Gold, Silver and Bronze Universities

So people don't waste 9 grand a year going to Angila Ruskin.

(...) What are people's thoughts on this?

- Why has this been decided?
- What effect might it have?
- Which universities will receive which rating?
- Do you think it's a good idea?

I guess, it would lead to a competition in terms of getting more appreciation as university. Thus the universities are trying to invest more in quality as it is, be it the best lecturers or professors, be it an establishment with better equipment.

I guess well known universities with good reputation (Oxford, Cambridge etc.) have the best chances to get such ratings. But I hope that unknown good working universities are awarded too. And from this point of view it may a good idea, as unknown universities with good learning and teaching standards*get a greater focus and thus an attention in the public. This may lead to a good reputation.*

In total the concept seems to be nice in my view. *

x

I hope the Russell group Unis will be gold. I hope whoever designs this system doesn't just look at the league tables and says 'top 10 = gold, top 20= silver, and bronze for the rest'. I hope it is worked out fairly and properly. Obviously, I expect the ex-polys to be mostly bronze, but what about those unis in between Russel group and ex-poly, like Reading for example. Would they be silver universities? The whole idea seems flawed. It seems a bit too far to reduce and summarise everything about a universities to one word. There are many different types of unis out there, each with their own specialisation. The methodology used in this gold/silver/bronze must not be too simple/reductive, else it will mislead students and damage universities forever.

Wow I just googled ex-polys and there's way fewer than I thought there were! I agree that it is reductive. Universities have their own 'things' which don't always translate to these types of tests. I dunno, I've mentioned Aston but also Birmingham City uni (an ex-poly) has a course called 'Applied Performance'. It's like drama, but with a community focus. Now if you study that you can go into all kinds of community style and arts-related careers and I know 3 people off that course (I met them all separately, weirdly) who are doing better and more interesting things with their lives than I am. Yet BCU is unlikely to get a good 'medal' because perhaps its overall performance isn't amazing. And then fewer people will know about that one gem of a course.

I hope the Russell group Unis will be gold. I hope whoever designs this system doesn't just look at the league tables and says 'top 10 = gold, top 20= silver, and bronze for the rest'. (...)

I hope the Russell group Unis will be gold.

They wont (or at least not all of them)

The TEF uses the following metrics and is unlikely to award anything above bronze to universities that don't outperform the sector once subject mix, entry qualifications and a few other things (age, ethnicity, sex, disability, participation rates of postcodes) have been adjusted for.

Teaching quality
NSS teaching
NSS assessment and feed back

Learning environment
NSS academic support
Non continuation after first year

Student outcomes and learning gain
Employment/further study 6 months after graduation
Highly skill employment 6 months after graduation

It's unlikely that many members of the Russell Group will be performing above BENCHMARKS for these measures or across the majority of the measures.

The guidance used by the panel is
- A provider with 3 or more positive flags and no negative flags should be considered initially as GOLD
- A provider with 2 or more negative flags should be considered initially as BRONZE
- All other providers should be considered initially as SILVER

When the THE produced a mock TEF (looking at only 1 years data and only 1 question from the NSS and not at the specific 3 sections that make up 50% of the TEF):
LSE, KCL, UCL and Bristol all came out as significantly below benchmarks for NSS.
Manchester, QMUL, Sheffield and Liverpool all came out below benchmarks for employability.

That's a large chunk of the RG looking like they're going to have to do some amazing talking (or hope that the more detailed data is more positive) to avoid a BRONZE rating.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teaching-excellence-framework-year-2-specification

quotas always end up been racist. No university should be assessed on this criteria unless actual racism can be proved (eg actual discrimination against blacks etc) I want to do a maths degree and every course I look at mentions wanting to get more women into maths, you know as a white Jewish Male I find it very hard to believe I would be assessed fairly. Lets assume for arguments sake that I get A*A*A* and then they have a female who got A*AB the course is full up they have one place left to give its me or her everything else is equal except for the grades who do you think is gaining that place?

if it was possible to bet at the bookies in a reliable way on this I would bet strongly on the girl. does that seem fair?

There's no mention of quotas anywhere in my post or in the methodology or statistics used.

true just I hate seeing race religion or disability been mentioned in anyway in the admissions process for anything. I strongly believe this should all be completely irrelevant. People should get assessed on their academic performance and ability and Racial/Gender issues should be utterly irrelevant to the whole process.

Why is it unlikely to get a good medal?. How do you know whether its teaching of Applied Performance is worse than the teaching of whatever you studied, wherever you studied it?

Finally, some much needed competition within the higher education sector. Not much, but it's a start. Now let's get these universities privatised, fees raised, loan system abolished, and we'll be on the right track.