Prof. Hannah Cobb1, Dr Iain Wilson2, Prof. Earle Abrahamson3, Sue Beckingham4, Dr Peter D’Sena3, Dr Rose Gann2, Dr Emma Gillaspy5, Prof. Julie Hulme2, Prof. Dawne Irving-Bell6 and Prof. Susan Smith7
1University of Manchester, 2Nottingham Trent University, 3University of Hertfordshire, 4Sheffield Hallam University, 5University of Central Lancashire, 6BPP University, 7UCL
Picture the scenario… you are a new academic on a teaching track pathway which requires scholarship to be undertaken, but you aren’t really sure what this means or how to even start, let alone how to develop it for reward and recognition. Your line manager is on a research-focused contract and they have no more idea than you and can’t advise. What would you do? Where would you turn?
Now picture a different scenario… you are sat in a promotions committee reviewing a promotion application from a colleague who undertakes scholarship and someone asks, “what even is scholarship anyway?” No one in the committee seems to know. The committee scrutinise the applicant’s CV but the esteem indicators they use for assessing research-focused colleagues are missing; no grant income, limited publications, no research team or PhD students. How can they understand the applicant’s contribution then? If you were in that promotions committee where would you turn for information, to shine a spotlight on scholarship?
These two very different scenarios are just two common experiences that academic staff in UK HE report in surveys about understandings of scholarship (refs) and as colleagues in leadership roles around teaching and scholarship we see them all the time too. Yet despite the commonality of uncertainty around scholarship, there has been no single go to resource to address this … until now!
We are a collective of Teaching Focused colleagues who have come together to create and curate that missing resource! Situated at universities across the UK, we represent a breadth of the UK HE sector, and we also work with international collaborators on this issue too. As a result, we have brought our expertise of different facets of Scholarship, and experiences to this problem, to create a scholarship specific web resource to bring together new, useful and inspiring content, as well as signpost already available resources e.g., The National Teaching Repository, LTHE Chat, etc. e had the pleasure to launch the Scholarship Spotlight website at the 2024 ANTF symposium.
The ‘Scholarship Spotlight’ resource
Working towards being WISER, we explained the rationale for the need of this resource to support the Recognition and Reward of scholarship. Once the scene was set, we provided a tour of the website, before drawing on the amazing minds of the audience gathered in the session for feedback on its useability and the content outlined below.
“We love a good debate”
We asked the audience whether the resource should focus on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) alone or take a broader stance and cover Scholarship in general – a classic debate in the literature on Scholarship! They emphatically agreed the latter which is great because this is what the resource does. Theories, diagrams and broad conceptualisations of Scholarship are available under the ‘What is Scholarship’ page of the resource to gain a holistic understanding of the different facets of scholarship. Here is that perfect place to start, or direct someone to if you find yourself in a situation like the above!
Are you new to HE?
Prof. Susan Smith shared her experiences and guidance for those who may have joined HE from a different career path, sharing suggestions for colleagues who may be early, mid and established in their careers. This explicitly acknowledges that teaching focused colleagues often come into HE from positions of considerable seniority in industry, clinical or other professional contexts, so when we talk about colleagues who are “New to HE” we are not just referring to early career scholars, and thus there are a greater range of needs. This was supported by a short narrative of Susan’s experience joining HE so map these suggestions onto a tangible example. You can find this guidance, as well as a tool (the Synthesised Model of Reflection) to support you with developing your scholarship profile and career progression on the ‘New to HE’ page of the resource.
How else can this website help you?
You may be looking for places and support to disseminate the excellent work that you are engaging with, but how can you find like-minded individuals? The ‘Networks’ section of the website provides a range of networks, such as the National Learning and Teaching Focused Higher Education Network. These are communities of like-minded colleagues who are passionate about Learning and Teaching, providing connections to build allies, collaborations and friendships across the UK and even internationally. In addition to networking, the ‘Publications’ page offers a range of journals to inspire your reading, or submit your work too. Links to other methods of dissemination, such as the Open Education Resources website, The National Teaching Repository are also signposted through the ‘Sharing Ideas’ section. We are trying to get everything in one place for you so it is easy to navigate!
This all sounds brilliant, but where next?
This is very much a resource in the making. We asked for feedback from our excellent colleagues at ANTF2024 to share their thoughts on this resource. More on that soon, but for now, we can say it was very well received and there were some great suggestions on how to make this resource even better and work for the community we are all striving to support. Now that you have read a summary of the Scholarship Spotlight resource, please feel free to explore it yourself and share any feedback with us. We think it is what is needed, we hope that you do too, in order to shine the spotlight on scholarship.
Associated read – Part 2: Published Friday, 20 September 2024
X (formerly Twitter): For more information and activities from the authors, please follow:
Dawne Irving-Bell: @DawneIrvingBell
Earle Abrahamson: @earleabrahamso2
Emma Gillaspy: @egillaspy
Hannah Cobb: @ArchaeoCobb
Iain Wilson: @Dr_Iain_Wilson
Julie Hulme: @JulieH_Psyc
Peter D’Sena: @hehistedu
Rose Gann: @RosejGann
Sue Beckingham: @suebecks
Susan Smith: @SmithySusanA
