MEG conference 2 May 2014

1. Scholarly activity in CHE: a QAA
perspective
MEG conference 2 May 2014
Elizabeth Halford and Ian Welch,
QAA

2. QAA’s Research Strategy
Intentions:
 To inform policy making (at national and institutional
levels)
 To provide an analysis of current trends in higher
education (and their social and economic
consequences)
 To enhance practice and the student experience in
higher education (and the learning gain resulting
from the experience)

3. Commissioned research project
 In 2012-13 a project was commissioned by
QAA and undertaken by Jonathan Simmons
(UWE) and John Lea (Canterbury Christ
Church University)
“Capturing a higher education ethos in
college higher education”
This explores the context in which FECs in
England respond to the opportunities and
challenges of providing HE programmes

4. Methodology
 The research provides a contextual setting for CHE
practice, drawing on the existing literature
 It discusses what it means for colleges to be” higher”
and “scholarly” – the four lenses, and draws upon
the four scholarship models of Boyer (1990)
 It provides a summary review of IQER findings and
emergent themes
 Six anonymised case studies of CHE

5. Main recommendations
 Making sure partnership and validation
arrangements meet the needs of students
 Promoting a higher education ethos at colleges with
smaller scale provision
 Investigating academic and vocational drift
 The research environment should provide a context
for taught courses

6. RCHE and IR outcomes
 5 out of 79 recommendations about
Scholarly activity
 4 out of 38 Good practice about scholarly
activity

7. What we found:
– Formalise the leadership and coordination of
teaching and learning scholarship and
research
– Produce and reflect on an overview for
scholarship activity.
– Develop a systematic approach to analyse the
impact of teaching and learning, scholarly
activity and staff development
– develop a higher education staff development
plan to include teaching and learning and
scholarly activity

8. Themes
 HE identity and ethos supported by
scholarship initiatives
 Overview of scholarly activity to HE support
strategic aims and enhancement
 Link between scholarly activity and staff
development
 Link between scholarly activity and teaching
and learning

9. The report is available
 Through links on the QAA website:
 http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGui
dance/Pages/HE-ethos-Lea-Simmons.aspx

10. © The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education 2012. Registered charity numbers 1062746 and SC037786