UKPSF

UK Professional Standards Framework

You are going to hear a lot about the UKPSF - so best to start at the beginning! This section will introduce the UKPSF (UK Professional Standards Framework) and highlight supporting resources that will help point you in the right direction.

The UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF)

At the very heart of the APEX programme, our support for Fellowship, and the programme of continuing professional development events we run, is the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF), a nationally-recognised framework for benchmarking success within HE teaching and learning support which identifies the diverse range of teaching and support roles and environments. These are reflected and are expressed in the Dimensions of Professional Practice.

The UKPSF clearly outlines the Dimensions of Professional Practice with HE teaching and learning support as:

Areas of activity undertaken by teachers and support staff

Core knowledge needed to carry out those activities at the appropriate level

Professional values that individuals performing these activities should exemplify

When applying for Fellowship you will be required to demonstrate alignment to the key dimensions and criteria within the UKPSF reflecting the specific Fellowship route you are following.

So a bit more reading for you - please take the time to look through the UKPSF as an understanding of the framework and mapping against your own professional practice will be central to your application.

If you are an advocate of Technology Enhanced Learning also look at the Digital Lens on the UKPSF document produced by AdvanceHE/JISC. It provides a valuable framework to help you assess your own digital capabilities against the different dimensions of the UKPSF and is a really useful tool when developing case studies and accounts of professional practice.

These dimensions can also be interpreted as:

Areas of Activity - what you do

Core Knowledge - what you know

Professional Values - what you represent

UKPSF - Fellowship Categories

D1: Associate Fellow

Familiarise yourself with D1

D2: Fellow

Familiarise yourself with D2

D3: Senior Fellow

Familiarise yourself with D3

Getting Started with Fellowship and the UKPSF

Introducing the Fellowship Category Tool

A useful starting point on your Fellowship journey is to have a look at the Advance HE resources supporting HEA Fellowship. If you are not quite sure which Fellowship route is best for you, take the opportunity to have a go at using the Advance HE Fellowship Category Tool which has been designed to assist you in selecting the category of Fellowship that is the closest match to your current practice and level of experience.

It's a very simple tool that consists of a set of statements that are aligned to the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) and its different Descriptors and Dimensions. This self-analysis tool will ask about your professional activities in teaching and/or supporting learning in higher education. By using the tool to consider your current practice, your choice of statements should help to inform which category of Fellowship is most appropriate for you. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers and you should select the option which best reflects your professional practice. Having an idea about the pathway you wish to follow is really helpful when attending an initial APEX orientation session which run throughout the year.

For more information about the value of the Fellowship Category tool take the opportunity to read this short article in which Louise Lumsden – Head of Fellowship at Advance HE – introduces the Fellowship Category Tool, and discusses its value in supporting individuals when reflecting on their practice and deciding which category of Fellowship is most appropriate for them.

Use the AdvanceHE Category Tool to determine which category is best for you

A Brief History of the UKPSF

If you would like to know more about the history and development of the UKPSF, take the opportunity to download this new publication from AdvanceHE, that provides a commentary on the PSF’s creation, evolution and growing impact within global Higher education.