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Australasian academic developers'conceptions of the professionKym FraserPublished online: 10 Dec 2010.

To cite this article: Kym Fraser (2001) Australasian academic developers' conceptionsof the profession, International Journal for Academic Development, 6:1, 54-64, DOI:10.1080/13601440110033706

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Introduction This is the second paper derived from a study Iundertook to answer seven research questionsrelated to the profession of academic development.The � rst paper, ‘Australasian academic developers:Entry into the profession and our own professionaldevelopment’ (Fraser, 1999), reported on thepro� le of academic developers (age, quali� cations, gender), our career paths into andthrough the profession and what constitutes ourprofessional development. This second paperreports on the differing conceptions of academicdevelopment held by people practising in theprofession.

In 1991 the Australian Andresen, wrote ‘I feelcon� dent that I am not alone among otherEducational Developers in � nding it just a bit hardto give an intelligible one-line answer whensomeone at a party asks me “And what exactly doyou do?”’ (1991, p. 5). Andresen (1995) argues thatacademic development is ‘academic work’ and in1995 he distinguished the �eld from technicalsupport or service to academia arguing thatacademic development serves ‘the same broadpurposes as the academic enterprise’ (p. 77). Evenso, Andresen ‘admits’ that ‘Academic developmentis distinctive, probably unique and in some respectsquite unlike any other kind of academic work.’ (p. 77).

Increasingly in the last 10–15 years, the role ofacademic developers has been discussed in theliterature and on discussion groups. In that

literature different individuals use different termsto name our profession. Even in this journal titledInternational Journal of Academic Development,contributors use a range of terms to describe theprofession. It is also not uncommon for an authorto use different terms in different publications, andeven in the same publication.2 One might arguethat the different terms used describe differentconceptions. However, such a trend is not apparentin the literature.

Quite different conceptions of this role do existin the literature. O’Leary (1997), from Australiaargues that our work has to be both outcomes andprocess oriented. Collett and Davidson (1997),from South Africa suggest that a signi� cantcomponent of the work of educationaldevelopment is to facilitate ‘personal, professionaland institutional change’ (p. 31). Inconceptualizing the profession Murphy (1994),from Singapore, distinguished between a broad anda more narrow conception.

Educational development may be narrowly construedin terms of a unit’s mission statement. For example, itmay be concerned primarily with academics and theirneeds with respect to curriculum development andevaluation. Alternatively, it may be conceived morebroadly to include such matters as student learning,institutional management and research and thedevelopment of general staff (Piper, 1993; Roe, 1985).A signi� cant part of the mission of educationaldevelopment, in units with this emphasis, is to increasethe educational awareness and professionalism ofuniversity teachers or policy makers’ (p. 215).

Australasian1 academic developers’

conceptions of the profession

Kym Fraser, Higher EducationDevelopment Unit, Monash University

ABSTRACTSeventy-one professionals working in the � eld of academic/educational/teaching development were surveyed onissues relating to the profession. From that sample, 22 developers were interviewed on a range of related issuespertaining to their perceptions of the profession. The interviewees referred to the profession using differentterminology for quite specific and often historical reasons. Different and sometimes diametrically opposedconceptions of the profession were held by different individuals. In this paper I report on the divergent conceptionsof the profession which were reported in those interviews.

The International Journal for Academic DevelopmentISSN 1360-144X print/ISSN 1470-1324 online © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsDOI: 10.1080/13601440110033706

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This paper reports on research undertaken todetermine the ways in which practising ‘academicdevelopers’ conceptualize and name ourprofession.

Methodology and research question – what conceptions of academic development do academicdevelopers hold?The full account of the methodology used in thisstudy is described in Fraser (1999).

In the research on which this paper is based Iused both quantitative and qualitative methods ofdata collection as I wanted to determine a sense ofindividual stories (through interviews) and a senseof the numbers of people for particular questions(survey and interview). I posted my de� nition ofacademic development to the Higher EducationResearch and Development Society of Australasia(HERDSA) list server which at that time hadapproximately 300 subscribers in the � elds ofacademic development, distance education andstudent learning services.

Based on the feedback I received I re�ned myworking de�nition to broaden the scope of thework and the type of university staff who would beconsidered as part of the population.

For the purposes of this research, an academicdeveloper is any person who has a role in which theyare explicitly expected to work with academics to assistthem to re� ect upon their academic role in relation toteaching, research, scholarship, leadership, fundingapplications and supervision of students. An academicdeveloper may also work at a departmental/institutional level in a developmental role. For thepurposes of this research, individuals who work withacademic staff on issues of staff selection, staffappraisal, CV writing etc., but who do not work withacademic staff on the issues listed above, would not fallwithin the scope of this research.

Other examples – an individual who works primarilywith students, but in the course of his/her dutiesworks with academics to change their thinking aboutissues of student learning, would � t within the scope of this research. A distance education specialist whoworks with the materials produced by academics butdoes not directly work with the academic to ‘develop’his/her understanding of the issues involved inteaching distance education students, would not.

I asked for feedback on my research questions,

survey and interview schedules from sixexperienced colleagues from Canada, New Zealandand Australia. I subsequently re�ned my questionsand schedules based upon their comments and apilot of the interview schedule.

Directors listed on the 1996 ‘Academic StaffDevelopment Units Contact List’(for Australasia)provided me with contact details of people doingacademic development work in their university.Fifty-one per cent of that population responded tothe survey and agreed to be interviewed. Of thosepeople who agreed to be interviewed, I selected asample of 22 people. The sample represented 18different institutions from both the North andSouth Islands in New Zealand and in all AustralianStates and Territories except Tasmania and theNorthern Territory, from which I had norespondents.

ResultsIn order to explore their conceptions of theprofession, interviewees were asked the followingquestions:

1. What term do you use to describe yourself inyour working role? Do you perceive a differencebetween the terms academic, educational andstaff development?

2. What is your conception of academicdevelopment (if the interviewee didn’t use thatterm to describe their work, I used the term theyused)?

3. Academic developers disagree as to whatacademic development actually is, for instancesome think that it is teaching and others arguethat it isn’t. What do you think?

4. Do you think that academic developers shouldwork within speci�c related discipline areas inwhich they have some background, or shouldthey work university-wide?

Quotes used to illustrate the points made in thissection are representative of the comments madeby the sample interviewed.

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Question 1 – People in our professionrefer to themselves in different ways.What term do you use to describeyourself in your working role? Do youperceive a difference between theterms academic, educational and staffdevelopment?

While a number of terms are used to describe theprofession, I chose to ask interviewees todistinguish between the terms ‘staff development’,‘educational development’ and ‘academicdevelopment’. I chose those three descriptorsbecause they:

� potentially represented signi� cantly differentperspectives;

� have been used extensively in the literature inrecent times (refer, for instance to theInternational Journal for Academic Development andStaff and Educational Development International);and

� are commonly used in the titles of centresassociated with the profession.

Interviewees chose a wide range of different terms to describe their role. Institutional reasons often underpinned their choices. Somereported that they chose different descriptors atdifferent times, depending upon their audience.Others used the terms found in the title of theircentre. Terms including ‘instructional designer’,‘academic staff developer’ and ‘professionaldeveloper’ were also used. The following quotescapture the dilemma that several intervieweesthought were inherent in the use of the term‘developer’.

On paper, probably as an academic developer, but it’sthe sort of term that you always have to be treading oneggshells when you are working with academic staff soI usually describe myself with them as a colleague whois just working with them on helping them to developtheir skills and their understanding of their teachingrole and sometimes their research role. . . . It sort ofsounds a bit patronising to say that you’re going todevelop them as academics.

I’m the one who develops them somehow and thatdoesn’t seem appropriate. I see it far more asengaging with them in facilitating their processes ordevelopment or whatever way and thereby I myselfmight develop.

I am a little bit uncomfortable about the notion thatpeople who work in this � eld are, in some way,different from their academic colleagues who areteaching in other disciplines. . . . I consider myself anacademic who does research in higher education, whodoes postgraduate teaching and who also happens towork professionally with academic colleagues, in anumber of ways . . . advising, helping, supportingteaching, from time to time.

Some interviewees perceived that the terms ‘staffdevelopment’, ‘educational development’ and‘academic development’ were interchangeablewhile others saw distinct differences between theterms. Sometimes those differences werediametrically opposed. I endeavour below tocapture those differences by grouping responsesinto three categories: interchangeable; de� nitionsof staff development; de�nitions of academic andeducation development.

Interchangeable

Academic, professional and educational are all prettymuch the same. Staff development . . . is a moregeneric term.

I de� nitely acknowledge what you are saying. . . .Depending on my audience I will say it’s either staffdevelopment or academic development. . . . I woulduse the 3 of them interchangeably, depending on thecontext.

Staff development

No one referred to him or her self as a staffdeveloper although several individuals used theterms academic staff developer and professionalstaff developer.

Staff development . . . is a general term that canencompass a whole set of processes that could takeplace in any context, not just within a tertiary contextand could involve any staff on any issue.

Staff development I would tend to see in a moregeneral, administrative sense, in terms of skills to beacquired in the workplace for the job, such ascomputer skills, etc.

My area is what I would call academic development oreducational development which basically to me is staffdevelopment for teaching staff in their role asteachers; I take teaching in its broadest sense to meanthe facilitation of learning and all the rest of that.

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Contrasting ‘educational’ and ‘academic’development

Different individuals de� ned these two terms quite differently. Some interviewees conceivededucational development as focusing exclusively onissues of teaching and learning while othersincluded issues of research and supervision as well.For some interviewees academic development wasde�ned as focusing on teaching and learningissues, others included the scholarship of teachingand learning while still others de�ned it to includenon-teaching and non-learning issues. Educationaldevelopment was conceptualized by some to be asubset of academic development while othersbelieved the reverse.

Educational Development refers to teaching andlearning, research and supervision and academicdevelopment has to do with more functions thanteaching and learning, research and supervision.

I’d probably distinguish educational development interms of curriculum course improvement andteaching and learning aspects. Academic developmentwould take in things that you would do for the wholeperson, i.e. their own professional development, theirresearch development, their academic leadership etc.

Educational developers include academic developersor staff developers and also effect change ineducational programs at the coal face. So their focus isnot just on outcomes of changes of teachers but . . . oneducational pro� le of the institution, the coursepro� les that the university offers and the way that itteaches it.

We’re not in a de� ned discipline. . . . We call ourselvesan academic development unit and that is because wefeel we’re looking at not just training. We’re actuallylooking at issues close to academic life. So for examplewhile we’re obviously about supporting teaching andlearning, we’re supporting it in a scholarly way. We’reabout the scholarship of teaching and learning. Andthat includes support for research into teaching andlearning and in fact support people who want to doresearch full stop. I see academic development asbeing somewhat broader than either educationaldevelopment or staff development. . . . Educationaldevelopment is a subset of academic development. It isjust the support for teaching and learning perhapswithout this broader scholarly overview.

Educational development as focusing primarily onworking with a group of people . . . to take furthersome kind of educational process. Academic staffdevelopment might include that but could also involve

working directly with individuals on a one to one basisor in a group context in some kind of course ordevelopment programme focusing on teaching andlearning generally or any other aspects related toacademic work.

Question 2 – What is your conceptionof academic development (If theindividual had used another term todescribe his/her role, I used thatterm)?

In responding to this question intervieweesdescribed their work role. This role variedconsiderably, however virtually all conceptualizedhaving a role in changing the teaching ofacademics in their institutions.

It’s traditionally, at our place, been helping people tobe better teachers.

. . . working alongside academic staff members inwhatever way seems to be appropriate in developingtheir teaching.

Trying to get tertiary teachers to re� ect on theirteaching and trying to bridge that gap between whatthey say they do and what they do and trying to getthem to be aware of that gap . . . and get them tochange their practice.

. . . to help academics become aware of the variationsin the kind of work they do, so they can come to ajudgement about how to do it more effectively.

Two levels, one in which I operate as a facilitator andsupporter, stimulator getting people interested andexcited in the possibilities and in their potential forimproving teaching. The other side is the more basicbusiness of helping new people deal with thefundamentals of teaching, induction, tutoring etc.

Some interviewees conceived of their work asimpacting on the entire role of the academic, notjust the teaching aspect of that role.

Working with academics individually on various areasof their own academic development. Those areaswould be developing their understanding of teachingand learning, developing their understanding andability to conduct research, developing theirleadership roles within the university.

Academic development is about helping academics todevelop in all aspects of their role, teaching, research,community service, administration and career

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development. We help people by helping them tocritically re� ect on what their role involves at themoment, to introduce them to different ways ofthinking about that role.

. . . assisting staff to come to competence in orimprove in all of the different dimensions of academicwork. So preeminently teaching and research, buteven service, administration and leadership andmanagement.

Some of the interviewees’ conceptions ofacademic development included working at theinstitutional level.

. . . a larger role that I think that we have . . . is thegeneral leadership level as well where we’d be workingwith the upper echelons of the university toimplement or decide on strategic changes. Our rolewould be to liaise and link between the upperechelons and the actual academics themselves, to helptheir group processes proceed.

We’re involved with things like quality assuranceprocesses within the institution too, ensuring thatcurriculum development meets institutionalrequirements . . .

. . . assisting in policy development in teaching andlearning or rewarding good teaching, or policyimplementation.

. . . but one might target policy, or committees, tochange or develop the context of the organisation.

One interviewee articulated the need foracademic developers to have an understanding ofthe institutions in which they work and to besupported by those institutions.

. . . academic developers also need to have acomprehensive understanding of the institution’spublicly acknowledged and actual reporting lines,lines of communication, and power sources. Theyneed to be informed and supported by aninstitutionally-representative advisory group . . .

Very few interviewees included research,research student supervision, or traditionalteaching responsibilities in their conception ofacademic development. The � exible andresponsive nature of the role was mentioned alongwith the perception that the role needed to beproactive.

In general academic development was conceivedas a facilitation and helping role. The list of rolesbelow was generated by two of the interviewees.

I am:

� a resource linker (I know a publication/personthat can help you;

� a process consultant (is that the most effectiveway? what about another teaching method suchas?);

� a catalyst (I can help some people’s conceptionof teaching to change, my enthusiasm can helpto get others interested in teaching);

� an information provider (I know about someresearch that shows this is a better way);

� a critical friend (I can observe what you do andprovide feedback);

� a module writer; � a researcher (what kind of learning and at what

level will this method engender?);� a collaborative researcher engaging in joint

research projects with ‘traditional’ academics;� a lobbyist;� an evaluator;� publicist; and � a committee member.

Question 3 – Some academic developers argue that they teach inthe consulting work that they do (notconsidering here teaching workshopsor subjects) and others argue thatthey don’t. Do you consider the ADwork you do to be teaching?

Some individuals found the concept of ‘teachingthe teachers’ to be not politically useful to them intheir work. ‘I am nervous about that { conception}because it would not be taken well by some of the“high � iers” with whom I work’. ‘It’s presumptuousto think of yourself as teaching them in theconventional sense’. Two interviewees pointed outthat ‘industrially’ people in this � eld are requiredto ‘teach’. For example academic developers, whenapplying for promotion, often have to make a casein terms of ‘teaching’. This will be easier for thoseindividuals who teach on postgraduate highereducation courses, but most academic developersdo not teach on these courses.

In many respects whether the individualconceptualized their developmental work as‘teaching’ or not depended on the de�nition of teaching. Interestingly many of the interviewees held quite traditional conceptions of teaching.

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No I wouldn’t call it teaching in the sort of straighttransmission type teaching model. It’s really quiteoften acting as a catalyst, or a mirror to sort of getpeople to re� ect, so you throw them questions or actas a sort of friend so that people can talk to youcandidly about problems that they may be having. . . .So it is teaching I guess, but more in a mentoring kindof way rather than being the holder of knowledge.

I don’t see myself as teaching in that I’ve got theanswers or that even I design the environment inwhich students learn. That’s the sort of connotations Ihave of teachers. I see myself as a consultant and acollaborator with staff.

Apart from when I teach on a graduate certi� cate, Ihadn’t thought of myself in terms of a teacher,because I see myself more as a consultant in the otherparts of my role, and a facilitator, a resource. Ofcourse some de� nitions of teachers would includethose things anyway. But I wouldn’t see myself in thetraditional concept of a teacher.

I call working with a group academic leadership ratherthan teaching, because it’s collegial and I think inteaching there is still an expectation that the teacherknows more about it than the other people do eventhough that is not always true in some models.

I don’t think we teach in the sense that we impartknowledge. I think we teach in the sense that wemodel good teaching practice by the way we interactwith our students and staff and the way we facilitatelearning but I wouldn’t ever think that I had taught(heavy emphasis on the word ‘taught’) anybodyanything.

Technically a lot of stuff is described by and is spokenabout by us as teaching, even though heart and soulsay it isn’t teaching. A lot of it comes down to being alearning consultant, being an advisor, policydeveloper. No more of� cial teaching than being aparent is, or a well advised colleague.

Others held broader conceptions of teaching.

Yes, { I am teaching} , because I’m sharing with themideas and encouraging them and supporting them.

If I have facilitated someone’s learning of something,then I have engaged in a form of teaching. . . . A lot ofprofessional development work is teaching. Helpingpeople develop is very often teaching.

I think that there are very big differences between thisas teaching and the front line teaching of, particularly,undergraduates. I think that there are very bigdifferences in the kinds of relationships one has when

the people one is working with are peers or in manycases . . . intellectuals who are more academicallysophisticated than you yourself are, there is a very bigdifference in that relationship and the kinds ofdynamics that can exist there.

Others classi� ed the role they take in theirdevelopmental work not as a teaching role, but ascounselling, consulting, collaborative, facilitativerole, being a peer in a peer-review relationship.Some, having described that role, decided that infact this is a teaching role while others did not. Twopeople pointed out that there is not one model ofoperation in their professional practice. Sometimesthey take an instructional (teaching) stance,sometimes they take other roles as described abovebut also chairing committees, monitoring qualityfunctions etc.

Question 4 – Some academic developers argue that we should workwithin speci� c discipline areas inwhich we have some background,rather than across the university?What is your view on this?

For this question I have responses from 21 of the 22 people interviewed. The group splits fairlyevenly between the two perspectives framed in thequestion. However, many of those who respondedthat they preferred to work within a disciplinecontext with which they were familiar, stated thatthey actually worked across the university and thatcertain issues existed university wide; for examplequality assurance, student motivation and transitionproblems. One person re� ected that she believed ‘ . . . educational processes, issues related toteaching and learning, have a certain fundamentalset of kind of issues, processes, values, philosophies,principles etc that can be relevant across alldisciplines’.

Several people argued that while they believedthey had a level of expertise to offer that is non-discipline speci� c and that ‘it’s possible to adaptwhat we do as long as we make an effort tounderstand disciplinary cultures’, they were keenlyaware that ‘ . . . every discipline has it’s own meansand contexts’. They perceived that some developersseem to believe that models that work in adiscipline with which they are familiar, will adaptequally well to all disciplines, regardless of thedifferent disciplinary contexts. They warned thatthis was not always the case.

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Development work within a familiar disciplineSeveral of the interviewees indicated that their unitseither had been or were currently organized suchthat the unit had a breadth of discipline experienceand different members of the centre hadresponsibility for different disciplines (usuallyexpressed as different faculties). ‘The expressionthat comes to mind is horses for courses. The mostappropriate person for a particular situation . . .who would most easily get alongside the group ofpeople.’ Different models for higher educationdevelopment units have been discussed in theliterature over the last 20 years (Johnson, 1982;Murphy, 1994). It is not the author’s intent torecommend a model for development units in thispaper. Suf�ce to say that this particular issue hasbeen the basis of the selection criteria associatedwith the employment of staff in some units over theyears and that it is worth bearing in mind whenre� ecting on the work of academic developers.

Approximately 50 per cent of the intervieweesexpressed a preference for working in disciplineswith which they were familiar. Their reasons for thisare captured in the following responses.

I feel most comfortable, emotionally andpsychologically, when I am working with people froma similar discipline background to mine.

There’s a certain amount of the work that I do thatcan only stay at the generic level and I can’t go indepth into the . . . perspective that you get from withinthe discipline in relation to an educational issue.

What I worry about a bit is that when one gets far froma discipline that one is intimate with, comfortablewith, whatever, that actually there is a way in which yousort of lose vitality, you lose life. I can work with groupsof people in areas like humanities where the ideas thatare to be taught to students are still very exciting to meand we can sort of talk about ways to design, ways toconduct, ways to enact, ways to let people get a feel forthose ideas . . . As you actually have a one on oneinterchange with, for me, for example, a scientist,where I don’t absolutely appreciate the blocks tolearning that are common, . . . I can trot out thevarious kinds of strategies that we know in a notionalway, exist within teaching competence, but I am notactually getting a live feeling, in as good a way as I amfor some of the humanities subjects.

Some interviewees said that they often use theirown discipline background for examples of things.‘But where I �nd it dif� cult { in other disciplineareas} is trying to think of really pertinent examplesthat . . . will make sense to them.’

Several interviewees believed that they‘performed’ better in their development work indisciplines in which they had a familiarity with thecontent. Some also believed that the staff withwhom they were working preferred to work withsomeone familiar with their discipline. However noone had evidence to support either of thesenotions.

Because I feel most comfortable and most con� dent, Iprobably perform better. . . . The staff that areinvolved prefer someone . . . who can talk theirlanguage. . . . They will accommodate someone likeme . . . and they’ll � nd me useful, but their preferencewill be for me . . . with their language andbackground.

Others suggested that they had greatercredibility in a � eld in which they had experienceeven if they don’t actually give advice on thedisciplinary content of the work.

I do think that I add something when I am working in a scienti� c environment. Some of that isthat I bring a sense of credibility . . . the fact that I used to lecture in a { science} discipline in auniversity . . . makes a difference . . . I think that it’seasier going that way { working in disciplines withwhich you are familiar} . . . I think we’re better inareas where we have more comfort, and we have better credibility although I don’t think that we doactually give advice about the content. So it’s acomplex one { question} .

One interviewee dismissed the credibility argument

I would think now that my credibility as a { disciplinearea in which he taught previously} would be zero{ because of the time that has elapsed} . . . The ideathat I have some sort of credibility as a { speci� cdiscipline} educator is just nonsense. What I havecredibility as is as a person who knows somethingabout education and as a person who can help peoplewho know something about individual subjects toperhaps acquire that educational knowledge in theirarea. . . . I don’t think that there is enough time to bea { an expert in a discipline} and an educator, you areeither one or the other.

University wide

But there are some general principles that I can applyand I can still ask people questions and get them tore� ect on what they are doing and how they canconstruct in a way which is true to their own discipline.So I guess that I fall back on more generic teachingtype skills in that area.

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You can acquire enough knowledge to be useful;probably not as useful as you are in other disciplines.But then there are other times when you are moreuseful because you bring other perspectives to thetable.

In our work we don’t even attempt to deal with{ disciplinary} content . . . we are dealing with theprocesses and the strategies of teaching, thescholarship of teaching. It’s up to the disciplineexperts to interpret how those processes and thestrategies are used within their discipline.

Those who responded that academic developers‘should’ work university wide believed that thereare general teaching and learning principles thatare applicable across the university. They alsoreported believing that by coming from a differentdisciplinary perspective, they brought a differentperspective that was of value.

Descriptors, conceptions and institutional characteristics

An analysis of the interview data revealed no matchbetween the name an interviewee used to describehis/her conception of the profession and (i)institutional variables (rural/urban, size,traditional/non-traditional); and (ii) thecharacteristics of the interviewee (age, gender,quali� cations). As previously noted, the name usedby some interviewees to describe their rolesometimes re� ected the name of their centre.

Conclusions

I shall conclude by revisiting the issues ofteaching/non-teaching, university wide/disciplinespeci� c, the conception of the profession and thename of the profession and provide the reader withmy own understanding of these issues. Myunderstanding is based upon both this researchand my broader experience of the profession.

Clearly the interviewees differed in theirperceptions of whether we ‘teach’ or not in ourwork (not including teaching workshops, modules,subjects, etc). I believe that teaching can occurboth with and without intent, and, if someonelearns something through interacting with me,then I have been teaching in that interaction. (Inthis paper I will not enter the philosophicalargument of ‘Have I been teaching if no-onelearns’!) I generally think that teaching includes

counselling, consulting, facilitating, supervising,etc. and I also believe that non-teaching roles, suchas committee membership, can provide one withthe opportunity to teach. Therefore I believe that Iteach in much of my ‘academic development’ work.

As to the question of whether we should teachuniversity wide or within a set of discipline areaswith which we have familiarity, I suspect that mostof us � nd that we work in unfamiliar disciplinesquite successfully. I believe that we have anunderstanding of teaching and learning theoriesand practices and that this expertise can be used toimprove teaching practice in any discipline.However I concur with those interviewees whocautioned that disciplinary context can in� uencethe value of speci� c teaching and learning modelsand strategies.

The individuals interviewed in this researchdisagreed about the meaning of the termsacademic, educational and staff development. Ipropose to differentiate between the terms asillustrated in Figure 1. I conceive of academicdevelopment as sitting within staff developmentand educational development as overlapping withacademic development. In my conception, withinthe higher education sector staff developmentincludes that developmental work that supportsand enhances the entire role of all staff, bothteaching and non-teaching staff. The types ofdevelopmental areas that may be relevant to bothteaching and non-teaching staff include IT,�nance, leadership and management.

Some developmental work is speci� c toacademics only and I refer to that as academicdevelopment. It includes development of theacademic research and teaching roles. The focus ofeducational development is teaching (de� nedbroadly as in the second paragraph of thisconclusion). However, education development canoccur at many levels including individual,department, faculty and institution. Wheneducation development occurs at the individuallevel it is a part of academic development. Ifteaching-focused development work occurs at thenon-individual levels, I consider it to be educationdevelopment and not necessarily academicdevelopment. Of course education developmentwork at the department/faculty/institution levelsmay and hopefully does in� uence the individualacademic’s teaching practice and development, butit may not.

This research clearly shows that while manyindividuals in the profession do very similar work,we use quite different names to describe our work.

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Further complicating efforts to develop one nameto describe the profession is the fact that differentindividuals in this profession do quite differentwork. Some individuals work to improve theteaching of individual academics, others work withthe broader role of the academic, while still otherswork at an institutional level, developing policy, etc.Even when we do the same work, we conceptualizeit differently, with some academic developersperceiving their work to be teaching while othersare de� nite in their rejection of thatconceptualization. Deriving a single name for thiswork is therefore problematic.

It appears that this naming dilemma is notcon� ned to the Australasian context. TheInternational Consortium for EducationalDevelopment in Higher Education (ICED)currently represents education developmentorganizations in 15 countries. The 2000 conference‘Scholarship and professional practice in academicdevelopment’ carried a footnote to denote that the

conference included staff and faculty development,but interestingly not educational development,which is the term included in the title of ICED(http//www.uni-bielefeld.de/IZHD/ICED/11/12/00.

Do we necessarily need to use one name todescribe the profession? Discussants on theHERDSA ADSIG discussion group3 generallyagreed that the way in which our profession isnamed is important.

Actually I think names are important insofar as theysignal to others an identity (as Bob said) but furtherand maybe more pertinently for us thinking aboutwho we are, in taking up that name/identity, we aremore likely to act in certain ways and not in others.(Grant, B.)

In that discussion Andresen suggested that becausethe range of things we do is so diverse ‘ . . . it ispointless to expect to ever achieve a title that at all

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Figure 1 The author’s conception of the relationship between staff development, academic development and educationdevelopment. The examples within the ovals are illustrative only

STAFF DEVELOPMENT

NON-ACADEMIC STAFFDEVELOPMENT

ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT

ITFinance

LeadershipManagement

ResearchGrant writing

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT – occurs atindividual, departmental, facultyand institutional levels.

Teaching practice (curriculumdesign, lecture delivery etc)

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captures that actuality. In terms of quali�ers, thebest we are going to � nd are broad terms that aresuf�ciently ambiguous to incorporate almosteveryone and everything – such as “academic” and“educational” and the like, and it is a matter ofmerely aesthetic preference as to which one is best’(Andresen, 1998).

In seven years working in this profession thework that I do continues to change. The reasons forthis are varied and many, however, as the highereducation sector changes, so does the nature of ourwork. It is imperative that we continue to operateproactively to anticipate and support pedagogicallysound changes in the higher education teachingenvironment. The continual nature of thesechanges may mitigate against a common name forand conception of our profession. What does notchange are the values that we bring to theprofession and the sense that we work withindividuals/groups/the institution to in� uence thedevelopment of others. Most importantly, we workto understand that development and the effect ourinterventions have upon it. This last aspect clearlydelineates the scholarship upon which our workrelies and scholarship is core business of anyuniversity.

So, perhaps we can use the quali� ers ‘academic’or ‘educational’ to describe ourselves and to avoidthe issues related to the term ‘developer’, we couldcall ourselves ‘provocateurs’.4 We could thenconceptualize our role as:

� working in part or in whole withindividuals/groups/the institution to assistacademics to re� ect upon their role in relationto teaching, research, scholarship, leadership,funding applications and the supervision ofstudents;

� engaging in research, scholarship, grant writingand the supervision of research students; and

� understanding the effect our interventions haveupon the development of academics,departments, faculties and institutions.

In so doing, we would have the scope to do a widerange of work at all levels within the institution,while clearly showing that scholarship is an essentialunderpinning of our work.

Notes1 ‘Australasia . . . Australia, New Zealand and

neighbouring islands of the South Paci� c Ocean’.

P. 109 The MacQuarie Dictionary, 2nd edn, 1991. EdsA Delbridge, J Bernard, D Blair, P Peters and SButler.

2 Between 1991 and 1995, Andresen changed thename he used to describe the profession fromeducational to academic development. In apersonal communication (August, 1998) heexplained that at the time he had two reasons forhis shift. First, ‘I think it politically wise (unlessthere are strong institutional reasons otherwise) tonon-align oneself with traditional schools ofeducation’. Second, ‘ . . . that using ‘academic’would actually be a way of (subliminally?) staking aclaim that if our work is FOR academics and theacademic enterprise, then we must be appointedAT academic level’.

3 The Higher Education Research and DevelopmentSociety of Australasia (HERDSA) has an AcademicDevelopers Special Interest Group which engagesin online discussion of topics of interest tomembers. Approximately 140 members belong tothe group. In 1998 I seeded a discussion askingmembers of their conception of their work and thename they use to describe it. (The two individualsquoted gave me permission to quote theircomments from this discussion list.)

4 ‘academic provocateur’ – someone who makes aconstructive kind of trouble, disturbs the surface ofthings, and then works with those who pop upthrough the disturbance with a vision of how thingsmight be different’. (Grant, B. – 1998 HERDSAADSIG listserve.)

ReferencesAndresen, L. (1991). Educational developers – what

do they know? HERDSA News. The Higher EducationResearch and Development Society of Australasia, 13,5–7.

Andresen, L. (1995). Re� ections on academicdevelopment as a scholarly profession. Research and Development in Higher Education, 18, 77–82.

Collett, P., & Davidson, M. (1997). Re-negotiatingautonomy and accountability: the professionalgrowth of developers in a South African institution.International Journal for Academic Development, 2,28–34.

Fraser, K. (1999). Australasian academic developers:entry into the profession and our own professionaldevelopment. International Journal for AcademicDevelopment, 4, 89–101.

Johnson, R. (1982). Academic development units inAustralian universities and colleges of advancededucation. Canberra: Commonwealth TertiaryEducation Commission.

Murphy, J. (1994). Improving the effectiveness ofeducational development: Concerns, constraints

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and recommendations. Higher Education Researchand Development, 13, 213–230.

O’Leary, J. (1997). Staff development in a climate ofeconomic rationalism: A pro� le of the academicstaff developer. International Journal for AcademicDevelopment, 2, 72–82.

Piper, D. (1993). Quality management in universities(vol. 1). Canberra: Australian GovernmentPublishing Service.

Roe, E. (1985). Practical reform and utopian vision –the dialectic of development? Research andDevelopment in Higher Education, 8, 18–28.

The authorDr Kym Fraser is a senior lecturer at the HigherEducation Development Unit in the Centre forLearning and Teaching Support, MonashUniversity. She is the immediate past editor of theHERDSA Green and Gold Guide Series. Herresearch interests include the design andevaluation of � exible learning environments, waysof supporting teaching development fundingschemes and applicants and the profession ofacademic development.

Address: HEDU, Box 91, Monash University,Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.Tel: 61 3 99056810; Fax: 61 3 99056828 E-mail: kym.fraser@adm.monash.edu.au

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