The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is changing the Higher Education landscape by incentivising excellence in teaching and from September 2017 helping students choose where to study. The framework announced in the government’s higher education white paper “Success as a knowledge economy: Teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice” is now entering its second year. The details of how it will operate have already been published and with it, the first controversies have arisen. Ratings of gold, silver and bronze announced in May 2017 will rank, for the first time, English universities teaching standards. Experts in teaching and learning as well as student representatives, employer representatives and widening participation experts, will be carrying out those ratings by looking at core metrics such as student satisfaction, non-continuation rates and employment data.
The aim of this assessment is to provide students applying for university in autumn 2017 with a clearer picture of where they are likely to receive the best teaching and obtain the best career outcomes. The majority of English universities have opted in to be assessed by the Department for Education’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). However, some of the decisions not to participate, such as Open University’s, highlight the complexity of developing a single assessment system that can fairly represent the full diversity of the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and teaching methods.
Challenges in the design of a comparative assessment framework for something as complex and diverse as the teaching and learning sector, were certain. Some institutions have argued that the core metrics can only be interpreted as vague proxies for teaching excellence and institutions should present their own evidence of their teaching and learning excellence. In addition, student representatives such as the National Union of Students are opposed to higher tuition fees in relation to assessment scores.
At Teaching Excellence Framework: Quality, Accessibility and Student Choice, you will have the opportunity to discover and debate how the year 2 reform will impact on the higher education landscape. Join us for the opportunity to hear from higher education providers, representative bodies and students; and learn from the best practices of institutions leading the rankings on student satisfaction, completion rates and employment opportunities.
Delegates and sponsors have the first opportunity to network in the Network Surgery. Hot drinks, pastries and fruit will be provided.
The TEF Assessment Panel, gather a number experts in teaching and learning as well as student representatives, employer representatives and widening participation experts. They will award each higher education provider a clearly understandable rating of ‘Outstanding’, ‘Excellent’ or ‘Meets Expectations’, based on outcomes such as student satisfaction, retention rates and employment data.
The presentation will cover research that looks at students’ learning gains derived from assessment data and outline suitability, benefits and limitations of using this approach as a measure of HE quality within TEF.
The introduction of the TEF would allow universities that score highly to raise their tuition fees from £9,000 to over £10,000 by 2020, with fees continuing to rise each year with inflation. NUS is opposed to further fee rises and believe measuring teaching quality is an extremely complicated task. NUS and 59 students’ unions have expressed their concerns over the proposed Teaching Excellence Framework in an open letter to vice chancellors.
According to the Complete University Guide (CUG) Buckingham University, Surrey and Keele have been named best in the UK for student satisfaction. This year the TEF will use the results of the National Student Survey (NSS) as part of an aggregate rating (gold, silver or bronze) that would allow universities that score highly to raise their tuition fees. Times Higher Education has created ranking of the TEF results based on student satisfaction where Keele University leads it.
During the session, Electric Paper will investigate innovative technology such as MBE Module Benchmarking and the use of NSS style questions at module level as well as discuss ways of supporting HE Institutions in fulfilling the TEF requirements.
Going to university changes your life, so we tell students, but what happens if it doesn’t work out? Research in the UK shows that, unlike in the US, dropping out puts you in a worse position than if you had never been to university. What does this mean for widening access and teaching quality?
Graduate employment is another characteristic or what universities will be assessed. In absolute terms, the prestigious Russell Group universities, are some of the best universities for graduate employment. But when the data are benchmarked for contextual factors such as student demographics, entry qualifications and degree subjects studied at the university, it turns out that a very different group of universities is actually exceeding expectations when it comes to graduate employability.
Ian Welch, Assistant Director, The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (confirmed)
Professor Andy Collop, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, De Montfort University (confirmed)
Professor Helen Higson, Provost and Deputy Vice Chancellor, Aston University (confirmed)
Dr Jekaterina Rogaten , Research Associate in Learning Analytics, Institute of Educational Technology, Open University (confirmed)
Meena Mehta Kotecha, IMA Academic Representative & Fellow of The HEA, Departments of Statistics & Management, London School of Economics (confirmed)
In total 134 higher education institutions have applicated for the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), plus 94 FE colleges and 6 alternative providers, with a further 65 FE and alternative providers opting in for provisional awards on the basis of having a shorter data history. Although participation among English universities was nearly 100%, some of the decisions not to participate ,such as The Open University, highlight the complexity of developing a single assessment system that can fairly represent the full diversity of the UK sector.
Construction of The Bridgewater Hall commenced on 22 March 1993, but the idea of a new concert hall for Manchester dates back to the reconstruction of the Free Trade Hall in the 1950s after wartime bomb damage. The Free Trade Hall was home to the city’s famous Hallé orchestra and also hosted rock and pop concerts. However, despite holding great public affection, the 1850s Free Trade Hall was ill-equipped to respond to the rising standards of service and acoustic excellence demanded by performers and audiences.
