Session 5: Access, Changing Roles and Quality

Louise Hayward& Nicki Hedge - Global Distance Education and the Idea of the University
Louise Hayward, Faculty of Education & Nicki Hedge, GUIDE (Glasgow University Initiative in Distance Education), University of Glasgow

As universities struggle to locate themselves on an unsettled landscape, distance education is coming to represent a key response to the threats and opportunities of a changing world. Enabled and driven by globalization, the upsurge of distance education brings into relief issues related to the idea and to the role of the university. Hence scrutiny of the prevalent discursive and operational practices in distance education reveals and amplifies the tensions and apparent dichotomies that characterise the current UK university sector. Whilst it is widely acknowledged that technology allows face-to-face and distance modes of education to converge, universities tend still to regard distance education as fringe, not core, activity. Whilst we are admonished by government to ensure greater inclusion and more equitable access for UK learners in universities, the imperatives driving the expansion of global distance education are apparently devoid of such motivations. Thus much global distance education is directed exclusively at the digitally enabled via commodified e-curricula packaged in bites of learning designed to satisfy customers at any time and in any place in the world, provided they are prepared and able to pay for it. In this paper we acknowledge such inherent tensions in current global distance education initiatives whilst suggesting an alternative future within the overall frame of the role and function of universities for the twenty-first century. Such future-scoping could enable universities to retain their public interest roles and functions whilst utilising the emerging possibilities of learning technologies and globalisation to enhance, not to usurp, such roles and functions. Moreover, we suggest that if university academics are to ensure that social justice, inclusion and public good are at the core of emerging educational futures then the current growth of global distance education provides them with an arena in which their voices could and should be heard.

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Muir Houston & Anne McGillivray - The Search for Quality: Changing Roles in a Changing Academic Environment
Centre for Continuing Education, University of Paisley, Scotland

Increasing participation and widening access to higher education in the UK has been a central component of recent government policy, with the result that flexible delivery at multi-campus sites is a feature of many UK Universities. This has necessitated change not only to the way that institutions are organised but also to the academic labour process. Much of this change is centred around issues of quality and accountability and the development of management structures which create tensions with traditional ideas of academic autonomy and collegiality.

The University of Paisley has a leading position within Scotland as a provider of flexible routes into and through higher education. Modular provision within a semesterised academic year enables students to attend on a full or part-time basis for day, evening, weekend or summer classes at one of three campus locations in Paisley, Ayr and Dumfries. An institutional priority is to achieve wider access, hence students come from a wide variety of educational and employment backgrounds. The challenge is to maintain the integrity of the University's provision, the standard of its academic awards and a quality student experience regardless of mode, time or location of attendance.

This paper looks at particular aspects of change as they have occurred in higher education institutions and specifically focuses upon changing roles within the academic workplace. In particular it explores one institution's attempt to overcome these tensions and still maintain quality and standards through the creation of the role of the Module Co-ordinator. The Module Co-ordinator is responsible for aspects of quality, equivalency and maintenance of academic and administrative standards. When one module is delivered at different times, to different students, by different tutors, at different locations, the role of the module co-ordinator is key.

Finally, through the use of a survey and focus group, the paper will examine the perceptions and experiences of those undertaking this important role.

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Peter Long & Tony Tricker - Measuring Aspects of Student Satisfaction with Course Provision
Peter Long, School of Business and Finance, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB
Tony Tricker, Head of Applied Statistics and Management Science, Head of Undergraduate Programmes, Sheffield Hallam University

As students increasingly fund themselves, the notion of the student as a customer of Higher Education, expecting quality services from the provider, becomes more prevalent. The student experience has become an important dimension of the quality of education.

Evaluating the student experience (as distinct from the content or delivery of their course) becomes a pressing need in order to maintain and improve educational quality in a competitive market. Developing appropriate and sensitive evaluation instruments is a priority for quality management and enhancement.

Other service providers (e.g. commercial services) have faced this challenge for some time and an examination of methods used elsewhere produces interesting alternatives to more conventional questionnaire approaches.

We have developed a variant of the so-called "service template" for evaluating student satisfaction with postgraduate distance learning courses (a sector in which discerning students invariably pay all their fees themselves). We have designed and produced a prototype template which is delivered electronically to students learning at a distance from the university.

Our experience with this instrument leads us to believe that it provides valuable insights into how aspects of the student experience might be changed to generate a greater fit between what students look for in a course of study and what they receive.

We are currently embarking on extending the template idea toother levels of study and modes of delivery in order to gauge more generally the level of student satisfaction with their courses.

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