Bologna Is Not a Processed Meat

1. Spotlighting and Sharing Effective Campus Programs and Practices Keynote:  October 19, 2006 Clifford Adelman, Senior Associate Institute for Higher Education Policy Washington, DC Bologna Is Not a Processed Meat It is CSU’s Next Cutting-Edge Challenge

2. Rules of Engagement • If you have a burning question, feel free to interrupt, but • Please save the speeches for the interaction period. • Everybody should have copies of the slides, and there are other hand-outs that you might draw on tomorrow

3. There’s a revolution underway in higher education • It renders paper diplomas secondary prizes. • It establishes electronic accounts of learning the standard for graduates in • a borderless labor market. • It is well underway. • I give California higher education a decade before it goes into shock treatment.

4. So you’ve done a good job, huh? • The Spellings Commission loved your early placement testing. • The Chancellor loves your “fresh efficiencies.” • Your core currency, the credit hour, has become more powerful. • You’ve got roadmaps and audit systems. • No doubt CSU institutions will award more of those degrees, and in a “timely” fashion.

5. But is that all there is? Let’s look at the revolution and see if we can catch the next steps.

6. You won’t learn about this from the Spellings Commission report • They never asked; they never bothered to look beyond our borders. • Their only nod to the rest of the world was to complain that 11 other countries now exceeded us in “educational attainment” (whatever that means). • And to recommend, in passing, increased attention to international and 2nd language study, a mantra of all education commissions.

7. Part I: building new conditions This is not a fantasy

8. Bologna is not a processed meat • It is the largest restructuring of higher education ever undertaken. • It involves 45 countries, 16 million students, and 4000 institutions of higher education, some of which have been doing business the same way for 800 years. • They have all agreed to adopt common rules for degrees, credits, and certification and communication of student outcomes.

9. The initial Bologna declaration of 1999 • Has subsequently been modified in meetings of education ministers in Prague (LLL), Berlin (QA), and Bergen (EQF) • The shape of Bologna now intersects 1997 agreements on labor market qualifications reached by EC representatives in Lisbon • . . . And moves considerably beyond “harmonization of architecture” goals of 4 nations’ education ministers (1998) • These are not just ministerial agreements—the process is playing out as we speak.

10. Why Did They Do It? • Transparency of programs and degrees with a common framework and cycles • Promotion of student mobility and integration in the Euro-labor market • Facilitate resumption/continuation of study (stop out and transfer phenomena) • Goad to cooperative, trans-national curriculum development

11. We can’t even do this between Ohio and Indiana • Let alone California and Arizona • 63 percent of Pacific C.D. students attend more than one school • 18 percent attend in >1 state • 13 percent attend in >Census Division • Mountain states and West South Central are the most common destinations

12. Our students’ mobility is endemic • For the most noted example, 16 percent of students starting out in the Pacific Census Division and earning bachelor’s degrees earned the degree in a different state from the one in which they started • And 12 percent earned it in a different Census Division • These percentages are higher than those for European student transnational mobility

13. Part II: What the European continent gets • A coordinated, harmonious system of higher education that knows no borders. • Coherent links to labor markets that know no borders. • Documentation of student learning and attainment that knows no borders. So what are the elements, and how will it work?

14. Credit Template: Preferable • Year 110 10 • 10 10 • 10 10 • Year 2 20 20 20 • Year 3 5 5 10 20 5 5 10

15. Defining credits by student workload • Type of course (lecture, seminar, research seminar, practical, laboratory, internship, fieldwork, etc.) • Learning activities (attending lectures, practicing lab skills, writing papers, reading, creating artistic work, etc.) • Assessments (oral exam, written exam, presentation, portfolio, report on fieldwork/internship, etc.)

16. Student workload example Lecture (2), section (1), lab (1) Attending all (14 weeks) 56 hrs. Background reading 42 hrs. Laboratory preparation 14 hrs. Laboratory reports 28 hrs. Paper writing (2) 24 hrs. Examination preparation 12 hrs. Examinations 2 hrs. Total: 178 hrs. Value: How many credits is it worth?

17. Student workload example 2 Seminar session (2), group tutorial (1) Attend all (14 weeks) 42 hrs. Background reading 42 hrs. Tutorial chair preparation 14 hrs. Oral presentation preparation 28 hrs. Paper writing (2) 24 hrs. Total: 150 hrs. How many credits is it worth?

18. Still some work to do here on estimated v. actual workload • How do you determine actual workload? • Do you adjust credits accordingly? • If so, how? • What carries the most weight in adjustments—type of course, learning activities, assessments, type of competences expected?

19. Credits for non-formal and informal learning • Are a form of transfer, too, and . . . • Require comparable learning outcome statements, i.e. criteria, to those awarded through formal coursework. • Number of credits awarded is the difficult issue, since student work load cannot be validated, so consortia of institutions are piloting approaches together. • A historical EC interest that has not historically involved the formal postsec sector

20. Another required piece • Student learning agreements fortemporary transfers, signed by student, home institution authority, and receiving institution authority. • A “recognition sheet” indicating that the proposed study replaces comparable study at home, and that the student will be exempted from parallel requirements. • The learning agreement is required to warrantee credit transfer.

21. Think of what that would require in California Among non-incidental students 9% attend 2 or more 4-year colleges 8% are in alternating/simultaneous enrollment in CCs and 4-year 8% are 4-year students attending CCs in summer terms That’s 25 percent of 4-year college students who would need temporary transfer learning agreements

22. Part III: the heart of outcomes: the Diploma Supplement • Yes, there is a Transcript of Records maintained by each institution attended. • But the Diploma Supplement goes beyond the sum of all Transcripts of Records. It reports the principal activities carried out to qualify for the degree. • The Supplement format is standardized.

23. Follow carefully, now . . . • Because it is with a Diploma Supplement that CSU can out-do the 45 countries of the Bologna Process • In other words: “You folks have taught us something, you have opened our eyes, and now let us advance on your model.” • And if CSU does it, a lot of the U.S. will follow.

24. Anticipation of Diploma Supplements • The Higher Education Progress file (UK) matches transcript to: • Program specifications • Subject benchmarking • Degree qualifications frameworks And include Personal Development Planning

25. What’s in the Bologna Diploma Supplements Now? • Description of degree program (prerequisites, modes of study, requirements) • Transcripted data (modules and units), including grade distribution guidance • Statement on function of degree, i.e. what does it lead to (further study, professional status, labor market)? • “Additional information” (we focus here) • Certification by institutional authority

26. So what can/should be in that “Additional Information” section? • List of assessment tasks that contribute to the award • Key activities indicating specific skills and behaviors relevant to employability • Description of final project/thesis • Documentation of personal development planning • Documentation of study abroad • Assessed collaborative work

27. Problem • In examples of Diploma Supplements I’ve seen to date, the potential richness of that “additional information” section has not been realized. • And this is where the CSU can take the promise one step better. • Note: this is not an institutional assessment project such as those CSU schools undertook in the late 1980s/early 1990s

28. Example: adding 5 bullets for a degree in environmental design • Passing IT certification exam in computer graphics • Paper student wrote for the university facilities planning committee • Notation of student team project on animal nesting in public parks (Ethology) • Short description of final project on design of public plazas • Documentation of 2nd language proficiency

29. And add to that. . . • A (maximum) 200-word statement of personal development planning, i.e. “Where I’d like to go, what I still have to learn, how I plan to get there” • And CSU will produce accessible evidence of what stands behind its degrees • And do its students one helluva favor in the process, no?

30. Do you need a test here? • Note: there are already two external assessments in the example given, and they both reference specific disciplinary knowledge and skills. • Not if you rely on volunteers to do pre/post. Unless it’s a high stakes, full census participation, it won’t tell you much, and won’t help the student. • And the example utilizes other forms of unobtrusive evidence, e.g. the facilities paper.

31. Back to Bologna: What happens to the Diploma Supplement? It is combined with a standardized c.v., documentation of all transnational education and training, and a “language portfolio” on an electronic “Europass” that presents the information to prospective employers, in major languages, across the continent

32. And to the Europass can be added. . . • Subsequent certification of further education, training, licensing, etc. thus • Rendering the Europass an indelible documentation of lifelong learning Nice work if you can get it!

33. Part IV:and as for degrees . . .it’s BA/MA • The new norm for duration was set at 3+2 • As of 2005, the new norm was practiced in 11 of 28 countries surveyed • 8 others still held to a 4 year BA • In only 5 countries can a student move directly from a BA to MA program without selection • Testing of variations (e.g. in Germany, where the states regulate the transitions) is in process

34. So why do we need to pay attention? • ECTS (which actually started in 1989) as a major component of the “Bologna Process,” is a model of borderless transfer. • The two-cycle degree structure offers clear steps in the completion of undergraduate study • The transparency of these components has already drawn interest in Latin America, and the former colonial countries in Africa and Asia will not be far behind.

35. And what do the students think, 1? • ESIB survey identifies these strengths: Promise of greater mobility Recognition of degrees/qualifications Inter-institutional cooperation (western and northern Europe) Intro of credit systems and 2-cycle degrees (eastern and central Europe)

36. And what do the students think, 2? • ESIB survey identifies these weaknesses: Knowledge of all the processes National differences in the pace of implementation The “social dimension,” which translates as the introduction of tuition Access to the 2nd degree cycle (Master’s) Employability as a driving force of policy

37. What do analysts see as critical in-process issues? • Evaluation of previous system graduates versus new system degree recipients • Adjustments of the labor market to the new Bachelor and Master students---salaries, employment opportunities, public/private sector employment practices • Qualification profiles

38. Are they going to make it on time? • No, the transitions are regulated by law in some countries (France) and are left to individual institutions in others (Hungary, where BA comes first, MA later) • No, in some countries (Austria) universities will offer both old and new programs in parallel • No, in some countries, adjustments to existing qualifications systems are complex • But yes, eventually they will make it.

39. Prediction. . . • By 2030, what started as European will be global, providingtransfer without borders. • The US will either join or be left behind. • It will be a challenge unlike any other issued to our system of higher education. • We had better get started---and in more positive ways than simply rejecting degree equivalencies!

40. What does “getting started” mean for CSU institutions? Focusing on the Diploma Supplement mechanism, and deciding such matters as: o Whether you want a qualifications statement that applies to all graduates o The form of a qualifications statement in each major o Student achievement portfolio statements---how many? what kind? who certifies? Thanks to Bologna, it’s your next challenge.

41. GO FOR IT ! It’s a natural next step!

42. References The literature on Bologna, both formal and fugitive, is huge. Much---but not all---of it is in English. The annual Trends reports, authored by Reichart and Tauch for the European University Association, are a good place to start, and they are available on-line. Beyond that, Google everything and follow the links!