Summary notes of the Executive Committee held on 22 November 2006
- Vice-Chancellor's Retreat: Summary of plenary session and subsequent actions
The Executive Assistant summarised a note outlining actions that already had taken place, or which had been proposed, as a result of discussions at the Retreat. There was still time for Committee members to volunteer to serve on any of the working groups, if they so wished.
- University of Bath International Scholarships : Overview of administration of 2006 Awards
The Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Strategic Developments) summarised a review of the first year of operation of the International Scholarship scheme. Although it was difficult to undertake a full evaluation at this early stage, it was felt that continuation of the scheme was desirable, in order that the University could offer funding at levels comparable to its competitors, to cultivate an international alumnus, by means of the newly established Scholars Forum, and to generally promote the University's international profile. Based on feedback from academic departments and the Recruitment and Admissions Office, a number of changes were proposed to the scheme.
Allocation of Scholarships as early as possible in the admissions cycle, combined with extension of the nominations deadline, would give increased flexibility to departments to decide the optimal timing of when to offer Scholarships, according to their own recruitment conditions.
- Naming Policy: Esther Parkin Trust - Proposals for the David Parkin Visiting Professorship and the David Parkin Student Internships
The Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Strategic Developments) outlined two naming proposals, agreed in principle with the Esther Parkin Trust, to provide funding for the David Parkin Visiting Professorship and David Parkin Student Internships . Senate would consider the substantive establishment of both schemes.
Under the David Parkin Visiting Professorship , the Trust would contribute up to £20K per annum towards the travel and living accommodation costs of an outstanding academic from a non-UK university to visit the University for a period of up to 12 months. The University would contribute office accommodation and academic support services. Under the David Parkin Student Internships , the Trust would provide up to £1K to each of a maximum of six undergraduate students, studying full-time in HE in India , to complete a summer internship of up to 10 weeks at the University. Host faculties/Schools would contribute up to £1K per student, up to a maximum of three students, and departments would provide academic supervision and support services.
The proposals would be reported to the ad hoc Development Group.
- Protocol for responding to the report of a Missing Student
The Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) said that this draft Protocol was designed to enable the University to exercise its duty of care by monitoring whether or not students were in attendance. Regulation 3.1 stipulated that students should attend regularly except where prior leave of absence for periods longer than one week had been granted by the relevant Head of Department. The Protocol aimed to strike a balance between discharging the duty of care without being heavy handed. An overly protective mechanism was likely to register a significant number of 'false positives'. Subject to approval, a copy of the Protocol would be included in the information pack provided for new students.
It was felt that greater co-ordination between academic departments and Resident Tutors/Accommodation Services was necessary at the early stage of the process. As far as academic departments were concerned, reporting absences of two weeks or more would require a higher level of monitoring than customary at present. It would also be helpful to forewarn the Department of Marketing and Communications at an earlier stage, as appeared necessary.
- Revised University Research Strategy
The Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) said that this strategy had been revised in line with the new format followed by the Learning and Teaching and Internationalisation strategies. The proposed revisions had been considered at length by the University Research Committee. Draft Procurement Strategy
- Draft University Web Strategy
The Director of Marketing and Communications and the Director of Computing Services introduced a strategy to overhaul the University website. This covered all pages within the bath.ac.uk domain and personal home pages. The website was a critical tool in the marketing of the University but currently suffered from a number of weaknesses, principal among which were inconsistent appearance, outdated information, and a general lack of focus on design according to the needs of users. The strategy sought to create a new framework, aimed at improving design and presentation, and to provide guidance on content style and management, which would continue to be generated at a local level by departments. Subsidiary policies would be required on matters such as responsibility for publishing materials and use of URLs, and the strategy would need to interlink with the proposed University Information Strategy.
Although the division of responsibilities between departmental 'owners' and central design and technical support teams had been agreed by the Committee in 2005, it was acknowledged that the resource and expertise available for departmental maintenance varied considerably. Non-technical training was being developed to address this problem, but consideration might also be given to the appointment of web maintainers at Faculty level. These could help to ensure consistency.
The Committee believed that the availability of resource and expertise at the local level was a crucial issue. It was noted that skeleton personal homepages could be provided on the Personal Information Portal.
- Draft University Information Strategy
The Executive Assistant said that this early draft aimed to draw together various existing policies, and other work that had taken place, into a format consistent with the academic strategies. It was not intended to provide an operational plan at this stage, as further consultation were required.
The Committee welcomed the draft. It was suggested that the scope of the strategy should be extended to include knowledge management, the sharing and 'refreshing' of information, and externally produced information.
- Draft Data Protection Policy
The Acting University Secretary said that this draft arose from a recommendation of the internal audit of data protection that the University should have a policy making clear its commitment to the principles of data protection and the expectation that staff and students should comply with them. The policy was therefore a formalisation of the existing guidelines on the University's data protection website.
- University Risk Register: Progress report on improvement actions - November 2006
The Executive Assistant gave progress reports on improvements made in respect of RE3 (Under-performance in recruitment of PGR students) and FI3 (Inadequate financial strategy and management). With regard to the former, working groups had been established following the Retreat to consider Professorial Doctorates and the Graduate School model. On the latter, strategies had recently been approved on obtaining value for money and for improving procurement. A broader financial strategy was also in preparation.
The following items were received without comment:
Notes from ICIA Arts Users Forum
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Notes of the School for Health Executive: 22 August and 19 September 2006
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Notes of the Faculty of Science Executive: 20 June and 3 October 2006
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Notes of the Biosciences Services Unit Management Committee: 27 October 2006
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