Dear @Dijana

Your feedback is valuable. I believe it has a sense what you are saying. However, in higher educational insitutions, teacher should have any instruments for their advancment for their title.

What is the case in Montenegro?

I guess your question has summed up the case.

In Greece, academic requirements are more or less, as in most countries.

It gets even more complicated when you have to include managerial duties along with teaching and research.

I think yes. Both activities are more and more complicated and they are different enough that we may divide roles. Today, the same people are scientist (researchers) and teachers. Each of us is much better in one of the two.

One more thing - if someone is good research, we assume that he/she could be very good teacher also. That's wrong idea, in my opinion.

Dear Konstantinos,

Thank you for sharing the Greek model.

I have acknowledged in EU countries there are seperate departments for researching, usually including post-docs. Sometimes they have few percentages of their work to dedicate in teaching.

Dear @Dijana

Your feedback is valuable. I believe it has a sense what you are saying. However, in higher educational insitutions, teacher should have any instruments for their advancment for their title.

What is the case in Montenegro?

Dear Festim, the case in Montenegro is the same in many other countries. We are both - teachers and researchers in one person, but many of us do not ''fit well'' with both of the two. That makes us, sometimes, unsatisfied and that feeling isn't good. I agree with you that our teachers should have some instruments for advancement, but - in most of the cases - their research work isn't something that makes better their teaching competences (e.g. pedagogy, psychology, teaching methodology). That's why I think that it could be much better to develop another matrix for valuing teaching competences.

I don't think so. they should be integrated into each other.

I believe that this is a complex issue. Of course a strong researcher may not be a teacher who can deliver instruction in an interesting and effective way, but at the same time, I believe that researchers must be able to show the practical application of their work. In their controlled studies lies the first part of the application to subjects, but that can be a very 'limited' application. The second part of application of their work can be the teaching of that work to others who may need or want to make daily use of research based practices in their own work or studies. A common complaint in education, for example, is that there are many studies of research based educational materials that 'sit on the shelves' without being effectively utilized. On the other side of the coin, there are many teachers, at the ground floor of education who are using methods of instruction that are NOT evidence based because the research was published at a level that other researchers may understand best. Then who is at fault if revolutionary work goes unnoticed or unused? Even the mythological Gods came down to Earth once in a while to visit with the commoners. If researchers want their work to be utilized and recognized as extremely helpful and effective, a good first step it to teach others how to use it. We also know that the best way to be sure of one's work is to explain it to others; and not just in a peer reviewed paper.

In the UK traditionally there were only academics who were expected to do research, teaching and administration. (The joke was that each took 50% of the time). Increasingly universities have "teaching only" academic posts, which of course means teaching plus the major administrative tasks such as Exams Officer. This has a benefit in that we do not lose talented teachers just because they fail to get major research grants, and that those with the magic touch with grant committees can have more time to increase the department's esteem. It also means that we do not have to inflict some of our worst teachers onto the student so much as we did when teaching was supposed to be shared equally.

The downside of this is that although the "teaching only" posts have theoretically the same esteem and opportunities for advancement, this is not currently true in practice. In addition, some universities have them on insecure temporary contracts and in some cases "term time only".

Dear Rachel, thank you for your opinion. It would be good if your conclusion is backed up by arguments and facts, or share the experience from your university or country how this issue is regulated.

Dear Les and Martin,

Thank your a very valuable feedback and sharing the regulations in your country about this issue.

Thank you🙏

Dear Festim

As universities move to a neoliberal governance ideology what constitutes academics work is increasingly being interrogated. So your question goes to the heart of what it is to be an academic.

In 1990 Ernst L. Boyer Head the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching provided a discussion about the work that academics do. Within his treatise he argues that the teaching versus research debate was old and tired even then. Rather Boyer argued that academics were engaged in a scholarship of engagement that consisted of 4 integrated parts – discovery, integration, application and teaching. His logic is that academics discover knowledge, they then share and debate with others. From this academics are able to understand their work as both practice and theory and finally have something to share with their peers, their students and the wider community. Further he argued that the work of academics is only possible because it is created with community, and thus that there is a necessity to communicate with public because the work meets a public good (Barker 2004; Boyer 1996; Starr-Glass 2011). From this he proposed a 40:40:20 model, that is research (40%), teaching (40%) and service (20%).

So to respond to your question if the roles are to be divided can we still, in all conscious call ourselves academics engaged in scholarship or should we re-imagine ourselves as process workers in a university context?

Barker, D. (2004). The scholarship of engagement: A taxonomy of five emerging practices. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 9(2), 123-137

Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton University Press, 3175 Princeton Pike, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648.

Boyer, E. L. (1996). From scholarship reconsidered to scholarship assessed. Quest, 48(2), 129-139.

Starr-Glass, D. (2011). Reconsidering Boyer's reconsideration: Paradigms, sharing, and engagement. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 5(2), 21 - 9.

Dear Kerry,

You have provided a very interesting overview regarding this question and mostly I agree to the previous resrarch of Barker, Boyer and Starr-Glass.

40-40-20 model loons interesting. However, what do you mean by service? Maybe the administrative work that the academics are used to do?

Thank you for a very valuable feedback to the rised question!

Hi Festim

Service includes what is done in/for the university such as working on committees, selection panels, etc. as well as externally through contributions to professional associations, reviewing journals and conference submissions, etc.

Does this help to clarify?

Kerry

Hi Festim...

Sometimes a research could be implemented while teaching like usually I did in my university.

In the UK we used to have a system where degrees could be obtained at universities or institutions called polytechnics. The polytechnics were essentially teaching institutions where students could do a one-year certificate, a two year diploma or a three/four year degree. It allowed a few late developers to actually proceed to the degree which they could not have done at a university. They also did day release ( people taking one day a week from a job). Thus in general they had good teachers, often including practitioners (i.e. people who had actually worked in the profession) whereas most academics at universities had experienced nothing else but university. A minority of the polytechnic staff did research (I have a couple of friends like this) and were given terrific support by their heads of department (far more than I ever got in a university.

By contrast it was clear that many university academics tended to regard themselves as researchers, unfortunately forced to waste time on students. Colleagues have freely admitted that they spent as little time and effort on teaching as they could get away with, in order to concentrate on their career.

Then the government announced that the polytechnics could call themselves universities (but did not provide funding for them to actually develop), so this they have done. A regrettable consequence is the substantial loss of shorter professional courses, and the expectation that everyone has to do a degree. Staff are generally expected to have a PhD rather than professional practice experience. There is less research than at traditional universities, but more pressure to do it. Thus the number of students at universities was substantially increased, and we have more graduates, but not necessarily for the benefit of the students or society.

Good question! Our teaching is informed by our research and vice-versa. What I have experienced in developing countries, where higher education is free, is that there is a high demand for admission. There is the need for faculty to concentrate on teaching so the teaching load is 4-4 or 5-5. Faculty are encouraged to conduct research but there is no much time for that. Those institutions have research departments or units, where the main work focuses on conducting research. They hire faculty just to conduct research and invite some teaching faculty to join them; however, teaching faculty almost always declines for lack of time. Here in the U.S., most clinical or instructional faculty (teaching faculty) are not required to conduct research as opposed to tenure faculty whose main job is as a researcher. However, clinical/instructional faculty are encouraged to conduct research. My two cents!

My institution is a 60% teaching, 30% research and 10% service. Some people thrive in one area and struggle in others but the generally idea is that we are a teaching institution first, our scholarship keeps us current in the field and enhances our instruction, and through service we give back to the institution and the profession.

Consideramos que es una pregunta oportuna porque muchos docentes piensa que solo con hacer docencia cumplen su misión de la universidad deformar profesionales pero nosotros somos partidarios del paradigma de que la investigacion debe ser una competencia de todo el que aspira a ser docente debido a que no se puede hacer una enseñanza innovaciones desde las aulas de clases eficiente si no realizamos investigacion ya que el único camino par hacer innovaciones es la investigacion

Dear Arturo, thank you for your feedback. Google translate informed me that you are for appointing both roles to teachers. However, there should be a budget for the research work and publishing costs. At our country we need to perform research and cover the expenses of publishing fees, conference participation, flights etc.

Although teaching and research are to different activities requiring different skills, good researchers are keen to share their research outcomes and good teachers based their lectures on research findings. The two may be treated separately but a judicial combination is more beneficial for both the lecturers and the students. I analyzed university rankings and the two are moderately correlated.

Dear Kay,

So, you support the paradigm of applying both roles to professors or teachers in Higher Educational Institutions.

However, talking for bachelor level, lectures are usually based on books, not on research findings. Forcing these teachers to perform researc, may not have enough time to concentrate in compiling qualitative lectures, controlling exams, homeworks and projects.

In another hamd, there are very good researchers who lack the public speaking and transmitting of the knowledge. Someyimes science differs from traditional educational lectures.

Festim Halili makes a good point about the syllabus.

In the UK we have a standard myth called "research-led teaching" suggesting that it is necessary to be at the forefront of the subject to teach. However in most subjects a lot of the first year material would be familiar to an academic of 100 years ago. The task is to communicate basic understanding of topics that are now considered to be firmly established and understood. Someone who can be a good guide through a standard textbook is what is needed, not to be told about current uncertainties and academic debate in an abstruse area.

I applaud academics who can bring recent discoveries as examples into their teaching, and I think it is worthwhile final years having some exposure to the research in their department, but this is not the main burden of the teaching.

I believe there can be two models depending one individual professor's capability and preferences -- two judicial combinations of research and teachers. Perhaps, "research-led teaching" for those who are more teaching-inclined and "teaching-led research" for those who are more research-inclined. Separating the professors into two tracks create a caste system in HE and this may not be healthy for the institutions and, more important, the students. The system should allow moving between inclinations as people, including professors, change over time, for personal and academic reasons.

The paradigm of research-led teaching is better to apply in a university, especially for professors and professor associates, however, in some universities get difficulties to conducting research effectively due to overload teaching activities. The limited lecturer staff and additional assignments among the staff, including professors, were the main caused of teaching overload. So, professors should adjust well their time to conducting research and teaching.