Teaching-focused academic appointments in Australian universities: recognition, specialisation, or stratification?

This report uses data on teaching-only appointments in Australian universities to describe their growth, their distribution by institution, and in those universities with significant numbers, their distribution by discipline and level. Executive summary Since 2009 there has been a consistent upward trend in the number of academic staff being reported to the Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE) as ‘teaching only’, reaching a total of 3 489 in 2012. Nineteen universities had a provision for teaching-focused appointments before the current round of enterprise bargaining began in 2012, and many more are likely to have such a provision by the time this round is completed. This is because both union and management in many universities are supporting this development, even if for rather different reasons. The growth of teaching-focused appointments is part of an international trend that many see as inevitable, namely the unbundling of previous academic roles and increasing differentiation within the academic workforce. Among the agreed driving forces behind this unbundling are: the demand for much greater levels of participation in higher education (from mass to universal), the pressure to provide for lifelong learning opportunities, increased competition from private providers, and the radical potential of IT. This report for the Office for Learning and Teaching uses DIISRTE data on teaching-only appointments in Australian universities to describe their growth, their distribution by institution, and in those universities with significant numbers, their distribution by discipline and level. The report uses a case study approach to identify the range of policies being used to shape the appointment and career opportunities of teaching-only staff, and discusses the likely impact on the quality of teaching and learning in different institutions, as well as the status of teaching in the wider academic culture. Teaching or ‘education’ focused appointments are not concentrated in any particular university grouping, and have been introduced for a number of quite different and contradictory reasons. These range from an explicit desire to raise the status of teaching and develop teaching-focused career paths, to the more widespread desire to improve institutional research rankings by transferring research-inactive staff to a teaching-focused classification in order to reduce the research-active denominator. The recent growth in teaching-focused staff numbers has probably been, in general, more opportunistic than strategic. Whatever the institutional motive, the creation of a separate category of teaching focused academic staff is occurring within a shared university culture that has increasingly privileged research over teaching over the last two decades, and in which there is widespread scepticism about the possibility of teaching focused careers and parity of esteem between these activities. The position descriptions and methods of appointment for teaching-focused academics vary widely between institutions, but the most common approach is for a process of application from existing teaching and research staff to a fixed term appointment to a teaching-focused role. It is generally viewed as a one-way street. Within universities, there is a strong rhetorical resistance to the concept of ‘teaching-only’ roles, with an explicit insistence on the scholarly nature of university teaching (in line with the new Provider Registration Standards) and the importance of research. There is, however, relatively little clarity in the definition of what constitutes a scholarly approach. Similarly, some TAFE providers are wrestling with the scholarly requirements for those TAFE teachers responsible for higher-level undergraduate or postgraduate teaching, and with the relationship between teaching and research. The growth of teaching-focused positions in universities needs to be seen in the wider context of the growth of higher education teachers within TAFE and a range of private providers. The resolution of this question – what is the essence of higher education teaching – will have significant implications for the categorisation of different kinds of higher education providers in the future. In the future it is widely expected that the application of IT in the development of such new approaches to course delivery as MOOCs – massive open online courses – will greatly stimulate the further unbundling of academic work and the differentiation of roles around teaching, research and other support activities. The status of teaching-focused appointments in Australian universities, and the development of full career paths, are widely seen as dependent on greater agreement about what constitutes excellence in university teaching. There is an acknowledged danger that differentiation will, in fact, mean stratification. Some argue that the professionalisation of university teaching is necessary to establish its status. Others see the issue as one of institutional leadership and strategic foresight. Teaching-focused appointments can raise the status of teaching or continue its marginalisation. What matters is the strategic focus and values of senior management, and the extent to which this is reflected in the things that deans and heads of department or heads of school do and say

Globalisation and Its Impact on Competitiveness: the Case of the British and German Pharmaceutical Industry

This paper assesses the degree of financial and economic globalisation of British and German pharmaceutical companies during 1990 and 2001 and explores the changing balance between globalisation and national embeddedness. It tries to explain both the much lower degree of globalisation of German as compared to British companies in 1990, as well as their catching up at the beginning of the 21st century. The paper suggests that the lesser degree of globalisation of German firms during most of the 1990s partly explains their slide in competitiveness during this period. The conclusion examines prospects for the future of firms in both economies. The paper draws on detailed industry data, as well as case studies of the major firms in the two national industries.globalisation, pharmaceutical industry, performance, British-German comparison

Domestic capabilities and global production networks in the clothing industry: a comparison of German and UK firms' strategies

In this paper we examine the sourcing strategies of clothing firms in the developed economies of the UK and Germany in the context of their national institutional framework. We argue that, as a result of their embeddedness in divergent national structures, these firms pursue different sourcing strategies and make different locational choices. We place particular emphasis on the different mix of armsÕ length and relational contracting that firms develop, and on the divergent degree of control over the manufacturing process and the product that they retain. We suggest that the construction of global production networks and control over supplier firms is mediated by co-ordinating firmsÕ product strategy and the degree of dependence on national retailers this engenders. In the UK and Germany, firms and their networks differ from the US case which is normally taken as representative of the industry.clothing industry, global production networks, capabilities

Between The Global And The Local: A Comparison Of The British And German Clothing Industry

The clothing industry is regarded as one the most globalised industries of developed economies, yet most studies focus on the geography of production for US firms and pay scant attention to the geography of trade or to other national cases. This paper broadens the perspective to cover the whole network of German and British clothing firms’ relationships by examining both their supply chain organisation and their market strategy, including their relations with retailers. It demonstrates the interdependencies between their strategic responses at different stages of the value chain and shows that relationships with both suppliers and customers have strongly defined the industry and firms in both countries, albeit differently. The global context of the clothing industry and the common pressures experienced by the national industries are also considered. We draw on industry statistics and on early impressions from interviews with clothing firms and retailers in both countries during 2003.clothing industry, supply chain, globalisation, United Kingdom, Germany

Gauge Five Brane Dynamics And Small Instanton Transitions In Heterotic Models

We present the first examples of cosmological solutions to four-dimensional heterotic models which include an evolving bundle modulus. The particular bundle modulus we consider corresponds to the width of a gauge five brane. As such our solutions can be used to describe the evolution in one of these models after a small instanton transition. We find that certain properties are generic to these solutions, regardless of initial conditions. This enables us to make some definite statements about the dynamics subsequent to a small instanton transition despite the fact that we cannot microscopically describe the process itself. We also show that an effective description of the small instanton transition by a continuous matching of fields and their first derivatives is precluded by the form of the respective low-energy theories before and after the transition.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

The impact of the Clandestine Marriages Act: three case-studies in conformity

This article examines the extent of compliance with the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753 through three parish studies. It demonstrates that the vast majority of the sample cohort of parents whose children were baptized in church, and indeed of couples living together, had married in church as required by the 1753 Act, and shows how the proportion of marriages traced rises as more information about the parties becomes available. Through a study of settlement examinations, the article posits an explanation of why some marriages have not been traced, and argues that researchers should be cautious in inferring non-compliance from the absence of a record in a specific parish. It is also argued that the reason for such high rates of compliance has less to do with the power of statute and more to do with the fact that the 1753 Act was not such a radical break with the past as has been assumed

Quantitative LEED I-V and ab initio study of the Si(111)-3x2-Sm surface structure and the missing half order spots in the 3x1 diffraction pattern

We have used Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) I-V analysis and ab initio calculations to quantitatively determine the honeycomb chain model structure for the Si(111)-3x2-Sm surface. This structure and a similar 3x1 recontruction have been observed for many Alkali-Earth and Rare-Earth metals on the Si(111) surface. Our ab initio calculations show that there are two almost degenerate sites for the Sm atom in the unit cell and the LEED I-V analysis reveals that an admixture of the two in a ratio that slightly favours the site with the lower energy is the best match to experiment. We show that the I-V curves are insensitive to the presence of the Sm atom and that this results in a very low intensity for the half order spots which might explain the appearance of a 3x1 LEED pattern produced by all of the structures with a 3x2 unit cell.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures. Preliminary work presented at the the APS March meeting, Baltimore MD, 2006. To be published in Phys. Rev. B. April/May 200

Improved real-space genetic algorithm for crystal structure and polymorph prediction

Existing genetic algorithms for crystal structure and polymorph prediction can suffer from stagnation during evolution, with a consequent loss of efficiency and accuracy. An improved genetic algorithm is introduced herein which penalizes similar structures and so enhances structural diversity in the population at each generation. This is shown to improve the quality of results found for the theoretical prediction of simple model crystal structures. In particular, this method is demonstrated to find three new zero-temperature phases of the Dzugutov potential that have not been previously reported