Improving the Learning Experience: Supporting Staff to Support Students through Professional Development and Appraisal

摘要

The quality and competence of teaching staff can have a direct impact on the student experience. Students report very different experiences from different institutions, for example in the UK's student satisfaction survey and other similar national surveys. However, teaching and other university staff need support and development themselves to ensure that they can provide the best possible student experience. This article examines one way in which the Open University, UK (OU UK) has implemented a process of career development and staff appraisal (CDSA) for all its 11,000 staff over the last 20 years. (Both authors spent most of their working lives with the OU UK). CDSA involves a regular discussion between a member of staff and (usually) their Line Manager in which previous performance, current plans and future objectives and development are discussed. In addition to supporting staff, the process also enables the alignment of University, departmental and individual priorities. The origins of the process, which initially involved a relatively informal discussion between a member of permanent salaried staff and their line manager, are outlined and the issues and principles that arose are discussed. In the 1990s CDSA became a more formal annual process for salaried staff with documents and procedures agreed between University management and the University and Colleges Union (the negotiating body for University staff terms and conditions in the UK). In 2010 it was agreed that CDSA should be extended and implemented for all the University's 7000 part-time tutors (Associate Lecturers - ALs) by 2012, and the paper discusses the issues that arose and the very positive feedback received from an external evaluation of the experience of early adopters in February 2012. It is hoped that data from an evaluation in early 2013 can be included at the conference. The CDSA process raises a wide range of issues about how staff can best support students and the quality of their learning, and how institutions can best support staff and their development. Information and issues arising from the process and evidence from evaluations will inform discussion at the conference and some questions are included at the end of the paper.