The experiences of academics caught up in the rise of teaching academic (TA) (teaching-only) roles in Australia, the UK, the USA, and Canada, are not well documented in the literature. This paper describes a recent university restructure that resulted in a significant increase in teaching-only positions being created. Despite the claims by the…

In the United Kingdom (U.K.), all students who are studying for a Bachelor of Arts degree need to complete a piece of independent research in order to gain their "honours" (U.S. "honors") status. As a university faculty we have very specific ideas about the purpose of this research and the positive impact that we hope that it…

The principles of diversity and inclusion are valued across the higher education sector, but the ways in which these principles are translated into pedagogic practice are not always evident. Students who are first in their family to attend university continue to report barriers to full participation in university life. They are more likely to…

Academics in Western universities, especially those in the United States, are frequently called on to serve as quality gatekeepers in other higher education systems. International opportunities for service to the profession can take many forms, ranging from program reviews to expert consultations, and they constitute a great opportunity to learn…

This paper deals with the role of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) among staff on teaching-only contracts in UK higher education, particularly in contrast with the activities of research-active staff. Drawing on the results of a quantitative study carried out during the summer of 2021 among modern foreign language teachers in 64 UK…

Generalised moves to online and more flexible delivery modes of teaching have challenged the perceptions and expectations of university educators worldwide. Congruence around educator role expectations, held by both the educator and their students, therefore is central to educator wellbeing, and by default, student success in a changing university…

The potential for further education colleges (FECs) to contribute to widening higher education access has been recognised in a number of studies. Yet, evidence suggests that higher education participation rates from FECs are lower than from school sixth forms. This article reports on the early findings from a research project that is exploring how…

The COVID-19 global pandemic precipitated migration to online learning and teaching for students and universities. This study explored the change in self-identification in an academic role through the significant disruption caused by the urgent migration from on-campus teaching to online teaching in the face of lockdowns designed to limit the…

Personal tutoring is renowned for the positive role it can play in supporting student satisfaction, engagement and attainment outcomes in higher education. Surprisingly though, few studies have specifically investigated the demands of this role from the perspective of the personal tutor. Through the theoretical lens of Role Theory, this study…

Neoliberal reform of the university sector has resulted in increasing numbers of academics employed on casual or fixed-term contracts. While there is an emergent body of literature on issues of precarity in the academy, relatively little attention has been paid to the roles and responsibilities of those tenured academics who employ and…

Two ongoing and recurrent debates in the employment of academic staff are (1) how much industry experience should faculty staff have? and (2) what priority is given to research, teaching or both? Such debates take place worldwide and are particularly relevant to vocational subject areas. Through a statistical analysis of circa 200 job adverts for…

This paper argues that current approaches used to assess and monitor student engagement in UK higher education are failing to fulfil their potential by superficially helping institutions to appear professional and innovative yet failing to accurately measure and improve engagement. Drawing on service management literature including (Public)…

We report on a study of how instructors in an online management classroom aim to develop critical reflection through asynchronous discussions. There is an ongoing debate centered on improving asynchronous discussions in online management education but insights into how these discussions could be facilitated to promote critical reflection remains…

Being lectured by a woman physicist can benefit students' performance, motivation, and engagement with physics. However, due to the severe underrepresentation of women physics faculty, these instances may be scarce. Through semistructured interviews with seven women physics lecturers, we used expectancy-value theory to understand the situative…

A range of studies into the efficacy of online discussion forums is available, and this study seeks to add to the body of evidence around students' experiences of using online discussion forums within a distance learning context. The Open University (OU) is still the UK's largest provider of distance higher education. OU distance learners are…