摘要:

AbstractWhile the pros and cons of modularisation of British degree programmes are often debated, there are few appraisals of large structures following implementation. This paper reports on a substantial review during 1994 of the effectiveness, judged against its aims and incidental effects, of the modular framework at one large and dispersed British university. This was undertaken by a small project team using a questionnaire survey and focus group discussions with staff and students, 18 months after the major implementation.The results confirm the practicality of the basic framework, but indicate that the stated purposes have been achieved to varying extents. For example, flexibility for students has been increased, although not yet in practice to the extent intended; new inter‐disciplinary degrees have been catalysed. The problems mainly concern the cohesion of student experience and the supporting infrastructure: student records, management information, timetabling and room allocations, educational guidance, module registration. There have also been major problems with the load and timing of assessments.The Review culminated in proposals from the project team, accepted by the Academic Council, for fine‐tuning rather than for radical change. Some needs for longer term consideration were also identif

ISSN:0951-5224    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2273.1996.tb01687.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractSince the demise of the CNAA an increased number of universities have been responsible for the external validation and monitoring of courses undertaken at other institutions. This, and HEQC's policy of visiting to audit‘collaborative provision’has given greater significance to, and awareness of, institutional evaluation procedures. This paper outlines the development of institutional audit processes undertaken by one University in relation to those local institutions for which it acts as the validating authority. It presents a regional model for more effective and less costly external oversight of quality assurance within the HE sector, drawing upon the best practices of the CNAA institutional review processes and the strengths of the HEQC audit procedures, whilst overcoming their weaknesses. It concludes that a more regionally‐based national system may well be worth a further consideration in any review of higher education policy in t

ISSN:0951-5224    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2273.1996.tb01688.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThe emerging competitive environment of higher education, both within and between countries, is requiring universities in Europe and other pans of the world to emulate American institutions by becoming corporate entities with an independent capacity to make strategic choices among academic programmes and activities. A number of the leading American universities have developed comprehensive planning processes that offer suggestive guidance for managing in this new environment. These processes have emphasized: clarifying and articulating norms essential to the legimacy of planning; grouping and consolidating functions; promoting reciprocal communication; encouraging the development of a planning capacity within each strategic unit; and increasing direct communication and the sharing of information among members of the academic community. Essentially these universities have conceived of comprehensive planning as a problem of organizational design, systematically seeking means of promoting integration in a highly differentiated organization. The specific mechanisms by which this integration has been accomplished are reviewed.

ISSN:0951-5224    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2273.1996.tb01689.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractHigher education in the United Kingdom is centrally funded, centrally planned, and insulated from market forces. It bears many similarities to the non‐market centrally planned economies (CPEs) of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe while they struggled to reform but to retain a system of planning and central control. Examination of UK higher education and the CPEs before the transformation to market based systems highlights some of the issues facing higher education today. It also highlights the need for reforms, as well as the difficulties involved in them. Such comparison can also bring home problems faced by reformers in the transition economies.Despite allegedly extensive reforms in UK higher education, the sector faces problems like those facing the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe and the former USSR in the 1970s and 80s. Parallels in a number of areas are particularly strikin

ISSN:0951-5224    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2273.1996.tb01690.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThis paper sets out to explore the meanings and implications of academic standards in mass higher education. It attempts this in the context of the rapid expansion that has recently taken place in the UK. In doing so it draws on, and examines, selected themes that have emerged from the Higher Education Quality Council's ‘Graduate Standards Programme’ (though it does not attempt to give a full account of the findings of that work).It begins by discussing some of the implications of the ways in which UK HE has become a mass system. It then moves on to consider the roles of explicitness and professionalism in the establishment and assurance of academic standards, and their relationship to issues of public accountability. Having explored the possible tensions between professionalism and accountability, the paper questions whether it is helpful to frame discussions of standards in terms of a notional opposition between subjective and objective. It concludes by proposing another way of conceptualising standards, and discusses their possible future development in UK higher educat

ISSN:0951-5224    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2273.1996.tb01691.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY