The Teaching Excellence Framework: what does it mean for UCL communicators?

1. The Teaching Excellence Framework: what does it mean for UCL communicators? Jess Shepherd, Head of Communications in the office of the Vice-Provost for Education and Student Affairs

2. “Perhaps the biggest shift in the national framework for higher education in England for a generation.” Universities UK … However, much of it was widely trailed in the press and it leaves many questions unanswered.

3. The Teaching Excellence Framework – a way to measure how good teaching is in universities The idea is based on several assumptions: • That teaching is “something of a poor cousin to research” in many institutions • That universities regard their reputation through the lens of league tables, their scholarly output (the REF) and their income

4. How the TEF may work (it’s still early days…) • Universities will be allowed to raise fees for home undergraduates beyond £9,000 in line with inflation if they can demonstrate excellence in teaching • Metrics used to decide excellence may include: • Student satisfaction indicators from the National Student Survey (teaching quality and learning environment) • Employment/destination data from the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education Surveys and, from early 2017, results from the HMRC data match • Retention/continuation data published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency • There may well be more, such as time spent studying, proportion of staff time spent teaching etc

5. Rolling assessments: • Four levels of TEF. The higher level the university is, the higher the fees it will be allowed to charge • Universities able to apply for the next level every three to five years • As a university goes up the levels, the metrics become more complex with, potentially, widening participation targets, panel assessments and more • The TEF will start in 2016 and all providers who have met current quality assurance thresholds will automatically pass level one, allowing them to raise fees in line with inflation from 2017

6. Perverse incentives? • The TEF will allow institutions who do well in widening participation to raise fees, potentially putting off future disadvantaged students? • Students may mark their universities down in the National Student Survey to ensure that the institution doesn’t put up their fees

7. Timescale: • Published on 6 November. Consultation until 16 January. • UCL’s submission, signed off by the Senior Management Team, to be sent during Christmas holidays or early January. UCL to contribute to Russell Group submission. • Submission for each academic discipline • Technical consultation next year on the metrics used to decide excellent teaching • First assessments next year

8. Other elements of the green paper: • Target to double the percentage of students from disadvantages backgrounds entering HE by 2020, compared to 2009, and increase the number of BME students by 20% by 2020 • Private providers to get degree-awarding powers in less than four years and university status in less than five • Removal of FOI • Merger of Hefce and Office for Fair Access to create the Office for Students

9. What does this mean for UCL? • Our student/staff ratio is the best in the Russell Group • A high proportion of our students are in graduate employment or further study six months after graduation • But our NSS performance will matter even more and students are registering poor and declining satisfaction with UCL • Our retention rates are very high, but our intake from state schools and lower socio-economic groups did not meet its HESA KPI in our 2014/15 access agreement

10. What does this mean for UCL? • The TEF does not seem to understand how an active research environment at UCL helps teaching. “Fundamentally flawed” to say that UCL has regarded teaching as a poor cousin to academic research • The TEF could go the way of the REF and become a heavy bureaucratic burden • Nothing about part-time or postgraduate students • Tiny impact – 0.29% - on our income unless the TEF starts to include postgraduate taught students • The Annual Student Experience Review will become more intensive and even more important

11. What does this mean for internal and external communicators like us? • Our reputation could be damaged if student satisfaction scores fall below our competitors • The traditional proxies for quality (league table position, age of university, which mission group an institution belongs to) could become old-fashioned • Need to communicate our unique brand of research-based education to show how world-class research makes our teaching excellent • Far more student engagement • Removal of FOI will make the press/public more suspicious

12. Green paper facts: • It mentions ‘what employers want’ 35 times • It mentions ‘value for money’ 27 times • It mentions ‘what students want’ 23 times • It mentions mature students twice • It mentions part-time students once