Quality assurance of lecturers’ competences
SCIENCE publishes information about the requirements for applications for academic posts, as per the national regulations and UCPH’s own HR rules.
The University of Copenhagen’s pedagogic basis and guidelines assure and enhance the quality of lecturers’ and counsellors’ educational competences. In SCIENCE, this manifests itself in the process of advertising academic positions, assessing applications and appointing successful candidates. Upon recruitment, academic staff must have the teaching qualifications stipulated in University Guidelines for Teaching Portfolios when Appointing Academic Staff at the University of Copenhagen. As part of the recruitment process, an academic assessment committee is set up to evaluate research and teaching competences. Specific requirements are in place to assure the educational qualifications of applicants for professorships and associate professorships. Read more in the Procedure for advertising academic positions.
As per the University guidelines, SCIENCE has devised procedures to ensure that all researchers, assistant professors, associate professors and professors with teaching obligations participate in activities to develop educational skills, e.g. the Teaching and Learning in Higher Education programme and other courses designed to enhance educational competences. SCIENCE has implemented the common educational guidelines in the recruitment process and at the Department of SCIENCE Education (DSE).
The current Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Programme is run by the Department of Science Education (DSE) at SCIENCE, which also runs educational and academic counselling courses and PhD supervisor courses aimed at enhancing the qualifications of academic staff. The Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Programme is run in Danish and English, with the latter focusing on assuring the quality of educational competences of non-Danish employees. The course Introduction to University Teaching (IUP) provides all PhD students, postdocs, assistant professors, associate professors and professors with educational competences corresponding to its learning objectives.
SCIENCE has adopted the following quality assurance procedure to ensure the quality of the educational courses, including the teaching and learning in higher education programme:
DSE is responsible for ensuring that all educational courses are evaluated by the participants. The evaluations are collected by the individual course organiser/lecturer. The evaluations are assessed by DSE's management with a view to a possible adjustment of existing courses/development of new courses. The result forms part of an overall annual report, which also contains statistics of courses held, number of participants and evaluations of the individual courses.
The annual report is submitted to the associate dean for education in April for presentation to SCIENCE's Teaching Committee (UVU). On the basis of the report, UVU will assess whether the courses have the required quality, and whether their content is consistent with the departments' needs. The associate dean for education takes the most important points from the meeting on for discussion in the SCIENCE Management Team (SLT) consisting of the faculty management and heads of department. Based on meetings of UVU and SLT, the associate deans formulate overall feedback to DSE, which then adjusts the range of courses up to the start of the next academic year.
A thorough description of each course are available on the staff part of KUnet and on the DSE website.
The associate dean for education is overall responsible for resolving the UCPH pedagogic basis and guidelines in practice. Responsibility for the development of lecturers' pedagogic competences is embedded at department level. The department's teaching committee advices the head of department regarding the need for quality enhancement of teaching.
SCIENCE has clear standards for the development of its lecturers' competences and systematic follow-up. The standards for the different types of employees are described in a document on pedagogical competency development. This also describes how teaching evaluation results are followed up, the framework and the persons responsible.
SCIENCE’s IT Learning Centre (ITLC) advises lecturers on the educational and technical use of ICT in teaching. Using modern learning theory and the latest knowledge, ITLC places IT tools at the disposal of lecturers, and offers training and guidance.
Finally, the quality assurance of the English-language teaching is supported by the Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use (CIP), which offers employees language competence development.
SCIENCE strives to ensure the highest international level of research and teaching and to ensure continuous development of the lecturers' academic qualifications. All academic staff are organised in sections, cf. functional description of duties for heads of section at SCIENCE. Coordination of research and teaching is undertaken both in and between sections, and this is also where the long-term academic development and identification of new research fields are ensured.
All academic staff members at SCIENCE are under an obligation to and have the right to make an active research effort at the highest academic level. It is expected that an academic staff member spends approximately half of his or her total working hours on research.
The individual employee's research performance must be agreed and evaluated annually by and with the head of department in connection with the performance and development review. The head of department is responsible for ensuring that the employees at the department in question live up to their research obligation and develop the required academic qualifications. The head of department informs the dean and the Faculty's management annually.
Each department at SCIENCE has a Scientific Advisory Board. Every five years, as a minimum, an evaluation of the department's research and teaching profile is performed.
SCIENCE uses UCPH’s definition of research-based teaching as described in the document Values Underpinning the Quality of Education and the Quality Cultureand in Policies for contributions by researchers/research teams to teaching/education at the University of Copenhagen. All study programmes in SCIENCE are based on research and linked to active research environments. The teaching and content builds upon the latest research-based knowledge and outcomes.
SCIENCE management focuses on ensuring that academic staff and part-time academic staff are used in accordance with the needs of the study programme concerned. Also, that everyone who contributes to teaching and its development has the necessary educational skills and academic qualifications. in accordance with the requirements in the policy for the quality assurance of study programmes at UCPH, SCIENCE has drafted a policy which briefly describes the principles for the use and competency development of academic staff and part-time academic staff.