John Widdowson Principal New College Durham Chair, Mixed Economy Group

Exploring Scholarship and Scholarly Activity in College-based HE Part 1 “Context and Issues” Part 2 “Survey – The role role of research, scholarship, scholarly activity and CPD in supporting the delivery of college based Higher Education” Part 3 “A Practice Guide to scholarly activity in college-based HE: what works?” Small case studies

Context and Issues Review of earlier work Policy perspectives e.g. QAA, HEFCE, HEA Requirements of professional bodies Other agencies e.g. LSIS (now ETF). IfL Alternative providers International perspectives

Staff Survey – Perspectives from Colleges Contributions from 60 colleges from around 257 Follow up interviews with 25 colleges Discussion with 6 professional bodies

The Nature and Size of Provision (FT)

Defining Scholarly Activity Of 60 colleges 35 have a definition Of which 7 use a definition provided by a partner HEI Examples/lists rather than definitions (?)

Forms of Scholarly Activity Scholarly Activity as undertaken by HE and FE teachers

External Support/Drivers Forms of support for Scholarly Activity

Barriers to Engagement with SA

Other Issues Staff teaching hours The nature of scholarly activity Evidence and impact

Emerging Themes Changes in the way colleges define scholarly activity Strategic engagement with scholarly activity Drivers, enablers and barriers Key questions for teachers including balancing teaching, academic and “professional” roles, managing “isolation”, developing a workable, useful definition of SA Key questions for colleges including critical mass, measuring impact, collaboration, funding, administrative support

A Practice Guide: What Works? What is the purpose of SA? Does “pure” or “blue skies” research have a place in HE in FE? How does scholarly activity articulate with continuous professional development (in a “parent” profession) and college staff development? What is the role of “live briefs” and teaching by practitioners?

A Practice Guide: What Works? Should those teaching Higher Education have different conditions of service from their colleagues teaching Further Education? How can colleges create and sustain an HE ethos amongst teachers? How is Scholarly Activity defined and recorded? How is the impact of scholarly activity measured? How do colleges manage teaching loads in HE in FE?

Overall Conclusions Whole college approaches Managing scale (large or small) Inter college collaboration Clear and shared understanding of the role of SA Engaging students Critical review and positive impact on teaching and learning