By Mark Allinson and Daniela Schmidt
Mark Allinson (APVC Learning and Teaching) who chaired the SAY project, and Daniela Schmidt (APVC Research Environment and Culture) consider what the new look to the academic year can mean for research culture at Bristol.
We’re now into the second full year of the revised Structure of the Academic Year at Bristol – a change that arose from a number of drivers. Among them was the concern to improve student experience and address staff workloads, for academics and professional services colleagues alike and particularly at pinch point moments in the late summer. But high on the list of intended outcomes was a desire to create more concentrated time for research and enterprise activity, and the ambition to highlight this shift as a key component of a supportive research environment across our university.
Shrinking summer
The call to ‘reclaim the vac’ had resounded around parts of the university over several years – and little wonder. Back in the last century, as some of us will recall, the summer used to represent a period of three months more or less clear of student demands, punctuated only by graduation ceremonies, some light resit marking and, for those who were around, the drama of A-level results and admissions rounds. But as the university doubled in size, leading to more resits and more need to engage with students who were by now leading quite different lives to their predecessors, so the summer shrank – a trend exacerbated by the significant growth in postgraduate numbers and the need to maintain supervision routines through July and August. Graduation ceremonies, once in the earlier part of July, crept into early August.
What’s changed?
Now, the academic year starts a little earlier and TB1 assessments are complete before the winter vacation. Many schools have revised the volume of assessments downwards and most students have welcomed the break from coursework and revision over the vacation. Meanwhile, marks have held steady and the number of extension requests, exceptional circumstances cases and resits has fallen. We’ve revised the TB1 marking schedule this year to reduce the pressure on staff over the break as well to avoid shifting the stress from one group to another.
All this means that the taught undergraduate year is pretty much done by the end of May in most programmes – even though our colleagues running non-modular, vocational and pre-sessional programmes have other demands – and we’re streamlining exam board routines to concentrate the work in fewer academics’ hands. Anecdotally, this has generated some time over the summer in uninterrupted blocks to tackle larger work, going to work in libraries, in the field, or writing larger bids for funding. It would be great to hear from academics and research supporting staff what difference it has made and what it has facilitated. Have your say via this Microsoft form.
Ongoing change
So far so good, though we know that this will not yet be much comfort to those who are heavily committed to PGT work over the summer. While we can’t change the 51-week cycle of PGT courses, we have already removed the progression point in these programmes and the earlier end to teaching also means that students can make an earlier start on their dissertation or research project. Some schools are also moving away from assessment models which concentrate the research element into a single final submission. This opens new learning and skills development opportunities for students, with the benefit of moving the main supervisory focus earlier in the year. We’re consulting this year on the different options for assessing PGT programmes to ease the burden on staff during the summer, while looking also for models which support students with a more punctuated schedule through months which can be lonely. We do know that no one size will fit all – different disciplines will develop different models, but we’re keen to think creatively.
Equally, we need to recognise that the university is a year-round operation, and that some academic staff will inevitably be needed as supervisors or in other capacities through the summer. The challenge for schools will be to find ways of compensating staff with heavy commitments through the summer with other concentrated time for research activity – perhaps by identifying teaching-free terms at other points of the year.
We are keen to hear from you about your experiences of the new Structure of the Academic Year from a research perspective. Have your say via this Microsoft form
You can also contact the SAY Project team directly at: say-project@bristol.ac.uk