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There is a reason why the metaphors don't work very well and that is because learning stands outside market relations. There are a number of aspects of life, family life is one religious belief is another, that are influenced by and connected to the market but are not in themselves market relationships. The courts have long recognised the non-contractual nature of learning by their refusal to overturn academic judgement. It is for this reason that the ludicrous attempts to apply market logic to learning such as the REF, the TEF and marketing end up in distorting the core purposes of the academy, I.e the acquisition and transfer of knowledge. I am not arguing it is avoidable but am recognising that it occurs. It is for this reason that so many of the metrics measure everything except what we actually do, work with knowledge. The one that does, the REF, is now seen to be having the greatest negative effect on our core function. The UUK statement is an attempt to recognise the position that learning does actually sit outside contract law. When students take a degree they join a group of learners and most complaints and legal cases occur because that relationship is badly handled or obstructed. Regards Kieran Dr Kieran Kelly Learning for All University of the West of England 5E13, Frenchay Campus Frenchay Bristol BS16 1QY Office 0117 3281550 Mobile Regards Kieran Dr Kieran Kelly Learning for All University of the West of England 5E13, Frenchay Campus Frenchay Bristol BS16 1QY Office 0117 3281550 Mobile On 25 Oct 2015, at 18:45, LAND L.R. <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Thanks Jason. Très intéressant. >>> 'We don't need to get past that initial 'what on earth is this?', which is the only thing these analogies are useful for'. Hmmm. If we take analogy No.137 (is anyone keeping a record by the way?) then we come to 'The Antiques Road Show'. The first question on this programme is always: 'What on earth is this?' And then the expert (usually male, usually middle-aged, usually white, bewhiskered, begoldspectacled, bebow-tied, betweedywaistcoated) enlightens the person who has purchased/inherited it. The enlightened one then always does 'get past that initial "what on earth is this?"', and always asks the $64,000 dollar, or sometimes more, question (and reference to *that* TV programme shows how old *I* am) and that second question is always: 'What do you think it's worth?' And we're all agog for a l-o-n-g lingering moment until Dr Tweedytrousers puts us out of our misery with the 'actual' market value (aye, right) . Sometimes it's worth an outrageous fortune (Ooooooh!) because, .... it's a STEM subject! Or an MBA! (and unique, rare, priceless. beautiful, exotic, world-famous). Sometimes it's sadly worth s*d-all (Aaawwwwww!), because it's just one of those old mass-produced Humanities, Sociological, Arts, Theological, Education-type thingies (cracked, fake, chipped, with its lid missing, smudged maker's mark and provenance obscure, probably produced somewhere local). So it seems we end up, or the Government does, talking about market value and how much they (if it's STEM), or your parent(s), or your employer, are willing to pay for it. We, the tweedy experts in this case, can tell them it's worth a lot, because it's mysterious, exotic, useful, aesthetic, delightful, elegant, essential. But if the Govt isn't really interested, because it doesn't really know what on earth this is, then where do you take it? Ah, analogy No.138. 'eBay'. The open market. We'll see what punters are willing (or daft enough?) to fork out, but the Gov't's not going to lend them any money any longer to do it with. That should give us an idea of what's worth shelling out for. But how do you make HE into a proper market mechanism, and let all kinds of other punters play? By the pricking of my thumbs, something TEF-like this way comes. So how much do you want for that coat Jason? (You could always pawn it? Or you could pwn it?) Ray __________________________________________ Professor Ray Land PhD FRSA PFHEA Director, Centre for Academic Practice (CAP) Professor of Higher Education, School of Education, Durham University, Leazes Road, Durham DH1 1TA United Kingdom e: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> t: 0191 334 8347 web: https://www.dur.ac.uk/education/staff/?id=10278 ________________________________ From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] on behalf of Jason Davies [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] Sent: 25 October 2015 17:07 To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: UUK on universities' compliance with consumer law Well, let's run with this a bit, possibly because as someone who worked in genre and the literature of two languages for my PhD, I'm incurably convinced that our language matters! Ever since students started paying for their tuition, there has been a lot of hand-wringing and 'yes but no' about whether students are now consumers. On the plus side, this has brought in a lot of redress to a situation where students had to just lump it if they didn't like it -- the contractual elements. I would say this is still horribly incomplete (eg students getting useful feedback on work, reliably, on time throughout universities, courses being run to completion properly etc). It has also allowed/forced us to do things like take registers more often, restrict access if they haven't paid, and so on. We dreamed of learning agreements but got administrative ones instead. Are they consumers? Customers? Are we suppliers? Are we now 'supply-and-demand' led? Do we (just) need business managers? Is the university a gym? Or a bus? Is it a tree we can climb, seeing how the vista (and indeed the tree) transform every time we move another foot or so up or across? (I invite the patient to read that paragraph again. It doesn't need to be deliberately written as a caricature, but I hope some of you have the same reaction as me, which is 'what planet are we on, exactly?') What exactly are we offering them - most of it is a future, not a present. If I go on a bus, I get the journey there and then; unless it's an incredible bus journey, it's not going to cascade through my life in the way that I hope at least some of what a degree does. People sleep through bus journeys! But once you start talking about metaphors and analogies, the logistics of the analogy tend to take over. So while I agree that some of these contractual analogies are a useful corrective to the old initiatory-torment-transformation model (which most of us went through), they are not sufficient ways of talking about university education, they're pitifully inadequate. Suddenly we arrive at 'what are we trying to do?' Are we trying to transform people, permanently, such that they become a particular kind of skilled, responsible and critical citizen? Make them good employees? I suggest that what we are trying to do is actually very flexible and individual (with a nod to Ray's original comment here), multi-faceted and - excuse the drama - somewhat mysterious. We don't know exactly what they will come out as, but we intend that it's a unique fusion of what they are, what they aspire to be, what potential we have helped them develop. That should remain somewhat undefined and mysterious because sometimes it takes years to fully manifest. Most of all, who are these metaphors for? They don't particularly help me understand what I'm trying to do as a teacher; I don't know if they help students work out what a degree is. They can be a slogan for a particular institution trying (to paraphrase Bill Readings) to make itself sound distinctive through the same language every other institution uses for the same purpose. Picking up Gwen's wonderful scenario where the Which? representative got (as my kids would say) pwned (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn) I think these analogies become important talking to powers-that-be; government and the policy-minded. If we speak to them in analogies that are contractually-dominated, we put the more nebulous aspects of education in the second row because they are difficult to talk about, and don't fit within analogies. So we can say it's a gym to stress they get out what they put in but that downplays the bigger role we have: if someone feels unwell at a gym, they'll be advised to stop and leave, perhaps see a different specialist, their GP. I hope universities are not doing that (ie simply discarding students with mental health issues, for instance). Gyms remind me of training which I think is very different from education (and a valuable thing, where training is appropriate). It's hard to get across what a degree and time at university is; the analogies we use tend to simplify and focus on one or maybe two aspects (and virtually all of them are about who is responsible for specific aspects rather than what it is). Those are important but I still think we're better served by stressing how multi-faceted, complex and individual it is and refusing to let it be reduced to the contractual aspects. It's education, it's not really 'like' anything else. Repeatedly and rapidly speaking of it through analogies subtly undermines its distinctive and unique nature, to my mind. We don't repeatedly and habitually talk about training as being like x, y and z; or having a family as being like x, y or z. Emailing is a bit like writing a letter, a bit like a phone call, a bit like a meeting, a bit like a discussion (etc). I'm old enough to remember trying to describe what email is to people, and almost as soon as they started grasping it was like a letter, you had to immediately stress how it wasn't like a letter. Mostly they ended up thinking it was a very odd thing that they didn't really like the sound of; it didn't know what it was. It was much easier to show them a single email containing replies, and its own history. That's how it feels when we start talking about doing a degree as being like going to a gym (but not), climbing a tree, growing a garden, riding on a bus, signing a contract (etc). But email was a truly unknown creature to those people. The difference is that the vast majority of people either already went through a degree, know someone who did one (or more) or are probably going through it soon (or, alas, it's so far from their world that it's unlikely they could care less). We don't need to get past that initial 'what on earth is this?', which is the only thing these analogies are useful for. It's a proper thing. It's itself. It's not like anything, really. Saying so in situations that have consequences changes the dynamics of that conversation, and gives us a bigger playing field, or more cards (please choose your own analogy, I'm trying to avoid using too many, practice what you preach etc...) I'll get my coat, as they say... On 25 Oct 2015, at 14:55, Lea, John ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) wrote: Yep, I want to agree with Anna and Ray, as a reflection of reality and with Jason as a matter of principle. Jason’s comment has also made me start thinking about whether the creation of knowledge within the HE T and L relationship means we might want to elevate it to sacred status (a la Durkheim), but I’d like 4 buts, if I may: