The aim of this research is to evaluate the process of the 2005 Excellence in Tuition Awards at the University of South Africa. To achieve this aim an investigation was undertaken into (a) the strengths and weaknesses of the 2005 Awards process and (b) possible ways to improve it for the future. The literature study sought to place the rewarding of quality teaching in the broader framework of international excellence in tuition awards, current criteria (both locally and globally) used in evaluating teaching in higher education, and principles of business process management. The qualitative investigation attempted to provide a contextual understanding of Unisa's experience of awarding excellence in tuition, through an exploration of the experiences of those who were directly involved in the 2005 Excellence in Tuition Awards process at Unisa. The findings serve as basis for guidelines for future Awards processes. / Educational Studies / M. Ed.(Open and Distance Learning)

Supervising students at a distance presents numerous social, mental, professional, and individual challenges on the student- supervisor relationship, and on the substance, progress, and conveyance. From the literature review, several tools and technologies are developed to improve academic quality; however, most of these tools and technologies focus on journal articles’ quality rather than student/supervisor relationships. This study aims to develop an academic rating index (ARI) that will show a supervisor’s review by students and provide an interactive forum. The application will serve as an academic supervision teaching-level index that provides an aggregated measure of supervisors’ past and current impact. Thus, the ARI aims to aggregate all academic supervisor ratings and the number of ratings that they received in the entire academic career to complement their citation index. The study will use quantitative coding and programming tools to ensure a good quality system in the development phase. The application and findings of the study contribute to academic service quality. / Operations Management / M. Tech. (Information Technology)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Background. Traditionally, departmental appointment type (basic science or clinical) and/or degree earned (PhD, MD, or MD-PhD) have served as proxies for how we conceptualize clinical and basic science faculty. However, the landscape in which faculty work has considerably changed and now challenges the meaning of these cohorts. Within this context I introduce a behavior-based role variable that is defined by how faculty spend their time in four academic activities: teaching, research, patient care, and administrative duties. Methods. Two approaches to role were compared to department type and degree earned in terms of their effects on how faculty report their perceptions and experiences of faculty vitality and its related constructs. One approach included the percent of time faculty spent engaged in each of the four academic activities. The second approach included role groups described by a time allocation rubric. This study included faculty from four U.S. medical schools (N = 1,497) and data from the 2011 Indiana University School of Medicine Faculty Vitality Survey. Observed variable path analysis evaluated models that included traditional demographic variables, the role variable, and faculty vitality constructs (e.g., productivity, professional engagement, and career satisfaction). Results. Role group effects on faculty vitality constructs were much stronger than those of percent time variables, suggesting that patterns of how faculty distribute their time are more important than exactly how much time they allocate to single activities. Role group effects were generally similar to, and sometimes stronger than, those of department type and degree earned. Further, the number of activities that faculty participate in is as important a predictor of how faculty experience vitality constructs as their role groups. Conclusions. How faculty spend their time is a valuable and significant addition to vitality models and offers several advantages over traditional cohort variables. Insights into faculty behavior can also show how institutional missions are (or are not) being served. These data can inform hiring practices, development of academic tracks, and faculty development interventions. As institutions continue to unbundle faculty roles and faculty become increasingly differentiated, the role variable can offer a simple way to study faculty, especially across multiple institutions.