Faculty of Science
Faculty Board
SCI05-M3
Minutes of the Meeting of the Faculty Board held on 10 November 2005.
Members: Professor Ken Parsons (Chair), Dr Helmut Bez (ab),
Professor Jon Binner, Dr Katherine Brooke-Wavell (ab), Dr Steve Brown (ab), Professor
Paul Chung, Dr Tony Croft (ab), Dr Holger Dullin (ab), Professor Roy Faulkner,
Professor John Feather (ab), Dr Anne Goulding (ab), Dr Martin Harrison,
Professor Roger Haslam, Professor George Havenith (ab), Dr Tom Jackson,
Professor Feo Kusmartsev, Professor Chris Linton, Peter Lund, Liam McGuire, Dr
Roger Mortimer, Ian Murray, Dr Les Mustoe (ab), Professor Phil Page, Dr Iain
Phillips (ab), Dr Gareth Pritchard, Professor Clive Pugh, John Richardson,
Professor Sameer Singh, Judy Smyth, Dr Gerry Swallowe (ab), Dr John Terry, Professor
Sir David Wallace (ab), Professor Peter Warwick
Apologies for Absence: Dr Helmut Bez, Dr Katherine
Brooke-Wavell, Dr Steve Brown, Dr Tony Croft, Dr Holger Dullin, Professor John
Feather, Dr Anne Goulding, Professor George Havenith, Dr Les Mustoe, Dr Iain
Phillips, Dr Gerry Swallowe, Professor Sir David Wallace
In
Attendance: Miranda Routledge (Secretary)
05/38 Welcome
The Dean welcomed new members to the Faculty Board.
05/39 Minutes
The Minutes
of the Meeting of the Science Faculty Board (SCI05:M2) held on 19 May 2005,
were confirmed.
05/40 Matters
Arising
i. Strategic
Review Group: Recommendations to Senate and Council: It was NOTED
that the proposals for the establishment of
ii.
iii. Name Change: IPTME: The proposed name change for IPTME had been put on hold until after the 2008 RAE.
iv. Job Evaluation: Discussions were ongoing with the Unions to reach agreement on the new grading structure.
05/41 National
Student Survey, Top-Up Fees and Workload
The Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching) attended for this item.
05/41.1 National Student Survey
The University, and especially the
Science Faculty, had done extremely well in the first ever National Student
Survey. The results would influence future
league tables and therefore it was essential to maintain the high scores
achieved in 2005. As a marker of
quality, the results would also be likely to influence recruitment, particularly
international students.
The next survey would take place
in early 2006 and the University was working closely with the Students’ Union
to mount an awareness raising campaign. Departments were also asked to start
raising awareness with finalist students as soon as possible. It would be important to keep the lines of
communication with students open through Staff-Student Committees, Personal
Tutorials and Departmental Committees.
The area in which the University
(and the entire sector) had scored least highly was assessment and
feedback. Departments were being
encouraged to develop checklists for all modules outlining the form of
assessment, the marking criteria and the type of feedback that students could
expect to receive. It was hoped that
this would help to improve the scores by managing student expectations in this area.
Programme level analysis of the
survey would be made available to departments but it was not permitted to use
this information in publicity. It would,
however, help the University to identify areas of good practice and areas for
improvement on a more detailed basis.
It was acknowledged that some
areas were beyond departmental control, for example, availability and quality
of teaching space. However, if HoDs felt
factors beyond their control would significantly affect the student experience,
they should bring them to the attention of the PVCT.
05/41.2 Top Up Fees
The LSU representative agreed to
provide feedback on the Students’ Union position regarding the introduction of
Top Up Fees at the next meeting. ACTION: LM
A member queried how the additional
income would be spent by the University.
Departments did not feel that they had received reassurance that
additional income would come to them.
The PVCT confirmed that 26% would be spent on student bursaries and
widening participation activities - this was a requirement of the University’s
Access Agreement, approved by OFFA.
Detailed discussions regarding how the remainder of the additional
income would be spent had not yet taken place but priorities were expected to
be: more academic staff (and related support staff), rewards for academic
staff, accommodation for students and teaching facilities/accommodation.
05/41.3 Workload
The PVCT was exploring ways to reduce the
administrative workload of academic staff.
A pilot scheme had been run in Economics where administrative processes
associated with UG admissions had been completed by the Academic Registry
rather than the department. Chemistry
was piloting a similar scheme for PGT admissions. The PVCT was keen to roll this out to other
departments where it was possible to set admissions criteria. Difficult cases requiring academic judgement
would continue to be referred to the department. Faculty Board was generally supportive of the
suggestion, so long as the current flexibility with regard to quotas was
maintained. HoDs who wished to be
considered for central support should contact either the PVCT or Howard Jones.
Anyone with suggestions for other
processes that could be centralised should contact the PVCT.
05/43 Faculty Board: Briefing Note &
Formally Constituted Powers
SCI05-P20: NOTED
05/44 Dean’s
Report
i. Faculty Successes: The Faculty had had an
excellent year in 2004/05 for research income and had exceeded its UG targets
for 2005 entry. It was not yet known
what impact top-up fees would have on 2006 entry.
ii. Faculty Events: Adam Hart-Davies was due
to present a Lecture in November as part of the Prestigious Lecture
series. As usual, the Faculty would be
organising a number of events for National Science Week in March 2006.
iii. Structural Deficits: The
Department of Physics had been declared out of structural deficit. Chemistry and Computer Science remained in
structural deficit but the HoDs were working closely with senior management to
address the situation.
05/45 Associate
Dean’s (Research) Report
i.
Research
Income: The final figure for 2004/05 stood at £9.87M which was an
excellent achievement. 250 applications
for funding had been made in 2004/05.
ii.
Studentships: The ADR
had allocated 22 half funded Faculty studentships in 2004/05. A similar allocation was expected for 2005/06
although the final number was yet to be confirmed.
iii.
Faculty
Small Grant and Travel Fund: The ADR had issued a call for
bids, the deadline was in December.
iv.
Research
Links with China [late paper – no paper number]: The ADR drew attention
to a paper that had gone to Research Committee, detailing various research
links with
It was further noted that none of the contacts were Chinese
members of staff yet anecdotal evidence repeatedly showed the success of using
Chinese members of staff to build relations with Chinese Universities. This was potentially restrictive as not all
departments had a Chinese member of staff and it was suggested that the
University might create a pool of Chinese staff to help build collaborations.
v.
Research
Fellowships: The ADR had recently issued a call for nominations for
Research Fellowships. The conditions
were slightly confusing regarding who would be eligible but departments wishing
to nominate staff had to be in a position to offer a permanent job at the end
of the Fellowship. The Fellowships (if
awarded to the University) would have to be advertised even if an internal member
of staff was nominated.
05/46 Associate Dean’s (Teaching) Report
05/46.1 Intake Statistics
SCI05-P21
The Faculty had exceeded it targets for both UK/EU and
international UG students. Admissions
Tutors worked extremely hard to reach the targets after the A-Level results and
the Faculty relied heavily on concessions and changed course offers. This was a potentially vulnerable position
for some departments.
UK/EU PGT was below target but this was reflective of the
national trend. Disappointingly, despite
significant effort, and increased applications, international PGT had fallen
below target and intake was actually lower than the previous year for the
Faculty.
All departments were encouraged to share best practice,
especially with regard to international recruitment. For instance, IPTME had established links
with several Chinese universities which recruited final year students, many of
whom continued on to PGT programmes.
However, the HoD warned that collaborations of this type, although
potentially lucrative, were extremely time-intensive to establish.
05/46.2 Other
Learning & Teaching Issues
i.
Teaching
Capital Fund: £542K had been allocated to the Faculty for refurbishing
laboratories. Departments who had
successfully bid for funds were in the process of commissioning improvement
works.
ii. Open Days: The 3-Day event would continue.
iii. Personal Development Planning: It was
now mandatory to offer all students opportunities for Personal Development
Planning.
iv. Teaching Rooms: Some departments were
reporting increasing tensions/difficulties with room bookings particularly with
regard to the size of rooms and timetable clashes on joint programmes. The ADT had discussed the problems with the
Director of Media Services and the PVCT who acknowledged the situation but
could not immediately solve the problems.
It was hoped that the new postgraduate teaching space provision would
ease the situation.
v. Occupational Health Programmes: The ADT
drew attention to a number of new MSc programmes being introduced by Human
Sciences in the Occupational Health arena.
This was seen as an important development for the department.
vi.
05/47 Research Assessment Exercise 2008
The ADR gave a brief update
on the RAE 2008. Guidance for the
sub-panels had been issued and sub-panels had met to discuss feedback on
their draft criteria and working methods, the final version of which would be published
in December 2005. Further details of the
RAE were available on the web at: www.rae.ac.uk/
05/48 Learning Technology Developments
The Faculty Online Learning Development Officer (OLDO) attended for this
item
The Faculty Board RECEIVED a presentation from the OLDO outlining various developments in learning technologies. The University was keen to encourage more active use of Le@rn and the OLDO had created a number of templates to help academic staff, and to make sure that material on Le@rn was SENDA compliant. It was commented that requiring academic staff to make use of Le@rn would simply add to already unacceptably high workloads. The OLDO was willing to show staff how to use the templates which were designed to make it easy to publish on Le@rn.
Further to discussions regarding the National Student Survey, a member suggested that it might be useful to build in some sort of Feedback provision into Le@rn. The LSU representative wondered whether it would be possible for the Students’ Union to make use of Le@rn to disseminate Departmental Committee material. There may be a license issue.
05/49 Periodic Programme Reviews
SCI05-P22
Faculty Board RECEIVED a copy of the report and departmental response from the Periodic Programme Review of the Department of Information Science. The report was generally favourable and the department was addressing a number of issues that had been identified as possible areas for improvement.
05/50 Award of Degrees
SCI05-P23
Faculty Board APPROVED the award of Higher Degrees to candidates whose examinations had been conducted since the last meeting of Senate and NOTED degrees awarded by Senate at its (Special) meeting on 29 June 2005.
05/51 Programme
Proposals
05/51.1 New Programmes
Faculty Board NOTED that proposals for the following new programmes had been circulated to members for approval. No comments had been received.
i
MScs in Occupational Health
ii
MRes Human Biology/Ergonomics/Psychology
05/51.2 Transfer
of Programme
Faculty
Board APPROVED the transfer of BSc Sport Science and Mathematics from the
05/52 Membership of Ethical Advisory Committee
Faculty Board NOTED that the Chair
had taken Chair’s Action to appoint V Haines to the Ethical Advisory Committee.
05/53 ADT
Business
Faculty Board NOTED that the AD(T)
had taken action to approve:
-
appointment of programme boards
-
appointment of module boards
-
appointment of University Examiners
05/54 Staff-Student
Committees
Faculty Board NOTED that reports
of Staff-Student Committee meetings had been deposited with the Secretary as
follows:
|
|
Chemistry Human Sciences Information Science Mathematical Sciences Physics Science & Engineering Foundation |
27 April 2005 3 March 2005 13 May 2005 18 May 2005 23 February 2005, 4 May 2005 25 November 2004, 8 March 2005 |
05/55 Date of
Next Meeting
Thursday 25 May 2006
Miranda Routledge
November 2005
Copyright (c)