The European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), one of the main pillars of the Bologna Process, was heavily influenced by external forces such as internationalisation, globalisation and market values. It was also immune to national/regional policy influences and differences between academic disciplines. The authors investigated a) Irish teacher…

On signing the Bologna declaration in 1999, European countries committed themselves to addressing the reforms necessary for adapting their university education to the European Higher Education Area. This modification process culminated in 2010, and this research aims to analyse the degree of divergence that currently exists in each course subject…

At a time when more students than ever are attending higher education, its provision is becoming more fluid, global and competitive. For example, developments in new technologies mean that higher education institutions (HEIs) can make their courses available all over the world. These developments bring into question the traditional delivery model…

The guidelines of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) imply the rethinking of many of the current evaluation systems, since the new pedagogical models now focus on the learning acquired through the students' personal work and on the establishment of the ideal conditions for them to achieve the learning outcomes of the proposed educational…

Chapter 1 starts out with a short historical view on "academisation" and "professionalisation," illustrating how much professional higher education (PHE) in Europe has been in flux in the past years. With examples from France and Ireland, the chapter argues how a new spectrum of missions, differences in national organization of…

This article reports on an Irish study that examines the teaching of large, introductory-level sociology courses at a research-intensive university. The study's aim was to ameliorate some of the problems associated with large classes by applying key lessons from the U.S. literature to an Irish setting. Overall, the initiative was successful;…

The author's proposition is that there is a pedagogy of supervision, not that "this" is it in its entirety but that there is a pedagogy of supervision, that it has relevance for other levels of the curriculum, and that this pedagogy of supervision provides an entry point for academics to become involved in the scholarship of research,…

Curriculum research is reviewed. In Part 1, a survey is reported that was designed to: (1) acquire information on action research projects in Ireland (North and South), the United Kingdom, and the United States; (2) determine the principal method of data collection; (3) identify the rank-order priority of constraints on research; (4) classify…

In the first decade of the 21st century, the nation, the states, and colleges and universities began to grapple with the challenges of globalization, changing demography, the implications of the digital era, and of a less expansive public sector. Although not a transformative period for higher education, the decade saw significant innovations in…

The extent to which Irish universities have come to reflect a European (contrasted with purely Irish or other international) orientation is discussed, focusing on student and faculty mobility, university-industry links, research, curriculum, and administration. Influence of specific European Community programs is assessed, and overall change in…