UK: Bloggers welcome in new review

In an unprecedented move, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills is living up to the innovative part of its name by encouraging stakeholders in higher education at home and abroad to post their comments on its website on nine discussion papers, commissioned by Secretary of State John Denham, as part of a major review of the sector.

Vincent McGovern, DIUS stakeholder and community manager, told University World News this was a new way of engaging with interested parties: "It is part of the listening process. We'll have to convince stakeholders that their views will be fed into the consultation process which will continue until the end of January. We hope to replace any scepticism with confidence in this new media."

McGovern added that comments from academics, researchers and students in the UK and worldwide would be welcome as many of the issues aired in the papers were common to universities across the globe.

Earlier this year, Denham announced he wished to scrutinise the higher education system ahead of next year's wider debate on funding and, specifically, on raising the £3,000 (US$4,500) cap on tuition fees. He asked leading academics and organisations to put forward proposals to fuel debate on changes needed in the next 10 to 15 years.

The topics covered are internationalisation of higher education, academia and public policy-making, understanding institutional performance, part-time studies, teaching and the student experience, research careers, the demographic challenge facing universities, intellectual property and research benefits, and leading the world in e-learning.

In his contribution to the debate, Professor Drummond Bone, Vice-chancellor of Liverpool University, commented on internationalisation. Bone urged institutions to focus their efforts on long-term programmes and avoid the temptation of short-term mass recruitment to traditional study in the UK.

He said this would require a considerable investment of time, effort and finance: "Government, the universities and the wider business community must decide how this is to be incentivised [sic], organised and funded."

Bone warned against complacency as the sector faced many challenges. He pointed to a recent OECD report that showed the UK's share of international trade in higher education at 11%, the second highest behind the US, was growing at a significantly slower rate than some of its main competitors.

An Australian study had also pointed out the higher cost of a UK undergraduate degree compared with Germany - a $93,382: $66,623 outlay. Then there was the instability of the market in one-year masters' degrees following the Bologna process, and the increasing number of European universities providing mainly postgraduate degree courses in English.

Professor Sir Ron Cooke, Chair of the Universities UK joint information systems committee, looked at how Britain could become a world leader in e-learning following its success in setting a world standard for distance learning by establishing the Open University nearly 50 years ago.

Cooke called for a new approach to virtual education based on a body of open learning content with learning resources organised coherently to support online and blended learning by all higher education institutions. This would need to be supported by national centres of excellence to provide quality control, essential updating, skills training, and research. Such centres of excellence would need an extra £4 million a year from the funding council.

He said the UK was failing to provide online education to students from the emerging economies of Southeast Asia and South America where demand for higher education outstripped supply. Some higher education institutions could also offer virtual education to the largely untapped market of national and overseas students who could not find, or were not comfortable with, places in traditional universities.

Although it would be naïve to expect all institutions to contribute open education resources, he thought that a few universities should set an example, with the OU being an obvious candidate.

Cooke emphasised that free online material was only, at best, the beginning for education. "Effective e-learning requires using ICT imaginatively, to inspire, enthuse and engage students as well as for creating knowledge and understanding, for wisdom, and for creating the competitive advantage that is so important to the UK in an increasingly competitive academic world."

In a paper on teaching and the student experience, Professor Paul Ramsden, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Academy and a former pro-vice chancellor of Sydney University, said: "It is now time to move beyond simply collecting and responding to students' views. We should embed the student perspective in all aspects of teaching, quality enhancement and quality assurance.

"Remodelled curricula, better prepared students and a more professional and adaptable workforce require a fundamental shift in our attitude to student engagement. A partnership between students and higher education institutions will realise the ambition of a student experience which produces graduates who can meet the challenges of the future."

Ramsden said there was one feature of assessment that required urgent reform - the current system for classifying honours degrees - when only a small proportion of the population enjoyed the experience of higher education.

"It has outlived its usefulness to the community. The way forward is to augment the current system with better descriptions of what students have achieved. The Burgess Group recommended a new vehicle for measuring and recording student achievement - the Higher Education Achievement Report - and this should be taken forward without delay."

The debate with the government and the wider community continues on these issues at the Future of Higher Education blog at: www.jiscinvolve.org

diane.spencer@uw-news.com