Disruption in HE #1

Disruption is the new buzzword in Higher Education.  Whether through the march of regulation, the whims of government policy or through simple demographics and not so simple technology, many Universities are feeling disrupted.  Things just aren't what they used to be.  Things university staff knew for certain (such as poor pay and stable pensions) are now no longer so assured.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA 

None other than Professor Clay Christiensen of Harvard Business School talks a lot about disruption and paints a picture of the corporate world that can very readily be overlaid on Higher Education.

Universities, with their visions of excellence, their efforts to achieve the highest goals have, sometimes, eschewed the disruptions in their own markets:

• Technology - "we're proud to be a campus university"
• Teaching specialisation - "we're convinced that the best researchers make the best teachers"
• Flexibility for students - "we're capturing all lectures as part of our digital strategy"
• Regulation - "we produce excellent REF and TEF submissions"
• Population diversity - "we are proud to have a widening access scheme that allows up to 10% of applicants to come from state schools"
• Focus on skills - "turning up to lectures is a key part of developing organisational skills"
• Impact - "just look at the number of firsts our students achieve"

To be continued...

Babies and bathwater... 2 year degrees

Innovation in HE is so rare that any attempts to change the status quo should really be applauded.  The University of Buckingham plans to take advantage of government policy and offer a 2-year degree.  Just use the long summer holiday - how innovative!
The initiative possibly misses the point that 3 or 4-year degrees provide opportunities for maturity development, reflection, experience and application that may not be accomplished in shorter timeframes by the average student - but that's for another blog.

Photo by Elijah Hail on Unsplash

It is about time that Universities were shaken up - selling the same old stuff to the same old customers has seen many household names in the corporate world miss out on trends and disappear.  The strongest, and best, plan, build and change their strategy in a major way so that the "new" opportunities are met and the right resources are in the right places.

But - "Babies and Bathwater!" I hear you cry.  And you'd be right to question some innovations.  Not everything about the old ways of doing things is wrong, not everything needs to be changed but we DO need to question it all.

Teaching intensity metrics - transparency is key

As we enter a new year of study, after the bloating of Christmas, and when everything in the heads of undergraduate students is consigned to distant memory, to make room for the excitement of beer and family skiing trip, many students reflect on their need to redouble their efforts when they get back to Uni.
Continuing the diet of fun, alcohol and freedom might seem remarkably inviting. But the stark reality of Semester 1 assessments and a Semester 2 of building on the shaky foundations of knowledge acquired before Christmas will cause many students to think about their wastes and their preparedness for the hard slog to Easter Vac.
Echoing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's call for clearer labelling on food I have devised a transparent teaching labelling system: that should help students to be selective about how they spend their valuable time:
The TEF Teaching intensity metric is a blunt instrument, looking only at "contact" hours - whatever that means - as if sitting in a lecture for a long time miraculously transforms into student learning!
My Teaching Intensity Trafficlight System (no acronym suggests itself) will show students just how much they are missing by not attending the lecture and really meaning to watch the Lecture Capture (honest).
Any takers?

Is your University going bust?

Students of Insolvency Law and Practice (all three of us) will be aware of a "tongue in cheek" but alarmingly prescient list of danger signs of corporate insolvency compiled by Mark Holman of Price Waterhouse in 1984.

Picture by Matt Banks

Anecdotal and observational, the list can be decried by academics more used to statistical rigour and triangulation in their own research efforts but still retains the ring of truth:

• Personalised number plates on the Rolls
• Company flagpole
• Fountain in the forecourt
• Fish tank in the boardroom
• Founder's statue in reception
• Beautiful new offices
• Beautiful new secretary
• Company yacht/aeroplane
• A fast-talking MD
• Directors who use military titles
• Obsession with tax avoidance
• Too many board papers
• No accountant on the board
• Too many auditors
• Too friendly with their banker
• Too many bankers

Homan opines that many of these indicate a Board / MD pre-occupied with prestige rather than profit.

Just how many of these can you see at your University?

Is Christmas really necessary?

Planning a relevant, thoughtful, challenging but accessible learning experience for HE students in UK Universities is a skilled passtime.  Carefully navigating the strictures of institutional "norms" on contact hours, timetabling, blended inputs, assessment types and weights have to be balanced with programme outcomes and intended learning goals.  To top it all the material, the engagement and the enthusiasm have to be maintained at a high level to ensure "good" feedback and to avoid that awkward conversation with the Dean over a "sub-standard" score of 3.9 on the Richter scale of academic value.

Now add in the generosity of Church, State and tradition to engineer a 4 week "break" at Christmas and another at Easter.  The former divorces the learning experience from the assessment in many Universities, whilst the latter splits the teaching into two unequal parts but, at least, presents assessment opportunities fairly close to the end of the teaching.

The answer?  Ban Christmas and ignore Easter?

No. Simply allow for flexibility in planning teaching and assessment so that the barriers and hurdles are seen as opportunities and so that the student journey is dictated more by good learning design than by religious festivals.

Happy Christmas.

Nobody cares about apathy anymore

In much survey-based research in Social Sciences the value and quality of the research instrument (the questionnaire) is often eclipsed by the importance of getting a "good" response rate.

The Survey/Anyplace blog attempts to measure the "average" response rates that researchers can expect.  There is great celebration in the office when a survey actually gets above the "average".

In-person surveys are always likely to get above "average" rates of response.  These are targetted, difficult to avoid where a respondent is accosted in the street (although Chuggers (Charity Muggers) have taught people to navigate around folks brandishing clipboards) but are also costly.

Mail surveys can be targetted, too, will involve some cost, although FREEPOST can prevent costs from being incurred for non-responses.  But, like some in-person surveys, they will involve the researcher in manual input of data prior to analysis.  Does anyone actually do telephone surveys with random respondents any more?  Call barring and opting-out and GDPR will have shielded many from this.  Telephone polls using panels of respondents fare better, even if they consistently fail to forecast the result of a Referendum or Election.

We all know that surveys arriving by email can be captured by SPAM filters or simply ignored, it's even easier for low-cost on-line or in-app surveys.

Bribery, personalisation, careful targetting and selection, persistence and even advertising a worthy cause can all hope to increase response rates.  Ultimately, however,  the sample used will be biased, self-selecting, obliging (what is the right answer?) and probably unrepresentative.

So why do we get so excited when a 20% response rate for on-line module feedback indicates "below average" performance from a lecturer and reveals that the lecturer had egg on his tie or was wearing mismatched earrings?

Satisfied but Unemployable

I am indebted to an Australian colleague for coining the phrase "Satisfied but Unemployable" when discussing the focus held by many Universities on Student "Satisfaction".

We cannot blame Universities for responding so positively to the "market" and to the regulatory measures that focus on voter appeal, rather than quality.

But we can blame every individual who votes in satisfaction surveys without truly reflecting whether their "satisfaction" is surface or deep.  Without reflecting that the uncomfortable, challenging module in which a low mark was awarded and, accordingly, received a low feedback score for the lecturer, was, in fact, one of the best learning events in the whole degree.

We can blame those institutions, newspapers, government ministers and agents and, of course, University marketing directors, who propagate the illusion that "satisfaction" is a meaningful measure in itself.

And we can blame ourselves for believing it so readily and then failing to make changes to practice that will add to efficacy - even if students (voters) struggle to see the immediate relevance of the rite of passage called a University Education.