1. The Impact of TEF and Proposed Sector
Changes on Academic Libraries
Liz Jolly
Chair, SCONUL
Director, Library and Information Services
Teesside University
Talis Insight Europe 2016

2. Outline
• Green Paper
• Other changes
• What does this mean for Academic Libraries?
– Content, Space, Learners, Researchers
• Future Roles
• Alignment

3. Teesside University
• 1930 Constantine College
• 1970 Teesside Polytechnic
• 1992 University of Teesside
• 2009 Teesside University
• 21, 000 students (14,000 FTE)
• 2,300 staff
• Times Higher Education University of the Year
2010
• Investors in People Gold (2012, 2014)
• Queens Anniversary Prize 2013-15
• Mission:
Teesside University generates and applies
knowledge that contributes to the economic,
social and cultural success of students,
partners and the communities we serve.
Through education enriched by research,
innovation, and engagement with business
and the professions, we transform lives and
economies

4. Green Paper
• ‘Fulfilling our Potential: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student
Choice’
– Teaching Excellence Framework
– Degree classifications
– HEFCE
– Research
– New entrants
– Social Mobility
– Freedom of Information

5. Green Paper
• Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF)
– Government monitoring and assessment of the quality of teaching in
England’s universities.
– Stated aims include
• Ensuring all students receive an excellent teaching experience that
encourages original thinking, drives up engagement and prepares them
for the world of work
• building a culture where teaching has equal status with research, with
great teachers enjoying the same professional recognition and
opportunities for career and pay progression as great researchers

6. Green Paper
• Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF)
– Measures including NSS data; student retention rates and
graduate employment.
– Criteria which are important to students
– Metrics to be determined
– Assessment panels: academic experts in teaching and learning,
students employers.

7. Green Paper
• TEF
– Introduction of three or four levels of
teaching excellence
– “financial incentives” (maximum fees)
to be determimed according to the
level awarded for an institution.
– Will lead fees to increasingly
differentiate

8. Green Paper
• HEFCE
– Office for Students (OfS) to be created by merging HEFCE and OFFA
– primary objectives of promoting the student interest.
– responsibility for access agreements, teaching funding, TEF and quality
assurance
– allocation of teaching grant to be decided

9. Green Paper
• Research
– may include the establishment of a new body to replace HEFCE’s
role in grant allocation,
– or a single overarching body bringing this together with the
Research Council functions
– The next REF will be held “by 2021” and the paper proposes the
use of data and metrics

10. Green Paper
• New entrants
– There will be a faster process for new bodies to become universities
and for the granting of degree awarding powers.
– current validation arrangements for degrees ‘may be a barrier to entry
to new providers and the power to validate degrees may pass to the
OfS

11. Green Paper
• Degree Classifications
– suggests that degree inflation is an issue across the sector
– ‘encouragement’ of use of a grade point average system,
to supplement the current degree classification system.
• Freedom of Information Act
– Universities may be given exemption from Freedom of
Information requirement

12. Green Paper
• Social Mobility
– recruitment of and outcomes for under represented
groups
– UUK Social Mobility Advisory Group
– Possible introduction of “name blind” applications
– Possible targets for widening participation

13. Research
• Nurse Review
• Stern Review of the Research
Excellence Framework (REF)
• Tickell Review of Open Access
• Implementation of HEFCE
Open Access Policy

14. Also…
• HEFCE: Revised Operating Model for Quality Assessment
• IFS: Graduate Earnings report
• HESA: Review of destinations and outcomes for leavers from HE
• NUS vote to ‘sabotage’/ boycott NSS and DELHE

15. So what does this mean for
Academic Libraries?
• The ‘neo-liberal turn’?
• Teaching before learning
• Students as customers / consumers..
• Proving value
• Contribution learning analytics
• Contribution to learning gain
• Research Support

16. Or…?
• Waiting for the great leap forward
• Pedagogy and Heutagogy
• Students as producer
• Proving impact
• Ethics of information analytics
• Digital literacies and critical thinking
• Scholarly communication

17. Academic Libraries
• “Academic libraries are here to enable and enhance learning
in all its forms - whether it be the learning of a first year
undergraduate coming to terms with what is meant by
higher education or the learning of a Nobel Prize winning
scientist seeking to push forwards the frontiers of her
discipline”
Peter Brophy (2005)

18. At a Tipping Point (OCLC)
• “ The (on campus) library is distinctly associated with providing the
space, tools and information to get work done”
• “Library services match the needs of online learners but the
perceptions do not….making convenience the new context for
libraries can make all online learners library users”
2014

19. Library staff “may often think of
their work as fundamentally
involved with service delivery”
Scott Bennett 2015

20. Academic Libraries
Resources
Space
Library
Staff
- services
- support

21. Academic Libraries
“to enable and enhance learning in all its forms”

22. Academic Libraries
Content and Academic
Communication
Staff
Pedagogy /
Learner Heutagogy
Spaces
T e c h n o l o g y

23. Content and Academic Communication
• “As different types and methods of scholarly communication are
becoming more prevalent…librarians will be expected to stay up to
date on the legitimacy of these impact of these innovative
approaches and their impact in the greater research community.”
• “There will be more opportunities for libraries to drive and engage
in discussions about efficient ways to make access a priority for the
long term”
NMC Horizon Report: 2015 Library Edition

24. Spaces
• “Library space will need to be shared with a variety of partners, and
it is likely that the distinction between the library and other
informal campus space will blur.”
David Lewis 2007
• “Who owns the space?...How will we shape the experience of
‘becoming’ in the library?”
Scott Bennett 2015

25. Learners (1)
• “Student engagement represents both the time and energy
students invest in educationally purposeful activities and the effort
institutions devote to using effective educational practices”
Kuh et al 2009
• “Students tend to be more engaged with learning on the whole if
they engage with library resources, interact with library staff, and
spend time using libraries”
Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE)

26. Learners (2)
• “Student as Producer emphasises the role of the student as
collaborators in the production of knowledge… It is fundamental to
everything we do”
University of Lincoln
• “Participatory design provides methods for including non-traditional
participants…[including] students in projects to design and develop
new library technologies, spaces, and services. “
Nancy Fried Foster

27. Researchers
• “The response to changes in the research environment (funder
requirements, publication modes and associated legal issues, e-
access to information sources etc.) needs a concerted and
collaborative response by libraries if they are to be accepted as
offering essential and effective research support. Formalised, inter-
institutional approaches to acquisition, storage and access,
including metadata, will not only help libraries to realise
opportunities, it will also address the urgent issues of reduced
budgets.”
RLUK

28. Future roles? (1)
• Creative Learning Specialist
• UX Design Librarian
• Outreach/Community
Engagement Specialist
• Adaptive Learning Specialist
ACRL 2015

29. Future Roles (2)
• From hybrid individual to
multiprofessional team
• ‘Salad not soup’ (Weaver and
Robers)
• Working across multiple
environments
Photo courtesy Jeremy Keith

30. Alignment (1)
• Continuing learn and develop
as a reflective practitioner
• Embracing radical change
• Aligning library strategies and
impact to institutional mission
and strategic aims

31. Alignment (2)
• Clear articulation of our
professional skills and what we
can contribute
• Learning to operate in broader
institutional context
• Speaking the right language
• Working collaboratively

32. Partnerships and Collaboration
“If UK higher education is going
to prosper in the contemporary
world it is going to have to
become messier, less precious,
more flexible and significantly
more co-operative.”
David Watson (2015)

33. “The mission of librarians is to improve society
through facilitating knowledge creation in their
communities”
David Lankes 2011

34. Outline
• Green Paper
• Other changes
• What does this mean for Academic Libraries?
– Content, Space, Learners, Researchers
• Future Roles
• Alignment

35. Liz Jolly
Director
Library and Information Services
Teesside University
Middlesbrough
TS1 3BA
liz.jolly@tees.ac.uk @liz_jolly