Institute for Learning and Teaching
The National Framework for Higher Education Teaching

http://www.hefce.ac.uk/Learning/InstofLT.htm

The Response of The Library Association

The Library Association is the professional association for librarians and information managers. It represents some 25,000 practitioners working in a wide range of settings. A significant proportion of its members work in the Higher Education sector and are active in the delivery and support of HE learning programmes.

Amongst the purposes and powers of the Association set out in its Royal Charter are:

• To represent and act as the professional body for persons working in or interested in library and information services.

• To promote the improvement of the knowledge, skills, position and qualifications of librarians and information personnel.

Our interest in the ILT and the National Framework is a two-fold one. First, because librarianship is an all graduate profession, we have a strong interest in the quality of the learning & teaching experiences to which future practitioners are exposed in HE. We feel there is a strong correlation between the quality of these experiences and the capacity of practitioners to maximise their professional effectiveness, to be reflective in practice, and to enhance their contribution through continuing professional development. In respect of this area of interest, we welcome the systematic and challenging specification of quality for HE teaching that the National Framework represents.

Our second area of interest resides in the fact that a substantial number of our members (some 4,000) are engaged in practice in HEIs. It is our view that they make a very substantial contribution to the quality and effectiveness of the learning and teaching provided by HEIs. They do so in their roles as, for example

• managers of information, learning and knowledge resources

• mediators between those resources and learners

• designers of systems of access to those resources

• teachers of information, knowledge navigation and other learning skills

• designers of environments for out-of-classroom learning

• advisers on the appropriate use of information and learning resources in particular learning programmes

Realising this contribution to the full depends entirely on teamwork involving librarians and lecturers. It also depends on the recognition of the librarian’s role in, and potential for, effective learning and teaching. This role is increasing very significantly as learning & teaching strategies are implemented which place heavy emphasis on resource-based and independent learning; on the capacity of ICT to deliver and support learning; on services for off-campus and distance learners; and on the need to deploy a range of learning & teaching methods to enrich the student experience. Librarians have a key role in the implementation of such strategies.

In respect of this interest, our primary concerns regarding the National Framework are:

The remainder of our response is structured around the consultation questions set out in the National Framework for HE Teaching document. In particular it addresses questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8.

1. Bearing in mind the need to establish a credible, UK-wide standard for higher education teaching, the Planning Group believes that ILT Members should be able to demonstrate that they have achieved all, or most of, the 24 teaching outcomes listed above. What would you consider to be the absolute minimum of outcomes for ILT Membership?

Librarians whose main contribution to institutional objectives lies in their teaching activity (in relation to e.g. information skills, study skills, and IT literacy) should be able to demonstrate achievement in the majority of the outcomes. One or two areas of evidence might cause difficulty however. These include contact with external examiners in relation to the calibration of assessment standards, receiving comments from external examiners reports, taking cognisance of emergent national subject benchmarks, and acting as a personal tutor.

In the light of this, we consider that Members should be required to demonstrate most rather than all of the outcomes. The figure 20 out of 24 would seem combine sufficiency of rigour with a degree of flexibility which would open full membership to librarian-teachers, whose work is other than discipline based.

2. The Planning Group sees two purposes of Associate Membership:

Associate membership needs to combine rigour sufficient to command credibility and underpin quality, with flexibility sufficient to provide hospitality and encouragement to those who do not undertake the full range of teaching activities. In some ways 10 seems like an arbitrary target. Its effectiveness in combining rigour and flexibility can probably only be established by field testing. It may therefore be best to launch the 10 outcomes model of Associateship on the basis that it will be reviewed in the light of take-up and perception. Even on this basis, it should still offer an attractive continuing professional development opportunity to those with more limited teaching roles. Whatever the outcome of such field-testing, we strongly believe that the principle of Associate membership should be retained by the ILT, however it may be modified in practice.

3. Are there any groups/categories of staff with responsibilities for teaching and supporting student learning who might have difficulty meeting the outcomes described either for full Membership or Associate Membership?

The Framework of Outcomes would certainly exclude those whose contribution to learning does not include significant formal, instructional teaching. This means it would exclude librarians whose primary roles are to design and manage out-of-classroom learning environments, to support and facilitate student use of learning and information resources in un-programmed contexts, and to advise teachers and students on the appropriate use of learning and information resources within learning programmes. Perhaps such roles are beyond the remit of the ILT. However we do question whether the National Framework does enough to encourage cross-professional team approaches to teaching and learning, which would include staff with such roles. As it stands, the Framework seems to reflect a view of teaching as an activity which operates largely independently of the rest of the learning environment, largely independently of those who facilitate and support rather than teach.

In the light of the development of strategies for resource-based and independent learning to complement traditional lecturing methods; in the light of the likelihood of a resumption of growth of student numbers; and in the light of pressures for teaching staff to concentrate only on those activities which represent best use of their expertise and to delegate or share those which do not, there is a very strong case for the ILT to promote effective cross-professional integration of the various contributions to learning and teaching in HEIs.

4. Is the proposed three-year registration period for individual members of the ILT appropriate and acceptable?

Given the pace of change in the HE sector, in learning technologies and methods, and the development of institutional learning & teaching strategies, the three-year period seems appropriate.

5. How can the assessment of portfolios/professional development records involve an appropriate balance between generic understandings of teaching and learning, and subject-specific judgements and practice?

Is it too far-fetched to suggest that anyone who is actively maintaining and developing their generic understandings of learning and teaching is almost bound to be developing their subject specific practice. Commitment to the former seems almost ipso facto to imply commitment to the latter (while the converse is probably less certain). Given this, and indeed the whole thrust and purpose of the ILT, it seems reasonable to suggest that it is the generic pedagogic development that should have primacy in the portfolios and professional development records

8. Are the proposed CPD guidelines appropriate for ILT members once their initial registration period is completed?

The flexibility and breadth of approach reflected in the CPD guidelines are very welcome. It is important that the guidelines be compatible with a wide range of institutional approaches to learning and teaching, in order to allow for innovation and distinctiveness of mission. It is equally important that the guidelines should be hospitable to a range of types of individual contribution to learning and teaching, and should take account of a range of types of CPD activity. This both fosters innovation, and minimises the danger that staff will feel themselves overloaded with CPD requirements, given the need for all staff to develop themselves across a range of skills, understandings and areas of professional activity.

In the case of professional librarians, we certainly hope that CPD in their own professional area will be regarded as valid currency in the ILT’s requirements for remaining in good standing.

10. Please comment on any other issues that you feel are important

The two core points of our response are that the National Framework for HE Teaching should:

• be fully hospitable to non-discipline based contributions to learning and teaching

• promote cross-professional teamwork in the provision of learning and teaching

These points are made in the belief that they relate directly and significantly to the quality of the student learning experience.

The Library Association wishes to maintain its dialogue with the ILT. We feel that we are in a position to reflect and to advise on the role, contribution and potential of our members for learning and teaching in HE. Our professional disposition gives us a strong interest in innovative, learner-centred approaches to learning, and in accessibility and flexibility of learning opportunity. We would be very happy to explore ways of working with the Institute as its work develops, and of contributing to its thinking.