"I congratulate the authors on what I believe will be a very interesting and useful book. The language is accessible and the structure of the argument is coherent and consistent ... This is a very interesting and significant contribution to the field of higher education in general and scholarship in evaluative practices in particular." Judyth Sachs, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. "With an increasing and, arguably, troubling confidence in the use of international league tables, student surveys and research ratings to 'evidence' the value of higher education, such scrutiny of higher education evaluation practices has never been more timely ... I believe the book may contribute most ... in empowering evaluators themselves to ensure that the outcomes of evaluation can be used to inform strategic priorities and decisionmaking in more meaningful ways." Higher Education Review, Vol 44, No 1, October 2011. A considerable amount of time and effort is invested in attempts to control, change and improve the higher education sector. These attempts involve evaluative practice, but we have not yet conceptualised the evaluations that take place so therefore the opportunity to understand the value and nature of different types of intervention is frequently missed. This book seeks to dismantle traditional boundaries in approaches to evaluation, assessing how value and worth is attributed to activities in higher education. It looks at evaluative practice in Higher Education rather than the evaluation of Higher Education. Reconceptualising Evaluation in Higher Education aims to aid understanding, drawing on a set of evaluative practices from the UK and internationally. The book will be of value and relevance to higher education providers and policy makers within higher education. Contributors Veronica Bamber, Margo Blythman, Val Chapman, Bernadette Charlier, Rob Cuthbert, Harry Hubball, Kerri-Lee Krause, Neil Lent, Alan McCluskey, Ian McNay, Joan Machell, John M. Owen, Marion L. Pearson, Michael Prosser, Christoph Rosenbusch, Murray Saunders, Uwe Schmidt, Alison Shreeve, Paul Trowler, Massimiliano Vaira, Christine Winberg.

A considerable amount of money is invested in an ongoing basis on large scale projects to enhance the quality of teaching and learning within the higher education sector. Examples from the UK include the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund and the creation of CELTS - Centres for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. Similar initiatives can be found in most other Westernized countries. These projects (and other, smaller institutional projects) require evaluation, but the higher education sector has not conceptualized such evaluation work and therefore the opportunity to understand the value of such projects is frequently missed. Reconceptualising Evaluative Practices in HE aims to aid understanding, drawing on a set of evaluative practices from the UK and internationally to foster understanding, which will be of genuine value and relevance to higher education over an indefinite period of time.

Feedback is a crucial element of teaching, learning and assessment. There is, however, substantial evidence that staff and students are dissatisfied with it, and there is growing impetus for change. Student Surveys have indicated that feedback is one of the most problematic aspects of the student experience, and so particularly in need of further scrutiny. Current practices waste both student learning potential and staff resources. Up until now the ways of addressing these problems has been through relatively minor interventions based on the established model of feedback providing information, but the change that is required is more fundamental and far reaching. Reconceptualising Feedback in Higher Education, coming from a think-tank composed of specialist expertise in assessment feedback, is a direct and more fundamental response to the impetus for change. Its purpose is to challenge established beliefs and practices through critical evaluation of evidence and discussion of the renewal of current feedback practices. In promoting a new conceptualisation and a repositioning of assessment feedback within an enhanced and more coherent paradigm of student learning, this book: • analyses the current issues in feedback practice and their implications for student learning. • identifies the key characteristics of effective feedback practices • explores the changes needed to feedback practice and how they can be brought about • illustrates through examples how processes to promote and sustain effective feedback practices can be embedded in modern mass higher education. Provoking academics to think afresh about the way they conceptualise and utilise feedback, this book will help those with responsibility for strategic development of assessment at an institutional level, educational developers, course management teams, researchers, tutors and student representatives.

Teachers spend much of their time on assessment, yet many higher education teachers have received minimal guidance on assessment design and marking. This means assessment can often be a source of stress and frustration. Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education aims to solve these problems. Offering a concise overview of assessment theory and practice, this guide provides teachers with the help they need.

This book examines how policy has been made in British higher education and how the results of these policies have determined the shape of higher education.

This book reinterprets the relevance, quality and impact of academic literacies provision at university in light of recent higher education developments in a pandemic-transformed world. Drawing on the author's own experience of researching, implementing and assessing academic literacies provision, and on insights from broader scholarship and professional debates, the book helps set a new direction of travel for academic literacies professionals working in a variety of roles to enable and resource students’ academic and professional growth. It makes recommendations for policy, strategy and scholarship-informed practice that place value on communicating with confidence, clarity and care at university and beyond.

This book weighs up the consequences of introducing Quality Enhancement and Risk Management as new dimensions in Higher Education quality control on a global scale. The authors include Chief Executive Officers of Quality Agencies, policy analysts and leading scholars in Quality Evaluation and Comparative Higher Education policy analysis.