The latest Future Directions conference was an opportunity for academics, careers advisers and university managers to share their experiences about how to make the sort of skills required in employment a fundamental aspect of a student's course - without significantly increasing the workload for undergraduates and their lecturers.
The Future Directions for Skills and Employability event on 15 May was jointly organised by HEFCW, QAA Wales and the HEA. The conference also addressed how people already in work could gain higher skills and qualificiations while working.
Martyn Flynn, a talent aquisition manager for the second largest graduate recruiter in the UK, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, said: "By helping universities put crucial transferrable skills at the heart of their students' courses, we are giving our future graduate trainees the edge that they need to compete in the tough recruitment market. Read more...

The Higher Education Academy (HEA) welcomes the report on ‘Improving the quality of teaching and learning in Europe’s higher education institutions’ which sets out a clear vision for the enhancement of teaching and learning across Europe. Of particular note is the recommendation to establish a new ‘European Academy for Teaching and Learning’, which has been ‘inspired by the activities of the HEA…’
The HEA welcomes the report’s recognition of the importance of teacher training and continuing professional development programmes (recommendation four), which research commissioned by the HEA has demonstrated make a real difference to student learning.
The report also calls for teaching to be included by higher education providers as part of promotions criteria (recommendation five), a concern that is frequently raised with the HEA in discussion around the status of teaching by UK-based teaching staff. The value of schemes such as the HEA’s National Teaching Fellowship Scheme and Student-led Teaching Awards in recognising and rewarding teaching in universities is also highlighted by the report (recommendation six).
Professor Stephanie Marshall, Deputy Chief Executive (Research & Policy), said “This report provides a welcome policy-driver for reform of higher education across Europe. Putting in place mechanisms to adequately reward and recognise teaching in our universities, is essential to ensuring that each and every student receives the very best academic experience.
“HEA research has regularly emphasised the need to focus on measures, many of which are recommended in this report, that we know improve teaching and learning in higher education. We would welcome the opportunity to support the development of the proposed European Academy for Teaching and Learning and to discuss how the UK Professional Standards Framework for learning and teaching might form the basis for demonstrating how professional standards are being met.”
The report is available here.

The Higher Education Academy (HEA) is to sign Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with two important higher education organisations in Australia, marking its increasing work, influence and cooperation in learning and teaching internationally.
The Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT), was established by the Australian Government in 2011 to promote and support change in higher education institutions for the enhancement of learning and teaching. The HEA has agreed to work with the OLT to foster the exchange of expertise, experience and resources between the respective national higher education communities to share and embed good practice. Specific areas of focus for the two organisations will include internationalisation, assessment, and strategic approaches to learning and teaching which enhance student access and progression, and respond to student diversity. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/news/detail/2013/HEA_strengthens_Australia_HE_links

The Higher Education Academy (HEA) today, 23 July 2013, publishes a review of credit accumulation and transfer policy and practice in UK higher education. Launched at a two-day conference focusing on flexible learning organised jointly by the HEA and SEEC, the publication reviews the current situation in relation to credit transfer in the four UK nations, within a European context.
Carried out on behalf of the HEA by Manuel Souto-Otero from the University of Bath, the review includes findings which look at the European context of credit accumulation and transfer, along with UK policy and practice. It found that while systems are in place to ensure credit transfer and accumulation, they are not producing the expected levels of impact. The review therefore highlights the challenges that many UK institutions may face in the future to meet the needs of students seeking increasingly flexible learning opportunities.
The publication is linked to the HEA’s ongoing flexible learning projects which focus on student choice in the place, pace and mode of delivery for learning. Its findings will also feed into the HEA’s ‘Flexible pedagogies: preparing for the future' project, initially concentrating on five main strands embedded within the theme of flexible learning:
•transfer of credit;
•e-learning or technology enhanced learning;
•employer engagement;
•new pedagogical ideas;
•part-time learning and learners.
The review of credit accumulation and transfer policy and practice in UK higher education can be read here.

U-Multirank, the new international university ranking initiated by the European Commission, has exceeded its target of 500 registered higher education institutions ahead of schedule. To date 540 higher education institutions have registered for participation. Registration is still open, but space is limited, so interested institutions are encouraged to register now. Institutions in more than 60 countries will be represented in the initial listing, published for the first time early next year. U-Multirank differs from existing rankings by rating universities according to a broader range of performance factors, aimed at providing a more realistic and user-friendly guide to what they offer.
The currently registered institutions represent a balanced sample in different ways: In line with recruitment targets, about 75% are in the European Union and 25% in non-EU countries. Different profiles of higher education institutions will take part in the first round of U-Multirank, for instance universities of applied sciences and universities with a technical profile (around 12% each), comprehensive (around 50%) and specialized universities, etcetera. A large number of research intensive universities  are also represented. Read more...

Over 130 experts on university rankings and representatives and academic community from 32 countries met in Warsaw 16-17 May 2013 at the IREG Forum on University Rankings – Methodologies under scrutiny. The conference was organized by the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence and the Perspektywy Education Foundation in cooperation with the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Opening the Forum Jan Sadlak, President of IREG Observatory pointed out to the usefulness of university ranking as information, assessment and transparency tool. In the keynote speech Michal Kleiber, President of the Polish Academy of Sciences stressed the importance of good data and quality information both for rankings and for the higher education. Forum’s sessions were chaired by: Andrea Bonaccorsi (Italy), Waldemar Siwinski (Poland), Nian Cai Liu (China), Klaus Huefner (Germany) and Alex Usher (Canada). Read more...

U-Multirank, a new university ranking system was launched under the Irish EU Presidency in Dublin by Ruairí Quinn, TD, Minister for Education and Skills and European Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou.
U-Multirank will measure the performance and excellence of HEIs across a variety of dimensions.  Five areas are measured: reputation for research, quality of teaching and learning, international orientation, success in knowledge transfer (such as partnerships with business and start-ups), and contribution to regional growth.Some 500 universities are expected to sign up to take part, with the first rankings results expected in early 2014.
Three organizations, members of IREG Observatory will work on U-Multirank: CHE Centre for Higher Education (Germany) the lead of the of the project together with Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques - OST (France), Fundación CYD (Spain) and Perspektywy Education Foundation (Poland).
Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth said in Dublin: "The new ranking proposed by the European Commission will, above all, enable young people to make better informed decisions about where to study; it will also allow universities to compare themselves in a more transparent and useful way. The new listing will differ from existing international rankings by rating universities according to a broad range of performance factors, which will provide a more accurate, comparable and user-friendly guide to university quality. As well as its added value for students and universities, I believe the new ranking will be an indispensable tool for political decision makers, in the context of our joint efforts at EU level to encourage the much-needed modernisation of higher education institutions,”. more...

The 2013 QS World University Rankings by Subject, published today on www.topuniversities.com, reveals the top 200 universities in the world for 30 disciplines including degree subjects such as economics, civil engineering, physics, law and others.
Computer science is the most popular table of the rankings on www.topuniversities.com since their inception. It received over 600,000 views in the past six months and attracts three times as many readers as the average subject ranked by QS.
The second and third most popular subjects are mechanical engineering , followed by medicine . The trend reflects the finding of a recent study of global demand for IT analysts, developers, programmers and engineers. These occupations were found on the national skills shortage lists of 21 OECD and BRICS countries.
The 2013 QS World University Rankings by Subject evaluated 2,858 universities and ranked 678 institutions in total. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was once again crowned the top university in the world for computer science, for the third year in a row.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21938085. Read more...

By Santosh Bhaskar. Flipped Classroom model is an inverted and technologically advanced form of the traditional teaching method, where the lessons are watched at home and later discussed/clarified along with the homework  in the presence of a teacher. It allows teachers to deliver instructions online and to become a facilitator during class hours.
The main motto behind flipping a classroom is to provide students with sufficient time to work on what really matters. In this model, teachers need to create effective lesson contents for students. Nowadays’ educational technology helps educators by saving their precious effort and time. Administrators, Educators & Decision makers are trying to find the best online resources which enhance students’ learning. The best solution is to engage the students with MOOCs ( Massive Open Online Courses). MOOCs are the standard lectures uploaded online by professors and educators. In this article, we let you know how MOOCs help educators in flipping their classroom. Read more...

By David F. Carr. Freely downloadable textbooks and other open educational resources (OERs) are starting to have a practical impact, saving college students millions of dollars even as advocates struggle to distinguish the OER movement from the rise of the massive open online courses (MOOCs).
By the standards of OER, the MOOCs distributed by the commercial operations Coursera and Udacity as well as the non-profit edX are only partly open. I'll come back to this distinction later. When I moderated a panel discussion on OER last week at the Distance Teaching and Learning Conference held at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, MOOCs were a side issue, but an important one. Read more...