Report 99/70

December 1999

Changing times

The extended academic year experiment

Report to the HEFCE by Segal Quince Wicksteed Ltd

Please note that Segal Quince Wicksteed Limited is now known as SQW Ltd, Economic Development Consultants, www.sqw.co.uk.

Contents

Introduction

Part one: Experimenting with change

Part two: The institutional accounts

Annex A: Steering Committee members

Introduction

1. The academic year 1995-96 saw the start of an HEFCE-funded experiment which was viewed as offering the potential to use the assets of higher education in innovative, powerful and distinctive ways. This is a report of the outcomes of that experiment – to extend the academic year to the summer period. Successful experiments are arguably ones which advance our understanding. This has certainly done that for the higher education sector, and in ways which may be particularly relevant, as social inclusion, institutional distinctiveness and a new regional role for higher education all move up the policy agenda.
2. The report is in two parts: Part One looks overall at the experiment with change in higher education (HE). It considers the background and context, and the particular nature of the experiment. The central sections provide an overview of the issues and key findings. The final section discusses future relevance.
3. Part Two sets out the individual accounts of the two higher education institutions involved in the experiment: the University of Luton and the University of Southampton New College.

Part One: Experimenting with change

Background and context

1. The Flowers Report of 1993, The Review of the Academic Year, was the outcome of a committee of inquiry into the organisation of the academic year. In the context of rapid change within the HE sector the committee considered in particular two main issues:
   • the temporal pattern of the undergraduate year and its implications for academic organisation and structure
   • the use of the summer period for undergraduate teaching; there being a recognition that postgraduate teaching already occurred during the summer.
2. It is with the second of these issues in particular that the experiment has been concerned, although the two are clearly not unrelated.
3. The Flowers Report was presented to a sector which seemed to be seeing the unit of resource for higher education decrease in real terms year on year indefinitely. It was a sector where the term ‘efficiency gains’, at first regarded by many academics as at best a contradiction, was acquiring a currency of its own. In this context Flowers offered the prospect, to a sector long familiar with economies of scale, that it might now achieve economies of time.
4. Specifically the Flowers Report allowed for the possibility that scarce resources of high value (and high cost) might be utilised more efficiently by having a three semester year and making use of the summer period.
5. Proponents of the idea pointed out that what was being proposed was something that most businesses would regard as basic common sense. Detractors – and they were many – insisted that it was wrong simply to see higher education institutions as businesses.
6. There were certainly concerns too as to whether students would buy into the new system, and as to the effect the proposals would have on the quality of the student experience.
7. It was against this background that the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) decided to fund an experiment to test out the idea of an extended academic year (EAY), although the Council envisaged from very early on that institutions taking part in the experiment might well find other benefits to using the summer semester.

   The experiment

8. The HEFCE invited bids from the sector for funding over a three-year period to establish an institutionally based extended academic year (EAY) programme on an experimental basis. Funds were made available to cover the cost of a dedicated EAY Project Team in successful institutions, to assist with extra demands on central support services and to roll out the programme at the operational level.
9. The HEFCE established a Steering Committee to oversee the experiment, with Professor David Johns, then Vice-Chancellor of Bradford University, as Chair. The list of Steering Committee members is given at Annex A. The Cambridge-based consultants Segal Quince Wicksteed (SQW) were retained to monitor the experiment and produce this report.
10. From a long list of bidding institutions two were selected to receive funding: the University of Luton, and University of Southampton New College (then known as La Sainte Union College Southampton).
11. The initial invitation to tender (ITT) invited institutions to propose creative, purposeful and potentially sustainable ways in which to make use of the summer period for teaching.
12. Whilst the Council wished to encourage creativity, it also set out a number of basic parameters within which institutions were required to cast their proposals. These included a temporal requirement designed to ensure that funding was not available for short summer courses of a kind already prevalent within the sector, but only for an EAY programme designed around a full summer semester. Although there was no implied restriction that only institutions operating a semester system were eligible, both participating institutions had moved over to a semester system, and made proposals for a full third semester.
13. The HEFCE also stipulated that EAY funded students were to be students new to the system.
14. Whilst the initial thinking as to the nature of the experiment came from the Flowers Report, the two participating institutions were encouraged from the outset to think of wider opportunities beyond resource optimisation which could be opened up through an effective use of the summer period.
15. It was envisaged, for example, that institutions might see the summer semester as offering a distinctive marketing advantage in attracting particular types of student, and that EAY might therefore have an important role to play in assisting wider access.

16. Issues

17. An experimental approach was thought necessary because of the potentially wide range of issues which needed to be explored and resolved before giving thought to funding across the sector.
18. These can be considered under the following broad headings:
19. • operations
    • resourcing
    • market questions
    • value-for-money issues.

20. Operations

21. An experiment was required in order to determine whether there were any significant practical and logistical problems with operating a summer semester. For example, the summer is traditionally a period during which building works, library stock-taking, laboratory refits, refurbishments, and a range of other practical activities take place. It is also a busy time of the year in terms of conference and short course activities, specialist offerings, and pre-entry courses.
22. There was a need to understand therefore whether there were significant operational barriers to EAY.

23. Resourcing

    
    
    
24. Potentially far more serious barriers could arise, it was thought, in terms of staffing any courses held as part of EAY. Would academics find/fear that teaching on the EAY programme would interfere with research, scholarship and professional development? Would it be possible for committed institutions to develop adequate workload management systems so that academic staff employed during the summer semester could have an appropriately lighter workload at other times? Would staff see this as an opportunity to spread their workload over a longer period, thereby balancing teaching and other professional activities more evenly across the year, or as a worrying intrusion into protected personal time for academic advancement?

25. Market questions

26. The experiment also provided the opportunity to raise a raft of questions about the market. Who would want to attend? Would the summer semester attract under-represented groups, thereby widening access? Would any clear profiles emerge for ‘summer students’? Would students start their studies in the summer and then continue towards a formal qualification? Would the summer appeal to both part-time and full-time students?
27. These and many other questions raised interesting issues which HEFCE hoped the experiment might be able to shed light on.

28. Value-for-money issues

29. Individual students could be attracted to the summer period for a variety of personal reasons. In considering how best to use public money, the Council wished to understand whether the existence of a summer semester would, for example, attract students into higher education who otherwise simply would not participate, or whether there might be a significant displacement effect. Clearly from a public accounting perspective the latter would not represent value-for-money.
30. Other issues here concern the question of the critical mass necessary for a summer semester to be economically viable.

31. Key findings

32. Experiments in a laboratory can, potentially, be very carefully controlled. EAY was a real-time experiment in a sector going through rapid change. Furthermore it involved one institution which went through a very important merger and culture change during the period of EAY.
33. Whilst it would be quite wrong therefore to see the EAY experiment as offering definitive and final answers to a set of complex and often interacting questions, some interesting conclusions emerge from the experiences of Luton and Southampton New College. We summarise these in this section before turning to consider their potential future relevance. For convenience we consider the findings under the same set of headings we used when considering the issues.

34. Operations

35. Both institutions encountered significant day-to-day operating and logistical difficulties. The University of Luton was particularly concerned to stress the non-trivial nature of these problems, which persisted over the three years.
36. It is clear that there were some real practical difficulties. However, it is almost certain that most if not all either arose because there were insufficient numbers to render necessary support activities financially viable, or could be handled if the other benefits of EAY were sufficiently clear.
37. There are important practical issues here, but the success or failure of EAY probably does not hang on operational matters. This said, there has been at least some evidence from the two institutions that the existence of such a programme will drive up overall unit costs.

38. Resourcing

39. Even in the two institutions, which might have been deemed to have bought into EAY through their participation in the programme, there was very significant opposition to summer semester teaching on the part of the majority of academic staff. Those who actually became involved in the programme were often very positive and enthusiastic, but it was not possible to ascertain whether this was cause or effect.
40. It is also unclear to what extent an effective cross-institutional programme of spreading good practice on EAY would have helped to convert others. By and large the impression created in both institutions was that often initial staff attitudes remained unchanged throughout the three years. The University of Luton did, however, experience a gradual increase over the life of the experiment in the number of departments offering EAY programmes.
41. The reasons expressed for staff opposition also remained the same throughout.

42. The market

43. Some very interesting findings emerged concerning the potential market for EAY. Here in particular the two individual institutional accounts can speak for themselves, but two features are worth highlighting:
44. 1. access - there is interesting if ultimately inconclusive evidence that access was significantly enhanced, with Luton for example reporting that 80% of their EAY students were 26 or older, and 70% were female
    2. the development of the ‘year-round’ part-time degree, at both Luton and Southampton New College, involving the creation of a number of degree programmes which are targeted at part-time students and are delivered in the evenings on a three semesters per year basis, often to meet continuing professional development (CPD) needs.
45. That said, it would be wrong to seek to generalise to any firm overall conclusions about the market for EAY, even for future years within the two institutions involved in the experiment. The evidence so far is indicative and interesting, but the jury must remain out for the sector as a whole.

46. Value-for-money

47. It is on the question of additionality and value-for-money that the evidence is weakest. Both institutions were (as we have indicated) successful in encouraging access. Yet the University of Luton, for example, states clearly: there is ‘no evidence that potential students are deterred by the absence of summer provision’.
48. It seems to be the case that when a summer semester is available, some students will make use of it – and some types of students more than others – because it is there, whether to accelerate their studies, to catch up, or because it happens to suit their particular personal circumstances. What the experiment does not show, however, is that a summer semester helps to reduce social exclusion from higher education.

49. Future relevance

50. The world of higher education has changed considerably during the course of the EAY experiment. This fact has contributed to our difficulties in interpreting the results of the experiment, but it also raises the question of whether some of the concepts underlying EAY may in various ways be more relevant in future.
51. Consider three current ‘big’ themes: social inclusion, institutional distinctiveness and a new regional role for HE. An EAY type approach might have the potential to help with all of these.
52. The hard evidence is not yet there to show that EAY attracts students who otherwise would not take up higher education, but there is an intuitive appeal to the idea that there is, or could be, such a link. As social inclusion moves further up the policy agenda, one or more institutions may well decide to seek out firmer evidence by undertaking their own version of a revised experiment.
53. The possibility might also exist to use the mechanism of student fees in conjunction with a three semester year to encourage accelerated student throughput. This would require a dispensation that students who complete in under three years pay fees only for the actual elapsed time for which they have studied.
54. The current evidence is, however, clearer on the marketing advantage potentially afforded by a summer semester. In an increasingly competitive market place, institutions offering well thought through programmes which make an intelligent use of the summer – as both institutions were able to do with CPD, for example – will have a potential advantage over competitors providing less flexible offerings.
55. It is important to understand that this last point is not at odds with the additionality argument. Consider a comparison with domestic car sales in the UK. There may be clear evidence that overall demand is flat: this provides if anything an even more powerful argument for individual companies to seek to differentiate themselves in the market place.
56. Finally the UK’s new regionalism, with its renewed emphasis on the key economic role of higher education institutions in their hinterland, both within and outside each region, will inevitably place a heightened emphasis on flexible, stakeholder friendly provision which can be combined where necessary and appropriate with employment. For some institutions an extended academic year may well form part of their new strategic intent with respect to their immediate region, and to neighbouring regions within the travel-to-study area.

Part Two: The institutional accounts

University of Luton

1. Introduction

2. In 1991 the University of Luton began a period of significant and rapid change. From a tertiary level college of higher education, serving a predominantly local and to some extent regional need for teaching and training, it moved to become in 1992 the new University of Luton. Its mission was to provide ‘innovative opportunities to participate in higher education for all those who are able to benefit’, with a commitment to ‘high quality and vocational distinctiveness’ which is ‘consistent with the lifelong learning needs of individuals, groups and employers within a socially diverse community’.
3. The university expanded quickly over a short space of time, widened the range and location of its student intake, and began a focused programme to establish targeted research strengths.
4. The scale and the pace of change at the university have provided an environment potentially well-suited to experimentation - and Luton is certainly not an institution averse to change. At the same time the wider changes taking place within the university have meant that it is far more difficult to trace through the impacts of the EAY experiment as such. This means that caution needs to be exercised in drawing firm conclusions as to generic lessons to be learnt from Luton’s experience.
5. Luton draws a significant percentage of its students from an extensive travel-to-study area, and it targeted these in particular in conducting the experiment.
6. The university operates a Modular Credit Scheme, which has provided an appropriately flexible framework within which the Luton EAY programme has sat quite straightforwardly.

7. Institutional aims

8. Luton sought to implement a third semester particularly in order to increase the flexibility and choice of the offer for part-time students. It focused on:
   • developing a wide range of delivery approaches
   • providing greater variety in entry points.
9. The university had set itself the ambitious target of expanding numbers on part-time programmes by an additional 10% per annum over three years. As part of this drive it sought to increase the numbers participating in the third semester to 2,500 by the academic year 1997-98. During 1997, however, the university scaled back its projections for the third semester considerably as a result of sector-wide funding changes made by the HEFCE.

10. Initial planning

11. The university established an EAY Steering Group, drawing on senior academics from all four faculties as well as academic support areas and senior management. This group oversaw the work of the two-person EAY Project Team, and was responsible for all aspects of forward planning.
12. In the first year of EAY, the university employed a centralised decision-making process whereby faculties and departments made bids for support to enable them to deliver modules during the third semester. In the second and final years of the programme, the decision-making process was devolved to faculties against targets. In this way it was intended to encourage embedding and mainstreaming of EAY across the university.

13. Market research and marketing

14. The lead time for setting up the experiment at the University of Luton was six months. In practice this did not allow in Year One for any significant and systematic market research at a central support level, and from Year Two onwards responsibility was devolved to unit level.
15. The EAY Team did, however, subsequently undertake a small scale market research survey of the general public in the Luton area. Of the 400 respondents who returned a brief questionnaire, over 80% indicated that they would consider part-time courses offered during the summer semester. The EAY Team nevertheless concluded from the survey that: ‘there is no evidence that potential students are deterred by the absence of summer provision’.
16. Marketing efforts have been largely concentrated on encouraging new part-time students, recruited onto a mix of modules ranging from tasters to newly validated degree programmes which allow for a fast-track by using the summer semester. There has been a focus on the Luton-Dunstable-Chiltern conurbation, which has the largest manufacturing concentration in southern England outside London.
17. The principal techniques employed have been built around the university’s mainstream marketing and publicity activities. Less successful has been the use of non-targeted distribution approaches. For example, a leaflet distributed to many thousands of households as an insert in the free local newspapers had a minimal impact.

18. HR management

19. The university took the view at the outset that for the period of the experiment participation in the programme would be on a non-compulsory basis. Staff were recompensed through the award of a second contract or through a reduction in their workload at other times of the academic year.
20. Regular staff surveys have indicated a significant level of continuing concern related to the possible future imposition of third semester work across the university. There are two aspects: fear of an additional workload on top of an already heavy teaching commitment, and concerns about potential conflict with time needed for research, scholarship and professional development.

21. Other resourcing issues

22. The university has made a study of the extent to which it is possible - as the Flowers Report envisaged - to maximise the efficient use of fixed assets by utilising the summer semester. It argues that, in so far as the objective is based on the premise that idle or under-utilised resources can be brought into use with minimal cost or disruption, then it is ill-founded. The university found that the cost of extending the services of the Learning Resources Centre and catering in order to cover the summer semester was far from marginal.
23. Clearly there is an issue here, as Flowers acknowledged, about economies of scale. Arguably it was inevitable that the EAY experiment, which involved comparatively low numbers, did not provide the right conditions to test out the Flowers premise properly.

24. Focus of activity

25. There has been a set of student profiles for participants in the summer semester which are especially interesting from an access point of view. In particular:
    • 70% of the students were female (compared with an overall university norm for Luton of 57%)
    • a strikingly high percentage (80%) of EAY students were aged 26 or over, with 30% aged over 40
    • the ethnic mix was broadly in line with that for the university as a whole
    • the majority of EAY students live within easy reach of central Luton
    • the majority are in paid employment, with two-thirds of those in full-time employment
    • students entering EAY predominantly had no previous formal qualifications.
26. The EAY has been operated as a small scale pilot at Luton: the number of students participating in EAY funded activity was 303 in Year One, 294 in Year Two, and 364 in the final year of the programme.
27. Students on EAY at Luton have fallen into a number of groups which, interestingly, are often different to the norm at the university. The following indicate the breadth and range:
    • those studying a single module on a topic of personal interest with perhaps no intention of progressing towards a formal qualification
    • students normally studying at another HEI who undertake one or two modules at Luton during their summer vacation period
    • those who utilise EAY for continuous professional development (CPD) on an on/off basis to suit personal needs
    • existing Luton students using the summer to catch up or work ahead.
28. Interestingly it is the university’s view that none of the above categories is likely to provide long-term stability for a summer semester programme. The university is therefore now in the process of introducing a number of programmes of part-time study which integrate summer study as the norm in a cycle of year-round learning.
29. Achievement levels for students on the EAY programme at Luton are comparable to or higher than those studying similar/equivalent modules within the mainstream academic year.

30. Stakeholder satisfaction

31. Within the university there are two principal relevant stakeholder groups: students and staff..
32. Students participating in the third semester were generally very positive about their experience. One of the university’s standard quality assurance tools is a short questionnaire completed by all students at the end of every module, which addresses student views on eleven factors. Comparison from across the EAY modules with the university annual average reveals that for each factor the EAY provision scored better than average. It should, however, be borne in mind that EAY groups were smaller than the university norm, and there is a considerable body of evidence that small group teaching achieves, on average, a greater level of student satisfaction.
33. Most of the negative comments from students (about limitations on access to libraries, catering, and central support services) were – in the university’s view – of a kind that would probably no longer obtain if there were a critical mass of students, rather than an experimental cohort.
34. Staff of the university were divided with respect to their views on EAY, broadly in line with their level of involvement with the experiment: those who took part were positive, whereas the many who did not become involved were not. The university has, however, not been able to determine whether this is a cause or an effect.
35. As in the case of students it should, however, be borne in mind that EAY groups were smaller than the university norm and that this was also attractive to staff.

36. Culture change

37. Many staff remain sceptical about the concept of EAY, and in particular are wary of the perceived likelihood that their workloads will increase significantly.
38. Now that HEFCE funding has come to an end, three types of EAY continuation activities are currently likely:
    • CPD-related EAY will continue, particularly in areas such as Nursing Studies where there was a pre-existing practice of using the summer period
    • the use of the summer period for independent study activities
    • the further development of the ‘year-round’ part-time degree.
39. The last is seen by the university as one of the success stories of the EAY experiment. It has involved the creation of a number of degree programmes which are targeted at part-time students and are delivered in the evenings on a three semesters per year basis.

University of Southampton New College

1. Introduction

2. This institution went through a series of significant changes during the period of the experiment. It started EAY as La Sainte Union (LSU) Southampton, an independent tertiary institution with a strong focus on teacher training. By the beginning of the third and final year of the programme it had merged with the University of Southampton and become ‘University of Southampton New College’. For the purposes of this report, and for convenience, we refer to the institution from here on as ‘New College’ or ‘the college’ except where it is important to distinguish the old and the new.
3. New College offers part-time and full-time undergraduate courses, professional courses at undergraduate level, postgraduate professional courses, and provision for adult continuing education (ACE) students.
4. The University of Southampton has indicated support for the experiment, and there is potentially a good fit with wider strategic developments within the university. The period of uncertainty leading up to the changeover, however, and the demands of the reorganisation itself, have inevitably affected any reasonably objective scientific control conditions for this experiment. It is not possible therefore to draw overly fine-grained conclusions as to the separable impacts of EAY in this case, and this has to be borne in mind in what follows. That said, at New College as at Luton, there has been an interesting use of the experiment.
5. Like Luton, New College draws a significant percentage of its students from an extensive travel-to-study area, and it targeted these in particular in conducting the experiment.

6. Institutional aims

7. New College (then LSU) sought, not in every case from the outset, to implement a third semester which would:
   • significantly enhance part-time provision (as did Luton), including the development of accelerated routes
   • widen access and participation
   • create new starting and finishing points for students
   • provide recovery points
   • provide further opportunities for collaboration and the sharing of good practice.

8. Initial planning

9. Initial planning was on a broad cross-institutional basis. Curriculum content and modes of delivery were therefore carefully re-examined in terms of part-time (PT) students, and a lot of thought was given to how best to target this segment.

10. Market research and marketing

11. The lead time for setting up the experiment at New College was six months. The college found that in practice this did not allow in Year One for any significant and systematic market research. As the college was already intending to try to stimulate demand for PT places within its travel-to-study area, it therefore focused primarily in Year One on attracting new applicants from this segment, but also sought to market to existing full-time and PT students.
12. As the programme developed, the college employed three principal market research instruments:
    • general awareness surveys
    • satisfaction surveys amongst those students who actually enrolled in the third semester
    • rejector surveys of those who initially expressed an interest in the programme but subsequently failed to apply or to take up a place.
13. Principal marketing/promotion techniques employed included:
    • newspaper advertising
    • local commercial radio
    • a promotional video allied to live promotions in shopping centres
    • bus advertisements
    • posters
    • house drop leaflets
    • direct and repeat mailings to previous enquirers
    • dedicated prospectuses and booklets.
14. Newspaper advertising was found, particularly in Year One, to be by far the most effective medium. Direct and repeat mailings to previous enquirers (‘warm leads’) were also used increasingly in Years Two and Three as the programme became more established.

15. Key survey findings

16. Across the surveys conducted, some interesting summing results emerge. By far the most striking – and one which may hold more widely for the sector – is that the month of August is for many an extension too far to the academic year. Personal or family commitments take precedence here, and New College found that it had to construct modules which either spanned across the month or were taught more intensively in July or September. With this limitation accepted, all groups, even rejectors, responded positively to the overall idea of a third semester. Other findings were that:
17. • almost all those who enrolled on the third semester took three semester working as a given; once the decision was taken, there was a broad acceptance of the new way of working
    • almost all full-time (FT) students surveyed thought a third semester offered additional opportunities for students such as retake and transfer facilities
    • 60% of FT students expressed a positive interest in studying in the third semester. The most common reason given was in order to spread their workload; second most common was to accelerate their course of study; and third to avoid a long summer break in continuity of study
    • 40% of all FT students, whilst supporting the idea of the third semester in principle, personally preferred to take a break or take up vacation employment.

18. HR management

19. The question of how staff have regarded both the concept and operation of EAY is clearly critical, and there have been some important human resource (HR) issues at the college. The majority of FT teaching staff at LSU were resistant at the start of the project, and EAY Project Team members had to work hard to find a way forward.
20. Faced with this general response, EAY team members resorted to working on a subject by subject basis with colleagues to secure their interest and participation in the experiment, negotiating with each area separately. This was a very time-consuming process. It also meant that, particularly in the first year of the programme, there was often significantly greater ownership of the experiment by the Project Team than by other academic colleagues. This was certainly not an experiment which was able to obtain a head-start through the efforts of grass-roots enthusiasts in individual subject areas.
21. Reasons given for this resistance on the part of staff were various, including a perception that this was yet another imposition on annual teaching timetables which were already onerous. Some also reported fears that EAY would conflict with time for research and scholarship, or with vacation leave.
22. In the end many teaching staff refused on principle to be involved in any third semester activity. A second, smaller, group of teaching staff were willing to undertake administration and moderation, and to assist in the recruitment of appropriately qualified PT teaching staff. However, EAY Project Team themselves ended up spending significant amounts of time recruiting PT staff, particularly in order to get the experiment off the ground in Year One. A third group, including those teaching postgraduate and professional courses, were willing to teach in the third semester, and saw nothing exceptional in this. Non-teaching staff were on the whole co-operative.
23. In order to allay fears, and as an inducement, the EAY project was ring-fenced in its first two years. No member of staff was obliged to teach in this semester, and those who voluntarily participated were paid additionally on a separate contract.
24. After the first year of the project, staff attitudes softened considerably. In Year Three, after the merger with the University of Southampton, incentives were switched from individual to school. Schools were given an enhanced distribution of funds which encouraged them to participate as fully as possible in third semester programming, and also to use FT staff, without additional payment, to teach the courses.
25. There remains at the end of the project a lack of agreement on an adequate workload management model which spans all three semesters in a way which is entirely satisfactory.

26. Other resourcing issues

27. In addition to requirements on academic staff, the introduction of the EAY programme has clearly made additional demands on central support staff. These have been disproportionate to the additional numbers involved, and therefore expensive. In particular, there has been a need for additional administration, catering, library openings, and (for some subjects) technicians. The additional costs have arisen in two ways: through needing to provide services at a time when they would not otherwise have been necessary, but also through having to make special provision for services such as administration which would have been provided anyway - in order to allow for staff leave on annual vacation.
28. Extra resources have been required for marketing, and there has been an additional cost in terms of general wear and tear.

29. Focus of activity

30. There has been involvement in the EAY programme right across the student population of the college: PT undergraduate, FT undergraduate, professional courses at undergraduate level, postgraduate professional courses, and (in the third year of the experiment) adult continuing education students. The majority of PT students who applied through EAY are recorded as intending to complete a degree level award.
31. Interestingly, postgraduate and professional courses recruited similarly in the summer to other periods of the year.
32. A notable development at New College has been a four semester top-up degree in Podiatric Research for Diplomates, which starts and finishes in the summer semester. The first successful cohort has already graduated.
33. Access has been enhanced, with a greater proportion of students with non-standard qualifications attracted into the summer semester compared with the other two semesters. Associate Student (AS) status and AS transfer procedures have also been established to support this development.
34. In terms of subject areas there has been more demand for subjects such as art, English literature, sociology, psychology, and theology, and correspondingly less for science-based courses. It is, however, difficult to determine to what extent this finding is significant, and why. In particular it is unclear how far the outturn has been affected by the supply-side, including resourcing issues over access to laboratories, technicians and equipment, and also by differences in approaches to marketing.

35. Stakeholder satisfaction

36. Overall satisfaction levels at the end of the three-year experiment were high for students, rising for academic staff, and positive for support staff.
37. Students surveyed at the end of the third semester expressed a considerable degree of satisfaction with the innovation. Significantly, the majority of continuing part-time students chose to study in all three semesters. Dissatisfaction tended to be related to issues about course content or delivery, rather than the EAY programme itself.
38. For FT students the summer semester tended to involve more intensive delivery patterns, partly in order to avoid August. Some students reported finding these more difficult to cope with; others, equally, found the change of pace stimulating. More able students about to move into their final year used the summer as an opportunity to complete taught final year modules in advance, leaving more time to devote to their final year dissertation.
39. All staff of the college, whether or not they had themselves taken part in EAY, were formally surveyed at the end of the experiment. The majority expressed the view that the project was beneficial to the college, and most admitted to a change in attitude and perception over the three years of the programme.
40. The majority of staff responded positively to the question of whether they would like to see a third semester included in the next academic year. They also indicated that they would be prepared to be involved in some way, either in teaching, course design, or as a course leader. In a ‘free comments’ section of the survey, however, rather more mixed feelings emerged, with particular concerns (as at the outset) about workloads. The overall message from the survey was that the battle of principle was now won, but good practice had yet to be hammered out.
41. Support staff, also surveyed, were in general positive about EAY, and had fewer reservations.

42. Culture change

43. A major cultural shift occurred during the period of EAY. Key changes, which have introduced more flexibility and responsiveness into the college, include:
    • the emergence of a more balanced attitude to students with non-standard entry qualifications
    • a greater willingness to recognise, and address, the different attendance and assessment needs of PT students
    • an increasing readiness to accept PT routes as a natural part of curriculum development
    • a greater awareness of the Credit Accumulation & Transfer Scheme (CATS) and Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) procedures
    • overall, a greater acceptance of flexible modes of delivery.
44. Underpinning these changes have been a move to establish a more customer focused approach to development, and a far greater recognition of the key role of marketing and PR.
45. These changes are real, and significant. It is probably fair to say that the EAY experiment provided an important vehicle which was in the right place at the right time. Equally, the wider and significant organisational changes which took place during the period of the experiment ensured that this vehicle was driven (to sustain the metaphor) further and faster than might otherwise have been the case.
46. That said, the rate of change has so far been quite gradual. Extensive discussions have been taking place right across the University of Southampton, more widely than New College, to establish a new corporate policy and practice with regard to the structure of the academic year.

Annex A

Members of the Steering Committee for the EAY experiment

Observers

Secretariat