is the idea of preparing new teachers in a way that helps them engage in education when they teach, and resist the false prophets who tell them that they needn’t bother. The analysis of the ‘survivalist discourse’ that often pervades the induction of teachers, resulting in coping strategies and moral defeat for some able recruits into teaching, is well understood.18 This may help explain the circumstances that Hargreaves mentions, that (teachers) in a school are often collectively ignorant of the knowledge that exists among themselves; in consequence, they cannot share and draw upon that knowledge. At the same time, they do not know what knowledge is lacking, that is recognising their ignorance, to identify where new knowledge needs to be created.19 One outcome from such a line of thought is to conclude, rightly, that new teachers are in as much need of educational experiences themselves as are the students they teach. They need to learn how to behave intelligently and know what to do (when they do not know what to do). Some time ago it was customary to think that, after a little judicious theoretical foundation, such learning took place ‘on the job’ or ‘through experience,’ and of course, some of it does just as an apprentice learns from an experienced practitioner or expert in the field. More recently it has become de rigueur to exhort the need for reflection to be part of such real-life learning, as this can help sort out some deficiencies of a simple craft apprentice model (we can, and often do, learn bad habits from our ‘masters’). There is probably little doubt that new teachers are now better prepared, practically, than ever before. Standards of planning, preparation, organisation and management are now very high. However, it is now time to refine yet further the frameworks in which learning to teach takes place. Fundamental in how we are beginning to conceptualise the professional formation of new teachers is to focus on the need for teachers to become good professional learners. We are insistent that the educational goal behind all teachers’ actions is to foster learning among the pupils - literally to make them good learners too. To accomplish this teachers need to understand learning, be able to analyse it, know how (and when) to force it, wait for it, look for it, stimulate it, encourage it…accept that it is available to all and above all, that learning can be learned (that is, behaving or responding more intelligently can be learned). For many new and more experienced teachers alike this may require a substantial act of faith. We need to be able to depend upon more than just an act of faith to move teachers on. Nor is refocusing teacher education onto exploring learning in this way merely a way for honing the ‘science of teaching.’ To return to Claxton: In a committed learning school, teachers are not afraid to be seen as learners. They do not feel obliged to know everything, all the time. In fact they see it as an essential part of their professional role to model what Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer calls ‘confident uncertainty,’ and to let themselves be seen in the process of learning.20 Reflective practice, which has become the emblem of scholarly teaching, is in itself not enough unless it includes explicitly an element of critical enquiry. 4.

The Master of Teaching

The MTeach programme was piloted in the year 2001-2 with fifty participants in their first year of teaching and a further eight in their second or third year of teaching. It aims to provide a framework of ‘support for talented new teachers in urban schools.’21 It enables and encourages high level professional learning to take place and accredits this at Masters level,22 through the use of portfolio assessments (containing a number of ‘evidence studies’), nurturing an enquiry approach to understanding teaching and raising levels of research literacy and practitioner research capacity. Though developed entirely independently, it demonstrates a number of similarities, at least in ethos and intention, to the professional masters programme for teachers reported by Selke in the USA.23 The methodological innovation of the MTeach lies in the formation of what we have called the ‘professional learning academy,’ which has at its heart a number of linked online learning communities (in effect MTeach tutor groups) consisting of programme participants from up to fifteen schools, a university tutor and in time (we hope), other personnel who share an interest in early professional learning and the development of scholarly teaching in the participants’ schools.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ In essence, the MTeach requires participants to provide public accounts of several aspects of teaching the establishment of goals, the management of learning environments, the design of materials, the evaluation of outcomes, the assessment of learning - all of which receive critical review from peers and tutor. Much effort is expended on asking and refining good questions and pursuing investigations and enquiries. This is certainly designed to provide the basis for productive professional conversations (‘talking teaching’ - see below) across the ‘academy,’ but perhaps more fundamentally to engender a sense of responsibility in each participant and the acceptance that the source for their professional learning (and of meaningful professional knowledge creation) lies in their classrooms. We are aware of the similarities between the MTeach concept of the professional learning academy and the networked learning communities (NLC) programme of the National College for School Leadership: The NLC programme is designed to improve learning opportunities for pupils and to support the development of schools as professional learning communities. It places teachers, leaders and schools at the heart of innovation and knowledge creation within the profession and enables the development of local, context specific practices and solutions that can be explained and interpreted by schools in other contexts. 24 The MTeach was devised specifically with early professional development in mind, and as a Masters level degree has an educational function that distinguishes it from NLCs. This will support the development of the knowledge, understanding and skills which perhaps the NLC programme assumes is ‘out there’ and is possible to harness or gather. We hope that head teachers will value their new teachers’ participation as helpful in the development of a distributed leadership pattern in the school, as the intention is that teachers graduating with an MTeach will have a role in understanding and developing pedagogic practices beyond their own classrooms. In this way the MTeach shares Jean Else’s aspiration (2002), when she declares that schools ‘need to look for leaders young’ adding that leaders are identified by ‘that extra spark, people who don’t just come in and do it, but add something more.’25 The MTeach will enable participants to offer forms of pedagogic leadership from an early stage in their professional careers. 5.

Some Theoretical Perspectives on the Pedagogy of the Master of Teaching

The MTeach has been conceived - and continues to be developed - by a number of experienced teacher educators with varied subject expertise from across the Primary and Secondary spectrum. Regular team meetings of course tutors, module and course leaders are characterised by a consideration of pedagogical principles and talk about teaching which, unfortunately, has over the years been more or less edged out of meetings of tutors involved in most initial teacher education provision in England and Wales. The focus is sadly now firmly and predominantly on compliance with ever more prescriptive government edicts. The talking of and about teaching is not only the focus of the work carried out by course participants but is a key characteristic of the discourse amongst MTeach course tutors as well. In one sense - quite apart from its aim of engaging participants in a scholarly approach to teaching - the MTeach can be seen as an antidote to a prescriptive initial teacher education curriculum which progressively incapacitates teacher educators and conceives of them as little more than delivery agents of government prescriptions. The pedagogy of the course emerged over time through the shared spaces of interdisciplinary, cross-curricular and cross-phase planning meetings focussing on common themes: how to facilitate a better understanding of teaching amongst participants, how to ensure course pedagogy is congruent with course aims and objectives and how to exploit the potential of new technologies to good effect in supporting the needs of busy professionals undergoing early professional development in situ. Indeed, the potential afforded by new technologies has significantly informed the design of the MTeach and its delivery which in essence can best be characterised as mixed-mode, employing online networking as well as, but to a much lesser extent, traditional face-to-face modes comprising inter alia traditional seminars based largely on inductive approaches as well as a few traditional lectures to deliver course-related information and content. The heavy reliance upon new technologies for the delivery of the course we see justified in that education can essentially be seen to be “about interaction, conceptual change, and collaborative convergence”26 all of which new technologies can facilitate well. The use of online networking for the MTeach is particularly noteworthy as course tutors have, by-and-large, not had a lot of prior experience in online tutoring and had to ‘learn by doing’ how to create an environment conducive to the constructional and conversational discourses upon which the course is predicated: they had to learn to moderate, mediate and facilitate online discussions. This in turn made for rich exchanges of experience in planning meetings. Tutors are having to get to grips with the five attributes which distinguish online educational discourse communities and embed them in their own practice:27

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ • • • • •

many-to-many (group communication); any place (place-independence); any time (asynchronicity, time-independence); text-based (enhanced by multiple media), and computer-mediated messaging.

In particular, the facilitating of active exchanges amongst participants (including their multiplicity and multi-perspectivity), the ongoing nature of knowledge building and articulation of ideas as well as the access to discourse transcripts documenting collaborative learning (i.e. the secure web-archive of contributions to online discussions) is proving highly valuable and challenging at the same time. Technical and conceptual challenges occurred not only around certain aspects of the particular online environment used (YahooGroups) but also at perceptual-pedagogical level, for example around the effective use of threading and the development of strategies for monitoring the quantity and quality of participants’ contributions. Particular anxieties arose around ensuring that participants’ work meets with requisite (i.e. Masters) level standards, not because it does not but because course participants invariably contribute differently to electronic forums compared with formal seminar rooms. This MTeach tutors needed to get used to. The MTeach is characterised by a strong belief in social constructivist approaches to learning, i.e. the co-operative nature of knowledge building and pursuit: learning is not a simple matter of information transmission. Teachers cannot simply pour information into the heads of learners; rather, learning is an active process in which people construct new understandings of the world around them through active exploration, experimentation, discussion, and reflection.28 Rather than being based on knowledge transmission, much work on the MTeach is conversational in nature, i.e. it involves participants continually in a discourse about their own learning and that of their peers with reference to relevant conceptual and theoretical frameworks. The conversational nature of online discussions, in particular the extent to which relevant background reading should and can be explicitly cross-referenced in contributions, is proving to be a particular focal point for discussion amongst course tutors as are strategies for ensuring appropriate analytical depth and sharpness of focus of contributions. Discourse is a fundamental aspect of learning. ‘Learning is enhanced by articulation, abstraction, and commitment on the part of the learner: instruction should provide opportunities for learners to articulate their newly acquired knowledge.’ (…) Articulation is a cognitive act in which the student presents, defends, develops, and refines ideas. To articulate their ideas, students must organize their thoughts and information into knowledge structures. Active learner participation leads to multiple perspectives on issues, a divergence of ideas, and positions that students must sort through to find meaning and convergence. Cognitive growth and development of problem-solving skills depend on epistemic conflict, that is, the collision of adverse opinion (…). Students encounter opportunities to experience and resolve academic controversies in the online discourse environment.29 To achieve discourse with these qualities poses a considerable pedagogical challenge for tutors not only in terms of managing online networks of distributed participants, in creating a sense of belonging, commitment and teamwork but also in terms of shaping, planning, structuring and sequencing educational discourse to take place through online discussions. In order to achieve discourse of knowledge building qualities, we have developed for the MTeach what in Bernd Rüschoff and Markus Ritter’s words might be called a ‘template-based’ approach to learning about teaching.30 They rightly posit that appropriate tasks, which engage learners in the construction of something shareable and which make both the content of requisite knowledge, skills and understanding as well as the process of learning transparent, are key cognitive tools. With reference to Florin (1990) they use the metaphor of ‘intellectual amusement parks’ for the learning material of the future.31 We remain to be convinced by such metaphoric puns. Nevertheless, (cognitive) tools empower learners to design their own representations of knowledge rather than absorbing knowledge representations preconceived by others. Cognitive tools can be used to support the deep reflective thinking that is necessary for meaningful learning. Ideally, tasks or problems for the application of cognitive tools should be situated in realistic contexts with results that are personally meaningful for learners.32

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ For Rüschoff and Ritter learning templates encourage the ‘on-the-fly’ recording of thoughts and impressions whilst examining learning materials and they provide a framework for information gathering, the stimulation of recall of prior knowledge and the guiding of knowledge construction.33 The learning templates used by the MTeach may best be seen as problem-solving in orientation, encouraging participants to ‘go meta’ about their teaching. Various modules of the MTeach are constructed around a series of online discussions. Each of these discussions, accessible to participants on the passwordprotected MTeach website, follows a pattern or ‘learning template’ which has evolved through discussions of course tutors: an opening page/section delineates briefly the aims, purpose and context of the discussion within the module in which it is located. From this, participates can move either to the task itself or to a background paper written specifically by course tutors drawing on key literature in the field and listing carefully selected, recommended background reading. The task usually offers a choice of questions as well as links to two or three digitised core readings. Participants are encouraged to read the background paper before they choose the task and to engage with the digitised readings before composing their response to the task (usually 300-500 words) by a specific date. In a further step, they are required to submit at least one further posting by a specified date per online discussion in response to the contributions made by their peers. Usually the task page also offers a sample response authored by a course tutor as well as a sample follow-up posting for exemplification. Course tutors then summarise participants’ contributions and, thereby, close the discussion. Our experience to date gives credence to the importance of the three educational processes - from divergence to convergence - outlined by Harasim:34 • • •

idea generating (and gathering) idea linking, organization, and intellectual progress; and idea structuring (and convergence). It is these processes MTeach tutors aim to foster.

In addition to the template-based approach outlined above, we have built on ‘case methodology.’35 In the same way we value the generative potential of discourse, we believe in the potential of narrative or ‘storying’ in learning (about teaching).36 We endeavour to engage MTeach participants in the development of case studies which we see, as does Shulman, as a ‘re-collected, re-told, re-experienced and re-flected version’ of direct experiences: (An) educative case is more than a good narrative, more than a clever juxtaposition of intention and vicissitude. An educative case is a form of communication that places intention and chance into the context of a lived and reflected experience.37 In pedagogical terms, Shulman outlines four interrelated processes which can be seen to be necessary in order to be able to learn from the writing and contemplating of cases: • • • •

enactment, narration, connection (or recounting) and abstraction.

Stories begin in the raw experience itself, are transformed into cases through narration, become part of a network of narratives through connections with other cases, and both enrich and are enriched by theory when they are analysed, interpreted and/or classified in the teachers’ conversations.38 The following section goes on to illustrate and analyse the ways in which framed and structured conversation can provide teachers with authentic engagement with a professional learning academy. 6.

‘Talking Teaching’ - Classrooms as Sites of Teacher Learning

Participants’ narratives reveal the classroom as a social space, in which stories, episodes, recollected words and interactions offer rich material for case-making when brought to the online forum:39 It is, and remains, for me the energy and synergy in the London classrooms that daily amazes me. I say ‘right, today, we’re going to do spontaneous improvisations’ and they do. Or ‘pretend,’ or ‘imagine’ and they do. Nearly all of them. And that happens because we get together and something happens to us in that room as a group of people in a shared time and space.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ I love your idea of bursting children, that’s exactly what they look like! My last point in reference to your contribution is the wonderful concept of every question having a ‘trajectory.’ If we knew the destination of every question we asked our pupils, what an incredibly controlled, and incredibly dull place our classrooms (sic) would be! These teachers are talking about their classrooms. They are talking electronically, sharing their classroom experiences in a one-to-many context as part of an electronic tutor group of MTeach students, using email to capture and cultivate their excitement about their pupils’ learning. What is significant is that they are not discussing what their pupils are learning, but trying to understand how it is happening. They are, at the same time, excited about their own professional learning. They are interested in how knowledge is constructed in these classrooms, and, crucially, how this articulates with their own ‘knowledge-making’ about what it is to become effective teachers in their first posts. For both tutors and participants, what is significant in this type of professional discourse, which makes it central to achieving the aims of a course like the MTeach, is how learning is socially conceived within such narratives. The potential of CMC for knowledge construction in early professional development can be examined within the contexts of these teachers’ narratives. Their voices tell us something about the relationship between the electronic mode and the professional learning which takes place. They indicate the inadequacy of conceptualising CMC as ‘facilitating’ learning: they reveal rather how it is material to how teacher learning articulates with pupil learning in participants’ classrooms and how this impacts upon teacher capacity building in current political contexts. ‘Facilitates’ can be a problematic term in thinking about the role of computers in any type of educational context. It can imply a passive or non-generative effect of the electronic medium itself, reducing the potential of the virtual framework to a course in which, given the right conditions, participants can manage the discovery of knowledge and develop themselves. Whilst this might result in some worthwhile development occurring, it is an arbitrary basis for a pedagogical choice. It is rather the particular generative features of electronic communication, cited previously, which lend themselves to the formulation of new teacher knowledge, a knowledge which it is especially important to engender in the current anti-intellectual climate of professional development. Given the pressures on teachers’ time and energies to respond to the initiatives-led education climate of today, coupled with the emergence of managerial/bureaucratic frameworks for professional development, it is not remarkable that traditional taught MA courses have seen a downturn in applications in recent years. On one level, there are pragmatic advantages for teachers in a Masters course which is substantially virtual. Certainly, distance learning by CMC is a lifestyle choice preferred by our participants in the pressurised early years of teaching, offering as it does flexibility in its asynchronous tutor group discussion structure and access to webbased study material. Its key innovative element though, in terms of achieving professional discussion at Masters level, lies in the potential of the virtual learning community itself. One critical effect of the electronic tutor group forum is how it offers the scope for intellectual enfranchisement to a professional community subject to ever increasing control over how it is able to conceptualise subject knowledge in the classroom, and its accompanying pedagogy (e.g. the Initial Teacher Training National Curriculum, Qualified Teacher Status and Induction Standards, OFSTED framework for inspection of initial teacher training, Standard Attainment Tests and the National Strategies). Teachers are now accustomed to being told what their subject consists of, what is required uniformly as pedagogy, what learning looks like, and how to measure it (e.g. the four-part lesson now required by the Key Stage 3 Framework, to include a ten minute ‘starter task,’ plenary etc.). In parallel, their professional development should, over time, be mapped onto the aims of central government policy-making.40 CMC is embedded in (disputed) ideas about the democratisation of knowledge, brought about by the changed cultural power relations incorporated in the medium itself. For a decade, technological change has had profound effects on how we communicate and how we can think. Lanham pointed to the cultural redefinition of knowledge which would result from electronic communication.41 The electronic word emphasises the malleability of language, and has implications for the speed and range of changes in thinking which accompanies this. Well-established arguments exist for how electronic communication and the Internet offer a challenge to orthodox seats of control over knowledge. Traditional concepts of knowledge as fixed, bound by cultural processes and institutions including printed books, university ascribed subjects, hierarchical education departments and school courses, are all challenged by the non-linear, non-hierarchical formulations of knowledge available via electronic media. The traditional gate-keeping mechanisms which protect fixed ideas about valid knowledge are challenged by a medium in which very different texts are accessible on equal terms, and can be changed, transmuted, co-authored, and in which participants are producers and publishers of electronic text themselves. Such cultural redefinition includes the potential for professional redefinition for teachers, where they participate in discursive electronic communities which help to challenge orthodox understandings of how school knowledge is constructed and mediated.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ The MTeach aims to provide a structure in which new teachers learn to inhabit a network culture, anticipating the need to teach and learn within a rapidly changing knowledge economy, in which communal expectations accelerate as we take further steps into the information age or the knowledge society … schools must prepare students to increasingly higher levels of knowledge and skill … in the personal qualities that matter in the transformed workplace - how to be autonomous, selforganising, networking, entrepreneurial, innovative.42 The challenge for MTeach tutors involved in supporting the early professional development of new teachers, is to help them develop the ‘intellectual assets’ which help constitute the professional capacity demanded of teachers in this workplace.43 These assets offer a critical alternative to their developing a delivery capacity for managing reductive, centralised, serial responses to inevitable change. Participants in the MTeach are constituting - authoring - a body of knowledge via the electronic forum. A corporate professional assessment of an issue emerges (by no means a consensus), but also, and crucially, individual significance develops from the group activity. Face-to-face seminar discussions can do something similar (and have different benefits), but in moderated email discussion a corpus of knowledge is being constantly redefined. This is not unusual in terms of web-communication, but in terms of teachers constituting Masters level work about learning in their classrooms it offers a significant alternative to other professional engagement available through INSET on government initiatives. CMC acts as a medium of learning, but it is also constitutive of that learning, affecting the construction of ideas, through its provisionality, yet tangibility. The knowledge is not based in the Institute of Education, nor in the ‘set’ readings, nor in the tutors, but in the interactive environment of the electronic forum itself. A (semi) virtual learning community has implications for who owns the knowledge - it is not handed out from the university, and for teachers in the current climate, it is not from central government. It is knowledge which is both founded on and informs the development of practice, for “it is precisely the intersection between interaction and reflection that is of critical importance in cognition” what happens if we accept Warschauer’s notion here of CMC as “a potential intellectual amplifier” and apply it to the context of professional development?44 Most important seems to be: the contribution of CMC in provoking metacognitive discussion about the processes of developing practical teaching expertise; its role in helping teachers to redefine professionalism as something which is rooted in both intellectual enfranchisement and actual experience, and how it validates knowledge which has been built collaboratively. Starkly, Warschauer claims “the nature of pedagogical practices and school reform will contribute to who becomes the interacting and who becomes the interacted in the network society.”45 Teachers themselves are entirely implicated in this vision - and they can be readily identified as the interacted in most contemporary contexts. Analysis of what new teachers are saying in their discussions reveals how far they are enabled to critically reflect on their roles as participators in learning. A task early in the course asks them to consider classroom interactions in their own teaching situations. It was not difficult for participants to shift spontaneously from narrating their pupils’ interactions and learning, to discussing their own interactions as a tutor group and actively interrogate how they were learning. The following email contribution illustrates the complexity of the learning processes which have been provoked by the online formulation of a ‘network of narratives.’ The asynchronous mode necessarily incorporates an extension to thinking time and further, more complex reflection as the group mulls over stories of pupil-talk and classroom interaction. This teacher has come back to the discussion, and expands her ideas in response to previous email messages to start thinking about power relations in the classroom, notions of control, and who acts as gatekeepers to knowledge: I read your contribution on the subject of ‘open’ questions with such interest. It sparked off a memory from my first weeks of my first practice. It was recommended that I didn’t ask open questions of classes as this would necessitate an uncontrolled response from the pupils. There was a suggestion that this was an unhealthy thing and my classrooms would fall into a mire of bad behaviour should I let it continue. In so many of our contributions there seems to be a desire to let children talk as a means to independent learning. You fully understand the need for students to be able to talk to one another. I am constantly mystified with the reticence of other teachers to allow this in their classrooms. I think that this, as best illustrated by your school’s rigid desk policy, comes from fear. If we are to hand over the learning to these students, then we release ourselves from the position of all-knowing experts at the front of the class. With this comes the fear that we will lose control. It is my firm belief that didactic, teacher led questioning is rooted in concerns over behaviour

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ management, not in pupil learning… Her ideas about who is ‘interacted’ upon in the classroom have already expanded from shared narration (“It sparked off a memory…”) to critique of institutional policy-making (“…your school’s rigid desk policy…”), and indicate her developing knowledge about learning styles, the role of the teacher, knowledge construction…It seems evident that the immersion in ongoing discussion, made possible by asynchronous CMC, has informed her day-to-day critical consciousness of what could otherwise be an acceptance of common-sense orthodoxies which are embedded in the organisation of schools: I have spent ages in the last few weeks reflecting on the idea that we spend our whole lives asking students to be quiet, but going through my Year 9 form’s reports, there was the familiar target of ‘they must contribute more in lessons’ time and time again! What messages are we sending these children when we limit and confine their communication? She does not have an answer for this, and of course, it would be tempting for her to offer one - it is significant that she doesn’t. Her analysis at this stage (Newly Qualified Teacher for three months) shows she knows how much there is to be discovered, and has the intellectual curiosity to reflect the issue back to the network forum. The mode emphasises to these teachers that they are learning over time. This process of ongoing, recursive discussion, which allows issues to be revisited in the light of continuous experience, theoretical reference, reflection and response to the input of others is particular to the CMC aspect of the course and is critical to establishing capacity for learning from the ‘educative case.’ It highlights what Leach describes as the “central place of joint practice in the complex process of learning to ‘become a teacher’” in her account of CMC in the initial training of teachers within the Open University’s distance mode PGCE.46 At its most exciting, it is possible to see the potential for deeper metacognitive exploration, achieved through this process. After reading the online theory material, and thinking about the Vygotskian concept of the ‘zone of proximal development’ in relation to his classes,47 another teacher writes a further email in response to the group discussion on classroom interaction: On reflection, I was intrigued by the way our ‘online learning community’ works to develop our zpds. To what extent does our writing to each other constitute ‘interaction’? His question goes to the source of the kind of metacognitive learning process he and the others are capable of realising. It is a fully self-conscious professional discussion, with real practical significance. He writes about his future lesson planning at the end: I have just decided (interestingly in the process of writing this reflection) that the next opportunity for ICT we will do will be in pairs. An image came into my mind of two people sitting in front of a screen arguing about the correct words to use in an ICT text: dramatising writing. He is making the critical oscillation between his own learning and what his pupils might learn, not only in terms of content but as part of his development of a more fully realised and theorised understanding of subject knowledge - how what teachers know is transformed in classroom contexts into something which pupils discover and internalise on terms which are meaningful to them. It is knowledge redefined by what he is learning about learning. His interactions have helped him to apply Bruner’s ideas to both himself and his pupils: “We do not learn a way of life and ways of deploying mind unassisted, unscaffolded, naked before the world … the agentive mind … seeks out dialogue and discourse with other active minds.”48 For many teachers today, the ‘agentive mind’ is quite dislocated from the plethora of policy directives, curriculum initiatives and managerial/bureaucratic priorities which currently masquerade as subject knowledge and professional development. In support of the agentive dimension of teacher development, it is the reciprocal, symbiotic relation between practice and intellectual reflection which the electronic forum helps to foster. These teachers have found an alternative voice (both literally and metaphorically) with which to talk about teaching - a voice which enables them to assert the practice of teaching as an intellectual activity. 7.

Conclusion

We have attempted to outline how the Institute of Education’s new Master of Teaching degree for teachers in their early professional development aims to foster intellectual dimensions of teaching at Masters level through CMC. We have described how we developed new approaches to pedagogy drawing on social interactionist perspectives on learning and the notion of knowledge construction. We argue that unless such

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ novel ways to teacher development are conceived and unless higher education teacher education is prepared to re-conceptualise its role, purpose and nature, lifelong teacher learning is in danger of remaining mere rhetoric. In bringing this intention to life we have found the idea of a scholarship of teaching very helpful. It enables us to take talented new teachers beyond the ultimately sterile logic of ‘reflective practice’ which allows them to settle for excellent performance as the goal of their endeavour. Whilst we applaud excellent classroom practice we are aware that in the perfomativity environment that is reinforced by a soulless dependence on the externally fixed standards framework, this is not enough. It is not enough for the students. It is also not enough for the profession which evidently has great difficulty in retaining the services of the brightest and the best. The meaningful creation of the professional learning academy which we demonstrate in the final section is one way in which new recruits can be encouraged to engage intellectually with the fierce challenges faced by teachers and stay for the struggle rather than be worn down and morally defeated.

Notes 1. The article “Teacher Learning: Towards a Professional Academy,” by C. Daly, N. Pachler and D. Lambert, Teaching in Higher Education 9(1), 2004: 99-111, is based on this original paper. 2. E.L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (Princeton, N.J.: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990); and R.E. Rice, “Towards a Broader Conception of Scholarship: The American Context,” in Research and Higher Education: The United Kingdom and the United States, ed. T. Whitson and R. Geiger (Buckingham: SRHE/Open University, 1992), 117-129. 3. P. Hutchings and L. Shulman, “The Scholarship of Teaching. New Elaborations, New Developments” Change 31(5) (1999): 10-15. 4. G. Claxton, Wise up: The Challenge of Lifelong Learning (Bloomsbury: London and New York, 1999). 5. http://www.ioe.ac.uk/MTeach/ 6. N. Entwistle, et al., “Student Teachers’ Conceptions of ‘Good Teaching,’” The Scottish Council for Research in Education, 2001, (5 February 2002). 7. I. Stronach, et al., “Towards an Uncertain Politics of Professionalism: Teacher and Nurse Identities in Flux,” Journal of Education Policy 17/1 (2002): 109-138. 8. Waller in Stronach et al., 111. 9. D. Hargreaves, “The Knowledge-Creating School,” British Journal of Educational Studies 47/2 (1999): 122-144. 10. Ibid, 123. 11. Hutchings & Shulman, 10-15. 12. W. Humes and T. Bryce, “Scholarship, Research and the Evidential Basis of Policy Development in Education,” British Journal of Educational Studies 49(3) (2001): 329-352. 13. Hutchings & Shulman, 10-12. 14. Ibid, 12. 15. Teacher Training Agency, “Qualifying to Teach,” (2002). (6 June 2004). 16. Claxton, 1999, 18-19. 17. G. Claxton, “A Flying Start on a Learning Life: Education for the Age of Uncertainty, The Francis C. Scott Memorial Lecture, 7th November 2001,” Royal Society of Arts. (28 January 2005), 1. 18. L. Tickle, Teacher Induction: The Way Ahead (Buckingham: Open University, 2000), 6. 19. Hargreaves, 124. 20. Claxton, 2001, 4. 21. Department for Education and Skills, Teachers’ Standards Framework. Helping You Develop (London, 2001), 6.12. 22. C. Daly, et al., “Teacher Learning: Towards a Professional Academy,” Teaching in Higher Education 9 (1) (2004): 99-111. 23. M. Selke, “The Professional Development of Teachers in the United States of America: the Practitioners’ Masters’ Degree,” European Journal of Teacher Education 24/2 (2001): 205-214. 24. Jackson, 2002. 25. Jean Else, “Teaching Practice,” TES First Appointments, Times Educational Supplement, 11 January 2002, 7. 26. L. Harasim, “Shift Happens. Online Education as a New Paradigm in Learning,” The Internet and Higher Education 3 (2000): 41-61. 27 Ibid, 49-50. 28. M. Resnick, “Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age,” in The Global Information Technology

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Report 2001-02: Readiness for the Networked World, ed. G. Kirkman (Oxford University Press, 2002), 33. 29. Harasim, 53. 30. B. Rüschoff and M. Ritter, “Technology-Enhanced Language Learning: Construction of Knowledge and Template-Based Learning in the Foreign Language Classroom,” Computer Assisted Language Learning 14/3-4 (2001): 226. 31. Florin, F. quoted in Ibid. 32. D. Jonassen, T. Reeves, “Learning with Technology: Using Computers as Cognitive Tools,” in Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology, ed. D. Jonassen (New York: Macmillan, 1996), 693. 33. Rüschoff & Ritter, 228. 34. Harasim, 54. 35. L. Shulman, “Just in Case: Reflections on Learning from Experience,” in The Case for Education: Contemporary Approaches for Using Case Methods, ed. J. Colbert, et al., (Boston: Allyn + Bacon, 1996), 197217. 36. N. Pachler, and D. Allford “Literature in the Communicative Classroom,” in Issues in Modern Foreign Languages Teaching, ed. K. Field (London: Routledge, 2000), 241-255. 37. Shulman, 207-8. 38. Ibid, 209. 39. With thanks to MTeach NQT participants, for permission to reproduce their email correspondence. 40. Department for Education and Skills, Teacher’ Standards Framework. Helping You Develop (London: DfSD). 41. A. Lanham, The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology and the Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 133-136. 42. Hargreaves, 122. 43. National Educational Research Forum, A Research and Development Strategy for Education: Developing Quality and Diversity (NERF, 2001), 5. 44. M. Warschauer, Electronic Literacies. Language, Culture and Power in Online Education (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999), 5. 45. Ibid, 21. 46. J. Leach, “English Teachers ‘On-line’: Developing a New Community of Discourse,” English in Education: Electronic English 31/2 (1997): 64. 47 The course introduces participants to Vygotsky’s ideas about the Zone of Proximal Development. 48. J. Bruner, The Culture of Education (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 93.

References Boyer, E.L. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, N.J.: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990. Bruner, J. The Culture of Education. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Claxton, G. Wise up: The Challenge of Lifelong Learning. Bloomsbury: London and New York, 1999. Claxton, G. A Flying Start on a Learning Life: Education for the Age of Uncertainty, The Francis C. Scott Memorial Lecture, 7th November 2001, Royal Society of Arts. (28 January 2005). Daly, C., N. Pachler and D. Lambert. “Teacher Learning: Towards a Professional Academy.” Teaching in Higher Education 9 (1) (2004): 99-111. Department for Education and Skills. Teachers’ Standards Framework. Helping You Develop. London: DfES, 2001. Entwistle, N., D. Skinner and D. Entwistle. “Student Teachers’ Conceptions of ‘Good Teaching.’” 2001. The Scottish Council for Research in Education. (5 February 2002). Florin, F. “Information Landscapes.” In Learning with interactive multimedia, edited by S. Ambron and K. Hooper, 28-49. Redmond: Microsoft, 1990.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Harasim, L. “Shift Happens. Online Education as a New Paradigm in Learning.” The Internet and Higher Education 3 (2000): 41-61. Hargreaves, D. “The Knowledge-Creating School.” British Journal of Educational Studies 47(2) (1999): 122144. Humes, W. and T. Bryce. “Scholarship, Research and the Evidential Basis of Policy Development in Education.” British Journal of Educational Studies 49(3) (2001): 329-352. Hutchings, P. and L. Shulman. “The Scholarship of Teaching. New Elaborations, New Developments.” Change 31(5) (1999): 10-15. Also available online: (2 May 2002) Jackson, P. The Creation of Knowledge Networks. Collaborative Enquiry for School and System Improvement. CERI/OECD/DfES/QCA/ESRC Forum ‘Knowledge Management in Education and Learning,’ Oxford, 18-19 March 2002. Conference presentation. Jonassen, D. and T. Reeves. “Learning with Technology: Using Computers as Cognitive Tools.” In Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology, edited by D. Jonassen, 693-719. New York: Macmillan, 1996. Lanham, A. The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology and the Arts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Leach, J. “English Teachers ‘On-line’: Developing a New Community of Discourse.” English in Education: Electronic English 31(2) (1997): NATE National Educational Research Forum. A Research and Development Strategy for Education: Developing Quality and Diversity. NERF, 2001. Pachler, N. and D. Allford. “Literature in the Communicative Classroom.” In Issues in Modern Foreign Languages Teaching, edited by K. Field, 241-255. London: Routledge, 2000. Resnick, M. “Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age.” In The Global Information Technology Report 2001-02: Readiness for the Networked World edited by G. Kirkman, 32-37. Oxford University Press, 2002. < http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cr/pdf/gitrr2002_ch03.pdf> (29 January 2005). Rice, R.E. “Towards a Broader Conception of Scholarship: The American Context.” In Research and Higher Education: The United Kingdom and the United States, edited by T. Whitson, T. and R. Geiger, 117-129. Buckingham: SRHE/Open University, 1992. Rüschoff, B. and M. Ritter. “Technology-Enhanced Language Learning: Construction of Knowledge and Template-Based Learning in the Foreign Language Classroom.” Computer Assisted Language Learning 14(3-4) (2001): 219-32. Selke, M. “The Professional Development of Teachers in the United States of America: the Practitioners’ Masters’ Degree.” European Journal of Teacher Education 24(2) (2001): 205-214. Shulman, L. “Just in Case: Reflections on Learning from Experience.” In The Case for Education: Contemporary Approaches for Using Case Methods, edited by J. Colbert, K. Trimble, and P. Desberg, 197-217. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1996. Stronach, I., B. Corbin, O. McNamara, S. Stark and T. Warne. “Towards an Uncertain Politics of Professionalism: Teacher and Nurse Identities in Flux.” Journal of Education Policy 17(1) (2002): 109-138. Teacher Training Agency. Qualifying to Teach. London. 2002. (6 June 2004). Tickle, L. Teacher Induction: The Way Ahead. Buckingham: Open University, 2000.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Waller, W. The Sociology of Teaching, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1932. Quoted in Stronach, et al., “Towards an Uncertain Politics of Professionalism: Teacher and Nurse Identities in Flux.” Journal of Education Policy 17(1) (2002): 109-138. Warschauer, M. Electronic Literacies. Language, Culture and Power in Online Education. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999. Caroline Daly, Institute of Education University of London David Lambert, CEO, The Geography Association Norbert Pachler, Institute of Education University of London UK

Music Technology in Higher Education Carola Boehm Abstract: To integrate an interdisciplinary field, such as Music Technology, into an academic discipline-segregated structure, such as that existing in our Universities, provides, in many ways, more challenges than opportunities: in research as well as teaching and administration. Several working groups and workshops, such as the EC funded CIRCUS project (Content Integrated Research into Creative User Systems),1 the invited EPSRC Music Technology workshop2 as well as the invited EC “creativity and technology”,3 have addressed relating issues of teaching not only music technology but other creative courses in HE. This article will present a short overview of this situation, fed by these workshops and my personal and professional experiences working with or in various academic institutions. Key Words: Music technology, interdisciplinary, higher education, creativity, technology, universities 1.

Between Technology and Creativity: Music Technology, an interdisciplinary new discipline?

The discipline of Music Technology, if it is such a thing as a “single” discipline, has already acquired a relatively long history. Seeing our students in Higher Education institutions as a part of this history shows how much we, as teachers and learning facilitators, still need to learn in order to teach this new academic discipline within our own institutions. Our students could be considered the “fourth generation” of music technologists. Oversimplified, the first generation of Music Technologists could be called the “Experimenters” of the 50s and 60s, where for the first time a critical mass of technologists and musicians looked at music and technology and tried to develop their own methods of combining aspects of previously different disciplines into one. In the danger of continuing this oversimplification, the second generation of the 70’s and 80’s built on the basis of the first generation, and with a fast developing commercialisation as well as academic endeavour in this area, with Centres emerging, the speed with which music technology was developed, produced and utilised in/around works of art accelerated. The third generation of the 90s and 00s was able to position first lecturers of music technology into academic institutions. Music technology was slowly becoming an academically viable discipline of education and research. For the first time a critical mass of individuals, who had studied more than one discipline and who had a background in more than one field, existed to push this area forward. The current generation of junior lectures comes from this generation. The fourth generation can be seen to be our current student body: students of interdisciplinary music technology degrees, such as BMus in Music Technology, or the BEng + Music as taught in the Universities in different variations. These are the first body of students who are studying music technology as one discipline or as one degree. These degree curricula are of a multi-disciplinary nature, but are still given as if they fit seamlessly into our traditional, discipline-based academic structure. Sometimes we, the lecturers, course developers and degree managers, forget that these are degrees which do not have a long standing tradition on which practices can be based, and that we are ourselves are still in the process of learning how to best facilitate the provision of these new degrees. The challenge exists concerning how best to integrate an interdisciplinary field into a disciplinary framework. This challenge exists on all levels of academic endeavour: from the running of these courses and its administrative frameworks, to the teaching and facilitation of learning, the disciplines’ pedagogies and specific vocabularies, and its research with its own particular methodologies. To teach or facilitate the learning of music technology within HE, a corpus needs to be a defined: a taxonomy of issues belonging to this subject, and a definition of the borders of this discipline. Interdisciplinary subjects such as music technology are almost impossible to rigidly press into a specific corpus, which would results in the disadvantage of not allowing change or development. In addition to its current developing nature there are varying views of this discipline, which allow for a variety of academic degrees to emerge: the engineer’s point of view is facilitated by a “B.Eng. with Music”, the Musician’s View possibly by a B.Mus. in Creative Music Technology, and so on. Nevertheless, if this discipline is to exist successfully within current HE institutions, there is a need for institutions to explicitly formulate teaching-content responsibilities according to faculties, departments or schools, and it requires those involved to lay down and quantify the amount of knowledge, i.e. create a corpus and thus define a discipline. Lists like Philipp Ackerman’s visualisation of the discipline,4 Richard Moore’s music technology pentagram5 and Stephen Travis Pope (ed.)6 classic detailed taxonomy help us to define what exactly should, needs, and could be taught within academic degrees of music technology. This discipline is a very fast moving

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ field and its corpus may, for many years to come, be a moving target. Its interdisciplinary nature allows it to locate itself within new combinations of old disciplines, binding them together into a new opportunity of gathering insights to new knowledge, and providing the opportunities to feed back into the knowledge of traditional disciplines. The challenge lies in the successful integration of such an interdisciplinary subject as “Music Technology” within a discipline-based educational framework. 2.

The challenge of Institutional Frameworks

Music Technology has traditionally been placed within Music Departments, especially in Britain, where the tradition of “computer music” became a strong influence in contemporary music, taking up the momentum where the German “Elektronische Musik” left off. Music in itself, of course, has had its place traditionally in Arts/Humanities Faculties, and in a few Universities, Music has been able to exist within its own Faculty. The academic discipline of “Music” within British Universities has the tradition of being a practicebased discipline. This characteristic is not shared with the majority of European countries, but has greatly contributed to Britain’s high attraction for overseas and European students, and has probably contributed to its successes in the music trade: Britain has a market share of 10 - 15% of the world trade of records.7 The notion of “learning by doing”, with performance and composition being methods of attaining a higher level of understanding of music styles or music activities, has more in common with other vocational disciplines, such as design, practical arts and also the “lab-based approaches” found within engineering and computer science studies. Thus, the fact that Music Departments in Britain generally tend to be located within the Humanities can provide a point of friction, where methodologies between the more historical and analytical disciplines clash with more vocationally driven disciplines. Especially in times when universities’ financial resources are stretched, the tendency to adopt the “German Approach” of ‘Musicology at Universities’ vs ‘Music in Conservatories’, seems to be an acceptable solution. A very fractured understanding of the disciplines themselves can and will undoubtedly result, as will a very divided community of “theorists” and “practitioners”. This is something which Britain has managed to avoid almost completely, to the success of its own music communities and academic endeavours. For such a new discipline as Music Technology, the fracture represented in the “German Approach” becomes critical, with “Theoretical” music technology (“Musikinformatik”) being generally located within Universities under “Systematic Musicology” and Electro-acoustic Composition being located within conservatories. This division, as existing in Germany, tends to have the effect that universities are left with the degree of musicology - not music - with its academic traditional historical, analytical and theoretical - but not practical and creative - approaches to the field: these approaches being well understood within the humanities. Music Technology, which is heavily driven by creative processes, tends to be ill-placed in this environment as it is solely used as another tool for analysis of music or analysis of musical activities. The need for joining theory and practice in music education has been a classic requirement, explicitly discussed and mentioned throughout history, and can be traced as far back as the Greeks. (Strangely enough, as soon as a computer is involved in academic activities, most disciplines think it useful to utilize “learning by doing” methods, but this thinking does not transfer itself to other instruments of learning, such as musical instruments or composition.) Practice-based disciplines, such as the British music degrees, are often located within a faculty in which not only the understanding of its practice-based approaches might be missing, but moreover, where financial constraints can force departments to adopt more conventional (and low-cost) approaches to its own discipline: contrary to the British tradition of practice-based music degrees. Consequently, the attraction that British degrees have on a European scale can be lost. Within Britain it has finally become standard practice to accept musical activities, such as performance and composition, as valid outputs of research (see the newest “Research Assessment Exercise” (RAE) specifications), but nevertheless, institutions still tend to often mistake the method with the learning objective of practice-based aspects of this discipline: As you would expect in conservatories, performance and composition is aimed towards delivering professional quality. However, in the degree courses often existing in universities, the involvement of performance and composition is also used as a tool to attain a higher level of understanding of the material being dealt with. If this vital difference is not understood it can be difficult to justify the more costly activities of performance and composition within Universities, which often do not have the remit to train future performers and composers. The notion of “learning by doing” is conveniently forgotten in the light of costsaving decision making processes. Not illogically, these issues are understood and accepted much more within engineering and computer science contexts than in the Humanities, furthering the difficult positioning of Music within an Arts and/or Humanities framework. Consequences of this can be seen in the phenomena of discussing the closing down of Music Departments in the light of Conservatories existing within the same city. For Music Technology as a discipline often situated within Music Departments or Music Faculties, several additional issues present themselves. The practice-based elements of its academic activities are

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ understood, as described above, however the methodologies for research into music technology are very different from music, and as such can be very difficult to understand if coming from a point of view used to traditional music research approaches. Music Technology research methods have always been closely related to, and adopted from, the science-based disciplines such as engineering and computer science. Characteristics of this research include: • • • • •

“creative pull” projects and basic and experimental research emphasis on teamwork and collaborative projects and more opportunities for large scale projects more possibilities for industry-bridging activities for universities commercialisation aims and industrial collaboration multi-institutional R&D projects and involvement in technology developments with international consequences, such as standards development, basic research, long-term research involvement in a wider diversity of funding schemes, the ability to draw on a wider variety of funding bodies and the ability to attract more industry sponsorship

These approaches do not necessarily remain only within research areas, but as can be expected and desired, feed back into teaching, utilising teaching methods such as: • • • • •

large and paired team projects, creative productions which include technical development industry relevant assignments and industry placement, industry funded/supported projects etc.

As a result, difficulties can occur when needing to assess research and teaching within one set of criteria, such as for RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) and QAA (Quality Assurance Agency). Lastly, but possibly one of the biggest challenges existing for Music Technology today, is that the introduction of music technology into many music departments has created, what has been called a “Trojan Horse” complex. The rising interest of music technology has been met by a general decline of financial support for arts-based subjects in the last decade or so. This means that Music Technology within a Music department can be seen as resource-hungry: a costly but very popular activity - further fed by the music industry’s need for specialists in this area. This results in a situation in which many Music Departments have had to decrease the size of their total teaching body, but increase the number of staff active in music technology. With the ratio of “music technology staff to musicology staff” rising, inner-departmental long-term strategies might not be able to be set without conflicting interests and tensions arising from having to distribute the limited amount funding. 3.

The opportunities within institutional frameworks - Education and Research

Having covered some of the basic problematic issues of music technology within traditional Higher Education institutional frameworks, one could attempt to formalise a range of possible solutions. To place a discipline - which has both creativity and technology as its central driving forces - into a larger institution will probably provide a constant challenge. Larger institutional frameworks will always have the need for stable and permanent long-term structures in order to work efficiently, whereas creative disciplines, in general, stand opposed to institutionalised frameworks, and technology-driven disciplines tend to move too fast to stay efficiently stable for larger HE sectors. This has always been a problem, especially when it comes to equipment funding allocation. Other institutions have tried solutions such as: •

• •

the regrouping of disciplines to make faculties smaller and create smaller groupings of more similar disciplines. “Schools” seems to be fashionable these days, but the regrouping from faculties into schools can logically only be of benefit if the schools themselves replace the faculty structure, and not impose yet another layer of bureaucracy the creation of Music Faculties the creation of Centres of Study

The creation of centres is obviously an interesting type of solution as it offers many possibilities that other frameworks are not able to supply: a) a centre might be made up of individuals from different departments with an interdisciplinary aim or objective, b) a centre might include external organisations, such as companies and creative and cultural organisations, exploiting possibilities of project-placement, industrial visits, visiting

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ lectures, etc or c) a centre might interact with a number of departments and faculties with a higher level of independence and not restricted to departmental or faculty strategic plans. “Vertical centres”, or centres which include organisations outside of the university as well as different departments from within, offer many types of collaboration. Collaboration which not only provides a fantastic basis for developing the research field of music technology, but can also provide the overall need for formalisation of university-industry bridging, as emphasized by the EC in its newest 6th framework (See chapter 4.2.). Having adequate bridging is positive for students and staff in many areas of HE activities, but is vital for industry to exploit the newest developments in a field. As with the above difficulties it can be seen that there are more opportunities for research than teaching in our traditional HE framework, it becomes clear that there is a high importance placed on research feeding back into Undergraduate and Postgraduate teaching. In addition to this, in a fast moving field such as music technology, research becomes vital in order to stay close to state-of-the-art developments, as the status-quo is moving much faster than in traditional Arts/Humanities disciplines. This calls for a higher interaction between future technologies and the students’ curriculum. If centres are able to include teaching provision into their remit, then there is a higher amount and diversity of interaction between teaching and research, profiting the students in their acquiring of knowledge in this fast moving field. As mentioned above, research within HE institutions provides, to a high extent, the freedom within institutional practices that undergraduate teaching may not be able to provide. Considering the potential of this subject, it would be in the interest of institutions to support such research, as it is highly commercial viable in many areas and means that industry-bridging should actually be very easy, although it is not often done. Research within music technology, can not only be applied to the second largest industry in Britain: record sales, but offers integration into the telecommunication industry, broadcasting industry, culture industry, the education industry and related areas such as film-making and other creative industries. Although this potential is relatively obvious, there has been a problem of university-industry bridging in the past. Simplified, but nevertheless true, music technology research seems to have been channelled primarily into two directions: • •

either music technology research outcomes, if coming from music departments, have traditionally been channelled mainly into culture, into compositions and performances or music technology research outcomes, if coming from the engineering departments, has been channelled mainly into the telecommunications industry.

There seems to be a hurdle of transferring outcomes from academic research into industry: non-profit cultural or profit-based industry. Universities in general seem to be become more and more detached from industry, which has been noted and addressed by the European Funding Programs.8 This gap is characterised by a surplus of technology, left without being integrated into products or systems. It follows that one of the main aims in the 6th framework of the EC is “technology integration” in order to “force” the needed university-industry bridging for technologies to become a societies’ tools. Within the music/audio industry, this can be said to be true, especially if comparing to the video/visual industry. This area seems to have bridged the gap from research to products much faster, for instance in animation/effects techniques, despite it being younger than the music industry. Within music there are areas which tend to pick-up innovative technologies very fast, such as synthesiser technology, but these seem to be far and few if looking at the whole area of audio/music related industry. There is probably a number of interconnecting reasons for this gap between industry and research to occur, but one answer could be the location of music technology within frameworks which are not used to handling industry-bridging activities. As the visual/video technologies have traditionally been located within the computer science departments in Britain (and Europe), the developed technologies and research outcomes were well placed in a framework used to marketing their own results and providing the needed interaction between industry and university. For music technology, the traditional positioning within music departments resulted in the developments of more artistic goals, not having the aim of commercialisation of technologies, nor having the experience or tradition of industry collaboration. For the cultural products this had a very beneficial effect, and one could say that music technology centres have created a large number of tools for composition which no other creative digital discipline can match in quantity, quality or diversity. Nevertheless, this also created some unnecessary gap between industry and university research. Based on the above reasons, some centres have opted to be placed wholly or partly in the science departments (engineering or computer science), and have done so very successfully. But the ideal would presumably be a centre “in the centre of these subjects”, as the drive for technology innovation can only be supported in a major way by artistic creative considerations as well as industry-relevant ones.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ The location of centres within smaller departments is another issue to consider. Smaller centres and smaller departments are often disadvantaged in large institutionalised frameworks, summarised through not having a critical mass of research active staff or/and not having a critical mass of administrative and technical support. Both have an adverse effect on music technology research, and some strategic decision will always be necessary in order to compensate the disadvantages that a small size may bring. 4.

Conclusion

The experience with other interdisciplinary working groups in this area has confirmed that the challenges and opportunities described and stated in this paper are not specific to Music Technology in Britain, but could and possibly should be tried against other countries and other interdisciplinary technology based subject areas within the “digital arts”. It may seem that Music Technology is a prime example for the opportunities and challenges faced in Higher Education today, not only because the authors background is within this area, but also because Music Technology has a longer history and a more established place within institutional frameworks today. For decades a community and culture has already been formed, and we can already distinguish the consequences of outside forces, such as funding or educational structures, within this community and its culture. From a more general perspective, these insights should be able to be used to compare and discuss the integration of the other “digital arts” within the HE sector. More specifically for Music Technology, we are still in an era where due to its interdisciplinary nature, its integration within institutions with discipline-specific structures is still undoubtedly difficult, and one solution lies “Vertical Centres for Teaching and Research”. Lying detached from the discipline-specific departments or faculties, they can draw on the expertise held within various internal and external organisations and different fields, and can build upon the interaction of these disciplines to create a successful and highly promising future for music technology research and study.

Notes 1. EU Working Group Circus “CIRCUS - Content Integrated Research into Creative User Systems,” 1998 – 2001, (8 March 2002). . 2. EPSRC - Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Workshop on Funding of Music Technology, Harrogate, Febr. 2001. 3. European Commission. Technology platforms for cultural and artistic creative expression, Workshop, FhG Darmstadt, May 2001. 4. Philipp Ackermann, Computer und Music (New York, Wien: Springer Verlag, 1991), 2. 5. F. R. Moore, Elements of Computer Music (Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1990), 24. 6. S.T. Pope, “Foreword,” Computer Music Journal 18 (1994): 1. 7. Figures taken from the British Government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport, (21 June 2001) . 8. See documentation of the 5th and 6th EC Research Funding Frameworks.

References Ackermann, Philipp. Computer und Music. New York, Wien: Springer Verlag, 1991. British Government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport, (21 June 2001). EU Working Group Circus. “CIRCUS - Content Integrated Research into Creative User Systems.” 1998 - 2001. (8 March 2002). Moore, F.R. Elements of Computer Music. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1990.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Pope, S.T. “Foreword.” Computer Music Journal 18 (1994): 1. Carola Boehm Centre for Music Technology University of Glasgow Glasgow UK [email protected]

The Music Curriculum in Primary Schools and its Effects on Teachers and Pupils Georgia N. Nikolaidou Abstract: This study examines the basic features of the music curriculum in the primary schools in order to improve the music education within the reality of the worldwide educational society. Music curriculum aims to: enhance the knowledge, improve and expand pupils’ cognitive and artistic skills, reinforce the collaborative learning, and evaluate the different levels of understanding. Hence, it must be seen as an adaptive interface, which couples teacher and pupil’s behaviours and attitudes, shaping a common interactive field. Based on this framework, there is a changing landscape, which affects the role of the music teacher from the traditional imparter of knowledge to the active assistant who facilitates, advises, motivates and guides the pupils based on the creative characteristics of the music curriculum. Moreover, the pupil changes from a passive recipient to an active participant within the classroom (school-society), receiving knowledge and simultaneously formulating his/her perspectives by creating, inventing, and inquiring. New challenged ideas that include the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the music education are amplified supporting the collaborative learning. Thus, music curriculum acts as an interface between the music teacher and the pupil, and its careful design can establish an innovative didactic landscape with many beneficial effects in the music education. Key Words: Music curriculum, primary school, interfacing, facilitating, ICT-based music lesson 1.

The Music Curriculum in Primary Schools

A.

General Characteristics

Literature-based definitions of ‘curriculum’ abound and they include all that a learner experiences under the guidance of the school:1 1. 2.

The means of attaining educational ends.2 The entire range of knowledge and beliefs that schools actually communicate.3

Curriculum denotes, therefore, all the instructions, services and activities provided for students through their formal schooling. It includes, but is not limited to, teaching method and practices, content, instructional material and guides, the physical environment, assessment and evaluation, time, organisation, leadership and controls.4 Besides what we overtly or explicitly teach in the planned curriculum, we must also consider the hidden curriculum: the norms and values taught by the school, the classroom interaction between the teacher and pupils and the hidden social messages in the curriculum materials themselves.5 Consequently, an effective curriculum should adopt methodology and content that have been carefully scrutinised to make clear the elements that could form the basis of a social-pedagogical way of the learning process, fostering joint activities and mutual endeavours within the classroom. In the case of music, it is significant that music teachers, educationists and policy groups recognise the extreme importance of music in the school and see it as a cognitive, affective and skill-based subject, which is truly creative and practical in its nature.6 Hence, the music curriculum must act as an adaptive interface used for coupling teacher’s and pupils’ communicative paths, providing the means for answering musical needs (music theory and history), enhancing musical skills (listening, performing, composing) and developing pupils’ cultural and social values (self-appraisal, collaboration, evaluative thinking). This last is fostered by the structural similarities seen between the society and the school.7 Being members of this mini-society, both teachers and pupils have duties, responsibilities, and rights. The music curriculum can set the stage for a successful link between knowledge acquisition and social activity according to a set of predefined action-rules.8 In particular, joint activities, which affect children’s emotional and intellectual needs along with their social development, could be realised through a fruitful variety of musical tasks, i.e., singing (e.g. in a choir), playing instruments (e.g. in an orchestra, a band), listening intently (e.g. in ear training lessons, audio-visual tests), creating musical ideas for enhancing developmental and team thinking and having actions working together (more or less collaboratively) for achieving musical objectives.9 The acquisition of musical knowledge through these different aspects of the music curriculum, combined with the rules of the classroom’s community, provides the children with patterns of social practices they will need as future members of a society.10 In the special case of the primary school where the simple cognitive model of young children limits the

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ use of complex musical concepts, the music curriculum is necessarily to be orientated around the following vital points: 11 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Learning through experience rather than through second-hand information. Emphasising the process of learning rather than the end product. Encouraging collaborative learning, combining individual knowledge with teacher-produced materials and local resources. Changing the role of the teacher from the authoritarian imparter of knowledge to one resource within a classroom democracy. Changing the role of the learner from a passive recipient of learning procedure to an active participant in the musical tasks.

Following these points the music curriculum can establish a balance between theory and practice. Children participate in musical activities through practice and face the challenge of expressing their emotional needs, realising their creative skills and expanding their musical knowledge in a free and spontaneous way. As a result of these activities the music curriculum is ‘alive’ and consists of the actions and interactions of music teachers and pupils.12 B.

The Potential of the Music Curriculum a) Composing-Performing-Listening-Appraising

The attainment target, which should be the aim of the music curriculum should aim at, sets out the “knowledge, skills and understanding that pupils of different abilities and maturities are expected to have by the end of each key stage.”13 By placing emphasis on knowledge, skills and understanding activities in the music curriculum, its potential is revealed and the following aspects of music in which pupils make progress are identified:14 1. 2. 3. 4.

Controlling sounds through singing and playing (performing skills). Creating and developing musical ideas (composing skills). Listening and applying knowledge and understanding (listening skills). Responding and reviewing (appraising skills).

It is significant to note that there is a vital common factor amongst these activities: they are all creative.15 Therefore, pupils can become more creative if music lessons are designed in a sequence and/or combination of developmental processes, as shown in Fig. 1. Despite the interrelation of composing, performing, listening and appraising, children can enter the cycle at any of the four stages and react in a creative way to each musical challenge. In this way, progression in music is achieved and appreciated in terms of pupils’ increasing musical knowledge, confidence, independence and leadership.16 Performing Appraising In a programme of music study, composing should be supported by the encouragement to adapt, refine and improve work and to communicate ideas and feelings about music heard.17 The context and methods of composing should be taken into account as important factors in the musical learning Composing Listening process, thus music teachers must value them as helpful tools in order to stimulate pupils’ own Fig. 1. Music lesson as a sequence and/or combination of compositions. Based on the developmental processes. assimilative nature of composition, which involves a great amount of imaginative play and freedom, compositional tasks that include grouped, paired and individual activities in the classroom yield a strong basis for transforming the music lesson from a routine into a creative experience.18 In the music curriculum context performing must be seen as the process of doing and making of music and not just as the end product, the performance.19 Performing activities provoke the pupils to many musical responses, such as playing an instrument, singing, dancing, clapping or imitating a pulse or simple rhythmic

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ pattern etc. In fact, especially for young children, they form the bulk of their musical experiences and can link quite naturally with other areas of the music curriculum, i.e., composition.20 Composing and performing involve listening. Listening encourages the development of evaluation and analysis through the discrimination of musical elements, devices, tonalities and structures.21 As a result, through listening pupils enhance their skills in correctly distinguishing and identifying different musical styles and, simultaneously, increase their ability for making qualitative judgements about artistic likes and dislikes. The rich wealth of recorded music available supports the historical awareness of the musical resources and helps the pupils to broaden their musical experience. By employing appraisal processes and activities, pupils internalise music for subsequent recall and the whole aesthetic dimension of interpretation and evaluation is revealed to them.22 For instance, during these appraisal activities, pupils are being asked to evaluate (orally or written) their own musical work as part of the formative assessment process.23 Through the appraisal of their own and/or others’ music, they could realise the way musical structures can stimulate their emotions, simultaneously building up an impression to the teacher and to their classmates of what each of them is capable for. 24 Children cannot ‘create’ or ‘compose’ out of nothing.25 By integrating the abovementioned activities, the music curriculum provides the teacher with the means to offer them multitude of background ideas and suggestions, alongside with practical experience and exposure to different musical styles and genres. b) The approach of the melody Young children experience melody different than grown-ups; they combine melody with text as almost inseparable musical features creating spontaneous formation of melodic configurations, emerging patterns of thematic development.26, 27 The latter, being plausible, have a great influence on methods of music tuition. The music curriculum places also emphasis on ear-training tasks that advise pupils to listen to melody examples with concentration and recall sounds, thus increasing their aural memory.28 Pupils have also the opportunity to sketch the melodic outline, the pitch variation, the alternations in melodic patterns (low and high note density), etc., improving their effort to memorise melody structures using visualisation of the melodic characteristics. An example of this visualisation is illustrated in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. An example of graphical representation of melodic characteristics. (a) The melody in ordinary notation. (b) Alterations in note density of the melody. (c) Outline and the pitch variation of the melody. By applying this technique, children are taught to recognise the different musical elements that construct a melody, not only by using their aural but their visual memory, so they can employ more than one sense in their learning procedure. c) The music repertory in the classroom The music repertory is a significant factor in children’s music training. Pupils should experience as wide a range of different kinds of music as possible in order to broaden their musical horizons.29 Traditional choices for the music repertoire focus on so-called ‘European high art’, mainly including works by well-known classical composers, such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky and so on.30,31 It is unwise though to limit the music repertoire only to this style of music. There is so much more available that children can enjoy. For instance, Indian, Asian or Chinese music encompasses a spectrum of subcultures, a descriptive and interpretative consideration of them could map out, in an appropriate way, music elements from different cultures, guiding pupils to an acquaintance of multiple musical styles world-wide from the past and the present.32 From all the different musical styles, children develop depth of understanding and breadth of experience thereby encouraging a closer engagement with the music.33 d) The value of singing in music education

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Singing plays a prominent part in the music curriculum. As music educators insist, singing should be the most frequent activity in the classroom.34 Despite its importance, singing sometimes remains marginalised in the classroom, falling under the umbrella of composing, instrumental performing and listening. Nevertheless, OFSTED makes clear that “singing should take place on a regular basis.”35 Singing, through songs and/or voice-based tasks, can be seen as both an internalising and externalising agent that contributes to the growth of the mind’s ear for the retention of sounds as memory after the event, the recall of them at will and their endless manipulation.36 Singing can be readily enjoyed and combined with a full range of feelings, situations and experiences that can be addressed or emphasised each time a song is sung.37 The music curriculum should include a variety of vocal activities that will release the creative energy encapsulated in the singing, in order to further assist the pupil both as a composer, performer and listener.38 e) Music games: an integral activity of the music curriculum Games provide a means to underpin the development of children’s activities.39 To master a game, a pupil must acquire a working knowledge of a set of rules with the advantageous result of learning how to follow directions.40 Games have a high motivational value, refer to a group of children and, therefore encourage cooperation, support discussion through tactics, introduce new ideas for exploration, increase concentration and encourage creativity.41 Incomprehensible musical concepts might be turned into comprehensible ones, if the teacher, acting as a facilitator, uses a music game structure that will include in its content the same musical material.42 Hence, adoption of the music game-lesson concept in the music curriculum contributes to integrate in a more plausible way the basic musical activities of composing, performing, singing, listening, and appraising. 2.

The Music Teacher: Role and Attitude in Classroom

A.

The Model of the ‘Ideal’ Music Teacher

From a two-year survey among young children at school, the following description of the ‘ideal’ teacher has emerged: “The ideal teacher must explain things well; listen to its pupils and concern about them as individuals; show them how to get better, keep control of the class; have a sense of humour.”43 In the case of music, the music teacher has to respond to many different musical demands due to the increasing number of activities seen in the music curriculum. According to this view of the ‘ideal teacher’ model, s/he is expected to be all-round musician with a range of skills and a broad expertise, representing a style of musicianship characterised by its versatility and an ability to adapt and modify practices when circumstances demand.44 With an approach to musical activity markedly different from that of the specialist performer, the ideal teacher must have a creative orientation that assists him/her to be an active promoter of creative ideas in the learning process.45 Moreover, s/he must stimulate children to participate in the musical activities in the classroom and to inquire the world of learning through self-assessment and collaboration with other children by guidance and feedback.46 B.

The Music Teacher’s Relationship with the Music Curriculum

An organised curriculum does not mean rigid conformity. The music curriculum becomes alive in the hands of the music teacher, while his/her educational activity finds through it a flexible pathway for expression and realisation in the classroom.47 The predefined music educational context set by the curriculum does not act as a constraint on the music teacher’s educational ideas. It leaves him/her with ample space to act creatively and to operate according to his/her interests and abilities.48 It is in the music teacher’s hands to appreciate the effectiveness of the music curriculum in everyday teaching and to use his/her enthusiasm, knowledge, creativity, original ideas and imagination under the umbrella of the music curriculum structure.49 3.

The Learner: Role and Attitude

A.

The Learner’s Behaviour

Regelski analysed the components of musical behaviour in childhood, and found that there are three types of behaviour: i) the verbal, ii) the making, and iii) the performance behaviour. All these categories encompass a wide range of musical activities through which children approach the world of music with a sense of freedom, creativity, and discovery.50 This kind of modern attitude can be characterised as receptive, creative, inventive, and social. Pupils can act independently or as members of small groups during music lessons. They

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ can create, inquire, and self-evaluate, developing and organising an advanced level of learning procedure through comprehensive knowledge and understanding.51 B.

The Learner’s Interaction with the Music Curriculum

Most theorists agree that music teaching should cover much more than just the learning of specific musical skills.52 Therefore, a wide range of objectives must be included in the curriculum, i.e., understanding and appreciation of the artistic qualities of music, transmission of the cultural heritage, fostering of creativity, social education, and development of intellectual capacities, which will motivate the learner actively to participate in the learning process.53 Thus, with the proper adaptation, the children can acquire a sense of musical understanding following the objectives of the music curriculum, and, along with the pedagogical experience of the music teacher, they can systematically improve and develop their musical skills, under a learning procedure that maintains and expands their role as active learners. The curriculum development thus conceived is school and classroom-based, yielding data, which comes from classroom practice (the educational ‘frontline’) and informs decisions about future action.54 4.

Music Curriculum: An Educational Interface for Teachers and Pupils

A.

Establishing Successful Communication

The music curriculum can provide the means for developing a variety of communication strategies to children and establishing a bilateral communication between teacher and pupils and/or among pupils. As an interface between teacher and pupils, the music curriculum can offer children the opportunity to hear and observe how their peers handle such musical problems. Moreover, pupils can listen to ideas offered by the teacher, participating in communication situations that allow them to enhance their musical skills through a diversity of musical activities. B.

Elaborating Motivation - Participation

Motivation is combined with participation. Bruner attaches great importance to the contribution of participation in the processes of learning and claims that, “the best way to learn a subject is by doing it rather than being told about it.”55 This is clear from the work of Ausubel and Ing, who give a typical set of maxims defining the relationship between motivation, participation, and learning:56 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Motivation can be an effect as well as a cause of learning. The goal of learning should be made as explicit as possible. Materials should stimulate intellectual curiosity. Tasks should be appropriate to the learner, neither too difficult nor too easy. Music teachers should take account of developmental and individual differences in motivation. Pupils should be helped to set their own goals, by the provision of good feedback.

The curriculum’s strategies will be likely to produce a confident, skilled learner, characterised by selfassurance and a willingness to take risks. According to this view, it is in the hands of the teachers to supply the right type of ‘fuel’ for their pupils’ ‘engine’, so the elaboration of motivation and participation strategies excites the attention and interest of the children and maintains their willingness to learn.57,58 C.

Expanding Creativity - Imagination

Music curriculum encompasses a diversity of musical activities for pupils, such as performing, composing, within they can expand their creative thinking and simultaneously their imagination. Thus, the curriculum should underpin creative thinking and, as an interface between the music teacher and the pupils, should boost learning tasks, such as composition, where the pupils can use a greater degree of imagination and feel more freedom.59 D.

Reinforcing Collaboration

School activities that employ collaborative problem solving have the potential for teaching children how to deal with complex tasks and to work with and learn from each other.60 The children who actually shared decision-making in their interactions with partners performed better than both the children who had worked

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ alone and the children who had had a partner but had not worked jointly.61 The nature of the music lesson and the musical activities frequently demand the use of collaborative work by focusing the process of teaching and learning within the classroom. Thus, pupils can work and learn together in small groups (2-5 members), their task should be carefully designed to be suitable for group work, they have to be individually accountable for learning and participation simultaneously the role of the teacher must change from being the ‘sage on the stage’ to ‘the guide on the side.’ Adopting this strategy, the teacher and children can benefit in a significant extent and on the other hand contribute to the development of the music study. E.

Amplifying or Filtering Innovative Ideas of Teaching (ICT Based Lesson)

Music education is currently influenced by the advent of new technologies. Technology nowadays plays a crucial role in linking music education at school and in the community.62 Clearly, information and communication technologies (ICT) have a huge impact on teaching procedures and, simultaneously, on the way in which children learn. The music curriculum, being an interface between the music teacher and the pupils, can encompass the ICT use within the classroom activities. In the special case of the primary school, the game structure is an advantageous way of employing ICT with music education, since ICT is mostly familiarised to children through a game concept.63 With this in mind, ICT could easily act as an interpreter of the musical elements (theoretical and practical) to a comprehensible ‘game language’ to children. Hence, the learning procedure is reinforced through the use of computers that help young children to be musically educated. For instance, pupils can have the opportunity to process, individually or collaboratively, a musical problem by means of ICT-based solution steps, elaborating materials that are carefully sequenced, receiving immediate feedback and evaluations of each other’s work.64 The teacher could realise the aforementioned educational features by combining the audio-visual information of TV-video, the multimedia scene of computers-intelligent Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)-based keyboards, and the vast knowledge database of the Internet. In this way s/he could combine graphical with audio environment in a way that pupils could actually draw on a computer screen any melodic contour they want (or even drawings from everyday life!), listening at the same time to its audio realisation. Xenakis, who designed a system called ‘Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu’ (UPIC) in 1975, introduced the first example of practical implementation of this music educational approach to young children, as it is shown in Fig. 3. 65, 66 Finally, the employment of ICT in the music curriculum could act as an assistant to the teacher, motivating him/her to expand his/her own knowledge, to re-organise his/her educational tools and beliefs, and to become more open-minded in the children’s world. 5.

Conclusions

This paper has attempted an approach of the music curriculum in the context of an efficient and adaptive interface, which couples teacher and pupil’s behaviours and attitudes, shaping a common interactive field. From this view, teacher’s role changes from the traditional imparter of knowledge to the active assistant who facilitates, advises, motivates, and guides the pupils, based on the creative characteristics of the music curriculum. In the same vein, the pupil changes from a passive recipient to an active participant, receiving knowledge and, simultaneously, formulating his/her perspectives by creating, inventing, and inquiring. Musical activities, such as composition, performance, listening to and Fig. 3. Xenakis, while appraising, which underpin alongside the relationship between the music explaining the UPIC system to teacher and the pupils, are influenced from this perspective of the music young children. curriculum. Game structure- and ICT-based educational models included in the music curriculum support pupils’ collaborative learning and act as common links between the music teacher and the pupil, fostering creative musical activities within the classroom. Consequently, the careful design of a music curriculum that adaptively couples music teachers with pupils can establish an innovative educational environment with many beneficial effects, both to pupils and music educators.

Notes 1. Michael Connelly and Olivier Lantz, “Definitions of Curriculum” in The International Encyclopedia of Education: Research and Studies (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1985), Vol. 2: 1160-1163. 2. John Schiller, “Videoconferencing: New Ways of Interacting at a Distance,” Australian Educational

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Computing 8 (1993): 21-24. 3. John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York: Macmillan, 1938); Dwayne Huebner, “Curriculum Language and Classroom Meanings,” in Curriculum Studies: The Reconceputalisation, ed. William Pinar (New York: EIP Press, 2000). 4. Charles Toguchi, Curriculum Restructuring, (2000), (29 January 2005). 5. Michael Apple, Ideology and Curriculum. 2nd edition (New York: Routledge, 1990). 6. Angela Major, “Curriculum Assessment,” The Music Teacher 79 (2000): 17-19. 7. Barbara Rogoff, Apprenticeship in Thinking (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). 8. Charles Plummeridge, Music Education in Theory and Practice (London: The Falmer Press, 1991). 9. Gen Ling M. Chang-Wells and Gordon Wells, “Dynamics of Discourse: Literacy and the Construction of Knowledge,” in Contexts for Learning Cultural Dynamics in Children Development, ed. Ellice Forman, Norris Minick and Addison Stone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 58-90. 10. Rogoff. 11. Maureen Clark and David Davies, “Radical Education: The Pedagogical Subtext,” in Rethinking Curriculum Studies: A Radical Approach, ed. Martin Lawn and Len Barton (London: Croom Helm, 1981), 71110. 12. Plummeridge. 13. Education Act 1996, section 353a. 14. The National Curriculum for England, 1999. 15. Janet Mills, Music in The Primary School (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 16. The National Curriculum for England, 1999. 17. Major. 18. Keith Swanwick and Cecilia Cavalieri, “Composing, performing and Audience Listening as Indicators of Musical Understanding,” British Journal of Music Education 16 (1999): 5-19. 19. SCAA, The National Curriculum Orders (London: HMSO, School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 1994). 20. Colin Durrant and Graham Welch, Making Sense of Music (London: Cassell, 1995). 21. Major. 22. Department of Education and Employment (DES), Music for Ages 5 to 14 (London: HMSO, 1991), 14. 23. Major. 24. Durrant and Welch. 25. Plummeridge. 26. Thematic development refers to the development of a musical theme, in terms of melodic variation (extension of duration, addition of extra notes, rhythmical alterations etc). 27. Franklin, 1992. 28. The National Curriculum for England, 1999. 29. Ibid. 30. Sam Taylor (1973) found that the music of twentieth-century composers, like Hindemith, Stranvinsky, and Schoenberg, was more popular amongst 7 than 11 years old. 31. Mills. 32. Children can expand their musical horizons by listening to and exploring different kind of music, gaining knowledge of uncommon traditional instruments and apprehending how cultural environment can influence the way music is created and performed. 33. The National Curriculum for England, 1999. 34. Swanwick and Cavalieri. 35. John Finney, “Vocal Support,” Music Teacher 79 (2000), 25; quoted from OFSTED, Standards in the Secondary Curriculum, 1997/1998 (London: Office for Standards in Education, 1999). 36. Finney. 37. Durrant and Welch. 38. The National Curriculum for England, 1999. 39. Peter Wayth, Using Microcomputers in the Primary School (Aldershot: Gower, 1983). 40. Thomas Rudolph, Teaching Music with Technology (Chicago: GIA Publications Inc, 1996). 41. Wayth. 42. John Akin, A Study of Evidence that Music Education is a Positive Factor in K-8 Student Academic Achievement (Ph.D. Thesis) (Sacramento: State University of California, 1987). 43. Barbara MacGilchrist, et al., The Intelligent School (London: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd., 1997). 44. Plummeridge. 45. MacGilchrist et al.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ 46. Chris Lloyd and Jeff Beard, Managing Classroom Collaboration (London: Cassell, 1995). 47. Harold, Abeles, et al., Foundations of Music Education (New York: Schirmer Books, 1984). 48. Ibid. 49. Major, 17-19. 50. Thomas Regelski, Teaching General Music (New York: Schirmer, 1981). 51. Margaret Tinzmann, et al., “What is the Collaborative Classroom?” 1990 (28 January 2005). . 52. David Hargreaves, The Developmental Psychology of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 214. 53. Ibid. 54. Plummeridge. 55. Jerome Bruner and Rose Olver, “Development of Equivalence Transformations in Children,” in Basic Cognitive processes in Children, ed. John Wright and Jerome Kagan (Ohio: Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Serial no. 86, 1963), 125-143. 56. David Ausubel, et al., Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View (2nd edition) (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1978); Maggie Ing, “Motivation and Curriculum Planning,” in The study of the Curriculum, ed. Peter Gordon (London: Batsford Academic and Educational Ltd, 1981), 138-146. 57. Abeles et al. 58. Ing. 59. Swanwick and Cavalieri. 60. Ellice Forman and Jean McPhail, “Vygotskian Perspective on Children’s Collaborative ProblemSolving Activities” in Contexts for Learning Cultural Dynamics in Children Development, ed. Ellice Forman, et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 61. Rogoff. 62. Robert M. Kwami, “Music Education in a New Millennium,” in: ICT Pedagogy and the Curriculum, ed. Avril Loveless and Viv Ellis (London: Routledge Falmer, 2001), 216-228. 63. Rudolph. 64. Abeles et al. 65. Centre d’ Études de Mathématique et Atomatique Musicales (CEMAMu). This centre was established in Paris by Xenakis in 1996. 66. Iannis Xenakis, Texts for Music and Architecture (Athens: Psyhogios, 2001), 221.

References Education Act 1996, section 353a, Chapter II, Secular Education, The National Curriculum, 199. London: Department for Education and Employment, Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 1999. The National Curriculum for England. Report of the Department for Education and Employment, 18, London: Department for Education and Employment, Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 1999. Abeles, Harold, Charles Hoffer and Robert Klotman. Foundations of Music Education. New York: Schirmer Books, 1984. Akin, John. A Study of Evidence that Music Education is a Positive Factor in K-8 Student Academic Achievement, Ph.D. Thesis. Sacramento: State University of California, 1987. Apple, Michael. Ideology and Curriculum (2nd edition). New York: Routledge, 1990. Ausubel, David, Joseph Novak and Helen Hanesian. Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View (2nd edition). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1978. Bruner, Jerome and Olver Rose. “Development of Equivalence Transformations in Children.” In Basic Cognitive Processes in Children, edited by John Wright and Jerome Kagan, 125-141. Ohio: Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Serial no. 86, 1963. Chang-Wells, Gen Ling M. and Gordon Wells. “Dynamics of Discourse: Literacy and the Construction of Knowledge.” In Contexts for Learning Cultural Dynamics in Children Development, edited by Ellice Forman, Norris Minick and Addison Stone, 58-90. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Clark, Maureen and David Davies. “Radical Education: The Pedagogical Subtext.” In Rethinking Curriculum Studies: A Radical Approach, edited by Martin Lawn and Len Barton, 71-110. London: Croom Helm, 1981. Connelly, Michael and Olivier Lantz. “Definitions of Curriculum.” In The International Encyclopedia of Education: Research and Studies, Vol. 2, 1160-1163. Pergamon Press, 1985. Dewey, John. Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan., 1938. Department of Education and Science (DES). Music for Ages 5-14. London: HMSO, 1991. Durrant, Colin and Graham Welch. Making Sense of Music. London: Cassell, 1995. Finney, John. “Vocal Support.” Music Teacher 79 (2000): 24-25. Forman, Ellice and Jean McPhail. (1993) “Vygotskian Perspective on Children’s Collaborative Problem-Solving Activities.” In Contexts for Learning Cultural Dynamics in Children Development, edited by Ellice Forman, Norris Minick and Addison Stone, 213-229. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Franklin, Eric. Music Education Psychology and Method. Britain: George G. Harrap & Co. LTD,1972. Hargreaves, David. The Developmental Psychology of Music Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1986. Huebner, Dwayne. “Curriculum Language and Classroom Meanings.” In Language and Meaning, edited by J. Macdonald & R. Leeper, 8-26. Washington, D.C.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1966. Ing, Maggie. “Motivation and Curriculum Planning.” In The Study of the Curriculum, edited by Peter Gordon, 138-146. London: Batsford Academic and Educational Ltd., 1981. Kwami, Robert M. “Music Education in a New Millennium.” In ICT Pedagogy and the Curriculum, edited by Avril Loveless and Viv Ellis, 216-228. London: Routledge Falmer, 2001. Lloyd, Chris and Jeff Beard. Managing Classroom Collaboration. London: Cassell, 1995. MacGilchrist, Barbara, Kate Myers and Jane Reed. The Intelligent School. London: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd., 1997. Major, Angela. “Curriculum Assessment.” The Music Teacher 79 (2000): 17-19. Mills, Janet. Music in The Primary School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. OFSTED. Standards in the Secondary Curriculum, 1887/1998. London: Office for Standards in Education, 1999. Plummeridge, Charles. Music Education in Theory and Practice. London: The Falmer Press, 1991. Regelski, Thomas. Teaching General Music. New York: Schrimer, 1981. Rogoff, Barbara. Apprenticeship in Thinking. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Rudolph, Thomas. Teaching Music with Technology. Chicago: GIA Publications Inc, 1996. SCAA. The National Curriculum Orders. London: HMSO, School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA), 1994. Schiller, John. “Videoconferencing: New Ways of Interacting at a Distance.” Australian Educational Computing 8 (1993): 21-24. Swanwick, Keith and Cecilia Cavalieri. “Composing, Performing and Audience Listening as Indicators of Musical Understanding.” British Journal of Music Education 16 (1999): 5-19.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Taylor, S. “Musical Development of Children Aged Seven to Eleven.” Psychology of Music 1(1) (1973): 44-49. Tinzmann, Margaret, Beau Jones, T.F. Fennimore, J. Baker, C. Fine, and Jean Pierce, “What is the Collaborative Classroom?,” 1990. (28 January 2005). Toguchi, Charles. “Curriculum Restructuring.” 2000. (28 January 2005). . Wayth, Peter. Using Microcomputers in the Primary School. Aldershot: Gower, 1983. Xenakis, Iannis. Texts for Music and Architecture. Athens: Psyhogios, 2001. Georgia N. Nikolaidou Graduate School of Education University of Bristol [email protected]

One Approach for Defining a Procedure for Development of College Curriculum Dragoslav Perić, Olivera Nikolić, Miloš Milanković, Slobodan Obradović, Vesna Marković Abstract: Higher education reform and the Bologna declaration demand necessary changes in college curriculum. One approach for defining a procedure for development of college curriculum is proposed in this paper. This approach consists of three stages. In the first, “general” stage, the main parameters of curriculum are defined with the ranges of its values. For example, if the number of courses per semester is between 4 and 6, the default number of ECTS credits per course can be 5, 6 or 7.5, etc. In this stage it’s necessary to take into account the mentioned parameters in the other colleges. In the second, “tuning” stage, concrete college defines the exact values or small ranges of parameters. For example, 5 courses per semester, 6 ECTS credits per course. In the third, “fine tuning” stage colleges analyse the differences between new and existing curriculum, and adjust the parameters of a new one. For example, some of courses can be expanded or reduced to achieve default number of ECTS credits. Creation of a numeric parameter is suggested as a measure of difference between two curriculums, which can be useful to compare two or more curriculums. Key Words: Curriculum, college, Bologna declaration, ECTS 1.

Model

A.

Parameter Table All parameters to evaluate a curriculum are divided into categories (Table 1). Table 1: Parameter table for E-BUSINESS program Valjevo

938 -27% 781 -23%

40 35 20 20 240 180 120 143

S1max

S2max

Deviation %

Reference

Average

S1min S2min

S1max

S2max

Deviation %

Per course Reference

Average

S2min

0% 3% 7% 0% 0% 0% -1% 2% 44% 31%

S1max

Deviation %

35 30 15 15 240 180 100 140 938 781

S2max

Reference

Average

S2min

S1min Courses ECTS Lectures Other contact hours Courses' content (>70%)

offered 30 30 35 to finished 20 25 31 compulsory 10 15 16 elective 0 15 15 offered 180 180 240 to finished 180 180 180 compulsory 80 100 99 elective 0 143 143 offered 1347 to finished 1025 compulsory elective offered 688 to finished 600 compulsory elective offered to finished compulsory elective

S1min

Per semester

Per program

40 4 4 7,5 6 25% 6 10 30 4 4 6,3 5 25% 6 10 30 2 2 3,5 3 17% 4 10 20 0 2 4 2 100% 4 6 240 30 30 40 36 12% 36 45 4,9 6 -19% 180 24 24 30 30 4,9 6 -18% 0% 36 36 180 17 18 -8% 4,6 6 -23% 120 24 18 31% 5,1 6 -16% 283 188 51% 15 15 44 38 18% 45 60 236 156 51% 44 38 17% 15 15 42 38 45 60 15 15 45 38 45 60 104 188 -45% 16 38 -57% 85 156 -46% 16 38 -57% 17 38 -54% 16 38 -58%

The categories Courses, ECTS, Lectures and Other contact hours deals with curriculum structure, until the category Courses’ content (>70%) which deals with education content. If it is necessary, the new categories can be added, for example Delivery method. All categories have the same four subcategories: offered, to finish, compulsory and elective. The subcategories are derived from the courses status: compulsory or elective. The two last categories are the number

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ of compulsory and elective units given by category, respectively. The category offered is the appropriate number of both compulsory and elective offered to student, and to finish is the appropriate number necessary to finish program. The category Courses deals with the number of courses per programme and semester. If programs compared have different year schedule (semester, trimester, blocks), semester consideration must be replaced with year one. The category ECTS deals with the number of ECTS credits per program, semester, and course. If programs compared have the other system of credits, this system can be used only if all programs have the same credit system. Otherwise, all credit systems need to be converted to ECTS. The categories Lectures and Other contact hours mean the appropriate number of hours per program, semester and course. The category Courses’ content (>70%) is the number of courses which overlies more than 70% with the appropriate course from second compared program. The limit different from 70% can be used too. All categories and subcategories are presented in rows of Table 1. In the columns of table the parameters families of are presented. There are three possible families: per program, per semester, and per course. All parameters families have the same parameters: S1min, S2min, Average, Reference, Deviation%, S2max. Label S1 in the parameter name means the stage one of development process, and S2 means the second stage. Label min and max use to mark the minimal and maximal value of parameters. The interval from S1min to S1max is generally wider than S2min to S2max. The value of Average needs to be calculated by using the expression:

Average =

1 n ∑Vi n i =1

(1) where there are n number items and Vi is the value of item i. The Deviation % is calculated using:

Deviation % =

Average − Reference ⋅ 100% (2) Reference

In situation with large data dispersion we can use the expression:

Deviation % =

1 n (Vi − Reference)2 ∑ n i =1 ⋅ 100% Reference

(3)

The values of Reference generally qualify the desired values. How to adopt the value of Reference will be explained in the application example below. B.

Procedures DEVELOPMENT OF A CURRICULUM Stage One 7.

By analysing the curriculums of other similar institution, define the values for S1min and S1max.

Stage Two 8.

By analysing the own curriculum, define the values for S2min and S2max.

Stage Three 9. 10.

Calculate Average using expressions (1). Adopt Reference.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ 11. 12.

Calculate Deviation % using expressions (2) and (3). Calculate overall deviation per program, semester and course using expression:

Shift = ∑ k j DEVIATION % j j

DEVIATION % j =

∑k

j

=1

(4)

∑ abs( Deviation ) i

i

(5)

4

(6)

Deviation%i is the appropriate value for category and parameter family. Values of kj can be chosen as follow: Courses ECTS Lectures Other contact hours Courses’ content (>70%) 13.

Per program 0.125 0.125 0.125 0.125 0.50

Per semester 0.125 0.125 0.125 0.125 0.50

Per course X 0.25 0.25 X 0.50

If Shift is unsatisfied go to step 2, otherwise: end of procedure.

TWO CURRICULUM APPROACHING The procedure is generally the same, but Reference adopting is different. Reference values are generally closer to the “stronger” institution. If we use exact values of one institution, Shift means the “distance” of two institutions. 2.

Application Example

Table 1 show the parameters for E-BUSINESS program in College of Economics, Valjevo, Serbia and Montenegro. The values for Average are obtained from program data. The desired new program is modelled by values of Reference: • • • • •

6 courses offered per semester, 5 courses necessary to finished semester, 3 compulsory and 2 elective courses; 6 ECTS credits per course, 37.5 lectures hours and 37.5 other contact hours per course, etc.

The Deviation% values are calculated by expression (2). It can be noticed that, it’s not necessary to calculate absolutely all parameters. The category Courses’ content (>70%) is not calculated because there are no intention to change courses’ contents more than 30%. The values for DEVIATIONj% and Shift are calculated by expressions (4), (5) and (6) and shown in Table 2. It can be noticed that the most important changes are planed in the structure of semesters (13%) and courses (11%). The most significant changes in semester structure are in category Courses (42%) as well as category Other contact hours in course structure (57%). The percent values mentioned above can be treated as effort needed to makes changes. It is estimated that all changes greater than 10% are “hard”, so it is impossible to make all desired goals.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Table 2: Overall Deviation% parameters Courses ECTS Lectures Other contact hours Courses’ content (>70%) Shift

Per program 3% 1% 19% 12% 0% 4%

Per semester 42% 13% 25% 23% 0% 13%

Per course 0% 19% 9% 57% 0% 11%

As the second example, a Shift between E-BUSINESS program in College of Economics, Valjevo is compared with E-BUSINESS program in College of Electrical Engineering, Belgrade. The calculation made by replacing the values References in Table 1 with appropriate Average values from E-BUSINESS program Belgrade. As we can see, there are significant differences in program and semester structure. It is concluded that the Shift below 20% is acceptable for student mobility, but for planned collaboration it’s recommended to decrease differences below 12%. Table 3: Overall Deviation% parameters to compare two programs Courses ECTS Lectures Other contact hours Courses’ content (>70%) Shift 3.

Per program 44% 54% 13% 11% 0% 15%

Per semester 106% 35% 33% 19% 0% 24%

Per course 0% 31% 9% 57% 0% 12%

Conclusion

While changing college curriculum it is necessary to respect some solutions in existing curriculum. The three stages approach for defining a procedure for development of college curriculum is proposed in this paper. Creation of the numeric parameters is suggested as a measure of differences between two curriculums, a new one and existing curriculum or two curriculums need to be approached. These parameters can be used as an effort to make changes. The approach is illustrated on examples for two colleges. Meaning of parameters obtained is estimated.

References College of Electrical Engineering, Belgrade, Serbia & Montenegro. Curriculum 2004. 2004 College of Economics, Valjevo, Serbia & Montenegro. Curriculum 2004. 2004. Dragoslav Peric College of Electrical Engineering Serbia and Montenegro [email protected]

Measuring Aspects of Student Satisfaction with Course Provision Peter Long, Tony Tricker & Margaret Rangecroft Abstract: As students increasingly fund themselves, the notion of the student as a customer of Higher Education, expecting quality services from the provider, becomes more prevalent. The student experience has become an important dimension of the quality of education. Evaluating the student experience (as distinct from the content or delivery of their course) becomes a pressing need in order to maintain and improve educational quality in a competitive market. Developing appropriate and sensitive evaluation instruments is therefore a priority for quality management and enhancement. Other service providers (e.g. commercial services) have faced this challenge for some time and an examination of methods used elsewhere produces interesting alternatives to more conventional questionnaire approaches. We have developed a variant of the so-called “service Template” for evaluating student satisfaction with postgraduate distance learning courses (a sector in which discerning students invariably pay all their fees themselves). We have designed and produced a prototype Template which is delivered electronically to postgraduate students learning at a distance from the university. Our experience with this instrument leads us to believe that it provides valuable insights into how aspects of the student experience might be changed to generate a greater fit between what students look for in a course of study and what they receive. We are currently embarking on extending the Template idea to other levels of study and modes of delivery in order to gauge more generally the level of student satisfaction with their courses. Key Words: Distance Learning; Higher Education; Service Template. 1.

Introduction

Students of Higher Education increasingly perceive themselves to be customers of a service. This is partly as a result of the funding arrangements in the UK where students (or their parents) contribute directly to the cost of the education, and partly because of the growth of consumerism in public services and the desire for individuals to receive value for their time and effort. In postgraduate education, where students (or their employers) have made a substantial contribution to the cost of their study, students have taken a customer role for some time.1 Key aspects of educational quality, such as academic standards, curriculum content, and the suitability of teaching and learning methods, have always been the subject of much debate. Considerable effort and cost is invested in the monitoring of this provision to enhance these aspects.2 However, other aspects of the student experience such as the availability of resources (library, catering), the nature of feedback, what is included in the fee, the frequency of tutorials, etc, become increasingly important to this student-as-consumer body and hence are becoming the subject of greater scrutiny and judgement. Students make choices on the basis of their satisfaction with these aspects. In a competitive market situation, where quality is an important distinguishing feature, institutions are keen to maintain and improve the quality of their provision in order to attract and retain students. Knowing which features of the provision are most in need of attention therefore becomes critical as does possessing an appropriate and sensitive evaluation instrument is a priority for quality management and enhancement. Traditionally the formal student evaluation mechanism has been a questionnaire issued at the end of the course (or module). Often such questionnaires are designed to include aspects of provision that are determined by the teaching staff and may not reflect what students consider important. Students’ service needs can therefore easily be ignored. Informal evaluation is possible when regular contact is maintained through classes and immediate action can be taken if problems arise. Where students are learning at a distance, this mechanism has limited effectiveness. Our quest was to find an appropriate way of allowing students to evaluate postgraduate distance learning courses against their own criteria to reveal any gaps that exist between what they expect and what they receive. We looked to the evaluation of service quality in the wider area of public and commercial services and based our ideas on the “service Template.”3 This measures the degree of fit between what consumers are looking for in service with what they experience. The Template covers a number of aspects of service, one of which might be, for example, the nature of

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ the teaching approach. For each aspect, respondents express their opinion on what they look for in their course and, separately, what they experience on their course in respect of each aspect. They do this by selecting the position on a scale between two extreme end points which best describes their opinion. The end points for the aspect relating to teaching approach might be “a theoretical approach” at one end of the scale and “a practical approach” at the other end. These positions are calibrated and are converted in to a measure of the so called “satisfaction gap” for this aspect of service provision. These measures represent the mismatch between what is looked for and what is experienced. We have designed and tested a prototype Template for postgraduate Distance Learning courses where the aspects of service provision were largely determined by students themselves. Our Template produces a graphical picture of the size of these satisfaction gaps for these key aspects. In this paper, we report on the development process and the initial results from the prototype Template. 2

Development of Template

What follows is a brief summary of the development of the ‘Template’. More detail can be found in our earlier papers.4 At the forefront of our minds when we initiated this project was the fact that we were treating students as customers and hence it was their concerns that we needed to address rather than our own. The Template is designed to assess students’ views on the issues that they consider important. Like most teachers we were confident that we knew our students and hence had a fair idea of their priorities, but we wished to be certain that we were correct in these assumptions. We therefore carried out a preliminary study to identify the issues that our distance learners considered important. A questionnaire was sent out to students on a number of distance learning courses to identify these issues and the results analysed to give a list of issues that were then grouped under headings. The results justified our decision to allow students to voice their opinions, as the list was not the same as the one we would have written, although there was some commonality. We then studied the list carefully and from it designed the Template so that it covered those aspects of the course that were most important to the students themselves. Unlike most data collection tools the Template, like its counterpart in the service sector, does not make any judgements about what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but simply attempts to provide ‘value free’ alternatives. The design of these ‘endpoints’ was quite taxing but we felt that it was vital to design these carefully to ensure that the Template would give us valid information. The Template then went through several drafts, each of which was piloted, before the final version was decided upon. The end product was a paper version of the Template containing the sets of endpoints in random order, presented twice to allow students to identify both what they looked for from the course and what they were actually experiencing. We were concerned that the order in which these two versions were completed might influence the outcome, but an experiment to investigate this showed no order effect. The final version of the Template has been used to evaluate the satisfaction levels of students on a number of distance learning courses and data has been collected and analysed to find the areas of both satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The analysis has concentrated on measuring the ‘gap’ between expectation and experience both in terms of its size and direction. Both statistics and graphs have been used to present the findings. Choosing the appropriate statistics and graphs has been carefully thought out after consideration of the alternatives. Our criteria were that the statistics should be statistically sound and easy to understand, and that the graphs should be a true and clear representation of the data. We did develop some quite sophisticated graphs but when we gave them to course leaders to interpret we found that in some cases they were too complex.5 Since clear communication of findings was critical we eventually decided to use very simple graphs such as bar charts, though the more complex graphics are available for course leaders who wish to study them. Having collected data from several distance-learning courses and analysed the resulting data, we presented the findings to the respective course leaders to gauge their reactions and hence evaluate the usefulness of the Template. All the course leaders we interviewed were very positive about the value of the results. There were some instances where the gaps identified were unexpected and gave them much food for thought. In some cases the course leader decided to investigate the issue in more detail, in others immediate remedial action was taken. This action took two forms: changing the course to meet students concerns or communicating more effectively to manage student expectation. It is fair to say that at the beginning of this project the expectation of members of the team had been that the information gathered would lead to the design of a ‘better’ course by leading to changes in content and/or delivery. In the event this was rarely the outcome because in most cases student expectations were impossible to meet for sound practical reasons. What did emerge was the need to communicate more effectively and openly with students about what can and cannot be done to alter complex course provision. Only time and the repeated use of the Template will show whether these strategies have been successful in improving the student experience. All the course leaders we interviewed were convinced that at least some of the information that came

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ from the application of the Template had not been highlighted using more conventional student feedback mechanisms. Whilst not a replacement for the usual questionnaires and interviews we feel that using the Template is a rich source of feedback which would otherwise be untapped. 3

Electronic Version

When piloting the paper version of the Template two major issues arose. The first was that the fact that it had to be sent to students to complete and then had to be returned by them. The second was that the data generated by the Template had to be entered manually into the database before analysis of the results. An obvious next stage was to develop an electronic version of the Template in order to avoid both of these problems. Our ultimate aim was to produce an Internet version of the Template but as an interim step we produced a CD version. In the first instance there seemed to be two compelling reasons for providing a CD version rather than a web based version: 14. 15.

Not all students have easy access to the Internet and a CD version would allow us to pilot the electronic version to a wider audience of students. A CD does not require any plug-ins to operate and therefore removing the need to download these before running the Template. Our experience has shown that many of the students are only connected to the Internet from home. As a result this form of connection is often slow to operate and it would be very time consuming to download the plug-in software. This can be especially important if they are actually paying for the connection.

The CD version of the Template was commissioned and sent to a range of postgraduate students on three distance education courses. They were asked to run the CD, enter their responses, and if possible send them via the Internet using the instructions on the CD itself. A system which allowed the results to be sent to a database was an important feature of the electronic version. It removed the need for manual entry of the data and also would facilitate the aim of providing the students, on completion of their data entry, to receive feedback on how their responses compared with those of other students. To provide a feel of the general appearance of the QUEST (QUality Evaluation by Student Template) software, a screenshot is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Screenshot from the CD version Students were asked to complete an evaluation sheet to provide us with feedback on the design and ease of using the CD version of the Template. This feedback from students has been very informative in helping to clarify how to develop the software for the Internet version of the Template. The following selection of responses from students provides a flavour of the feedback obtained. A.

The general appearance of software

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ • • • • • • B.

Fine - clear - easy to use Looks good - up to date Interface quite nice but bad start because course codes not defined Pleasant enough, though it would be better if it were to be full screen Clear - colourful, not fussy, pleasant appearance Choice of questions put side by side rather than at an angle, with all the buttons located together so you are not constantly moving the mouse The ease of use of the software

• • • • C.

Very user friendly - I was impressed No problems Straight forward very easy to use I was a little confused at first about leaving the marker unmoved. It seemed easy to use Were there sufficient instructions how to input responses?

• • • •

Probably too many - could be reduced, but fine really Yes - made entering the responses easy Yes - except for entering course codes Yes - would prefer tick boxes as opposed to the slider method

D. How long did it take you to complete the Template? • E.

In general the time to complete data entry was about 10 minutes and about one minute to transmit the data What version of the Template would you prefer: CD, Internet or paper?

•

As expected more students were in favour of the Internet version, with 60% preferring this compared with 30% for the CD version and 10% for the paper version. However, as these figures show, some do prefer the CD version for the following reason. I like the idea of using the CD and then sending the data via the net. I would imagine an on line version would worry some people - i.e. downloading software etc.

We are now in the final stages of development of an Internet version of the Template. By moving to this version we have removed problems found while piloting the CD version. These difficulties included factors such as the trouble and the cost of posting out the CDs, and students finding it off-putting to have to load the CD prior to completing the Template. The internet version has incorporated changes to take account of the points raised by students in their feedback from the CD version (e.g. The course codes have now been redefined and the appropriate code can now be chosen from a drop down menu.) The revised Template will be full screen and the questions put side by side rather than at an angle. We are still wrestling with the best way to provide relevant feedback, based on the results from QUEST, in an interactive way with students. 4

The Future

Our experience with the Template leads us to believe that it provides a valuable approach to evaluation. It offers practical insights into how a greater fit between what students look for in a course of study and what they experience can be achieved either by changing aspects of the student experience or the way in which expectations are generated. If the need to determine the demands on the nature of the educational experience increases, we believe that the value of a Template approach to evaluation can be extended to other forms of delivery and to other levels within education. Take the growth in e-learning as an example; the development of e-learning packages raises issues about course design and delivery to meet the students’ expectations. There is still much to be done in evaluating these delivery modes and ensuring that a good fit is achieved. Undergraduate education in the UK is changing as wider access brings greater numbers of more diverse students. Informing and meeting their expectations will become an increasing challenge within a climate of reducing resources. The Template approach has the potential to provide insights into how this might be achieved.

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Notes 1. Peter Gilroy, et al., “The Evaluation of Course Quality Through a Service Template,” Journal of Evaluation 5(1) (1999): 80-91. 2. Stuart Underwood, “Assessing the Quality of Quality Assessment: The Inspection of Teaching and Learning in British Universities,” Journal of Education for Teaching 26(1) (2000): 73-79. 3. Roy Staughton, et al., “Towards a Simple, Visual Representation of Fit in Service Organisations in the Contribution of the Service Template,” International Journal of Operation and Production Management 14(5) (1994): 76-85. 4. Tony Tricker, et al., “The Template Project,” Journal of Education for Teaching 23(1) (1997): 85-86; Margaret Rangecroft, et al., “What is Important to Distance Education Students,” Open Learning 14(1) (1999): 17-24; Peter Long, et al., “Measuring the Satisfaction Gap: Education in the Market Place,” Total Quality Management 10(5) (1999): 772-778; Tony Tricker, et al., “Evaluating Distance Education Courses: The Student Perception,” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 26(2) (2001): 165-177; Peter Gilroy, et al., “Evaluation and the Invisible Student: Theories, Practice and Problems in Evaluating Distance Education Provision,” Quality Assurance in Education 9(1) (2001): 14-22. 5. Peter Long, et al., “Satisfaction with Distance Education: Measuring and Closing the Satisfaction Gap,” Total Quality Management 11(5) (2000): 530-536.

References Gilroy, Peter, Peter Long, Tony Tricker and Margaret Rangecroft. “The Evaluation of Course Quality Through a Service Template.” Journal of Evaluation 5(1) (1999): 80-91. Gilroy, Peter, Peter Long, Margaret Rangecroft and Tony Tricker. “Evaluation and the Invisible Student: Theories, Practice and Problems in Evaluating Distance Education Provision.” Quality Assurance in Education 9(1) (2001): 14-22. Long, Peter, Tony Tricker, Margaret Rangecroft and Peter Gilroy. “Measuring the Satisfaction Gap: Education in the Market Place.” Total Quality Management 10(5) (1999): 772-778. Long, Peter, Tony Tricker, Margaret Rangecroft and Peter Gilroy. “Satisfaction with Distance Education: Measuring and Closing the Satisfaction Gap.” Total Quality Management 11(5) (2000): 530-536. Rangecroft, Margaret, Peter Gilroy, Peter Long and Tony Tricker. “What is Important to Distance Education Students.” Open Learning 14(1) (1999): 17-24. Staughton, Roy and Chris Williams. “Towards a Simple, Visual Representation of Fit in Service Organisations in the Contribution of the Service Template.” International Journal of Operation and Production Management 14(5) (1994): 76-85. Tricker, Tony, Peter Long, Margaret Rangecroft and Peter Gilroy. “The Template Project.” Journal of Education for Teaching 23(1) (1997): 85-86. Tony Tricker, Margaret Rangecroft, Peter Gilroy and Peter Long. “Evaluating Distance Education Courses: The Student Perception.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 26(2) (2001): 165-177. Underwood, Stuart. “Assessing the Quality of Quality Assessment: The Inspection of Teaching and Learning in British Universities.” Journal of Education for Teaching 26(1) (2000): 73-79. Peter Long Margaret Rangecroft Tony Tricker Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield UK

Student Expectations - How Do We Measure Up? Tony Tricker Abstract: Students of Higher Education increasingly perceive themselves to be customers of a service. This is partly as a result of the funding arrangements in the UK where students (or their parents) contribute directly to the cost of their education, and partly because of the growth of consumerism in public services. The student experience has become an important dimension in the measurement of quality of education. The major focus of the paper will illustrate the ways in which student expectations have changed over the last three decades and what the drivers for this change have been. The nature of student expectations and the form of appropriate university responses are clearly complex issues, touching on almost all aspects of higher education. There is considerable value in sharing experience, knowledge and reflections about these matters. The paper will conclude by demonstrating how a web based interactive version of a ‘Service Template’, QUEST (Quality Evaluation by Student Template) can highlight aspects of the student experience to generate a better fit between what students expect in a course of study and what they receive. Key Words: Customers; Higher Education; Student Expectations. 1.

Changing Student Expectations

It is clear to all who work in Higher Education (HE) that student expectations have changed over the last three decades. These expectations are now of greater complexity and a different order to those which might have applied in the past. Universities now find themselves being pushed on the one hand to respond to mounting student expectations, while on the other there are fears that the fundamental purpose of HE could be distorted or even lost if institutions go to far in the direction of placing HE on a commercial footing. It is interesting to reflect how student expectations have changed over the past thirty years. In the 1970s a student at university may have expected: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

A place of scholarly reflection and learning To obtain a degree Enhanced employment prospects Support by government funding Teacher student relationship to be one sided Very few expectations of teaching quality No concept of expectations of other stakeholders

The 1980s and 90s were very much a period of change. There was the translation of polytechnics to universities in 1992. This changed the face of HE, we how had a sector responding more to societies needs, providing vocational courses and catering for a more diverse set of students. A new generation of students were entering HE and had a new set of expectations. The introduction of tuition fees has lead to students acting more like customers. How many times have we heard students say “I expect value for money”. Today students are seen increasingly as customers of a service. The supplier-driven, take-it-or- leave- it model which most HE institutions have followed in the past has been replaced by a focus on the student as a customer of a service. Students (and parents) expectations are now high and as Davies points out, these now include:1 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Flexibility and choice in the delivery of education Access to cutting edge technology A two way communication process between themselves and with the university To be consulted about the learning experience Accurate information about their courses, assessment procedures, complaints process, etc Honesty with respect to whether their needs can be met or not

To these we may wish to add: 7. 8. 9.

Quality and professionalism in the provision of services Access to suitably qualified teachers and appropriate learning support Value of study to career prospects

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ It is possible to sketch some of the broad parameters that have caused student expectations to change. They include, for example the rise of the student as a customer, which has been fuelled by the view by government that they should shoulder an increasing share of their cost of HE. Many students now work part time while in HE and as a result want a flexible learning environment. (eg 24/7 access to services) Not last in a drive of change has been the influence of external agencies such as the Quality Assurance Agency, with it’s emphasis on the quality of the student experience. With its rolling programme of subject reviews there has been a heavy emphasis on identifying and enhancing the student experience and whether institutions are meeting student expectations. It is not surprising, with the greater role of the student in assessing the quality of their educational experience, that HE institutions are devoting much more time improving the student experience. In many cases this has been carried out by ‘Bridging the Gap’ between what students expect and experience. By controlling the student learning environment HE institutions have been successful in bringing more in line student experiences and expectations. This has been achieved in my institution by such things as: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Changing curriculum design to enhance employability More flexible provision Improvement in teaching quality Improved student support Greater transparency

The recent annual Unite Student Living Report provides a valuable insight into the way students view their university with respect to expectations.2 During the current debate about student funding, it is interesting to note that the survey found that 58% of students think that they receive good value for money from their course, while 10% feel their course to be poor value. As Figure 1 from the Unite report indicates, 84% of students say their course meets or exceeds their expectations but 14% feel they have fallen short of expectations. An area of concern is that dissatisfaction with a course increases further into the course a student progresses. For first year students this is 8% and rises to 21% in year three. It is important to remember that in order to improve the student experience, their expectations have to be taken into account. Clearly the results from the Unite survey indicate that universities are falling short of this as students progress through their course.

2% 14%

Meet expectations Exceed expectations Fall short of expectations Don't know

16%

68%

Figure 1: Does your course meet expectations? All students

14%

Year of Study 1st Year 2nd Year 3rd Year

8% 12% 21%

Figure 2: Fall short of expectations 2.

Management of Student Expectations

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Universities need to take a more strategic approach to the management of student expectations. This management might take the form of spelling out more clearly to students what they will experience and in addition be prepared to change student expectations. This is especially important in light of evidence that suggests that student expectations can be shaped significantly by a two way dialogue between ‘provider and customer’.3 As pointed out by Sander et al. HE has typically adopted an ‘inside out’ approach - with us on the inside assuming we know what students expect and want from HE. However, successful service industries have been shown to think ‘outside in’. They research what customers expect of the service and then work to provide the service that meets those of customer expectations.4 It would seem sensible that an obvious step in the management of student expectations is to seek ways to understand these expectations ie adopt the ‘outside in’ approach suggested by Sander. Namely, in order to increase student satisfaction, we need to identify where gaps exist between the experience and expectations of students. Identifying where such gaps exist not only gauges the overall level of satisfaction, but reveals specific areas where improvements can be made to raise the level of student satisfaction and therefore the success of the service offered. The next section outlines how the approach used by the service industry can be used to highlight where significant gaps exist between what students are expecting and what they are experiencing on a course. 3

The Template

Long et al. and Tricker et al. have adapted a tool used in the service industry, the Template, to measure the fit between customer expectation and experience so that it would apply to the situation that students (as customers) find themselves in with their course provider (as service industry).5, 6, In the context of education courses, this translates as a gap that might exist between what students expect on their course and what they in fact experience. In brief, the Template adopts a radically different philosophy from the more conventional satisfaction survey. A number of aspects of interest are first identified. This is done by asking students what are the most important aspects of course provision to them. For each of these chosen aspects the Template offers a spectrum of possibilities, represented by distinct end-points on a scale, on which respondents locate a position corresponding to first what they expect in their course and second what they experience. The scale for a typical aspect is shown in Figure 2. An application based approach

|----------------------------------|-------------------------------------|

A research led approach

Figure 2: Typical Template Scale The aspects are identified by asking students to identify the most important aspects of course provision to them. A variety of methods are used to establish what the students themselves felt were the important aspects of course delivery. These included focus groups and a paper based questionnaire.7 Care is taken to ensure that the end-points are as far as possible value-free. After the students have marked the two positions (one indicating what they expect, the other what they experience), the distance between the two - in other words the gap - is calculated for each of the aspects. The gaps identified by individual students are then combined with responses from other students at the same stage of the same course and analysed to produce comparative statistics. The most meaningful of these statistics is the socalled satisfaction gap associated with an aspect of course provision. This is the average across the student cohort of the absolute values of the difference between the two measurements. The absolute value is used to reflect that any difference between what is expected and what is experienced indicates dissatisfaction. The aspects included in the Template are then ranked in order of this satisfaction gap to establish the order of importance for taking action to close the gap. The Template has been found to allow pinpoint accuracy in the identification and subsequent management of student expectations and experience.8 Recently a Web - based version of the Template, QUEST (QUality Evaluation Student Template), has been developed.

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Conclusion

In this paper it has been shown how student expectations have constantly changed since the 1970s. It is important that educational providers devote more attention to ascertaining just what the expectations and experiences of students are. The Template has been shown to be successful in highlighting where there are significant gaps between what students are expecting and experiencing on a course. In doing so it has been found to be a valuable tool in bringing the expectations and experiences of students more closely in line.

Notes 1. Sarah Davies, “Marketing in Higher Education: Matching Promises and Reality to Expectations,” in Responding to Student Expectations, OECD (OECD: Paris, 2002), 103-114. 2. Students Living Report, (Unite: London, 2003). 3. Richard James, “Students’ Changing Expectations of Higher Education and the Consequences of Mismatches with the Reality,” in Responding to Student Expectations, OECD (OECD: Paris, 2003), 71-83. 4. Paul Sander, et al., “University Students’ Expectations of Teaching,” Studies in Higher Education 25 (1985): 309-324. 5. Peter Long, et al., “Measuring the Satisfaction Gap: Education in the Market Place,” Total Quality Management 10 (1999): 172-778. 6. Tony Tricker et al., “Evaluating Distance Education Courses: The Student Perception,” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 26 (1999): 165-177. 7. Margaret Rangecroft, et al., “What is Important to Distance Education Students,” Open Learning 14 (1) (1999): 17-24. 8. Maragaret Rangecroft, et al.,”Gathering and Using Quality of Student Experience Data on Distance Education Courses,” Journal of Distance Education 17 (1) (2002): 75 - 83.

References Davies, Sarah. “Marketing in Higher Education: Matching Promises and Reality to Expectations.” In Responding to Student Expectations, OECD, 103-114. OECD: Paris, 2002. James, Richard. “Students’ Changing Expectations of Higher Education and the Consequences of Mismatches with the Reality.” In Responding to Student Expectations, OECD, 71-83. OECD: Paris, 2003. Long, Peter, Tony Tricker, Margaret Rangecroft and Peter Gilroy. “Measuring the Satisfaction Gap: Education in the Market Place.” Total Quality Management 10 (1999): 172-178. Rangecroft, Margaret, Peter Gilroy, Peter Long, and Tony Tricker. “What is Important to Distance Education Students.” Open Learning 14 (1) (1999): 17-24. Rangecroft, Maragaret, Peter Gilroy, Tony Tricker, and Peter Long. “Gathering and Using Quality of Student Experience Data on Distance Education Courses.” Journal of Distance Education 17 (1) (2002): 75 - 83. Sander, Paul, Keith Stevenson and David Coates. “University Students’ Expectations of Teaching.” Studies in Higher Education 25 (2000): 309-324. Students Living Report. Unite, London, 2003. Tricker, Tony, Maragaret Rangecroft, Peter Gilroy and Peter Long. “Evaluating Distance Education Courses: The Student Perception.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 26 (1999): 165-177. Tony Tricker Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Sciences Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield UK

Who Do You Think You Are? Analysing the Potential Development of a Professional Ethos within PG Cert (post-compulsory education sector teacher training) Students Elaine Fisher and Kevin Fisher Abstract: This report explores the views of practitioners within Further Education (UK) of their own perceived professional ethos. The results have indicated a diversity of perceptions and predictors of future professional requirements. This report produces some precepts of professionalism in this context and outlines developing themes for further investigation. Key Words: Professionalism, teacher training, further education, development. 1.

Introduction

The Further Education sector has undergone a period of extensive change in both regulation and student cohorts targeted. Qualifications at all levels of the educational provision have been re-examined in light of new needs and pressures. With the establishment of new awarding bodies, increased funding and new inspection regimes the analysis of practitioners and their role in the sector has come under greater scrutiny as the cultural, sociological and political geography of the sectors alters. This period of change requires adjustment during which the formal and informal links between practitioners and various stakeholders have altered significantly. Analysing the factors that establish a professional ethos within this changing environment appears timely given the potential impact on quality and future roles within the sector. There is consideration on how far the sector may have moved from Carr’s1 almost self-actualising supererogatory model whilst considering the possibility of attraction to axiological factors. 2.

Project Aims

The project aims to address the two following research questions: During the course of the PG Cert Ed (FE) will students develop a general professional ethos based on being an FE lecturer rather than loyalty to a vocational area. What factors influence the development and awareness of such professional identities? More specifically, the project has the following objectives: • • • • •

3.

Do students have an awareness of professional identity linked to their vocational area Does being on the course heighten their awareness of professional identity What factors influence such awareness of professionalism In the view of the students does FE have a unique identity based on political, sociological or cultural factors Does participation on the course heighten their awareness of the unique identity of the FE sector and its political, cultural and sociological base Methodology

Three Further Education Colleges and two universities took part in this first phase of the project. Staff were approached who had direct input to post-compulsory teacher training courses and their management teams agreed to their participation. Views were also gathered using on-line facilities both in the UK and overseas. The study is longitudinal over a two-year time frame. The Project Managers were concerned about the potential impact of bias as the project aims to examine colleagues within the same sector as the researchers. Therefore in the initial benchmarking operation questions were made as wide and free ranging as possible. Whilst this leant itself to wide interpretation of such questions the responses could then be viewed as generally impartial responses to inform the Progress Review. The questionnaires formed the initial main input to this Progress Review - 113 individuals completed and returned the forms. Research methods currently in use also include a literature search, Internet forums, questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, structured exercises and focus groups. 4.

Literature Review

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ One major difficulty in quantifying the concept of a professional in this sector is the multiplicity of practitioner roles, requirements, contractual and vocational loyalties. Add to this the period of change that the sector is experiencing then specific definitions become androgynous at best. As Elliot again suggests: The cultural ethos of universities and colleges has shifted markedly in recent years. Radical legislation affecting the post-compulsory education sector, allied to major reorganisation of the vocational curriculum and new arrangements for funding and quality assurance have combined to contribute to major changes in institutional organisation. 2 There appears a dichotomy of views when comparing the concept of “teaching” within three clearly identifiable sectors - schools, Further Education and Higher Education. The concept of professionalism within each has clear boundaries, which are currently being eroded as each sector gradually finds the barriers between provisions within each are removed. The desire for status and recognition in the wider community is an inherent finding within this research. However Robson states that “[w]ith regard to the FE teaching profession in the UK, however the very diversity of entry routes creates, in sociological terms, a weak professional boundary.”3 Management of such diverse and creative potential should produce an ideal mix for teaching and learning. However this very process of diversity and creativity creates, according to Robson, fragmentation and a perceived lack of any sense of collective status or identity. This diversity also precludes any exclusivity of knowledge apparent in other sectors and requires management techniques, which may not work well within hierarchical-based organisational constraints. There are some principles informing the guiding role of “professional accrediting bodies” of which Michalcak4 expresses the main principles as: longitudinal aims, prioritising, self realisation by self cognition, interactivity of cognition, and, finally, thinking and communication. These principles appear to form the process of educational practice with the long-term aims, setting of priorities, reflection and importance of communication skills. There has been some research into the personality types attracted to Further Education. As McKelvey and Andrews5 state there appears to be inherent enthusiasm about teaching and work satisfaction is clearly an important factor. However they also reflect on what they call low levels of college morale and there appears to be a dichotomy of views between those with high and those with low morale and their views of the organisation. Much of the cultural and professional ethos was delineated by the practitioner’s recruitment into the industry. As Holloway6 noted “FE lecturers have always lacked a clear homogenous professional identity”. This was most strongly apparent with those practitioners recruited due to their vocational knowledge or skills who maintained a strong loyalty to their chosen profession. However there has been a commonality experienced by FE lecturers and that involves the contract of employment. This did reduce some of the benefits of staff but also harmonised pay scales and in some cases workloads. As Clow suggests: “[c]alling the contrast ‘professional’ was an interesting choice of terminology and was certainly used by managers as a way of convincing staff to accept the new regime.”7 The general enforcement of qualifications - initially the assessor awards and then teacher training also begins a process, which may result in a far more homogenous group of practitioners. Northern Ireland commenced this as early as 1990 and Scotland has also followed a similar path. 5.

Analysis of Research - FE Culture

Whilst acknowledging the work of other researchers into the background and reasons for entry of trainee targets into FE this review looks at three areas: • • •

the practitioners motivation to enter the sector perceived culture of the sector evolving management and organisation of the sector

It was found that the practitioners’ own background and motives to enter the sector informed their concept of what the organisational culture appeared to exhibit. There appeared to be three main entry points; direct from full-time education such as a PG Cert or B. Ed, possession of vocationally relevant skills or qualification, academic knowledge which informed subject choice. This was seen as an important background to the study as the culture may influence the factors informing the professional ethos. The responses were split into sections of commonly held views or perceptions:

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ a. Position in educational structures This was initially seen as the “filling of the sandwich” between school and university. However the blurring of boundaries within provision is eroding this view and causing tensions between those desiring to retain formal educational boundaries and strongly held beliefs as to status and exclusivity. Others welcome the changes and see opportunities. Practitioner’s views of public perception of the sector were clear in emphasis. Approximately 25% felt the public view of the sector was “good”, 50% satisfactory and 25% less than satisfactory. This also mirrored practitioner’s views of himself or herself - 36% viewed themselves as “good” and there were apparent links between a sense of “mission” or “purpose” amongst this cohort. However there was also 24% who did not share this view and viewed the sector poorly. This dichotomy of views reflects the internal feelings across the sector. b. Perceived culture of the sector On the positive side there was frequent use of the word “flexible” and was summed up by one practitioner who used the phrase “anything, any time any place”. Practitioners perceive themselves as better able of the schools / universities to handle social diversity and perceived a greater open access to potential clients. This prescribed the nature and type of practitioner as needing to be a “chameleon” or needing “many hats”. On the slightly negative side was the perception that whilst FE was more “relaxed” than schools, Universities were considered more relaxed still. There was some expressed concern over the level of change and content of formal assessment within FE and a desire to emulate some of the structures within HE. There appears to be a self-perception amongst 52% of the practitioners of a liberal / radical style or thought process. They champion the learner and begrudge the impact of the changing management approaches adopted post-incorporation. This may have a significant impact on the registration aims of any over-arching professional organisation for the sector. Only one respondent considered the wider aspect of FE in the European Union. This practitioner was involved in languages and felt the area of EU links was unexplored. The researchers have to agree that knowledge of such areas as SOCRATES and LEONARDO is probably very low. However Field8 did find evidence of language skills - 46% of a FE review of practitioners stated they could hold a simple conversation in French. Increasing links with the EU educational institutions will be a further area of research as to how awareness and usage can be increased. c. Practitioners perception of the lecturing role These questions requested practitioners to identify whether they felt their role was viewed highly or lowly by the general public and specific ratings of the role by colleagues. 25% felt the role was viewed highly by the public, 50% felt it was good and 25% felt if was viewed lowly. There is a need to identify the general public’s view of Further Education to either support or contradict this data. Views of colleagues produced results of 36% viewing highly, 41% as good and 23% lowly. This may suggest that within vocational groups morale is fairly good. However 23% believe their role is perceived as low by their own colleagues is possibly another area requiring investigation and remedial treatment - if we do not feel valued by our own this indicates a degree of potential difficulty within the sector. The PG Cert’s qualification’s rating by colleagues produced results of: Perception Cohort opinion: Viewed highly Good Viewed lowly Don’t know

52% 29% 16% 3%

There was concern expressed by the focus groups about the content of the qualification within colleges. It matched the view and thinking reflected in the requirements of DES Circular 24/89 interpreted by Loveless et al: Relatively little time could be given to planning and managing classroom processes; although the processes are the current basis to psychology of learning, general classroom discipline, concern for social and communication skills within the curriculum…and special educational needs.9

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ The research has produced feedback, which informs the process of staff development. d. Focus group feedback on culture That the sector had undergone great changes was agreed - with most supporting many of the changes. That this had produced differing new structures and cultures was also manifest. All practitioners could relate to the role of the lecturer as summed up by Winter: …the FE lecturer must become involved as a tutor, as a course marketer and entrepreneur, as a provider of distance learning materials and tutorial counsellor for home or work based students and as a placement organiser, evaluator and liaison worker. In each respect, staff will find themselves working in new and unpredictable environments.10 There was disagreement as to whether support functions could keep pace with the changing requirements. There appeared to still be a perception of hierarchical structures with the sector where matrix styles were perceived as being required. As McKelvey and Andrews found: “[t]he as enormous frustration with the ‘inefficiency’, and ‘clumsiness’ of management and administrative Systems.” 11 Overall the analysis of the practitioners supported previous research indicating a rich and diverse culture within the sector. This is perceived as strength to enhance flexibility and maintain the support and goodwill of the client base. 6.

Analysis of Research - Concepts of Professionalism

The practitioners were asked to state “professionals” ran three organisations, which they felt. Answers were similar across all the differing organisational types and were generally as follows in order of preference: 1. 2. 2.

Medical profession 36% Teachers 24% this is interpreted as the compulsory education sector. 21% lawyer, solicitor or the “legal profession”.

High in the list came accountants, police and latterly soldiers and dentists. Only one person stated lecturers. The practitioners were then asked to clarify what a professional possessed or was in terms of possibly skills or attributes. This clarified some of the previous choices of professional bodies. A.

Skills and Attributes

17% stated that the professional needed to be “qualified”. This was more strongly supported by second year students, which is not surprising in the context of being questioned during their final units. However within focus groups there clearly was a degree of unanimity that to be qualified did place them in a superior position to others. As several observed there appears to have been a considerable increase in employment adverts that require the qualification as a pre-requisite of being considered. There were varying phrases used that indicated a moral or ethical dimension to the professional ethos. A code of ethics was mentioned by 12 students, accountability by 3, code of conduct by 2 and CPD by 5. The practitioners within focus groups appeared to feel the need for some form of ethical balance to be kept. This manifested itself within discussion on how to apportion funding, widening participation and integration of students (especially those with mental health issues and the 14-16 cohorts). B.

Experience and Knowledge

The remainder of the ideas given mainly focussed on experience and knowledge. The phrases themselves vied for ranking with experience achieving 13% and knowledge at 11%. Being a lecturer does appear to be seen as a role, which requires direct prior experience and a level of practical applicatory intellectual ability. Pay is currently a clear consideration for many lecturers. The impact of 14-16 years olds entering the student cohorts has heightened the FE practitioner’s feelings of under-payment. Within focus groups there was a feeling of being under-trained, given little preparation for new roles and a lack of governance of this student cohort. It was reported that students of the 16-19 cohort complain of having to share resources with the lower age grouping. They are seen as more difficult to manage and their anti-social behaviour more overt. This may be due to the nature of cohorts sent to FE institutions. There does appear to be a developed moral ethos within practitioners. Integrity, responsibility, trust and

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ dedication were all mentioned as important aspects of a professional lifestyle. The focus groups on FE culture were again providing evidence, which backed up assertions of needing skills in adaptability, organisation and training. C.

Professionalism and management

There does appear to be indications of the practitioners’ comfort and agreement with areas of targets and performance management. They were, however, critical of the styles adopted by managers to progress these aims. Leadership and communication were seen as issues, which managers needed to develop - although it was less clear as to what leadership was and how it could be perceived. There was some agreement that leadership could be identified when it was not there. 7.

Analysis of Research - Factors Contributing to a Professional Ethos

The practitioners were requested to identify what areas may be useful in producing a professional “ethos” in both the questionnaires and focus groups. A factor arising from these statistics that has also featured highly within focus groups is recognition. Firstly there is the overt desire to be “recognised” The actual method which recognition could take appears varied as is an area for further research. Some useful indications currently under scrutiny would be: A.

Money

36 percent wanted enhancement in pay. This was linked variously to parity with compulsory sector teachers, TPI (Teachers Pay initiative) or long-term raises in income as opposed to those not yet qualified. This obviously links into the debate as to whether money can be considered one of Herzberg’s motivators or hygiene factors. B.

Membership of Professional Organisations

The practitioners were specifically requested to list those memberships they held. A variety of responses were received covering wide areas of provision. This reflected the extensive variety of roles maintained in the educational system. However there were specific responses that coincided with either the word N/a, None or simply no memberships were included. The results were as follows: Practitioners without perceived memberships (n = 113) Respondent answer Non-applicable None Question left blank

Number 6 19 42

Percentage 5% 17% 37%

This would suggest an opportunity to engage these practitioners in a professional organisation. However this data could also highlight the risks to an over-arching accrediting body - in particular the Institute of Learning. Further research will be undertaken into why memberships were not perceived as worth pursuing. The absence of such memberships may indicate the lack of an overall professional ethos in “FE Lecturing”. This is one of the fundamental questions of this research - do practitioners only feel allegiance to their own vocational area and how can a broader ethos be created? C.

Recognition within Management Structures

More recent features of the sector have involved increases of staffing to support audit functions and an emphasis on quality. These changes in management emphasis appear not to have been accompanied by alterations in communication structures. However, the practitioners have fed back that much of their motivation is intrinsic and there is still a strong feeling of wishing to pass on knowledge and skills to others. This has important messages for management style of such practitioners in terms of emphasis, agreeing with Owen and Davies that “these findings suggest that intrinsic job satisfaction is primarily influenced by factors directly relating to the education and care of learners rather than to matters concerning college management, systems and structures”.12 As Owen and Davies state, relating to their research questionnaire: “The statement ‘ I feel valued in this

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ organisation’ was the most important ….that of the highest personal importance.”13 This may prove difficult with different cohorts of lecturers. McKelvey and Andrews reported (1998) that their respondents found two groups of practitioners: “[s]everal of the student teachers distinguished those lecturers who really cared about their students and those who had become so disillusioned that they no longer seemed to bother.” 14 Recognition is an important concept and further research will be conducted to ascertain what recognition is desired, whether such recognition can be ranked, what currently exists and what an accrediting body could provide. 8.

Analysis of Research - Motivational Aspects of the Sector

Regarding working in teams Slavin15 puts forward that group rewards would not be effective in motivating all students unless the performance of groups was explicitly determined by the individual achievements of group members. Slavin posed that without the latter component, the positive effects of the group reward system on member motivation would be lost through diffusion of responsibility amongst group members. Therefore it is put forward that loose groups of teams would provide better performance than those in close teams. This is at odds with the social cohesion theories of those such as Johnson and Johnson16 who put forward that where group cohesiveness is based on “[m]embers liking each other, desiring to continue to be part of the group, and being satisfied with group membership” then they were be proportionality more productive. The authors have viewed the implementation of large staff rooms for between 30 and 50 lecturers and more loose teams appear to work better than those in close teams both physically and mentally. Chapman puts forward that: The hypothesis that members of groups who chose to work together would perform better than those in other groups was not supported. …Informal observations of high and low cohesive groups suggested than members of high cohesive groups interacted more than those in low cohesive groups, but that these interactions were largely off-task.17 Ror18 did find some interesting personality factors present in teachers within India that may be relevant to the UK. Principally that the personality factors of “emotional stability, faithfulness and independence” scored highly on a 16PF scale. He later states that “ teachers are significantly more extroverted, and anxious”. Morris and Waller19 suggest that there is a dichotomy of intentions with regard to the formation of professionalism. They cite Carr that: “[a]n individual cannot realistically be expected to exercise professional discretion by a restrictive framework of bureaucratic rules and managerial controls.”20 However later it is compared to Warrior21 that “[p]rofessionalism is synonymous with quality and the current practices relating to maintaining and monitoring standards are issues of contentious debate.”22 However as the bureaucracy produces homogeneity of practice and procedures this could produce a more similar approach, which may by its own impetus form a more general “professional” lecturer in terms of commonality of process. However by doing this it reduces independence, which is also cited as key to professionalism perceptions. Independence also is linked with creativity. Creativity is a requirement of lecturers to ensure they “move forward” with their abilities and process. Managing such individuals requires management styles to develop and encourage such individuality whilst maintaining some form of team. General issues arise such as the general self-discipline of such individuals which obviates against close management. They have profound ownership of their ideas and they need to be approached carefully so as not to attack their perceived autonomy. 9.

Emerging Themes

As stated this is a longitudinal study, which will continue into the fundamentals of professional ethos within the sector. Three further themes have emerged for study to inform the process of professionalism which will also be analysed: 1. 2. 3.

Potential impact of sociological and experiential factors on professionalism Where next for the professional? Constructs and models to assist the management of a creative and innovative staff

The research study has already produced material used by the sector to inform the process of change. It is the consortium’s contention that further research will assist the development of views within the sector and may aid development of both individuals and sector organisations.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Elaine Fisher and Kevin Fisher Centre for Widening Participation and Education Gloscat, UK

Notes 1. David Carr, Four Dimensions of Educational Professionalism (London: Westminster Studies in Education, Vol. 15, 1992). 2. Geoffrey Elliott, Teaching in Post-Compulsory Education: Profession, Occupation or Reflective Practice? Worcester College of Higher Education, 1996, (19 September 2003). . 3. Jocelyn Robson, Professional Challenges for Further Education Teachers in the UK (London: University of Greenwich, 2001), 4. 4. Svatopluk Michalcak, “Concepts for the Improvement of Our Profession by Education and Communication,” in Proceedings of the 19th FIG Congress (Helsinki. Com. 1, 1990), 53-58. 5. Kevin Holloway, “Further Education Teachers’ Development: A Post-Technocratic Model,” Teacher Development 2 (1994): 46-57. 6. Cecila McKelvey and Jane Andrews, “Why Do They Do It? A Study Into the Perceptions and Motivations of Trainee Further Education Lecturers,” Research in Post-Compulsory Education 3 (1998): 361. 7. Ros Clow, “Further Education Teacher’s Constructions of Professionalism,” Journal of Vocational Education and Training London 53 (2001): 408. 8. John Field, “Continuing Education and the European Dimension: a Survey of British Professionals’ Attitudes,” Journal of Further and Higher Education 21 (1997): 21. 9. Avril Loveless et al., “Evaluating Teachers’ Use of Portable Computers in Administration and the Curriculum. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference, Cardiff University, September 7-10 (2000), 19. 10. Richard Winter, Learning from Experience (1989) quoted in B. Cunningham, “The Failing Teacher in Further Education,” Journal of Further and Higher Education 21 (3) (1997): 369. 11. Cecilia McKelvey and Jane Andrews, 363. 12. Jane Owen and Peter Davies, Listening to Staff 2002 (London: LSDA, 2003): 43. 13. Ibid: 15. 14. Cecila McKelvey and Jane Andrews, 362. 15. Robert Slavin, “When and Why Does Cooperative Learning Increase Achievement? Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives,” in Interaction in Cooperative Groups: Theoretical Anatomy of Group Learning, eds. Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz & Norman Miller, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 5-6. 16. David Johnson & Roger Johnson, Learning Together and Alone: Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Learning (4th Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon (1994), 26. 17. Elaine Chapman, “Effects of Social Cohesiveness and Cooperative Incentives on Small Group Learning Outcomes,” CRISP 7 (2002): 10. 18. David Ror, “Personality Assessment of Teachers, Physicians, Bank Managers and Creative Artists Quoted in Personality Differences Across Four Metropolitan Cities of India,” Indian Journal of Psychology 73 (1998): 2. 19. Supnesh Morris and Keith Waller, “Work Induced Dual-Personality in Link 6,” LTSN 6 (2003): 5. 20. Ibid, 13. 21. Becky Warrior, “Reflections of an Educational Professional,” Journal of Hospitality Leisure Sport and Tourism (2002): 5. 22. Supnesh Morris and Keith Waller, 57.

References Carr, David. Four Dimensions of Educational Professionalism. London: Westminster Studies in Education Vol. 15, 1992. Chapman, Elaine. “Effects of Social Cohesiveness and Cooperative Incentives on Small Group Learning Outcomes.” CRISP (2002): 7. Clow, Ros. “Further Education Teacher’s Constructions of Professionalism.” Journal of Vocational Education and Training (2001): 53.

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ Elliott, Geoffrey. Teaching in Post-Compulsory Education: Profession, Occupation or Reflective Practice? [book on line] (Worcester College of Higher Education, 1996, accessed 19 September 2003 ); Available from Leeds University: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/000000104.htm/; Internet. Field, John. “Continuing Education and the European Dimension: a Survey of British Professionals’ Attitudes.” Journal of Further and Higher Education (1997): 21. Holloway, Kevin. “Further Education Teachers’ Development: a Post-Technocratic Model.” Teacher Development 2 (1994): 46-57. Johnson, David and Roger Johnson. Learning Together and Alone: Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Learning (4th Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1994. Loveless, Avril, et al., “Evaluating Teachers’ Use of Portable Computers in Administration and the Curriculum. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference, Cardiff University, September 710 (2000). McKelvey, Cecilia and Jane Andrews. “Why Do They Do It? A Study into the Perceptions and Motivations of Trainee Further Education Lecturers.” Research in Post-Compulsory Education (1998): 3. Michalcak, Svatopluk. “Concepts for the Improvement of Our Profession by Education and Communication.” In Proceedings of the 19th FIG Congress. Helsinki, Com. 1, 53-58, 1990. Morris, Supnesh and Keith Waller. “Work Induced Dual-Personality in Link 6.” Learning and Teaching Support Network (2003): 6. Owen, Jane and Peter Davies. Listening to staff 2002 London: LSDA, 2003. Robson, Jocelyn. Professional Challenges for Further Education Teachers in the UK. London: University of Greenwich, 2001. (Available from: http: //www.surrey.ac.uk/Education/Ttnet/prof-chn.htm). Ror, David D. “Personality Assessment of Teachers, Physicians, Bank Managers and Creative Artists Quoted in Personality Differences Across Four Metropolitan Cities of India.” Indian Journal of Psychology (1998): 73. Slavin, Robert. “When and Why Does Cooperative Learning Increase Achievement? Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives.” In Interaction in Cooperative Groups: Theoretical Anatomy of Group Learning, edited by Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz & Norman Miller, 5-6. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Warrior, Becky. “Reflections of Leisure Sport and Tourism (2002): 5.

an

Educational

Professional.”

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Hospitality

Cunningham B. “The Failing Teacher in Further Education.” Journal of Further and Higher Education 21 (3) (1997): 369. Kevin Fisher Elaine Fisher Work Based Learning Learning and Skills Council National Office Coventry UK [email protected]

Building and Delivering the Virtual MBA: A Case Study of Organisational Learning Inna Geoghegan, Carmel Moynihan and Dr. Rick Ladyshewsky Abstract: The paper presents a case study of the development of an online MBA Programme in the Graduate School of Business (GSB), Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia. The paper offers a background of the project and illustrates the rationale and vision behind the School’s decision to build online courses. To provide a rich contextual framework for the case study of organisational learning, the structure and principles behind the School’s online courses are explained. To illustrate the performance indicators in online learning courses, academic achievements of online post- graduate business students are compared to those in face-to-face courses. The paper discusses the evolution of a teaching faculty and the three stages of its journey from innovation to mainstream. The experience of the School, as perceived by members of the staff involved in online teaching and delivering, is distilled by the authors into the summary of organisational learning. Finally, the paper considers emerging and future issues in the area of online learning and its implication for the field of higher education. Key Words: e-Learning, online learning, online MBA, organisational learning

1.

Introduction

Fundamental developments in information technology lead to its increased use in education, and especially distance learning. The field of online learning is relatively new and arguably the most rapidly developing area of education.1 Business education in particular lends itself well to ‘virtual mode’ of learning due to increasing demands for flexibility from business people.2 While a number of universities offer fully online degrees, the differences in premise, structure and quality of online courses are immense - consequently, every individual case study is a valuable contribution to the new and growing body of knowledge. The major focus of this paper is on organisational learning in terms of the evolution of the teaching faculty as a result of adapting an online method of course delivery. The paper provides an analysis of the stages in the development of the online MBA programme and discusses the journey of the online teaching faculty from innovation to mainstream. Finally, the implications of the School’s experience within the field of online learning are discussed and emerging and future issues in building and delivering virtual courses are considered. 2.

Why e-Learning? A Story Behind the Vision

The Graduate School of Business (GSB), Curtin University of Technology, is situated in Perth, Western Australia. One of the seven teaching faculties within Curtin Business School, it was established in 1993 and has developed into a world class graduate school. In 2003, the GSB succeeded in achieving an Association of MBAs accreditation, have qualified for the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) award from the European Foundation for Management Development and was listed by the Economist Intelligence Unit as having one of the top 100 MBA programs internationally.3 The GSB offers post-graduate education, there is a condition of a minimum of 3 years of post-first degree work experience for the entrance to Master’s programs, and the average age of the GSB student is 33.4 However, being one of the best graduate business schools is not enough, as local geographical conditions in Western Australia (WA) are particularly challenging. Perth - the capital of WA - is one of the most remote cities on Earth.5 The area of WA is about 2.5 million squire km - one third of the whole Australian continent, enough to fit five countries the size of Spain. Its population, on the other hand, is less then one-tenth of the whole of Australia - about 2 million, half of which lives in the capital of Perth.6 In addition, WA is a mining state, and a relatively large percentage of adult working population does shift work (e.g., “fly in - fly out” arrangements, where the employees are flown to the mine, work 12-hour shifts for a number of weeks, and then flown back home for a weekly holiday). Naturally, such schedule does not lend itself to a traditional face-to-face mode of learning, but traditional mail-based distance education with its notoriously high rates of drop-outs does not seem to be a fitting solution. Trying to build up its student base in a highly competitive local market (with 4 other local universities

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ offering MBA degree), in 1998 the GSB introduced a concept of ‘flexible learning’, allowing the students to design a study plan that fits their learning style and busy schedule choosing from traditional face-to-face, intensive or mixed mode classes. The latter, originally incorporating compulsory face-to-face component, developed into e-Learning - a fully online mode of study. 3.

Online Courses at the GSB: Structure and Principles

Aware of the potentially high costs of building online courses, the GSB engaged industry professionals to design an educationally and technologically robust model of online delivery and undertook a marketing survey of its students aimed at assessing potential demand and a level of readiness for online courses. The study has confirmed what was largely anticipated - that the level of demand for alternative mode of delivery was sufficient. Perhaps, the last decisive piece of verification was the fact, that the GSB students rated themselves very high on technical proficiency questions in the market survey, as previous experience with technology is considered to be one of the predictors of success in online learning.7 From the very beginning, the GSB was conscientious to design its online courses based on sound pedagogical principles and undertook a thorough research of existing best practices in delivering education via the Internet. Social constructivist approach was adopted, and critical importance was given to developing a clear structure and critical pathway for the students.8 The following outline of the typical online course at the GSB reflects the current position and is a result of a long journey of organisational learning. Each course consists of 12 learning modules delivered over the course of 12 weeks (one trimester). Small class sizes (between 10 and 40 students) allow for significant levels of online interaction - both between the students, and between students and an online facilitator. Customised, media-rich, interactive learning materials include voice-over-PowerPoint slides, i-Lectures (a digital video of the lecture accompanied by PowerPoint slides) and various additional learning materials. All learning materials are delivered within a standardised template, which incorporates an overview of the module, readings and internet links, self-assessment, practical activities and discussion. To ensure compliance with copyright regulations, readings and additional materials for the course are deposited into university-wide E-Reserve in digital format, and the students are given direct links to the corresponding readings within each module of their course. Assessment drives learning. Authenticity of assessment is ensured by the strategic use of situated and contextual learning and assessable package includes structured and facilitated discussion and teamwork. The model promotes learner engagement and cooperation between peers and extensive continuous feedback from online facilitator. Together with the use of discussion tools, community of learners is promoted through use of “online profiles”, where the students share their work and study experience, as well as some personal information such as hobbies, achievements, inspirations and personal photos. Approximately one week before the beginning of the new trimester, each student enrolled in an online course receives a welcome email from the lecturer, with the standardised course outline attached. The welcome email explains how to log into the unit and how the unit is structured, gives useful links on the GSB website and outlines the tasks for initial assignments - participation in the discussion about the students’ learning expectations from the course and building their personal profile/homepage online. On the first day of each trimester, there is an optional face-to-face session at the GSB - software orientation, followed by the course orientation. The former is delivered by the member of e-Learning team, the latter - by the online facilitator. Finally, strong ongoing online support throughout the course includes weekly emails from online facilitator, availability of technical help (24 hours turnover of HelpDesk calls), built-in sections containing general and technical information, general questions discussion rooms and website information on e-learning. 4.

Face-to-Face vs. e-Learning: Student Academic Achievements

A number of studies conducted in recent years confirm that the online students achieve as good results as face-to-face ones.9 The two-year study of nine post-graduate business courses, undertaken in the GSB, has demonstrated similar results. The courses selected for the study were taught both face-to-face and online. They had the same educational content, similar assessment structure, similar class sizes (between 10 and 40 students) and the same course controllers. Total number of the students reviewed was 1401, 65% of them males and 35% females with the mean age of 33. The students who undertook face-to-face classes amounted to 77.5% of the total, with 22.5% for e-Learning classes. The findings demonstrated, that there was no significant difference in either learning mode on individual course level and no significant difference in academic achievements by gender. When taking the average of all student grades across all courses, e-Learning students did significantly better; however, the effect size indicator of 0.11 suggests small practical significance. Students under 33 years of age did significantly better in e-Learning mode; but, perhaps, the most interesting finding was that at the one percent level of

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ significance, the students experiencing both e-Learning and face-to-face modes of study did significantly better in e-Learning.10 Even accounting for some limitations of the study (i.e., certain incongruity in comparing the two modes of study, using ‘grade’ as a single measure of outcome, sample size differences across 2 groups and possible student learning style bias), the research gives some assurances that well-designed and facilitated online course can deliver academic quality outcomes equal to or exceeding that of the traditional face-to-face class. 5.

Evolution of a Teaching Faculty: From Innovation to Mainstream

The journey of the GSB in building and delivering the virtual MBA can be viewed as a sequence of three developmental stages. Stage 1: Planning and learning ( 1998 - 2000) The marketing survey of the GSB students demonstrated not only an interest in online mode of study, but also a high level of technological competencies among the students. Ongoing research and consultations with industry professionals, undertaking during this stage, informed the choice of a software (IBM Lotus LearningSpace, at the time) and the structure of the online courses. Two pilot projects were carefully planned and carried out, followed by extensive analysis and feedback sessions and necessary adjustments to reflect the learning. Choice of the lecturers for pilot projects was viewed as an element crucial for success of the programme. Thus, one of the most important factors was the fact, that the whole initiative was pioneered by the GSB director and her subject was among the first chosen for teaching online. At this stage, the GSB has also won a competitive teaching and learning grant from the University, allowing some extra funding and resources to be channelled into the online course development. Stage 2: Moving into production ( 2001 - mid. 2002) Following the planning and learning stage, e-Learning team was set in place. The team initially consisted of an academic with a PhD in education, e-Learning Coordinator with technical expertise and eLearning Specialist. E-Learning Committee, including the GSB director and the director of the MBA, was formed; and business processes and procedures for online development established. Internal and external marketing of e-Learning was very important at this stage, and all members of the academic staff were encouraged to attend e-Learning workshops, chaired by the GSB director. Intense building of ‘mixed-mode’ (with a compulsory face-to-face element) courses took place at this stage, and funding from the grant allowed all academics involved to use the help of a research assistant (approximately 12 full-time days per subject). An average cost of designing and building a new online course was estimated to be around 35 thousand Australian dollars (approximately 20 thousand Euro). Stage 3: Reaching maturity ( mid. 2002 - 2004) The feedback from mixed-mode students helped to realise that ‘mixed-mode’ delivery was only a halfmeasure, which failed to deliver the promised degree of flexibility. Consequently, the third stage of online development was characterised by the GSB experiencing a paradigm shift - from ‘mixed mode’ to fully online delivery. As the pool of online offerings grew in size and matured, e-Learning became a part of a core business and lead to recovery of initial investments. During this stage, a project-based mixed teams approach became the primary way of managing delivery of online courses. Every trimester, the GSB offers six courses online (i.e., 18 are offered online every year). Each of these courses is treated as a separate project, delivered by a team consisting of an online facilitator, enrolment officer, librarian and IT support person. Each of these teams is lead and managed by a member of eLearning team, who develops a project management plan for each particular course in consultation with the course controller. This approach allows to address the differences between the courses and accommodate the qualitative changes following the students’ feedback. It also ensures the smooth and timely delivery of the courses within tight time-frames of the trimester system. Every course contains a carefully developed anonymous Course Evaluation Survey and the students are advised that the feedback collected helps to improve not only the course they have just completed, but all online courses - that is, they are likely to find their suggestions implemented within the next online course they choose to study. The cycle of continuous improvement means that no course is run in the same format twice - as a rule of thumb, every course undergoes a cardinal re-development following two rounds of small adjustments (i.e., every third to forth time running the course is fully re-developed).

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ It is interesting to note, that at the present time all of the GSB fully online courses still offer optional face-to-face sessions, however majority of the lecturers report that they do not generate enough interests from the students and often end up being cancelled. 7.

Organisational Lessons: Implications for the Field of Online Learning

The authors of this paper are the members of the GSB learning team. The team is effectively serving as a local knowledge depository, accumulating, storing and disseminating both explicit, and, more importantly, tacit knowledge in the organisation. The summary below reflects perceptions of the members of e-Learning team and is grounded in their experience and direct involvement in both building and delivering of the virtual MBA, as well as conversations and exchanges with online facilitators and students. A.

Leadership and Commitment to Vision.

Moving towards e-Learning is time-consuming and difficult. Moreover, it requires some specialized technical knowledge - arguably, an area well out of comfort zone for many academics. Without strong leadership, clear vision and non-wavering commitment it is impossible to reach the destination - the staff will simply pursue other interests and projects. The GSB director has provided a strong personal example, sending a powerful message that the School is committed to online learning and encouraging the members of the teaching faculty to join in the programme. B.

Detailed Planning, Careful Research, Use of Expert Knowledge and Adequate Resources.

Leadership has to be supported and substantiated by good management, careful planning and adequate resources. Preliminary research has suggested, that building online courses is an expensive project. Consequently, once the decision to build online courses was made, it was clear that the building phase of the project, as the most expensive part of it, has to be preceded by detailed planning, careful research and use of expert knowledge to find the optimum solution. Although the cost of such approach is high in the beginning, it saves considerable funds at the end by giving the stakeholders the necessary methodology, knowledge and tools and keeping them focused on the task. At the same time, providing adequate resources is critical - especially for such a complex wide-scale project - and allows to keep its focus and momentum. C.

Internal and External Marketing and PR.

External marketing is self-explanatory. Internal one, on the other hand, is often overlooked. It was clear from the very beginning, that the project should be promoted to the teaching faculty to generate some interest and enthusiasm. The lecturers whose courses were converted for online mode of delivery have received recognition and resources. Once the project gained some momentum, joining in was viewed as a chance to revamp the existing course with the help of a research assistant; it also carried certain prestige. D.

Continuous Learning Cycle and Collective Reflective Practice.

As the teaching faculty moved forward with e-Learning, reflective practice - peer coaching, contemplating on successes and failures at a school wide level, lectures and workshops - progressed learning at the School and moved everyone along the development ladder at the same time. Continuous learning cycle ensures that the quality of the courses improves and the teaching faculty as a whole remains fluid, flexible and knowledgeable. E.

Local Specialist Support.

One of the functions of e-Learning team was to support academic staff with their specialist knowledge of instructional design, computer systems and technical aspects of the building and delivery of online courses. Having e-Learning specialists readily available and easily accessible ensured efficiency and effectiveness of the online project. 8.

Emerging and Future Issues

Rapid advances in technology keep changing methods, pace and scope of education, extending the possibilities and giving the practitioners the new, wonderful and effective tools for teaching and learning - at the same time driving staffing and support requirements and, consequently, costs. In the competitive market of

Inna Geoghegan, Carmel Moynihan and Dr. Rick Ladyshewsky

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__________________________________________________________________________________________ postgraduate education, growing student expectations put pressure on the schools to keep up to date with the new technological developments. Unfortunately, in practical terms it means that academics have to learn and perform a range of tasks which, essentially, do not add value to learning but are often tedious and time-consuming (e.g., administration of discussion boards or group management in online learning). Such activities also take academic staff away from their core business - teaching and research - and, consequently, the potential for promotion. In the traditional university, there is no mechanism to reward such singular acts of innovation - but, perhaps, the increasing popularity of e-Learning will, in time, serve as a catalyst for a major paradigm shift. In the current state of higher education, with its rapid changes and accelerating pressures, perhaps, the best way to conclude this paper is by quoting one of Lewis Carroll’s characters: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”11

Notes 1. Zhang & Zhou, 2003 and Zhang & Nunamaker, 2003. 2. Bocchi et al., 2004. 3. See for Association of for EQUIS award accreditation, for the ranking from EIU. 4. GSB profile is available at . 5. Read about Perth, Western Australia, in . 6. Britannica Online, . 7. Bocchi et al., 2004. 8. Walker et al., 2003. 9. Hiltz et al., 2002, Morales et al., 2001 and Katz et al., 2003. 10. Ladyshewsky, 2004. 11. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, 1872, Ch. 2.

MBAs and

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