Employments, promotion, merit and job structure
The Ministry of Education and Research is changing the regulation of employment and promotion for academic staff. The changes will lead to a stricter demand of teaching skills and qualification requirements of competence in teaching and student supervision in order to climb the career ladder from associate professor to professor. The Ministry has also required that the university and college sector establish a merit system that will contribute to improve the value of excellence in teaching. By February 2019, the University Board will decide what merit system we are going to use at the University.
In addition, the employment structure in the university and college sector is under consideration where an expert group will give its recommendation in the spring of 2018. The evaluation is carried out by an expert group consisting of the former Rector at UiO Arild Underdal (lead) and of our own Dean Morten Dæhlen among others.
KURT - Competence centre for STEM teaching
The processes mentioned above will form new frameworks for much of our further activities. For example, it is vital that we establish a robust system for pedagogical development for our academic employees.
At the heart of this is the Faculty’s Competence centre for STEM teaching (KURT) and its cooperation with UiO’s newly established educational centre LINK. KURT is already arranging “REAL teaching”, a series of seminars focusing on improving the quality of teaching, which is offered to all MN employees.
Furthermore, KURT is continuing the work on PYTHON training for employees, which will be vital for the further development of computational-oriented education in all of MN’s study programs.
During the summer, KURT in collaboration with employees of the University of Minnesota, IBV and the School of Pharmacy will pilot “The Summer Institute”, which is a pedagogical educational tool in life science inspired by a method offered at the University of Minnesota. KURT is also establishing a science didactic resource group as a tool for developing and evaluating new assessment methods with a special focus on digital examination.
Focus on education at UiO
The University Board recently dealt with the Rectorate plans for a joint educational focus at UiO, outlined by Vice Rector’s notes “En langsiktig og fremtidsrettet satsing på utdanning ved UiO” (pdf in Norwegian only). This plan, which will lead to a new strategy for the University, has been established by the Committee for Student Affairs, and will extend approximately two years ahead.
The plan points towards a more united and collective effort in education at the University, with focus on the connection between research and education. At the heart of this process are focus on educational management, ensuring good support functions, developing a robust knowledge base and having good arenas for knowledge and experience sharing in order to make good decisions. At the Faculty we have already started this work thanks to the InterAct process.