Application deadline and awards process

You may apply for status as an Excellent Teaching Practitioner (ETP) once a year. The deadline for applications is 15 February.
The schedule below sets out the activities that constitute the ETP awards process.

Criteria

In order to be granted status as an ETP at USN, teachers must meet the following criteria:

1. An ETP has, by displaying a focus on student learning, exhibited a measurable development in his/her teaching competence over time 

This means that the applicant 

1.1. has accumulated diverse experience in teaching practices with student learning in focus. 

1.2. has worked systematically over time to develop his/her teaching practices and engages in active reflection over this development.

1.3. has worked together on the development of his/her teaching development with students, colleagues or management.

1.4. has a plan in place for the continuous development of his/her teaching skills.

2. An ETP displays an exploratory and scientific approach to teaching and learning.

This means that the applicant 

2.1. has systematically tested or developed a variety of teaching aids, or styles of teaching and assessment, that support his/her students’ learning processes.

2.2. engages actively in defending and reflecting on his/her approach to resolving teaching tasks by means of the application of relevant theory and research results both within higher education and his/her own subject field.

2.3. addresses systematically the feedback that he/she receives from students and colleagues and uses such feedback to advance the development of his/her teaching practices.

2.4. has applied the skills from his/her teaching activities in a number of different ways, such as at conference presentations, internal fora or in reports or articles published in periodicals.

3. An ETP is an active contributor on pedagogical issues both within his/her teaching collegiate and towards his/her department’s work to promote quality in education.

This means that the applicant 

3.1. has initiated, coordinated, or played a leading role in curriculum planning, pedagogical or subject-related didactic development, study programme quality development, or investigative work of relevance to educational issues.

3.2. shares experiences with colleagues on a regular basis and interacts with management, colleagues and students with the aim of developing professional collegiates dedicated to teaching and study programme quality.

3.3. has plans to carry out further strategic development work with the aim of elevating the quality of study programmes within his/her collegiate.

Formal application requirements

You shall submit a written application with relevant attachments. The following is a list of formal application requirements:

• The application must not exceed 7,500 words (not including attachments and references).
• You may append a maximum of 12 attachments. All attachments must be referred to in the main body of the application.
• The following two attachments are mandatory:
  • a statement written by your immediate supervisor declaring that he/she gives their full backing in support of your application.
  • a pedagogical CV.
• The application must be written in Norwegian (bokmål/nynorsk), Swedish, Danish or English.

Format and structure

There are no specific requirements regarding format. You are thus free to select a format that you judge to be the most appropriate. For example, you may submit your application as a PDF file, a digital folder or a web page. Media that serve an illustrative function in support of the main body of the application, such as websites, videos, graphics and suchlike, can be inserted into the main text without being counted as ‘attachments’. The same applies to links, references, and suchlike. However, it is important to be aware of the volume of material you are submitting. Remember that the committee has to read a large number of applications.

You are also free to structure the application as you see fit, but you must make sure that you demonstrate clearly how and in what ways you are meeting the stated criteria.

Webinars

A number of webinars will be released providing you with information about the ETP merit scheme, insights into previous ETPs’ experiences with the application process, as well as advice on how to write your application. You will also have an opportunity to ask questions and to share your own experiences of the application process. The aim of the webinars is to serve as support for the development of a professional teaching collegiate linked to the ETP merit scheme. You can register for the webinars simply by clicking on the dates in the list below: Applicants are encouraged to attend the entire series of webinars 

Some specific advice on the application process

• Create a guide for the reader at the beginning of the application. One approach is to describe how you have structured the application, the choices you have made and why.
   
• Make sure that you create a structure that makes it clear both to you and the reader how and in what ways you are meeting the application criteria.
   
• As an applicant, it is your task to promote your own work as a teacher and your role as a contributor to a professional teaching collegiate. It is not sufficient simply to present a series of bullet points listing brief descriptions of key aspects, or to assume that what characterises your teaching activities and contribution to the collegiate are common knowledge.
   
• An application for ETP status is not just a description of what you have done and how. It is essential that you also defend your application and reflect on relevant theories and research results as a means of illustrating the work that you are describing.
   
• The application and its attachments must be mutually integrated. The attachments shall provide specific and confirmatory documentation to support and shall also include your reasoning behind and reflections on, the main body of the application.
   
• Give some thought to the documents you append as attachments. For example, if you want to include a number of attestations and certificates, it may be a good idea to assemble these in a single attachment, leaving you more slots for other material that documents your professional activities. For this reason, you should select attachments that are relevant to your application and then go on to explain to readers why they are relevant.
   
• You are free to choose how you wish to document your work. You are encouraged to be creative. The following are some examples of attachments that have previously been appended to ETP applications: (a) student assessments (preferably edited and commented), professional publications and other written contributions, audio files, podcasts, film and video recordings or other presentations using digital media; (b) e-mail correspondence, graphical presentations of teaching designs, teaching plans, teaching aids, examples of feedback to and from students, reports of you or your work in the media, book reviews, screen dumps, etc.; (c) certificates and attestations may also be relevant. You are free to use any form of documentation that you see fit, provided that the appended material is made relevant by being referenced in, and supportive of, the main body of the application.
   

Finally, some important things that you should check:

• Is your application comprehensible to other readers?
   
• Does your application address all the relevant criteria?
   
• Do your attachments provide relevant documentation of material presented in the main body of the application? Are they referenced specifically in the main text? Are the attachments sufficiently mutually integrated with the main text?
   
• Have you made sure that you have not only described, but also provided the reasoning behind, and reflected on, your teaching activities?
   
• Does your application meet the formal requirements?
   
• Have you appended all the mandatory attachments (pedagogical CV and declaration from your supervisor)?
   
• Have you provided documentation of your basic professional educational qualifications?
   
• Can the links to your application and attachments be opened by others? Ask someone external to USN to check that the links are accessible.

Submitting your application

You must submit your ETP application in its entirety, including attachments, using this electronic application form

This video shows you how to submit your application using OneDrive (Video is in Norwegian): 

You may also submit your application using FileSender. This is shown in the video here (video is in Norwegian): 

The ETP awards committee and its work

A main committee comprising four members will evaluate all the applications. The committee will be made up of:

• A committee chair, who will be an internal USN employee with high-level qualifications, and preferably an ETP.
   
• An external party with high-level qualifications and experience from work in the field of university/university college pedagogics or other work linked to quality in education and/or ETP merit schemes.
   
• An external party with high-level qualifications who is either an ETP and/or has experience with work linked to ETP merit schemes. 
   
• A representative from the student body.

 The following will also participate in the process:

• An employee with high-level qualifications, preferably an ETP, from each of the faculties at USN. These persons shall only evaluate applicants from their own faculty.
   
• The faculty representatives have deputies who will serve on the committee in the event of disqualification.
   
•  An employee from eDU who will act as an administrator. He or she shall not evaluate the applications.

Committee members shall be announced on the ETP website once their evaluation work has been completed.

The members of the 2022 committee have been:  

Professor Hilde Larsen Damsgaard, USN (Committee Chair) 

Associate Professor Katja Hakel, NTNU  

Professor Mette Mo Jakobsen, UiA/UHR / Professor Rune Hjelsvold, NTNU (ETP, deputy) 

Student: Guri Rebekka Nilsen, sosiologi, HH 

Faculty representatives: Professor Inger Kjersti Lindvig og Professor Kristin Rydjord Tholin

The committee members will be using  this form as part of their evaluation.

The granting of status as an ETP requires that the committee’s decision is unanimous and indisputable. There is no right of appeal, nor any right to respond, to the committee’s evaluation and final decision. A right of appeal applies only to the conduct of the evaluation process.

Feedback from the committee shall refer directly to the stated application criteria. In the event that an application is rejected, feedback shall also include advice on areas where the applicant may improve in the future.

An applicant whose application is rejected is not permitted to re-apply for a period of two years.