In the following presentation, Peter Maassen provides a presentation: “Quality Management of Norwegian Higher Education: complexities and visions on possible future developments“. Before the presentation, professor Monika Nerland introduces the overall seminar.
Today, a project meeting is taking place in Oslo, with all the Norwegian partners gathered at NIFU to discuss project progress, plans ahead, and in particular upcoming work in subproject D.
Key results from the survey to study programme leaders have been summarized in a recent working paper published in NIFU series (available in Norwegian). The working paper presents some of the main results from the survey, which will be followed with more detailed analysis in various academic publications.
Key results include:
Educational leadership as a specific role is ambiguous and lacks of standardization. This can be interpreted as educational leaders lacking power, but it can also be interpreted as a flexible way to tackle complex institutional realities.
In a number of cases, this leadership function is instead viewed as a coordinating role, as there is little opportunities to influence academic and administrative aspects of the study programmes.
Educational leaders frequently co-operate with various other arenas and actors, thus the function is often enacted in a collaborative manner.
The working paper primarily maps this rather heterogeneous and complex landscape of educational leadership, highlighting key differences between disciplinary and professional study programmes. The study was sent to 1010 respondents from 33 institutions in December 2015. During the survey, 551 respondents provided their answers, making the response rate of 54,6.
The survey is first of its kind in Norway and thus provides fascinating new data to understanding the role of educational leaders in Norwegian higher education institutions, a population that has not been previously studied.
On 10th of June, the first results from the survey to study program leaders was presented in Oslo at a NIFU seminar. Bjørn Stensaker presented some of the key results from the survey.
During the seminar, the results were discussed with a panel including Andreas Snildal (NOKUT) and Therese Eia Lerøen (NSO). Commentary was provided by Eirik Welo (Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo) and Vibeke Bjarnø (Oslo and Akershus University College).
Last week, on 14th of June, the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre organized a Nordic conference, titled: Student-centred approach and the quality of degree education. The conference brought together over 200 participants from various Nordic countries.
Professor Bjørn Stensaker held one of the keynote speeches, where he focused on the relationship between learning outcomes and quality assurance, and pointed some of the issues of bringing quality assurance practice closer to the primary processes of higher education.
The keynote speech by Bjørn Stensaker was also recorded and is avilable on youtube, embedded in the video below. Bjørn Stensakers presentation starts at about 55 minutes, after the introductory speeches from Anita Lehikoinen (Ministry and Education and Culture in Finland), Anders Geertsen (Nordic Council of Ministers) and Professor Riitta Pyykkö (University of Turku).
