On Transparency

I like to think myself good tempered. Opinions on this matter may , of course, differ. I get annoyed, sure, but try hard to keep this to myself or to diffuse it with a joke or facetious remark. So now you know. What particularly riles is the endless repetition of tired, and largely unsubstantiated, complaints about university life. Top of my current list is moaning about 'the rise of managerialism', generally by those most unwilling to undertake collective service or assume responsibility for difficult decisions. I may return to this. A close second on my list however, is whining about the lack of importance attached to teaching in, particularly, research intensive universities. Associated with this is, it is asserted, inadequate recognition for those who devote themselves to teaching.

The problem, I would suggest, is not about the importance that universities attach to teaching but the lack of 'transparency' of teaching. Even if it was not core to our mission, we know what pays the bills, and it is not research.

As a former Head of Department I was quickly aware of the very few academics who conspicuously failed in teaching and assessment. Complaints from colleagues and students would make their way to me and, commonly, the examinations process would surface problems. Equally, teaching innovation was readily visible, new projects and teaching methods attract attention. This accounts for respectively the bottom and the leading 10% of teaching activity. The 80% is largely invisible.

When the door of the lecture theatre closes, oversight stops. Perhaps difficulties in a particular module might show up elsewhere in a programme of study but curriculum planning is not a fine enough tool to diagnose the cause of such difficulties and nobody wants to blame their colleagues. Student surveys can provide some limited clues but they are, generally, crude, unsystematic instruments with poor response rates, exhibiting large subject related variations, and are very difficult to interpret. In any event it is unclear whether good scores correlate directly with teaching excellence.

I care deeply about teaching but, when it comes to promotion and reward, I have very little to go on. All I know about most academics is that, in respect of teaching, they are 'good enough' to fly below the radar.

I firmly believe that in the 'unscrutinised' 80% of teaching there are very large differences in quality. Indeed innovation, which is visible, does not necessarily equate to excellence. Rather than worrying about recognition we should worry about transparency. We need to open up teaching and make it as accessible to review and critical scrutiny as research is. Existing quality assurance mechanisms do not address this.

The key to transparency is, I believe, ending the culture of 'ownership' of courses, modules and teaching materials. I mean here 'my' module and 'my' teaching materials. All modules should be actively owned by teams, all materials openly published and accessible within the institution, delivery should be inspected by senior academics with outcomes fed into active performance management. Teaching materials should be formally reviewed and be subject to expert assessment. There should be detailed independent diagnostic interviews with students on course as part of opening up teaching. The construction and administration of meaningful student surveys should be an organisational priority rather than a box ticking exercise serving only to alert to egregious failures. What after all do we have to worry about?

One of the great merits of the widespread availability of online materials and video lectures is that the benchmark for teaching is clearly visible. Anything consistently of a lesser quality than that freely available from the Internet has to be judged inadequate. Transparency in teaching would serve to drive up quality and is the prerequisite for recognition and reward. It is not that we do not care about our great teachers it is that we do not know who they are and what they do.