NTFS Individual 2010 Awards Guidelines Background 1. The individual awards of the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) aim to raise the profile of learning and teaching, recognise and celebrate individuals who make an outstanding impact on the student learning experience, and provide a national focus for institutional teaching and learning excellence schemes. 2. The Higher Education Academy (the Academy) is organising and running the individual strand under the direction of the NTFS Individual Advisory Panel which oversees the criteria, assessment, and selection for the individual strand. 3. Up to fifty individual awards of £10,000 will be made in 2010 to recognise individual excellence. The award is intended for NT Fellows’ professional development in teaching and learning or aspects of pedagogy. Nominees will be informed of the results in June 2010 and NT Fellowships awarded at a gala dinner in September 2010. National Teaching Fellows are eligible to participate in any bid for the NTFS Projects strand. NT Fellows will also become members of the Association of National Teaching Fellows. 4. Detailed guidelines for nomination and for the preparation and submission of nominations for the individual awards are provided on the following pages. 5. Further details of both strands of the Scheme and Association of National Teaching Fellows are available at www.heacademy.ac.uk/ntfs. Guidelines for nomination and selection Eligibility 6. The Scheme is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland (DELNI). As such, all Higher Education (HE) institutions in England and Northern Ireland are eligible for the Scheme. Further Education (FE) institutions which have 100 or more ‘full-time equivalent’ students on higher education programmes directly funded by HEFCE are also eligible. A full list of institutions eligible to nominate for the scheme in 2010 can be found at: www.heacademy.ac.uk/ntfsindividual. Nomination process 7. HE and FE institutions are invited to nominate up to three individual members of staff who can demonstrate excellence in supporting the student learning experience in higher and further education. There are no categories of nomination and no minimum experience requirements. Institutions are encouraged to consider the full diversity of roles that support the student learning experience in determining their nominees. It is for institutions and their nominees to identify and demonstrate evidence of excellence in the context of the institution, academic or professional specialism and the nominees’ opportunities to make an impact on student learning. NTFS Individual 2010 – Awards Guidelines Page 1 of 9 8. The Scheme encourages nominations from individuals at any stage of their career and fulfilling any role in an eligible HE and FE institutions. The NTFS welcomes nominations from as broad and diverse a range of nominees, institutions as possible. The Academy is committed to equal opportunities to ensure that no one is treated less favourably than another on the grounds of gender, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religious or political beliefs, disability, marital status, social background, family circumstance, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, spent criminal convictions, age, or for any other unlawful reason. Selection Criteria 9. All nominees will be assessed on evidence provided in the core nomination documents in relation to each of the three criteria listed below. Please note that: a) Nominees should address and make a claim for each criterion fully and in turn. b) Each of the three criteria below will be given equal consideration in the assessment process. c) Nominees should not feel limited by the illustrative examples below. The examples are intended to provide indicative areas of evidence for each criterion. d) It is the intention of the Scheme to recognise impact and engagement beyond a nominee’s immediate academic or professional role. e) Opportunity to contribute will be taken into account and therefore should be made explicit. For example a nominee may have made a significant contribution to learning and teaching in an area that falls outside their substantive institutional role. Criterion 1 Individual excellence: evidence of promoting and transforming the student learning experience. For example by: arousing curiosity to stimulate and inspire learning, organising and presenting resources cogently and imaginatively, recognising and supporting diversity of student learning needs, drawing upon the results of relevant research, scholarship and professional practice, engaging with and contributing to the established literature or the nominee’s own evidence base. Criterion 2 Raising the profile of excellence: evidence of supporting colleagues and influencing support for student learning in (and, if appropriate, beyond) the nominee’s institution, through demonstrating impact and engagement beyond the nominee’s immediate academic or professional role. For example by: contributing to the development of colleagues in promoting student learning, contributing to departmental/faculty/institutional/national initiatives to facilitate student learning, contributing to and/or supporting meaningful and positive change with respect to pedagogic practice, policy and/or procedure. Criterion 3 Developing excellence: the nominee’s commitment to her/his ongoing professional development with regard to teaching and learning and/or learning support. For example by: ongoing review and enhancement of individual practice, engaging in professional development activities, engagement in the review and enhancement of individual practice, contributing to improvements in the student learning experience. NTFS Individual 2010 – Awards Guidelines Page 2 of 9 Assessment Process 10. Nominations will be considered by two independent external peer reviewers who will judge nominations on the information submitted against the three headline criteria. No other information will be taken into consideration. The Academy will allocate two reviewers using the assessment categories (see section 2 of the application form) provided by the nominee. The reviewers will submit their assessment ratings and comments to the NTFS Individual Advisory Panel. The reviewers will rate each of the criteria using the following grade descriptors: Each of the criteria will be equally weighted within the assessment process. A score must be entered for each of the three criteria in section two of the Assessment Template according to the following grade descriptors: Alpha One The application meets the criterion in full, in explicit and relevant ways and in a wide range of contexts, commensurate with the applicant’s role/opportunity to contribute to learning and teaching and/or pedagogic practice or policy. The application demonstrates an outstanding contribution which has transformed student learning. The work of this individual, as presented in the application, has significantly raised the profile and/or standard of learning and teaching and demonstrates the potential to do so in the future. The evidence provided toward this criterion is commensurate with that expected of a National Teaching Fellow. Alpha Two The application meets the criterion in full, in explicit and relevant ways and in a reasonable range of contexts in light of their role/opportunity to contribute to learning and teaching and/or pedagogic practice or policy. The application demonstrates an outstanding contribution to student learning. The work of this individual, as presented in the application, has raised the profile and/or standard of learning and teaching and demonstrates the potential to do so in the future. The evidence provided toward this criterion is commensurate with that expected of a National Teaching Fellow. Alpha Three The application meets the criterion in full, in explicit and relevant ways but in a limited range of contexts in light of their role/opportunity to contribute to learning and teaching and/or pedagogic practice or policy. The application demonstrates an outstanding contribution to student learning. The work of this individual, as presented in the application, has to some extent raised the profile and/or standard of learning and teaching and also demonstrates the potential to do so in the future. The evidence provided toward this criterion is commensurate with that expected of a National Teaching Fellow. Beta One The application demonstrates substantial but not complete fulfilment of the criterion. Some explicit and relevant examples are provided. In light of the applicant’s role/opportunity to contribute to learning and teaching and/or pedagogic practice or policy, there is insufficient evidence provided to fulfil the criterion and the examples provided could be more wide-ranging. The application demonstrates that the individual’s work has raised the profile and/or standard of learning and teaching to some extent and clearly shows the potential to do so in the future. Beta Two The application demonstrates some fulfilment of the criterion. Some explicit examples are 11. 12. NTFS Individual 2010 – Awards Guidelines Page 3 of 9 provided but these are not always sufficiently relevant, substantial or wide-ranging. In light of the applicant’s role/opportunity to contribute to learning and teaching and/or pedagogic practice, there is insufficient evidence provided (in depth or breadth). The application clearly demonstrates the potential to raise the profile and/or standard of learning and teaching but does not show that this has yet been achieved. Beta Three The application demonstrates some fulfilment of the criterion. Few explicit examples are provided and these are not always sufficiently relevant, substantial or wide-ranging. In light of the applicant’s role/opportunity to contribute to learning and teaching and/or pedagogic practice, there is insufficient evidence provided (in depth or breadth). The application demonstrates some potential to raise the profile and/or standard of learning and teaching. Gamma The application does not demonstrate fulfilment of the criterion. There is little or no explicit and/or relevant evidence provided and the evidence provided does not seem to reflect the applicant’s role/opportunity to contribute to learning and teaching and/or pedagogic practice. The evidence provided in this application is not commensurate with the standard expected of a National Teaching Fellow. 13. 14. 15. The Panel will make its selection on the basis of reviewers’ assessments and comments. The reviewers and the Panel will not be permitted to consider nominations from their own institution, or from any institution with which there may be a conflict of interest. The Panel’s decision is final. Nomination instructions Core nomination documents 16. Nominations should comprise the following, each as a separate Word document submitted electronically (please note maximum word/page lengths): a) Signed Statement of Support from the institution’s senior manager (maximum two A4 pages). b) Claim for NT Fellowship: a statement of how the individual demonstrates excellence relevant to each of the three headline individual award criteria (maximum 5000 words). c) Brief Curriculum Vitae (maximum three A4 pages). d) Application Form (for internal administration only) – available at www.heacademy.ac.uk/ntfsindividual 17. Nominees, institutions may find the following guidance helpful in compiling the nomination documents: a) Statement of Support: The supporting statement from the institution’s senior manager is an essential aspect of the nomination. It is recommended that the nominee’s claim for NT Fellowship is read prior to composing the institutional supporting statement. Although there is no standard form or structure to the statement, it may be helpful to provide evaluative comments under the three headline criteria (see section 9) with plausible evidence to support the achievements stated in the nominee’s claim. In particular, the statement should: NTFS Individual 2010 – Awards Guidelines Page 4 of 9    b) endorse the validity of the nominee’s claim for excellence; provide an institutional context within which the nominee has been identified as excellent; provide any additional supporting information which might be most appropriately expressed by an institutional representative rather than the nominee her/himself. Claim for NT Fellowship: Nominees are encouraged to present their excellence claim against the three criteria (see section 9) with reference to examples of supporting evidence, which may include (but need not be confined to): student feedback and evaluations, feedback from peer observations, feedback from other national engagements, student support materials and work with other partner institutions, and organisations. The decision of what constitutes appropriate evidence rests with the nominating institution and the individual nominee. Individuals from various academic disciplines inevitably demonstrate different writing and analytical styles and this will be accounted for in the assessment process. As such there is no ‘style of writing’ that is expected in applications and examples will be assessed and marked for their contribution to the headline criteria as a whole. c) Curriculum Vitae: Nominees are advised to focus on their experience and outputs with a view to demonstrating a robust commitment to enhancing and supporting student learning and delivering or facilitating teaching excellence. Please note that the formatting requirements apply to the CV. Application Form (for internal administration only): Nominees must submit an application form with the above three nomination documents (i.e. Statement of Support, Claim for NT Fellowship, and CV). The Application Form, available to download at www.heacademy.ac.uk/ntfsindividual, contains information used for internal administration purposes and will not be sent to reviewers. All sections must be completed in full. d) Formatting requirements 18. The three nomination documents (Statement of Support, Claim for NT Fellowship, and CV) must adhere to all the following formatting requirements. Other formats will not be accepted. Word limit / page lengths:  Statement of Support: maximum two A4 pages   Claim for NT Fellowship: maximum 5000 words Curriculum Vitae : maximum three A4 pages Font: Arial 11 point Page orientation: A4 portrait only Line spacing: 1.5 lines Margins: 2cm minimum (not including footers) Headers: Should contain the nominee’s full name and nominating institution only. Footer: Should indicate “page x of y” only. NTFS Individual 2010 – Awards Guidelines Page 5 of 9 19. In addition to all the above, the Claim for NT Fellowship should adhere to the following formatting requirements: Included in word limit: All section headings, text within tables or diagrams, numerical characters and any references will count towards the word limit. Footnotes: Should not be used. References should be included in the body text or put as endnotes, which should be added to the final word count. Pictures: Should not contain any pictures. Diagrams: Are permitted. Any text appearing within the diagram should be manually counted and stated next to the diagram in brackets and added to the final word count. Web links: Should only be used for reference. The content of web links will not be considered in the nomination. Final word count: The entire document should be highlighted and the word count tool utilised, ensuring that the tick box "include footnotes and endnotes" is selected, to add up all relevant free text. If any text is included in diagrams this should be added to the word count total and the total sum should be stated at the end of the document. Headers and footers are not counted. 20. The NTFS Individual Advisory Panel supports a strict application of the above formatting requirements to ensure fairness and consistency to all nominees. Any nominations failing to adhere to these requirements will be automatically rejected after the nomination deadline. It is therefore the responsibility of the nominating institution and individual nominee to ensure that the nomination adheres to the requirements with regard to formatting and word limit/page lengths. Reformatted rejected nominations will not be accepted after the nomination deadline. Additional documents 21. Personal profiles and photographs (compulsory but not assessed): Following submission of the core nomination documents, applicants must provide a 350 word personal profile and at least three high quality photographs. Personal profiles will not be assessed as part of the application and as such, the deadline for their submission is after the close of nominations. Please note that personal profiles and photographs are a required component for a complete submission to the NTFS. Further information can be found in the document ‘NTFS Individual 2010 Guidelines for Personal Profiles and Photographs’ available to download at www.heacademy.ac.uk/ntfsindividual. Equal opportunity form: The Academy is committed to promoting equality and diversity and wishes to collect data on nominees for statistical monitoring. We invite nominees to submit an equal opportunity form, available on the Academy’s website at www.heacademy.ac.uk/ntfsindividual. Equal opportunities forms should be sent electronically to ntfsindividual@heacademy.ac.uk by 12 noon Wednesday 3 February 2010 and will be treated in the strictest of confidence. Please note that equal opportunities data is not used in the assessment or selection process for the NTFS. 22. Submission and receipt of nominations Nomination documents should be submitted both electronically and in hard copies. 23. The core nomination documents (see section 10) must be sent electronically, as Word documents, by 12 noon Wednesday 3 February 2010 to ntfsindividual@heacademy.ac.uk, with the subject heading ‘Nomination for National NTFS Individual 2010 – Awards Guidelines Page 6 of 9 Teaching Fellowship Scheme’. A separate electronic submission should be sent for each nominee. Electronic signatures are not required on electronic submissions. 24. Hard copies of the core nomination documents, including signatures, must be received by the Academy by 12 noon Friday 5 February 2010. No additional material will be accepted. Hard copy documents should be addressed to: Project Officer (NTFS Individual) The Higher Education Academy Innovation Way York Science Park Heslington York YO10 5BR 25. Receipt of electronic nominations will be acknowledged by email to the individual that submitted the application. Please note that nominations will be manually checked to ensure they meet formatting requirements before acknowledgement is sent If the individual submitting the nomination does not receive an email within 48hrs of submission, they should contact the NTFS team at ntfsindividual@heacademy.ac.uk (Tel: 01904 717500). Personal profiles and photographs (see section 21) must be received by the Academy on a CD or data-stick clearly stating the nominee’s name and institution by noon on Wednesday 3 March 2010 and sent to the address stated above (section 24). Receipt of the personal profiles and photographs will be acknowledged by email to the nominee. If nominees do not receive an email within one week of submission, they should contact the NTFS team at the above (section 25). 26. Outcomes and publicity 27. All nominees will be informed of the outcome via email on Wednesday 26 May 2010, followed by confirmation letters. The latter will also be copied to senior representatives of the nominating institution. Unsuccessful nominees will be able to request copies of reviewers’ comments on their individual application from the Academy at ntfsindividual@heacademy.ac.uk. However, the NTFS Individual Advisory Panel emphasises that the NTFS is a competition and reviewers’ comments arising from a particular annual cycle of the scheme are likely to be of limited benefit thereafter. Attached to the confirmation email sent to successful nominees will be an electronic copy of their edited personal profile for approval (see section 21 and 26). Any amendments must be returned to the Academy by 12 noon on Wednesday 02 June 2010. The names of the Award winners will be officially announced in Thursday 24 June 2010 (tbc) on the Academy’s website www.heacademy.ac.uk/ntfs 28. 29. 30. NTFS Individual 2010 – Awards Guidelines Page 7 of 9 Awards ceremony and induction event 31. The individual awards will be presented at a gala dinner at Middle Temple Hall in London, to which successful nominees, their personal guest and a senior institutional representative will be invited. The new National Teaching Fellows will also be invited to an induction event. Both are to be held in September 2010. Deadline and assessment schedule 32. The timetable for the submission and assessment process is as follows:   Wednesday 28 October 2010 Call for nominations and application form released. Wednesday, 3 February 2010 (12:00 noon) Deadline to receive electronic copies of core nomination documents and equal opportunity forms from nominees. Friday, 5 February 2010 (12:00 noon) Deadline to receive hard copies of core nomination documents. Wednesday, 3 March 2010 (12:00 noon) Deadline to receive CD or data-stick containing personal profiles and digital photographs. Wednesday 26 May 2010 Nominees will be informed of the outcome of their application via email, followed by confirmation letters. The latter will also be copied to senior representatives of the nominating institution. Wednesday 2 June 2010 (12:00 noon) Deadline for successful nominees to return any amendments to their personal profiles. Thursday, 24 June 2010 (tbc) Announcement of Individual Awards 2010. September 2010 (tbc) NTFS Awards Ceremony September 2010 (tbc) NTFS Induction Event        Special requirements 33. 34. If you require these guidelines in an alternative format please contact the Project Officer (NTFS Individual) at: mailto:ntfsindividual@heacademy.ac.uk Nominees who are unable to submit a nomination in written format should contact the Project Officer (NTFS Individual) as soon as possible to discuss an appropriate alternative format. NTFS Individual 2010 – Awards Guidelines Page 8 of 9 Checklist for nominees, institutions Do the nomination documents meet the formatting and word/page length requirements? Any nominations failing to adhere to all of the requirements will be automatically rejected after the nomination deadline. Please note that this includes the Statement of Support and the brief Curriculum Vitae (see section 18). Are the nomination documents in ‘Word’ format? Have all the sections in the ‘Application Form’ been completed in full, including section 4, which is to be completed by a senior representative of the nominating institution? Have the electronic copies of the nomination documents been emailed to ntfsindividual@heacademy.ac.uk, with the subject heading ‘Nomination for National Teaching Fellowship Scheme’ by 12:00 noon on Wednesday 3 February 2010? Electronic signatures are not required on electronic submissions. (See section 23).     Statement of support Claim for NT Fellowship Curriculum vitae Application form Has the nominee sent an equal opportunity form to ntfsindividual@heacademy.ac.uk by 12:00 noon on Wednesday 3 February 2010? This information is extremely helpful for statistical monitoring, particularly of the NTFS (see section 22). Have the hard copies of the nomination documents (see bullet point list above), with signatures on the statement of support and in the application form, been posted to the Academy to arrive by Friday 5 February 2010? (See section 24). Has a CD or data-stick containing the nominee’s personal profile and photographs been posted to the Academy to arrive by 12:00 noon on Wednesday 3 March 2010? This is a compulsory component of a complete submission to the NTFS (see section 21 and 26). Has the nominee made arrangements to ensure access to her/his email on Wednesday 26 May 2010 to check the confirmation message from the Academy on the outcome of her/his application? Successful nominees will need to return any amendments to their personal profile, which will be attached to the confirmation email, by 12:00 noon on Wednesday 2 June 2010 (see section 29). NTFS Individual 2010 – Awards Guidelines Page 9 of 9