Quality must note technical advances

John Sizer, chief executive of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, this week warned that quality assessments must soon begin to take greater account of the use of novel teaching and learning technologies by institutions.

Speaking at a Cardiff conference organised by the funding councils' Teaching and Learning Technologies Programme and computers in teaching initiative, he said that such a move was inevitable considering the level of investment in developing new technologies. It is thought that the other funding councils will also eventually adopt a similar position.

Professor Sizer said that SHEFC has agreed, "subject to all the Scottish funding caveats", to pay towards supporting the products of the TLTP programme. He believes the Welsh funding council is also committed to addressing the concerns of many of the TLTP project teams over the issue. They have claimed that the current funding council regime forces them to give away the products and provides them with no funds for maintaining and updating them.

Professor Sizer said that SHEFC envisages providing bridging support for a limited period, and that he wants to see "a timetable for a phased reduction in reliance on council support, culminating in total sufficiency".