Search

The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is an evaluation of teaching quality at UK universities. The aim of the TEF is to raise esteem for teaching in line with research and recognise teaching excellence. In 2017 all universities who took part in the TEF exercise were awarded ratings of gold, silver or bronze for teaching quality. These awards were based on a set of quantitative measures and a 15-page provider submission from each university to describe teaching at their institution. In this paper, we analyse the provider submissions that played a crucial role in universities' TEF rating. We conducted a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of all of the provider statements (232 statements; 1,742,438 words) submitted by participating institutions in order to un-earth the discourse of the TEF. We found that the themes driving success in the TEF are (1) employment, (2) employability (3) student outcomes and (4) research. Recognising what discourse is rewarded in the TEF has important implications for the accepted discourse of teaching excellence in UK higher education. It is anticipated that, in future, university discourse around teaching quality will continue to be dominated by employability discourse (rather than discourse around, for instance, social goods, personal development or equity). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes a statistical model for a TEF metric that could liberate the "oppressed" (international students) and the "oppressors" (home students) from the influence of public policies which, through constructions of international students as "supplicants" and "beneficiaries" of the prestigious British education system, have created conditions for their exclusion in the classroom. It is argued in the paper that such representations have contributed to international students' subordination through coloniality and have also limited home students' agency to engage with their international peers on socially and politically equal terms. The paper conceptualises the design and philosophical nature of a supplementary TEF metric that could prevent such symptoms of public policies. It also shows how such a metric could work in practice by modelling the UK Engagement Survey (UKES) data from a case study university. The paper proposes ideas about how understandings and practice of internationalisation could be re-articulated through the proposed metric. As such, it also discusses new "standards" of internationalisation that could enter reputational rankings and ways in which they could be applied internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper critiques key international teaching excellence and higher education outcomes frameworks for their lack of attention to epistemic equality. It subsequently argues that adequate 'datafication' of these frameworks, to demonstrate the extent to which universities offer teaching experiences which promote intellectual equivalence of all 'knowers' could advance present understandings of teaching excellence beyond benchmarked performativity. The paper theorises the philosophical basis of a changed 'datafication' process under selected national and supra-national frameworks for measuring teaching excellence at universities and shows, by statistically modelling selected national data, how a 'metric' evaluating universities on epistemic equality could work in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article notes that while there is a large literature lamenting increasing assaults on academic freedom, there is little literature to address ways in which it might be preserved. Sampling that writing, it finds some concern with protecting academic freedom in extreme scenarios, via discrete programmes, and generalised dissidence, but no discussion of determinate action applicable to all Arts and Humanities research. Defining academic freedom via the UK's legal framework and elaboration in Judith Butler's writing, the article inventorises significant assaults in recent times, noting the roles of government and the market in such. Following the literature review, it proposes a new, interventionist tactic for preserving academic freedom, suggesting that undue constraints should be annotated when research is written up, and that this space should also be used to suggest constructive alternatives. This strategy is demonstrated as the article acknowledges some of the constraints on its own production and suggests redress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the impact of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) on academic identity within the context of a UK-based research-intensive higher education institution. TEF is the latest in a series of changes that have impacted upon the UK's HE sector and it is highly likely to have a significant impact upon academic identity. Collecting evidence through sixteen qualitative interviews, findings show that while TEF may not alter the broad substance of what it means to be an academic in terms of engagement with research, education and citizenship activities, it has the potential to have profound implications in terms of exacerbating conflicts within identity. This paper argues that negative work outcomes result where role conflicts, and mismatches between expectation and reward, create difficulties in realising our desired versions of ourselves. Theoretical contributions relevant to debates around identity conflict are discussed, with practical contributions exploring the importance of resource allocations and the need to align expectations and rewards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in 2016 has placed the practice and quality of teaching centre of the UK university agenda, with concerns around contact, delivery, research/teaching balance and facility support framing debates within institutions. Situating the implementation of blended learning on a year 2 cultural geography in the broader context of these discussions, this paper explores some of the challenges and opportunities this approach has in addressing some of these broader concerns, whilst improving student engagement and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a critical review of the developments in the proposals for the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in the UK, focusing particularly on international students. The analysis points to the absence of views and discussions regarding the group of international learners, which warrants the claim that international students have been “TEF-ed out”. The article provides the answerwhy. The article draws on the coverage of the TEF in theTimes Higher Educationand relevant literature on international students. It is concluded that the TEF reveals signs of “othering” of international students, pointing to the fundamental problem with the TEF as a national tool that legitimises subordination of this group in recent moves and changes to higher education. The article also discusses Internationalisation at Home (IAH) as a possible metric that could create more equal conditions for cultural plurality in the TEF. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]