Ethics protocols for the project 'Innovations in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education'

What the project is about

The past decade has seen increased attention to methods of teaching and learning, and the 1997 Dearing report, Higher Education in the Learning Society, has further emphasised the need for innovative responses to the challenges facing higher education. The agenda for these changes has included increased student numbers and diversity, the promotion of lifelong learning and a learning society, and satisfying the requirements of employment and citizenship. The project aims to examine and interpret the innovative responses of higher education in the recent period to these pressures and opportunities. It will seek to analyse the sources, nature and implementation of recent and current innovations, the obstacles and life histories. It will explore the meanings attached to innovation as process and product. It will therefore attempt to identify:

• the motives, sources of ideas, successes and failures of innovators in a range of subjects in a variety of institutions, and implications for staff satisfaction and rewards;
• the characteristics of innovations generated by individuals, institutions, internally and externally available funding, external scrutiny, national policies and programmes, international models and research;
• the factors (inter-personal, institutional and structural) which do or do not stimulate and support innovation;
• the contribution of new developments in communication and information technologies to innovations in teaching and learning;
• innovation as creation, adaptation, transfer, development, dissemination;
• the contexts of innovation, including those of finance and institutional scale and structure.

Although curriculum change, modularization, assessment methods, access and emphases on skills and learning outcomes, for example, relate to teaching and learning, these will be contingent rather than central features of the project. The focus will be on those innovations that seek to shape the learning interface of students with teachers, one another, the technologies and materials. These include such processes as problem based learning, open learning, independent learning, distance learning and computer based or supported learning.

Who we are

We all work at the University of Plymouth; Harold Silver as a Visiting Professor in HE, Andy Hannan as Research Co-ordinator in the Faculty of Arts & Education and Sue English as a Research Assistant.

Where the money is coming from for the project

We are funded by the Economic & Social Research Council, with some assistance from the Higher Education Quality Council in the first year with other co-funders joining the ESRC for a possible second year.

Confidentiality

Findings will be presented in such a way that no individual can be identified unless he/she expressly agrees otherwise. Similarly, institutions will not be identified without formal permission being obtained. Information already in the public realm is not subject to these constraints, but care will be taken not to link it to data gathered through this research in such a way as to undermine these principles.

Right of withdrawal

All those being interviewed have the right to withdraw at any time, to ask for recording to cease or to require that information given should not be used in any way.

Feedback

Copies of the project report will be sent to all participating institutions and made available over the Internet to all those who contributed.

Phase two

What the project is about

The past decade has seen increased attention to methods of teaching and learning, and the 1997 Dearing report, Higher Education in the Learning Society, has further emphasised the need for innovative responses to the challenges facing higher education. The agenda for these changes has included increased student numbers and diversity, the promotion of lifelong learning and a learning society, and satisfying the requirements of employment and citizenship. The project aims to examine and interpret the innovative responses of higher education in the recent period to these pressures and opportunities. The first year of this project (which began in September 1997) focused on innovators and innovations. In this second year we are concerned with institutional contexts for innovation. Our aims are:-

• To explore the higher education institutional climates/frameworks that support or inhibit institutional or individual efforts to innovate in teaching and learning.
• To continue the exploration of ‘new patterns of teaching and learning’ begun in the first phase and needing further understanding in the context of institutional climates/frameworks.
• To consider how higher education institutions embed, or fail to embed, innovations in teaching and learning.
• To explore the role of subject disciplines and departments with regard to innovations in teaching and learning.
• To investigate the impact of national policies on institutional approaches to the funding and support of innovations in teaching and learning.

Who we are

We all work at the University of Plymouth; Harold Silver as a Visiting Professor in Higher Education, Andy Hannan as Reader in Education and Research Co-ordinator in the Faculty of Arts & Education and Sue English as a Research Assistant.

Where the money is coming from for the project

This year we are jointly funded by the Economic & Social Research Council, the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Department for Education and Employment.

Confidentiality

Permission to include an institution in the project will be obtained from its Vice-Chancellor/Principal. The intention is to name institutions following a process whereby authorization is obtained. The use of information about the institution will be the subject of agreement between a nominated ‘gatekeeper’ of the university and the project. Permission will be obtained at subject/departmental/school level from a nominated ‘gatekeeper’ before any report on information gathered at that level is made to others (internally or externally). Findings will be presented in such a way that no individual will be identifiable unless he/she expressly agrees otherwise. If any doubt arises the individual concerned will be consulted. Information already in the public realm is not subject to these constraints, but care will be taken not to link it to data gathered through this research in such a way as to undermine these principles.

Right of Withdrawal

All those being interviewed will be given the opportunity at the beginning of an interview to discuss issues raised in this protocol. Interviewees have the right to withdraw at any time, to ask for recording to cease or to require that information given should not be used in any way.

Feedback

Copies of the project report will be sent to all participating institutions and made available over the Internet to all those who contributed.

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