Tracking the integration of research into teaching

Numerous authors have highlighted the importance of involving undergraduates in research. To understand the extent to which this was being achieved at the University of Alberta, the Vice-President (Research) surveyed the institutions 17 Faculties for examples of such integration. Documents were compiled in a report with appendices. All Faculties were actively encouraging integration but each highlighted different strengths and practices. There was no shared language in their reporting. After examining other institution's benchmarks, the University of Sydney Graduate Attributes Project was selected as offering a suitable language to evaluate our Faculty submissions. The Sydney model identifies five suites of attributes: research and inquiry; information literacy; personal and intellectual autonomy; ethical, social and professional understanding; and communication. All relate to aspects of research and teaching integration. A general conclusion was that Alberta's Faculties were seriously under-reporting the extent to which they were developing graduate attributes. Many Alberta programs would recognize the skill sets identified in Sydney as being important aspects of their own efforts in research-teaching integration but were not explicit about that. This session will compare the Alberta data on integration with Sydney's graduate attributes to demonstrate the barrier that language, and the definition of undergraduate research, can play in institutional attempts to examine the integration of teaching and research. Participants will be asked to explore the definition of undergraduate research and the articulation of graduate attributes around research within the context of their own institutions, using Alberta and Sydney as a basis for comparison.