Promotion Open Session Introduction This document outlines the full - - PDF document

Transcript of the FAQs from the Promotion Open Session

FAQs from open session presentation.docx Introduction This document outlines the full transcript of the FAQS from the Open Promotion Session that happened on the 16 October 2013. What do you expect from the external assessors and if there are any restrictions on them are there any on whom we can put forward? No there are no restrictions; I would strongly advise you to make sure that you choose people who have real standing and distinction in their field. You can nominate up to three of them. This year the Dean will select one of those, the Dean will also select an international referee and the Dean will also select somebody to give a reference around the candidate’s educational achievements and that’s a new part of the process this year, but it comes back to the Universities commitment to recognise both the education and the research. Now educational achievements are quite difficult to find an external assessor for, so what I expect will be happening will be a landfall in the process in that we will use an internal referee for educational achievements and performance. Frankly when I’ve been up for promotion in the past, of course what I did was I talked to potential referees I think that’s just a polite thing to do and frankly it gives you the best chance of getting a positive report from them. I wouldn’t just pluck someone of high standing who you know of but don’t know, let’s put it that way. You can do it but it’s a risky strategy. Is it a problem if you have worked closely with the individual? Not really, because the reason why we have the process we have and why we only select one referee from the candidate’s selection of three is that often these are people who have worked closely with the individual. So the University or the Dean in this case has the opportunity to get an independent view as well. Principle teaching fellow level 6 promotion you talk about the need to be a balance of teaching research to what extent..? That’s not true for principle teaching fellow, so I knew I should have made that clarification at the time, I was talking about people on the balanced pathway going through.

FAQs from open session presentation.docx This question is regarding the Level 6 Chair and Director of Education to what extent is their experience within the University of staff being promoted to Director of Education routes as

• pposed to Professorial Chairs, this seems to be certainly experienced within our schools mostly of

people being promoted on the research route to Chair positions as opposed to Director of

• Education. Just wanted to get a sense of the Universities view on that…

Yes, so again we really are trying to rebalance the situation because there was a view, which probably had some justification, that in order to become a professor at level 7 research was the most important aspect of it. I hope from what you’ve heard that’s no longer going to be the case. We are expecting a significant a 20% educational activity at the right sort of level. That then does then beg the question of University director of education, now those are usually somebody who has and is involved purely on educational track or largely educational track and is delivering or well not delivering, but leading and delivering significant parts of the curriculum and showing leadership in it and innovation in it for example and is working not just within the academic unit, but more broadly either across the faculty or across the University. And over the years and I don’t know the numbers but we’ve probably got 10-20 directors of education at the moment, so I hope that clarifies your question. Can you say a little bit on the front of the form this time, you’ve got the balance and you’re asked to estimate the balance for yourself, so can you say a little about that? Is that your current balance

• r over or since the period you were appointed and what its purpose in the following assessment?

I think I would want to view that in terms of what I call the area under the curve so you’re presenting to the University a portfolio of work, so what we’re looking for is 20% of that to be education and 20%

• f it to be research. You may be doing more than that at the current time, but it’s the portfolio we

are looking at, not your current activities. It is a look at the portfolio over a period of time really since your last promotion or from your appointment. But it is supposed to be indicative so can any of us judge whether it’s 19 or 21% probably not, but a sense for the panel should we be reading this as someone who really 2/3, 3/4 of what they are doing is education or the reciprocal of that. So you would be looking to someone who mentions in terms of that? I would be viewing it as providing guidance on the filter with which we should be reading this case, and if there are lots of educational activities it just warns us that’s what we are going to see and not get frustrated where are the research papers where are the grants, well actually no the impact of this person is on the educational side or vice versa. Not a precise science just tries to be indicative of what we’re looking for. And of course what follows

• n from Marks point, if you are 80% education then you can expect the interview will talk mostly

about that. We won’t neglect the research but we try and tailor the interview to the portfolio of the candidate being presented to us. How do you measure educational performance? That’s quite a complicated question and there’s no easy answer. Part of it of course is just looking at metrics, the student evaluation scores are part of it, but they’re not the whole of it, as you know you can teach very well and still get poor or not as good evaluation scores as you would like. I think the

• ther aspect of it this year will be the input from the educational referee to get a sense of how this

person is performing in education. It will be partly about how you have actually developed your educational activities and portfolio over time.

FAQs from open session presentation.docx For example have you turned up and just given the same set of lectures for the last 5 years, or have you actually developed the content of the lectures, have you responded to student feedback, what are the changes that you’ve made as a result of that, being able to articulate that in an interview is an important element of that. Also thinking about for example how you may have innovated assessment techniques would be another aspect of the sort of activity we’re looking for and that you can be reflective on what you have done.” I tried this because I learnt about it on PECAP or I learnt about it from another colleague and it went really well,” and the reason why I know it went really well, because the performance of student in terms of the pass rate went up, or perhaps it didn’t go well that’s fine as well, as long as you can reflect on the reasons why it didn’t go well and you have a clear understanding of what you subsequently did or what you subsequently are going to do. So we are sort of looking for people who can be if you like sort of reflective practitioners in education. It is also important to remember the evaluation criteria, so broadly at level 5 we are expecting independence so that’s an individual who has demonstrated they can take a course and they can run it, can do educational independence. When we get to level 7 it’s all about leadership. So have you done things in the educational sphere that have provided leadership, that have influenced others? Organisational have you run a programme that’s effective, that’s attracted students in. Delivered graduates that have gone on to do things, can’t necessarily do that within the context of that. Has there been thought and leadership that has gone into the creation? Level 6 its clear independence and signs of emerging leadership and whether that’s research or education those are the basic, the spirit of the criteria that are in the career pathways document. Can you use achievements from my previous job? I’m new here I’ve got some achievements in my previous education can I use it as evidence? Yeah, if I were you quite frankly, gives the panel background and context. They will be able to look at what you have done in the context of what you did at a previous employer. But Adams comment in other places, it’s the delta. It’s what happened since you were appointed, since you were last promoted, that carries additional weight, but absolutely. But contextualise it, it’s really helpful this isn’t just something we all develop our ideas and our

• thinking. This idea that you are reflective in what you do particularly in education and your drawing
• n a whole range of evidence and experiences makes for a more compelling case than just a set of

statements I did this and I did that. External examiners, on the application form we have to nominate three external examiners. What is the definition of external? External of the school or faculty? External of the University. Does the person needs to work closely during the period of time with the person after the previous promotion or appointment or could it be a PHD supervisor? Just has to be external to the University as Adam said earlier. Our advice would be choose someone who knows you pretty well. The Dean will choose people who perhaps know you less well, who can take a perspective. So weight the odds in your favour of someone who knows you well. The notions particularly as you get to Level 7 promotions are strong international perspective, your international standing matters. If it’s your PHD examiner and they are at the University down the road and there’s no sign that’s the only links you’ve got, much strong if we can say “ahh well this person from a long

FAQs from open session presentation.docx way away knows really who you are and can say you have done seminal work in your field.” That’s

• bviously a much stronger letter, than someone who has a strong vested interest. But it’s a balance.

Different people view this differently. In terms of giving a strong case if it someone who’s other than your PHD examiner who can say powerful things about you that carries a bit more weight for many

• f us.

I would agree with that. Don’t get in the situation, and I have seen it happen where the reviewer basically says I don’t know this person and I’ve never seen them at a conference and gives an

• pinion based on no real knowledge of the person directly, I just would not do that.

They do get your three papers and your CV so it’s not completely no knowledge, but it’s not as warm. Not helpful to you. Question regarding publication… We have different ways to show the outcome from our research such as exhibitions or other format is this considered as our journal articles may not be in the traditional ways of reporting and presenting? Need to list non-traditional publications and then you can expect a question about the significance

• f that exhibition.

Think in terms of outputs. Ignore publications outputs and more documentation of outputs, because elsewhere it could be patterns, musical composition it is about things that have the potential to have an impact whether academic or beyond. Certainly go into the interview expecting to be asked the significance of these outputs. Because they will be certainly unfamiliar to the panel, why they are important and why they have a level of prestige associated with them? In the education level 6…can we find our own external referees? Good question as this is new. If you think education is a large part of your portfolio then if it’s possible it may well not be possible just because of the nature of the education, if you can find someone external to the University to talk and write a reference then you should. If you cannot then I suggest you nominate an internal referee probably in your faculty probably better if in faculty but not academic unit, the more distance you can put between yourself and your referee the better, but

• bviously like as we spoken if you put too much distance then you don’t get a useful referee reports.

Again depends on the nature of the educational activity. Certainly at level 7 it might involve external activity i.e. working groups or whatever in which case the opportunity for external education activities would be greater. Can you explain the difference between Personal Chair and Professorial Fellow? A Professorial Fellow title was introduced about three years, and really to recognise people who have real distinction from the academic activity of the University or associated with the University but don’t fit the sort of traditional set of outputs that we’re looking for. So really best illustrated by an example: the first Professorial Fellow we appointed, can’t remember this person’s name, was a colleague in Humanities who was a novelist and writer. So part of English (I think), but this was somebody with an international reputation as a writer and novelist, those are not REF able outputs but this is somebody of significance certainly with profile and great deal of leadership in that area, we conferred on this person the title Professorial Fellow and the connection

FAQs from open session presentation.docx

• f this was that they were employed part time in the faculty but they also drew on the academic

activities in that faculty. Another example of someone in medicine who was involved with NET CC so that acted like a mini research council doing evaluating of medical devices, now this person drawing on this activity for the University, had an international profile, didn’t have the conventional research outputs in that case and so we were able to award them Professorial Fellow. So it’s to deal with those more unusual cases, but people who the University would certainly like to be associated with and who would like to reward and recognise as a result of their leadership and standing in their field, but not in a directly academic role but in an academic context. What’s the success rate for this promotion? There is no quota, absolutely no quota. No reason why it shouldn’t be 100% success of applications if people are being properly guided and taking the guidance going into the process. Also a matter of personal choice, where some people may well get advice from a line manager or a mentor, I think you would be marginal this year and give it a year or two, do this and that you will be much more certain and quite frankly it’s up to the individuals capacity, to deal with the potential for failure in this process. We’re quite lucky here there is no time limit to getting promotion. US Universities where I worked at, you either got promoted or you left the University, so was a very high stakes game at applying for promotion. So from the Universities side there is no limitation of numbers? No, a very important misconception there is no sort of financial consideration! “Oh if we promote all these people it will cost more”, that discussion just doesn’t happen, it’s not part of. We all want to see and generally the feeling is, if we promote all these people they are doing well and actually if they are doing well they are a higher value to the University, so it is appropriate they get paid more. But that is a misconception I’ve certainly heard, but it’s almost the reverse of that. I think the success rate for the University is pretty high, I can’t remember my observation having been involved in this for a long time now is that it’s a small minority of cases who don’t make it. I don’t want to quantify this small minority and indeed we go into it with the best of intentions. We want to see good people promoted. Not trying to be adversarial, we want to give the candidate the

• pportunity to display their strengths and give the best of themselves. Not be rocked on the back
• foot. Because I see it when people don’t make it, it doesn’t make me happy. It’s difficult to deal with
• that. I know I have had to deal with it. Being knocked back like that.

There is something else to say about that. If you aren’t successful then it is really important to take advice about what you should do next. Because even more tragic than being knocked back once is being knocked back twice and being knocked back twice, because you applied for next year when it was again too early, getting feedback from the process and getting advice from colleagues about when the right time to do it is really important if that happens. And actually before applying talk to people. Talk to your line manager, people who have been through the process recently, have someone look through your CV. Understand where the strengths and weaknesses are and go into the interview prepared to talk through those. The interview can change things but in my experience people read CVs similarly and will understand whether it is a strong or weak application and that’s not going to change in the interview, fundamentally. If you come out and you were marginally and you didn’t quite make it you will get your feedback and it will cement something you knew already. Do listen to the advice you are given in preparation for applying.

FAQs from open session presentation.docx When judging someone’s outputs how much what importance do you give to their age factor? So disciplinary dependent. That’s the difficulty. So that’s where you take the advice particularly for example from the Dean or a senior colleague in that discipline. I can’t give you a straight answer in some disciplines the age factor are really important and really significant and will put a lot of weight and significance on it but we would take the disciplinary advice within the panel about the importance of that. In other disciplines the age factors can be quite low and not important in that disciplinary culture. Personally I don’t look at age factors at all. I think the whole research publication business is such a mess there has been so much appalling behaviour by individual academics and publishers in terms of inflating age factors and self-referencing I would look at when I can the importance of papers in

• isolation. And certainly it says something if it has gone to a high quality journal that has a known

good standard of peer review and if an individual paper has been cited a lot of times not by the author or their close associates that does carry some weight. The age factor the impact factor I discount heavily. That’s consistent with this countries research excellence framework where panels are told to not consider impact factors like age. Three publications that we need to use as evidence of our output do they have to be limited to the number of years prior to your interview? Should be relatively recent. Within the review period and a sensible choice would be to get it sorted throughout the review period. Something 5 years, last years, 2 years ago and possibly something that was 3 years ago or 4. Again try to demonstrate you have sustained performance over a period

• f time is something the panel thinks about so if you can provide evidence of that over a period of

time is a great way of showing that. If you had a slow burner that has suddenly came good from 10 years ago, then maybe could consider, but more things that have happened since appointed/last promoted probably carry more weight. One of the most interesting things for the panel is disciplinary cultures and norms are so different. The more you deal with this the more you get to understand that need for expert advice within the panel to allow us to understand the status of that. Comparing philosophy, with engineering, with health science with music with art imagine yourself; I think we do a pretty good job. Chemistry lots of publications, care more about age factors. Much shorter publications compared to English may find about a seminal text book and a really important factor in that disciplinary culture having a book on some aspect of Jane Austen or something like that. The difficulty I have with age factors is that it doesn’t distinguish between two individuals where you are may be working in a group, where you are not the main author the senior author the last author and yet that paper is cited so many times because of other people who are more eminent in the field, whereas you may have a lower 85 and yet you are the senior author? That’s where you should be prepared to answer the question what was your contribution to this important paper. One of the purposes of the interview is not about adding age factors up and numbers of publications and citations it’s just not like that, it’s about the panel making their best efforts to understand the standing and the outputs in education and research of the candidate before them.

FAQs from open session presentation.docx And I know in Chemistry tends to be more prevalent in the Scientific disciplines there quite an

• bsession with age factors, but the panel is not. Do see it coming through in the paperwork and the

candidate who wants to tell us about the age factor and number of citations some of us find it quite unappealing, why is this important why should I care about it and why have all these people that citied it care about it? I hear if we go for it this year and we don’t get it for some reason we have to wait another two years is it right? No there isn’t a rule. If you were unsuccessful my strong advice is to take advice. From your Dean, from senior colleagues and listen to the feedback you have been given and think what you need to do to strengthen your case and look at the descriptors and understand where you fell short and then to do the work and come back at the appropriate period. It is a common mistake, well not that common, but it is a mistake that saddens me when someone comes back too early and then gets knocked back the second time. Better to work two years, not often much longer than three years Are there a limited number of promotions? No! There are no financial constraints on promotions and there’s no quota for promotions in this

• University. Every promotion is decided entirely on its merits. I have never been in any panel meeting

where that has been discussed and it’s not part of the process. We promote people on merit and that’s what we believe in. No target % on professors or associate professors in the University would be a wonderful thing be a sign the University was doing really well if everyone was rapidly getting to chair, but there is a standard we must meet because it is part of the credibility of the University. Mentioned earlier in your presentation you were going to talk about HRZ, if you are being paying HRZ above your next level, is that viewed positively or negatively in your application? How is it viewed? I don’t think it’s viewed at all. I think we just promote people on the criteria of the next level up. If you are in an HRZ you will have a portfolio that reflects that. No I can’t honestly say it has any direct bearing on the panel’s decision. I am struggling to remember it ever featuring in the discussion and equally if you went the other way and someone who has just got promoted to level the level below or just been appointed and had a really good year or two years and several spin points away from the top of the level also no barrier to promotion. Is some requirement for evidence of sustainable of the effort so one “I’ve got in a really big grant this year, therefore I’m going to get promoted” isn’t as simple as that. The panel will ask is there evidence that the person can do their bits as well. Got in the grant but have they recruited a PHD student, have they provided effective mentoring of the PHD student, have they been teaching their courses whilst they have been doing this, did they get their publications out at the end? Particularly level 5 to 6 one good grant does not result in promotion. Cases where that expectation is there. Quite often a topic of conversation got the grant, how did the research go what was the publications etc.

FAQs from open session presentation.docx Talking about Grants, do you have a preference for individuals that would have got grants from charities rather than MRC? More important is the prestige of the funding body. Disciplinary dependant, so good financially and good for the University to have an MRC rather than a charity, but what the grant represents who the person has done and their standing in the field. I would give a slightly different answer there, is that and funding as an evidence of standing and

• prestige. But I think, in my view, funding is only as good as what you do with it. And so it is more

important to me, person got funding so evidence they are sustainable as an independent researcher so much as they need funding, some parts of the University where you don’t need funding to do excellent scholarly things. Another misconception there is no H index, no amount of money that will guarantee promotion. Highly field dependent and experimentalist and science will need a lot more than a theoretician in a science rather than someone who is thinking and writing. No number of PHD students, that’s highly

• dependent. Generally expect to see some engagement with PHD but there isn’t an absolute number
• ne subject 5 PHD students seems rather light and another that’s a life time’s work.

Best thing to do is to calibrate yourself against your colleagues in your discipline. You’re in your discipline you know what a professor looks like, in terms of research grant portfolio and PHD educational effort. So I’m sure you know some of it intuitively, important thing to get advice. Allow you to think when ready for the promotion application. Same process to go up to level 5? Faculty only process. Faculty promotion panel considers promotion, doesn’t include a promotion process on the basis the faculty should know the people within the faculty so the test for level 4- 5 is clear independence and sustainable and activities. Don’t just stop at whatever level of promotion you’re thinking about, do it with a view to what the next one is.