27 octobre 2012

December 6 2012: British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London 
International Forum on The Humanities Research at the Dawn of ERA and Horizons 2020 
This international forum brings together representatives of universities, research institutions, research managers, evaluation and ranking agencies, funders and key actors from the disciplines themselves to discuss the key issues affected humanities research within the context of the European Research Area. It will look at how funding, evaluation and cooperation patterns affect the place of humanities and social sciences research in the coming years, and especially in the light of Horizons 2020.
Programme:  the current version of the programme is now consultable online.
Inscription : inscription en ligne.
This event is organised by the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme de Bretagne, for information, please contact Prof Geoffrey Williams or Dr Ioana Galleron [williams|galleron]@evalhum.eu.
Programme - Humanities Research at the dawn of ERA and Horizons 2020
-Draft Programme-
London, 6th December 2012
I. Opening session
10h00 Welcome speech, Professor Nigel Vincent FBA, Vice President, Research and Higher Education, British Academy and Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics, The University of Manchester
10h10 Impacts of ERA on the Humanities and Social Sciences: wishes, tools... and foreseen problems, Dr. Ioana Galleron and Professor Geoffrey Williams
10h30The HSS within ERA: Europe's rationale, Philippe Keraudren, Deputy Head of Unit, European Commission, DG Research
II. Evaluation and internationalisation of careers and research
11h45 Assessing HSS research units from an international point of view, Gero Federkeil, CHE,Ranking
12h05 Assessing HSS research units from an international point of view, Professor Bruce Brown, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, University of Brighton and Chair of Main Panel D (arts and humanities) Research Excellence Framework
III. Financial incentives within ERA
14h The French point of view: Agence National de Recherche, Professor Pascal ARNAUD, Director Department SSH, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Membre de l'Institut Universitaire de France
14h15 The British point of view: Arts and Humanities Research Council, Professor Mark Llewellyn, director of Research, and University of Strathclyde, UK
14h30 Private funders: Approached
IV. The actor's point of view
15h20 UK, Europe and ERA, Professor. Keith Brown, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Manchester
15h35 Research universities and ERA, Professor H. W. van den Doel, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Leiden
V. Summing up
16h10The future of humanities research in a wider European Research Area, Reporters, panel members.

What policies with what effects? An upcoming IIEP conference.
Higher education is confronted worldwide with multiple challenges – including the rapid growth of student numbers, financial constraints, and heightened expectations of stakeholders concerning higher education’s contribution to national development. In this context, many countries have initiated governance reforms inspired by the “new public management” concept. From these reforms, public authorities expect improved management effectiveness, increased relevance of the training offered, and a strengthened capacity of universities to engage in partnerships with local authorities and enterprises.
In French-speaking Africa and the Maghreb region, many countries have committed themselves to governance reform in higher education since the 2000s. In 2011, IIEP launched a research project in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Morocco, and Senegal to investigate the nature of corporate governance reforms and their impact on the management of universities. The study also explored whether the outcomes of the reforms have been achieved: a way to measure effectiveness and identify conditions favouring implementation.
Results to be presented at Dakar conference
On 14 November – in collaboration with the UNESCO Office in Dakar, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Ministry of Higher Education of Senegal – IIEP will discuss the results of the research project with senior officials from the Central  and West Africa region, and in particular officials from ministries, national commissions, and institutions of higher education. The event, to be held in Dakar (Senegal), will lead to the establishment of a discussion platform on ways to reform governance systems, on solutions to drive the reform process, and on the effects obtained by implementing such reforms.
The conference is an upstream event of the "Strengthening Regional Cooperation in Quality Assurance in West & Central Africa" conference, to be held from 15 to 17 November at the same venue.
For more information on these events and how to register, go to: http://www.unescoafrica.org/highered/.

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) within the frame of its DIES Programme (Dialogue on Innovative Higher Education Strategies), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Dakar Office and the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) of the UNESCO are jointly organising two conferences between November 14th and 17th 2012.
The DAAD/ UNESCO Conference on Regional Cooperation in Quality Assurance aims at discussing among national and regional decision makers and actors in the field of higher education and quality assurance (QA) how a shared vision for QA can be developed for the whole Central and West African region. The event provides a platform to exchange experiences with high level experts and QA practitioners from other African regions as well as from Europe. The presentation of best practice examples and joint Europe-African initiatives should pave the way for joint actions to strengthen harmonisation and improve quality in higher education in Central and West Africa.
Furthermore, the DAAD/ UNESCO Conference identifies specific demands for capacity development in QA and intends to develop a shared vision for future steps. The conference is targeted at regional and international QA-experts and QA-relevant stakeholders and decision-makers (ministries, QA-Agencies, universities, students, employers) from Central and Western Africa. A total of 100 participants are expected. The conference language will be English – simultaneous translation to French will be available.
On 14th November 2012 there will be a Pre-Conference organised by IIEP-UNESCO in cooperation with UNESCO-BREDA, the DAAD and the Ministry of Higher Education, Senegal.  The results of a recent research study on governance reforms in higher education carried out in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Morocco and Senegal will be presented and discussed. Participants will also examine available options in governance reform, the most appropriate reform process and the results to be expected.

HEA Social Sciences Annual Conference - Teaching research methods: Developing a pedagogical culture in the Social Sciences
Date: 23 May 2013 - 24 May 2013
Start Time: 01:00 pm
Location/venue: Crowne Plaza Hotel, St. Nicholas Place, Princes Dock, Pier Head, Liverpool, L3 1QW
The theme for this year's HEA Social Sciences conference builds on the work of the Social Sciences cluster teaching and learning summit, held in June 2012, and develops further the themes for the teaching and learning projects we will be funding through our strategic project. For further details see: http://bit.ly/QaBLK9.
By providing a space in which to communicate insights and examples from practice, the conference will provide an environment in which both challenges can be discussed and possible solutions shared. The HEA’s Social Science Cluster seeks to promote cross-disciplinary working between colleagues in the following disciplines: Accounting; Anthropology; Business and Management Studies; Development Studies; Economics; Education; Finance; Hospitality and Tourism; Sport Science and Leisure Studies; Law; Marketing; Politics and International Studies; and, Sociology.
We welcome contributions (for formats see guidance notes in the related documents section of this webpage) from all the cluster disciples around one of the following areas: 

• Embedding research methods into the curriculum
  One of the issues raised at our teaching and learning summit (see http://bit.ly/Vf1WDR) was whether research methods are best taught as ‘standalone’ modules or integrated into a subject-focused module. We invite contributions that explore either/both of these approaches. In particular we would welcome contributions that include an evaluation of the effectiveness of these approaches. 
• Communicating quantitative methods
  In his presentation to the summit John MacInnes (http://bit.ly/O8mTJ5) reminded us of the potential for quantitative methods to ‘to shock, inspire and challenge complacency’ but he also stated that ‘this will require some creative innovation in how we teach them’.  We invite contributions that outline approaches to teaching quantitative methods that seek to communicate to students, in imaginative and innovative ways, not only how they can use quantitative methods, but why they might want to do so.
•  Teaching mixed methods
  In his presentation to the summit Martyn Hammersley (http://bit.ly/O8mTJ5) highlighted how methodological divisions among social researchers can ‘extend beyond differences in view about how to pursue research to disagreement about its goal and value’. In his discussion paper Martyn addresses further some of the issues teachers face if they attempt to bridge these methodological divisions. We invite contributions that provide examples of practice that seek to engage students in a plurality of approaches to research methods. In particular we would be interested in projects that combine quantitative and qualitative approaches. 
• Assessment for learning in research methods
  Assessment is recognised to be an essential element of the learning process. What is assessed and how it is assessed influences students’ engagement with the curriculum and the opportunities for them to receive feedback on their learning. We invite contributions that identify good practice in the assessment of research methods learning.
•  The use of open educational resources (OER) in research methods teaching
  The proliferation of OER that can be used in research methods teaching and learning has meant that teachers now have access to a wide variety of resources that they can integrate into their module delivery. Often, however, OER are used to provide an ‘off the shelf’ solution to resource provision and the additional potential offered through the re-versioning and subsequent sharing of OER is not realised. We invite contributions that discuss good practice in integrating OER into research methods teaching and/or the re-versioning and sharing of research methods OER. 
  
• Developing a pedagogical culture
  In his presentation to the summit Mark Garner (http://bit.ly/O8mTJ5) highlighted the need to develop a pedagogical culture within the teaching of research methods - ‘the capacity to do research does not automatically translate into the capacity to teach research… pedagogical expertise needs to be specifically developed’.  We invite contributions that discuss examples of good practice in developing such a culture within and between institutions. In particular we would welcome examples of the use of peer-support groups and mentoring both through face-to-face contact and social networking. 
• Researching for ‘work’ and at ‘work’
  Programmes of study in many Social Science disciplines require students to engage in some form of placement or work-based learning.  Often students are required to conduct some form of project work as part of this element of their learning, and whilst this project work can involve using research-related skills, links to research methods teaching are sometimes left implicit. Furthermore, whilst the benefits of placement/work-based learning in terms of developing students’ employability skills are recognised, the benefits of academic input into developing workplace practice are less often articulated.

We invite contributions that discuss projects that incorporate research methods teaching with work-based or placement learning projects and which seek to demonstrate the benefits of this type of learning for students and/or a level of knowledge exchange between educators and employers/placement providers.
The guidance document for submissions is now available from the related documents section of this webpage.
Conference costs and details for booking will be available shortly from this webpage. 
The call will close at 12.00 noon on Friday 4 January 2013
The HEA’s mission is to use our expertise and resources to support the higher education community in order to enhance the quality and impact of learning and teaching. We do this by recognising and rewarding excellent teaching, bringing together people and resources to research and share best practice, and by helping to influence, shape and implement policy.
Contact email: For queries, not bookings: HEA Social Sciences.

A new publication from the HEA, launched today, provides a strong rationale for transforming assessment in higher education.
A Marked Improvement contends that assessment practices in many higher education institutions (HEIs) have not kept pace with changes in the context, aims and structure of higher education over recent years. They can no longer, the publication says, do justice to the outcomes we expect from a university education, and satisfy an increasingly diverse student population.
Developed by the HEA with senior colleagues in HEIs, including leading experts in the field, the publication includes an assessment review tool to support institutions in taking stock of current practice, and work towards bringing about strategic change. The tool builds on the findings of ‘Assessment Standards: A Manifesto for Change’ from the Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange (ASKe) at Oxford Brookes University. Dr Erica Morris, Academic Lead for Assessment at the HEA and one of the authors of the publication, comments:
“A Marked Improvement builds on current evidence as well as lessons learned from two decades of support for learning, teaching and assessment in UK HE provided by different organisations and initiatives."
“The publication takes as one of its starting points the view that the change with significant potential to improve student learning is a shift from assessment of learning, to assessment for learning. It is essential that assessment practice reflects the higher education sector of today: by engaging students in real-world activities and assessment of their own and other students’ learning, they are able to develop skills to understand and improve performance. They will take these with them for the rest of their lives.”
Pilot scheme
This November, the HEA will be launching a pilot scheme to help institutions transform their assessment strategy by applying the review tool contained in A Marked Improvement. We will be looking for eight higher education institutions in the UK with the vision and enthusiasm to rejuvenate and refresh their assessment policy and practice. The call for this scheme will be available on 5 November 2012 and the deadline for applications will be 28 January 2013. Further details will be available on the HEA website.

Storyville: Exploring narratives of learning and teaching, the 2nd annual HEA Arts and Humanities conference, 2013
Date: 29 May 2013 - 30 May 2013
Location/venue: Thistle Brighton, King's Road, Brighton, England, BN1 2GS
The Higher Education Academy’s second annual learning and teaching Arts and Humanities conference, ‘Storyville: Exploring narratives of learning and teaching’ will take place on 29 – 30 May 2013 in Brighton.
Stories
At the heart of the Arts and Humanities disciplines sit stories – stories which create and recreate worlds, distant and present, stories which inspire and engage, stories which grow imaginations and expand what is thinkable.
Stories are everywhere, and our second annual conference seeks to explore the intersections between narrative and learning and teaching by considering:
    the narratives of how we teach – our stories as educators;
    the narratives of how our students learn – travelogues from the student journey;
    the narratives we teach – our subjects and (inter)disciplinarity;
    the narratives we teach by – pedagogies and methodologies, academic identities, research-based teaching and teaching-based research;
    the narratives we teach within – policy, dominant media narratives, student expectations informed by Key Information Sets and the National Student Survey;
    the narratives we (co-)create – the impact of the Arts and Humanities, the experience and memories of our students, students as partners.
Creating, telling, sharing
As stories have the power to ‘reveal meaning without committing the error of defining it’ (Hannah Arendt) we welcome papers and workshop proposals on any aspect of teaching and learning in the Arts and Humanities within the broad theme of ‘narratives of learning and teaching’. Suggested forms, ‘genres’ and themes include:
    Choose your own adventure: Making students partners in learning and teaching;
    Short stories (and tall tales?): Tweeting your teaching; social presence through social media;
    Epic adventures: Gamifying learning and teaching;
    Westerns: Living on the frontiers of learning; conflicts and change;
    Cross-genre works: Negotiating disciplinary boundaries;
    Experimental forms: Designing learning experiences and curricula; the use of digital technologies;
    Archives, houses and museums: Telling the stories of public history;
    Anthologies: Working with student diversity;
    Prizes: Assessing creatively/creative assessment;
    Literary devices: Using metaphors and imagery in HE.
Who should attend?
Higher education teaching staff, Programme Leaders and Faculty Deans in Archaeology, Classics, Area Studies, Art and Design, Cinematics and Photography, Dance, Drama and Music, English, History, Journalism, Languages, Linguistics, Media and Communications, Philosophical and Religious Studies. We particularly welcome early career lecturers, and Graduate Teaching Assistants.

As a result of the E-TRAIN project a handbook for the training of panel members for external QA procedures has been published. The handbook has been written by Dr Gillian King.
This handbook gives practical guidelines on how to organize effective training sessions for panel members. All steps of the training process are covered in the handbook, from the planning phase up to the necessary evaluation of the delivered trainings. It is believed that both quality assurance agencies and higher education institutions, and also the individual experts, can profit from its reading. The Handbook can be downloaded Handbook for the training of panel members.
Handbook for the Training of Panel Members for External Quality Assurance Procedures
Foreword
The trust building potential of external quality assurance (QA) procedures depends upon the quality and professionalism of the involved external experts. In an increasingly internationalized higher education area independent, highly competent and intercultural aware experts are urgently needed in order to guarantee fair decision making and to benefit higher education institutions in all types of external QA procedures. The European Consortium for Accreditation in Higher education (ECA) has acknowledged the vital role of the expert panel members ever since its inception (Code of good practice, 2004 and Guidelines for the selection of external expert panel members, 2007). After careful review of the training practices of its members agencies, ECA in 2010 launched its EU funded “E-TRAIN” project with the goal to train and to share a community of knowledgeable and internationally experienced experts in the domain of external QA in higher education. Based on the collection of international good practices ECA successfully offered pilot trainings to experts and established a „train the trainer“-programme.
The E-TRAIN project is strictly output-oriented and offers guides to good practices, a training handbook, an electronic training portal for experts, standardised expert portfolios and a European Expert Exchange Platform which provides access to a searchable database of experts.
This handbook gives practical guidelines on how to organize effective training sessions for panel members. All steps of the training process are covered in the handbook, from the planning phase up to the necessary evaluation of the delivered trainings. It is believed that both quality assurance agencies and higher education institutions, and also the individual experts, can profit from its reading.
Today all relevant higher education stakeholder groups of the European Higher Education Area acknowledge the need for well trained, professionally acting and internationally competent expert panellists. The E-TRAIN project has powerfully contributed to the establishment of such a community of experts and is clearly strengthening the European dimension in quality assurance. Based on the success of its operations ECA will – together with its partners – continue its efforts to organise regular trainings in order to assure the required capabilities and capacities of their external experts and to promote consistency of decisions in external quality assurance.
We hope you will find this handbook interesting and enjoyable. Additional information about this project is provided on our website (http://www.ecaconsortium.net). Please feel free at any time to address your questions and comments also directly to our secretariat. Rolf Heusser, Chairman of ECA The Hague, The Netherlands.
1. Introduction
This guidance is aimed at any person who will be delivering training to members of expert panels. The term ‘panel member’ is used to refer to any person who will be carrying out a panel task, such as a review or audit or accreditation activity for a quality assurance agency (QA agency). In some agencies or countries those persons are referred to as ‘experts’, ‘reviewers’, ‘auditors’, ‘review/audit secretary’, etc. This handbook uses the term ‘panel members’ for all such people.
This handbook refers to ‘training event’: this is intended to include all kinds of training sessions whether they last 3 hours or 3 days. This handbook is not concerned with training that is primarily carried out online or remotely. It is concerned with training that is primarily delivered to participants face-to-face. A face-to-face event, however brief, has uses other than just passing on knowledge or acquisition of skills. It enables the trainer (who will usually be a staff member of a quality assurance or accreditation agency) to get to know the panel members who will be carrying out work for the agency in the future. It also helps participants who may work together in the future, to meet and get to know each other a little. This will help to build a community of practice amongst the panel members, which in turn will help them to support and learn from each other. Meeting face-to-face will give the trainer an opportunity to model the values and expectations of the quality assurance agency and encourage a professional attitude amongst panel members.
The guidance for planning a training event given below should be helpful whatever the length of the training, whoever the participants are, and whatever the objectives of the training are. The general principles outlined below will still apply. The guidance is divided into 5 sections: deciding on the overall aim of training; deciding on content, session aims and learning outcomes; looking at the needs of participants; delivering the training; ensuring that the training is effective. A stage-by-stage summary of the main stages of the guidance may be found in the checklist in
Annex 1: Stage by stage checklist of main points for training.
In each section of the guidance the trainer will be encouraged to ask some simple questions. It is important that the trainer knows the answers to these questions so that the training prepared is appropriate, relevant and effective.
There is also a list of publications and websites in Annex 2: References which you might find useful if you need more information or ideas. MORE...
6. How to ensure that training has been effective
The trainer needs to ask him/herself the questions: “How do I plan the training so that it helps participants to retain the material? How do I get feedback on the training and whether it has helped participants in their panel work?”
6.1. Retention
We know that much of the knowledge and skills learned on a training event is lost very quickly unless it is put into use straightaway on a day-to-day basis. We noted in section 4.1. Knowing your participants
• Make sure the design of training matches the needs that you and your organisation have identified. In this way you should be able to ensure that there will be opportunities for participants to use the knowledge and skills acquired on the training event, even though these might be some time in the future
that, for many of our participants, there may be a significant gap between training and carrying out panel work. If training is to be effective it has to be retained long enough to be taken into the workplace or real-life situation – in our case, into the panel situation. We can maximise the chances of this in various ways:
• Make sure that anyone from your organisation who will be working with your panel members also knows what the training has included, and is prepared to coach panel members when they carry out panel work to help them to put skills and knowledge into practice. It is very useful if members of your organisation can attend at least one training event
• Make sure that the training includes practical examples which reflect the actual work of the panel member. These can be descriptions of the work, case studies, or practice activities such as mock meetings. Introducing activities into the training which encourage ‘doing’, rather than just ‘listening’ or ‘speaking’, also encourages retention of the material
• If you have the time during the training event try to encourage participants to discover the principles involved in panel work for themselves. We tend to remember the knowledge that we have discovered for ourselves better than things we are simply told. You could use case-studies for problem-based learning activities, or give small groups open-ended questions or problems to discuss. Remember to share the solutions that individuals or groups discover with the whole group after the exercise
• Give participants an aide-mémoire of the process that they will be using as a panel member. This could take the form of a guide to procedure (just bullet-points or headlines) which you could refer to during the training. It can then be used by participants during their panel work to ‘jog their memory’ of the main points that they learned on training
• When you design hand-outs or other training materials for the participants think about how the participant will use them after the training and try to ensure that they will still be comprehensible and useful even after the training has finished. If the training is changed after you deliver it for the first time you will need to remember to update those who have already had the training. If it is possible, it might be a good idea to put the training materials on a part of your organisation’s website dedicated to panel members. Then you will be able to update training materials easily.
• Encourage action planning on the part of participants. It was noted above (in section 3.4.2. Reflection, summary of the day, action planning) that it is a good idea to allow time in the training event for participants to reflect on their learning and put together some action points to be started when they return home. These action points will give a trigger for the participant to keep thinking about the training event, and to carry on with their learning after the training until they have a chance to carry out some panel work. It is also useful if the new panel member is given the opportunity to reflect after the first panel work, and see whether there are any new action points to consider (see section 6.3 Continued engagement with participants
• Encourage follow-up between participants, and if you have the time, with yourself. This could be through email, online, get-togethers, support groups, etc. This will help to build up a community of panel members who can support each other (see section 6.3 Continued engagement with participants).
• If you can, use past participants as mentors. Once a panel member has been trained and has carried out some panel activity he/she may be prepared to mentor new panel members. The mentoring relationship may have many forms so you will want to put in writing what the mentor is expected to do. It may simply involve being available should the new panel member wish to email with a question. Or it could include meeting and discussing the new panel member’s work.
6.2. Evaluation
It is no good encouraging your participants to retain what they have learned on the programme if what you have delivered is not relevant to the learning outcomes, or has not been delivered in a way that helps them to learn. So you need to find out how effective the training has been and, if it has not worked as well as you wanted, to change some aspects of it. This is the process of evaluation and it is a very important part of the overall training cycle (see the diagram in Annex 7: The training cycle).
There are different options for carrying out evaluation and gathering feedback.
• Spot checks during the training: you can find out how participants are doing on the training event by asking questions now and again. This method is probably most helpful during a longer training event where participants have time to settle down and start learning, and where the learning outcomes are build upon each other sequentially. You could ask general questions like ‘What have you learned so far?’ or more detailed ones about the content of the programme, like ‘Can you explain the three main sections of the Qualifications Framework?’. Participants could write down their answers quickly so that you could gather them in for analysis. Simply observing the participants will also give you an idea of whether they are understanding what is going on and are finding the training material intelligible.
• Give out a ‘Reactionnaire’ straight after the training has finished. As the name implies this kind of evaluation instrument gathers the participants’ reaction to the training. It can be short or detailed, and ask a few questions or many. You could use this kind of questionnaire to ask participants whether the aims of the training have been met. To do that you would need to make sure that you had set the aims of the training, and then decide what questions you would ask the participants to try to establish whether your aims have been met. An example is given in Annex 8: Example of a training ‘Reactionnaire’.
• Evaluation of key learning outcomes: this is a more sophisticated kind of evaluation questionnaire. It can ask all the questions in a Reactionnaire, but it concentrates on asking the participants whether they think they have been able to meet the learning outcomes of the training. This kind of evaluation demands (a) that you have set learning outcomes; and (b) that the participants know what they are.
• Group discussion: if you have some time after the training event has ended and some of your participants can stay around for an hour you could run a group discussion on how the training went. You could ask the same questions as in the Reactionnaire or learning outcome questionnaire, but having the group of people in the room means that you can drill down into their responses and get more information about why aspects of the training worked well, and why some did not. Or you could focus on the aspects of the training that you personally were less confident about. Remember though that the opinions expressed by the small group may not be completely representative of the whole group of participants.
• Delayed questionnaire: it can be very useful to give participants a questionnaire some time after the training (and ideally after they have carried out some panel work) to ask whether the training was appropriate for their panel task and whether they have been able to put the training to use. This can be in addition to a Reactionnaire and/or Evaluation of learning outcomes, depending on how much time and money you can spend on evaluation. It might make more sense to invest in detailed evaluation at the start of a training cycle, so that you can be sure that the training is meeting its aims, and then perhaps reduce evaluation, or use different evaluation instruments, later on.
• Pre-training questionnaire: the delayed questionnaire could be combined with a pre-training questionnaire which asks the participants for their perception of how well prepared they are for panel work. They can then be asked the same questions after training and/or after their first panel work to see whether they feel more confident and better prepared for their work. If they do not, then something is not working and you need to think again about the learning outcomes of the training.
These kinds of questionnaires are designed to help with your own developmental needs and with the development of the training event. They will provide useful information for you but may not be sophisticated enough for other purposes, such as demonstrating a business case, or applying for funding. If you need sophisticated or statistical information you may need to consult a professional who can devise evaluation methods for you.
If you are tempted to think that evaluation is a waste of time, remember that it will actually save you time and effort in the future. If you have chosen your learning outcomes carefully, and delivered training effectively, this means that you will produce panel members who know the process, adhere to that process, behave professionally and produce reports on time. If this is not happening the training is a waste of time and money, and your life will be harder not easier. So you need to find out whether your training is working, and if it is not, why not.
6.3. Continued engagement with participants
In the last section we noted that giving participants the opportunity to keep in contact after the training was one of the ways you could increase retention of the training material and encourage participants to put the training into action when they carry out panel work. In this way participants can continue to ask questions about panel work and increase their knowledge of the processes that they will be working in. They can also swap ideas for dealing with difficult situations. They can mentor or buddy one another to develop good practice in panel activities. In this way they will build up a community of panel members who will help to improve not only their own performances but also increase the consistency with which panel activities are carried out.
The most obvious way that you can facilitate this activity is providing an online facility, like a ‚chat room’, or by enabling participants to keep in email contact with each other. Unless you have made this a condition of the training, you should make sure that all participants are happy about having personal details such as email addresses circulated to everyone else. You should also make it clear what the rules for communication are, and whether anyone will moderate the chat room or emails.
If you have the resources, offering refresher training, annual meetings, or workshops are very good ways of keeping your community of panel members together and will give you opportunities to update them on any changes to the panel processes. Of course, providing these activities is expensive and panel members may not have the time to attend, so you might choose to do this updating using a website. Another alternative is to set aside a small amount of time before a panel activity (that is, a review, accreditation event, etc.) to update and refresh panel members’ knowledge before they start a new piece of panel work.
You can also encourage new panel members to reflect on their first panel event and draw up any action points that they feel they should address. If you have the resources, it would be good for a member of your agency to go through the action points with the new panel member to ensure that they can be dealt with successfully – perhaps with a mentor, or through using information on your website.
If a member of your agency is present with the panel team in its panel work, then you might be able to give a new panel member immediate feedback on their first panel activity. If you do this, then ideally you should have some criteria against which to give feedback. Some examples might be: was written work completed before the deadline? was the panel member punctual at the panel event? did the panel member contribute to panel discussions constructively and knowledgeably? did the panel member behave in a professional way with meetings with the institution? Work out what you want your panel member to do, and how you want them to behave. Then draw up your feedback criteria to match.
In order to be most effective training should not end when the last participant leaves the training room. If you can encourage panel members to stay in contact with you and with each other you will help to produce a community of panel members who will not only be interested in keeping their knowledge up to date, but also help to improve panel processes, and provide a source of support for you and for each other.
The Handbook can be downloaded Handbook for the training of panel members.

By Jeannie Rea (NTEU National Office). The National Tertiary Education Union urges caution in accepting the inevitability of the direction of change to universities following the release of the Ernst & Young report, University of the future: A thousand year old industry on the cusp of profound change.
“Responsibility sits with the government to ensure that our highly respected public university system is funded to deliver on the expectations of the community and industry,” said National President Jeannie Rea. The Ernst & Young report, released today, concludes: “The current Australian university model – a broad-based teaching and research institution, with a large base of assets and back office – will prove unviable in all but a few cases”.
Rea notes that the report identifies the main drivers of change which will inevitably bring about this transformation of the sector as:

• The democratisation of knowledge as a consequence of massive expansion of on-line resources;
• The contestability of markets and funding  as a direct consequences of declining public investment and the adoption of market design policies to fund and regulate higher education;
• Digital technologies changing the way courses are delivered;
• Global mobility of students and staff; and
• Integration with industry to differentiate programs (through work integrated learning) and to support and fund applied research.

“The NTEU agrees that some of these drivers, namely increasing mobility and the impact of technology, the democratisation of knowledge as well closer links with industry, are inevitable and indeed are already having a profound impact on the way that universities deliver their teaching, research and community service obligations,” Rea says.
“The one driver, however, which is not inevitable in Australia is increasing the contestability of markets. While it might be true that universities face ‘an environment where every dollar of government funding is contestable’, it will be government policy choices that determine how much of that funding is allocated to higher education and our public universities.
“We do, however, agree with the report’s finding that a failure to increase public investment in our universities means that the current model of higher education is becoming unsustainable.”
The NTEU argues that it is now up to the federal government to decide whether it wants a higher education system comprised of a handful of elite research intensive universities concentrated in Australia’s capital cities or to maintain the current system where 38 public universities deliver a broad range of education, research and community service to students and communities who as little a twenty years ago were denied these opportunities.
“There has been a failure of the government to increase public investment to cover the real costs of higher education and to regulate the provision to only those institutions capable of delivering the highest quality of education and research. As Ernst & Young predicts, Australia could end up with a sector comprised of a handful of elite ‘status quo’ universities and ‘niche’ dominators and ‘transformers’ all touting for customers (students),” she said.
“It is the government’s responsibility to make this choice clear to all those involved in higher education as well as the Australian public. If, however, universities are to remain independent educational and research institutions and form a critical part of Australia’s social infrastructure, then they require additional public investment.
“If we are not careful, the Ernst and Young report will be read like a Back to the Future script for the pre-Dawkins era. This is not the way forward to the exciting opportunities enabled by digital technology and global mobility.”
Media enquiries: Carmel Shute, NTEU Media Officer: 0412 569 356 cshute@nteu.org.au.
Media comment: Jeannie Rea, NTEU National President: 0434 609 531 jrea@nteu.org.au.

The conference titled “Bologna and Beyond. Experts, entrepreneurs, users and the internationalisation of Higher Education institutions” will be held 20-21 June 2013, in Strasbourg, Maison Interuniversitaire des Sciences de l’Homme – Alsace (MISHA).
The conference is linked to the project “Rebuilding Academia. The Transformations of Central-East European Universities since 1989″, and the main themes of the conference are linked to the impact of various international and European processes on higher education in Central and Eastern Europe (including Germany), with a special focus on the Bologna Process. Papers will be expected on these four core themes:

• Sociology of Bologna Process actors (experts, academics, etc.)
• Analysis of international transfers of knowledge, tools, technical indicators, etc.
• Direct and/or indirect impact of the Bologna Process on its academic “users” (students, academics, HEI technical staff)
• Global effects of the Bologna Process on the CEE academic space (uniformisation vs. heterogeneity; consolidation of symbolic hierarchies, new power relations etc.).

Deadline for sending in abstracts: 15 December 2012
For abstract/paper guidelines and more information about the conference theme, you can download the call for papers here.