Quality Enhancement Project

Institutional Reports: Phase 1

Due Date: 11 December 2015

Name of Institution / University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Contact Person / Professor Andrew Crouch, DVC Academic
Date of Submission / January 2016

The aim of the institutional report is to demonstrate efforts to bring about enhancements in each of the four Quality Enhancement Project (QEP) focus areas since the beginning of Phase 1 of the QEP in February 2014, to reflect on the journey towards enhancement, and to assess the extent to which the efforts have resulted in improvements.

INTRODUCTION

(A)The process followed to develop this submission
This report was prepared through a collective effort of the Wits QEP Task Team convened and chaired by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic, Professor Andrew Crouch. The Wits QEP Task Team was composed of the following members:
Professor Andrew Crouch (Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic)
Ms Carol Crosley (University Registrar)
Mr Nhlanhla Cele (Director of Strategic Planning)
Dr Pamela Dube (Dean of Students)
Professor Christine Woods (Director: Centre for Learning, Teaching and Development)
Professor Ruksana Osman (Dean of the Faculty of Humanities)
Professor Ian Jandrell (Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment)
Professor Beatrys Lacquet (Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Knowledge, Information Management, Infrastructure, and Operations)
The members of the QEP Task Team coordinated the process of receiving submissions through their portfolios and the information was submitted to the Strategic Planning Division, which compiled the institutional report for submission. The first draft of the report was presented to the QEP Task Team and the Vice-Chancellor’s Office. The report will be presented to the Teaching and Learning Committee of Senate and the Academic Planning and Development Committee of Senate at the first sitting of these committees once the academic year starts.
(B)Contextualising the Wits submission
This submission provides a progress report on the initial QEP submission made by Wits in December 2014. As stated in the initial institutional Quality Enhancement Project submission, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) is a research-intensive university located in the heart of Johannesburg, a dynamic, metropolitan, world-class African city. Its distinctive capabilities have contributed to the global research and development agenda through leading-edge scholarship and produced global citizens who are passionate about intellectual and social engagement. Wits aims to build on this reputation aggressively by intensifying its efforts to create an environment conducive to elevating the standard and impact of research; the quality of teaching and learning, and the rigour of intellectual and social engagement to new heights.
The purpose of the Vision 2022 Strategic Framework is to articulate a vision that elevates Wits’ position as one of the internationally leading research-intensive universities and a gateway to knowledge and understanding in Africa. This vision provides the overarching framework for more detailed plans that will be based on imperatives current for the time and that will shape strategic thinking during the respective planning cycles.
Figure 1: Wits Vision 2022 Strategic Framework

As a research-intensive institution with a well-established research infrastructure which includes, but is not limited to, well-resourced libraries, Wits sees both good teaching and quality research as inseparable elements of a good 21st-century university. As a research-intensive university, it makes provision for some postgraduate students to access bursaries through their supervisor’s research grants. Students are also afforded exposure to local and international best practices through collaborations between staff and other research entities, and through participation in local and international conferences, which the University supports. The Research Office is also proactive in its assistance to staff and students to source grants. As such, a well-established research infrastructure is in place to support both staff and students.
In order for Wits to achieve its ambition of being recognised as a university that engages at the highest quality of academic activity in the world, the University has to broaden and deepen the range, extent and quality of our academic engagements. The next seven years will be crucial to establishing a platform for future generations of Wits staff and students to achieve the target of academic heights that we have set ourselves. Wits takes the view that we develop our students for both the local and the global contexts. In particular, Wits is ambitious about its contribution to the development of high-level intellectual capacity on the African continent. Furthermore, as we develop our staff and students in teaching and research engagement activities with our broad community, we take the view that locally relevant engagement can and should express itself as compatible with the best of academic practice in the world. This also means that, as we develop the range and mix of our programme offerings, we will take account of national needs and priority areas and, where we are best able to, Wits will respond to such needs with the rigour and high quality that is expected of our teaching, learning and research activities.
The Wits Quality Enhancement Progress Report is derived from a number of guiding institutional plans put in place by the University over the past five years. These include the Wits Vision 2022, the Wits Research Plan 2011 – 2014, the Wits Enrolment Plan 2013 – 2019, and the Learning and Teaching Plan 2015 – 2019. Annual targets set in each of these guiding plans find nuanced expression in the Wits Annual Institutional Plans.

Wits Vision 2022 and quality enhancement

The seven strategic priorities of the University linked to its vision are:
  • Wits Experience: Wits commits itself to providing a distinct, intellectually stimulating, challenging and rewarding research and educational experience to all its students, staff, partners and guests, and all organisations that are associated with the University.
  • Research and Knowledge Leadership: Wits will continue to build on our established track record of multidisciplinary research groups and thrusts.
  • Innovation and Social Leadership: Wits will provide high-level support for a selected number of local public-good imperatives as part of its contribution to the national innovation system.
  • Extensive Networks and Partnerships: The purpose is to grow a limited number of focused partnerships with local and international collaborators, arising mostly from our research priorities and our contextual opportunities.
  • Excellence in Governance, Management and Support Services: Wits will position itself within this reality as a research-intensive university supported by visionary leadership, and administrative and world-class business systems.
  • An IT-Savvy University: Wits will position itself as an IT-savvy university that uses technology to enhance all its core process, including providing new and innovative ways of engaging students and staff in academic activities.
  • Wealthy and Well Resourced: Wits will put in place mechanisms and programmes to generate the wealth that will ensure its long-term financial sustainability as an institution and proper resourcing of all its scholarly and business activities.
In order to realise these priorities, the University has set specific plans and strategies in place, which will not be discussed in great detail here, except for those that have a direct bearing on the current mid-term enrolment, financial and staffing trends in the University.

Learning and Teaching Plan 2015 – 2019 and quality enhancement

Quality improvement on teaching and learning at Wits is also linked to the University Teaching and Learning Plan 2015 – 2019. To achieve the relevant aspirations of the Wits Vision 2022 Strategic Framework, the Teaching and Learning Plan 2015–2019 identifies six broad priority areas.
  • Enrolment – Size and Shape:The University is not planning to increase its headcount enrolment beyond 35 000 in the next five years. However, there is a year–by-year, carefully planned decrease in undergraduate enrolments which will concomitantly be supplemented by an increase in postgraduate enrolments. The increase in postgraduate enrolments is in line with the aspirations of the Wits Vision 2022 Strategic Framework to achieve a 50/50 split between undergraduate and postgraduate enrolments by 2022.
  • Access with Success:The ability of the University to manage the size, quality, and diversity of its enrolment is crucial to its reputation, academic excellence, financial strength, and the institutional values espoused in the Wits Vision 2022 Strategic Framework. Wits has a diverse student population which creates particular challenges for the provision of high-quality and satisfying student experiences based on the entire learning environment. Each partner in the student learning experience has a role to play in helping students to develop the discipline-specific and generic knowledge, and life-long learning skills, they will require when they graduate. There are currently a number of initiatives being implemented to address poor throughput rates and improve student success.
  • Professional Development – Focusing on Teaching:Wits needs to provide for the professional development of academics, focusing on teaching and the development of a culture of scholarship and research in teaching. Such development will position the University appropriately to respond to national and international expectations of producing high-calibre graduates, global citizens and professionals; improving the quality of learning and teaching; and improving graduation rates. These are important aspects that inform pedagogical practice and the recognition of learning and teaching scholarship, and teaching as a legitimate area of research.
  • Curriculum Renewal and Improved Teaching:This priority area seeks to promote curriculum renewal and review, aligned to curriculum choices, in order to promote ‘graduateness’ that develops in-depth subject knowledge, to address the needs of civil society and the workplace. This is to be achieved through constructive alignment of curricula and drawing on innovative pedagogies and international perspectives. Curricula design and renewal should inspire the selection of teaching methods and content.

Enrolment Plan 2013 – 2019 and quality enhancement

The ability of a university to manage the size, quality, and diversity of its enrolment is central to its reputation, educational vitality, and financial strength. The enrolment-planning process at Wits involves extensive consultation with a number of internal stakeholders and considers several relevant factors. Enrolment statements issued to the Department of Higher Education and Training are developed through iterative discussions with Heads of Schools, as well as through the Faculty Deans. The Wits enrolment-planning model, developed by the University itself, accounts for progression rates of students from year to year for each of the programmes. These progression rates are then adjusted through discussion with Deans, in order to give effect to expected improvement in course-pass rates and graduation rates.
The University Enrolment Plan 2013 – 2019 maps out the size and shape of Wits in relation to student enrolment; student success and throughput rates; targets for international student enrolment; and staffing arrangements. The plan articulates major targets in relation to the size of the physical plant as follows:
  • Grow the number of registered postgraduate students to constitute 50% of total enrolments by 2022
  • Maintain the overall enrolment of students in science, engineering and technology (SET) areas at 50% of total enrolments
  • Grow the proportion of international students to constitute 30% of total enrolments by 2022
  • Cap overall headcount enrolments at 32000
  • Maintain staff appointments within an acceptable student/staff ratio in line with the envisaged growth in postgraduate enrolments.

Research Strategic Plan 2012 – 2017 and quality enhancement

The Research Strategy of the University is anchored in its Vision 2022, which has identified a number of strategic priorities, each one supported by strategic objectives it will need to pursue vigorously in order to achieve its goal of becoming one of the top research-intensive universities in the world. We have identified ten of the strategic objectives from the Wits 2013 Strategy as a framework for the implementation of the Research Strategy 2012-2017. Each one these has its own indicators and targets, which in turn have their own implications thereof. The strategic objectives are:
  • Attraction and retention of high-calibre staff
  • Development of research capacity
  • Supporting the development of 21st Century Institutes
  • Increased research output in terms of quantity, quality and impact
  • Intensifying the postdoctoral programme
  • Attracting top-level postgraduate students
  • Establishing and sustaining more high-impact research networks, partnerships and collaborations
  • Advancing technological and social innovation
  • Creating an environment that promotes research excellence
  • Optimisation of income from contract research
The achievement of these strategic goals is firmly anchored in a drive to enhance the quality of provisioning, and teaching and learning, especially at a postgraduate level. Attracting high-calibre staff and intensifying research output will contribute towards enriching the selection of relevant curriculum content for both undergraduate and postgraduate studies.
1. FOCUS AREA 1: ENHANCING ACADEMICS AS TEACHERS
Includes: professional development, reward and recognition, workload, conditions of service, and performance appraisal.
1.1 Summary of what the University considers being the key issues in enhancing academics as teachers, in one or two paragraphs.
As stated in the initial submission, Wits aims to ensure that it constantly attracts, develops and retains high-calibre and distinguished scholars and support staff by offering a welcoming and supportive environment, noted for diversity and high-level intellectual achievement. The University sees a number of issues as key to the development of all Wits academics. These are:
  • Creation of teaching standards and criteria
  • Conducting valid and efficient lecturer evaluations based on negotiated criteria and processes
  • Running workshops, seminars and formal postgraduate courses in higher education
  • Ensuring that a strong central academic development unit forms collaborations with teaching and learning centres in each faculty within the institution as well as nationally
  • Ensuring that communities of practice within the faculties are made a central part of pedagogical developments
  • Improving pedagogical skills of lecturers and fast-tracking their use of blended learning within their curricula
  • Increasing research productivity and supervision capacity within schools and faculties
  • Implementing the new Teaching and Learning Plan 2015 – 2019 in faculties and managing faculty performance against all set priorities of this plan.
These areas of focus have not only found expression through central policy and programmes, but explicit effort has been put in place in each faculty to institutionalise them. Working with the Centre for Teaching and Learning, faculties have developed internal mechanisms and governance structures to deal with all these issues in line with the specific needs of students and staff, within given knowledge domains defining faculty configurations.
1.2 Institutional-level changes during the Phase 1 of the QEP

a)Strategic achievements:

Firstly, at the beginning of 2015, the University Senate and Council approved the Teaching and Learning Plan 2015 – 2019. This means thatevery faculty has been tasked with the responsibility to implement activities that will lead to the achievement of the following goals of the plan:
  • Managing the enrolment size and shape in line with the strategic priorities of the University and the capacity of academics in schools to teach better and produce quality research
  • Ensuring ‘access with success’ by monitoring student success and putting in place intervention mechanisms to address student academic performance needs
  • Constantly conducting professional development that focuses on the quality of teaching and innovative pedagogies
  • Conducting five-year curriculum renewal to improve the selection of relevant curricula and improved teaching
  • Introducing blended learning, taking advantage of the University e-Learning Strategy and existing eLearning modalities.
  • Ensuring that learning spaces and technology are shaped by the pedagogical needs of students and staff across various faculties
As seen in the list of strategic priorities above, the development of the pedagogical skills of academic staff is central to improving the quality of teaching and learning in the University.
Secondly, the University has ensured that a strong, reconfigured Centre for Learning, Teaching and Development (CLTD) is running smoothly. The reconfiguration of this unit followed after a robust Triennial Review process and the decision of the Senior Executive Team. The unit has in the past two years mainstreamed its activities to support the teaching and learning, and development, needs of academic staff. The development function for professional and support staff was moved to a separate unit in the Central Human Resources Division. The newly configured Centre for Learning, Teaching and Development, together with the School of Education, has successfully implemented the PGDipE (HE) for academic staff.
Thirdly, as part of the CLTD strategy, communities of practice within the faculties have been established and these groups are already functioning within certain faculties.
In the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, a Faculty Teaching and Learning Committee has been in place for many years, which, in addition to its mundane role as custodian of courses etc., has a prominent role in the faculty in the promotion of teaching and learning, specifically looking at performance of academics, problem (or gatekeeper) courses, and teaching methodologies. As a professional faculty, great emphasis is placed on being professionals, and this certainly extends to teaching.
Professionals tend to adopt the ‘apprenticeship’ model of transferring ‘best practice’ methods within the profession. This model extends to teaching too, and is widely adopted in the faculty. As a direct result, all new staff (young or old!) are assigned an official mentor, whose task it is to introduce the newcomer to the norms and expectations of the teaching role, among other things. It is this mentorship that primarily embeds the ‘best practice’ experience of the seasoned academic. Perhaps more importantly, but less explicitly, it challenges the mentor to consider new ideas, methods and technologies that the newcomer wishes to experiment with. Indeed, it is the older, more experienced mentors in the faculty, who have the confidence gained by years of teaching that experiment the most with new technologies (Flipped/Blended Learning Styles, etc.). At school level, peer review and teaching workshops are common. The process in place for confirmation of posts, and for promotion (the Staffing and Promotions Committee) emphasises teaching as well as research and administration as the three corner-stones of an academic. Teaching is evaluated by the standard CLTD methods, and teaching portfolios are the norm for promotional purposes.