Aug 31 2006
The Higher Education Academy is launching a series of year-long Subject Reviews to inform future developments central to the student learning experience within disciplines. Individual reviews will be led by the Academy’s Subject Centres and will provide evidence-based overviews of the context and state of higher education provision within the particular discipline. Three Subject Centres – Art, Design and Media; Bioscience; and Materials (UK Centre for Materials Education) – will take part in pilot reviews in the forthcoming academic year.
‘We see this new scheme as a great opportunity to discover more about key factors that affect student learning and support across a range of subjects’ comments Dr Nick Hammond, Acting Director for Networks at the Academy. ‘Among the many benefits, the evidence-based reports produced at the end of the reviews will enable us to look at the content of degree programmes and the nature of teaching, learning and assessment which students experience. Consideration of trends will help inform the strategic development of subjects, whether this be related to changes in student demand, patterns of teaching and learning or to employer needs.
‘In addition, we can learn from comparisons between subject areas that have completed the review process. All of this will help the Academy in its mission to help institutions, discipline groups and all staff to provide the best possible learning experience for their students.
‘Reviews will not assess the quality of provision but rather provide a broad picture of factors determining student experience within the discipline.’
Reviews will be commissioned annually, and the scheme managed and monitored by an overarching steering committee which will define a common structure for the process. It will be chaired by a member of the Academy Board and membership will be decided by the Chair in conjunction with Academy senior staff. The work of each individual review will be managed by a steering group chaired by a recognised senior figure and with a membership to ensure authority, credibility and legitimacy within the subject. Membership will normally include student and employer perspectives, and where appropriate professional or subject bodies.
Subject Centres see conducting a review as a key project in informing their community and in enabling prioritisation of developments and resources.
Art, Design and Media (ADM) is particularly keen to map the impact of a maturing research culture in the creative arts and design. They will produce, under guidance from the committee, a discussion paper to be sent to the head of all Art, Design and Media departments who will be invited to place the paper on their school or faculty board’s agenda. They will also facilitate a seminar at which key agencies that relate to higher education in Art, Design and Media will be able to present their views on the current state of ADM higher education.
Because the Bioscience group of disciplines is so disparate and large, the Subject Centre proposes a review of two key subject areas only: Honours BScs in Biochemistry and in Microbiology. In addition to the core factors identified by the overarching steering committee, the review will focus on arrangements for research projects – laboratory and literary – in the final year; and opportunities for industrial and hospital placements during a year out and the extent to which these are taken up.
The Materials Subject Centre feels that their discipline is well-suited for a pilot review: the discipline is a relatively small community which is well-known to the Centre, which would therefore facilitate communication. Materials Science is also a very interdisciplinary subject, with teaching activities in many different departments, and this review will explore methodologies which would be needed by other disciplines with similar characteristics.
http://www.materials.ac.uk