What is APEX?
Pre-Flight
APEX is the Academic Professional Excellence Framework and is one of the routes to attaining HEA Fellowship at the University of Portsmouth. This section is going to outline APEX, give you some pointers on how to get started, and help make sure you are on the right route for Fellowship.
The central aim of the APEX Framework is to ensure that staff have the opportunity to work towards or attain the relevant Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) on the basis of their teaching and learning support activities by demonstrating alignment to the UKPSF. This is operationalised through the APEX Programme providing various pathways to recognition.
The University of Portsmouth APEX Programme aims to:
Encourage individual responsibility for continuing professional development and improvement, through inspiring and supporting staff to enhance their practice in teaching and student support
Provide a coherent range of flexible initial and continuing professional development opportunities aligned with the UKPSF, and the University’s wider strategic aspirations
Promote a scholarly, enquiry-based and reflective approach to teaching and supporting learning
At the moment APEX supports a number of paths to fellowship: Associate Fellow, Fellow and Senior Fellow. APEX can also support staff seeking to gain Principal Fellow status via a direct submission to AdvanceHE. Principal Fellow is for colleagues who are able to demonstrate a sustained and effective record of impacy at a strategic level in relation to learning and teaching, as part of a wider commitment to academic practice. This may be within their institution or wider (inter)national settings.
The APEX programme offer two routes to Fellowship. You can either choose a more traditional written submission or seek Fellowship through a professional conversation. Both routes are detailed on this website and more specific information regarding the professional conversation can be accessed via the Professional Conversation Guidance Notes which can be accessed below.
The Professional Conversation
A bit of context to start. The inclusion of a dialogic component or professional conversation has become an emergent feature of accredited provision over the last decade; a transition that has been well documented in the academic literature, which continually recognises the value of dialogue as adding an extra dimension to the value of a scheme. At Portsmouth, we have noticed that many colleagues find the reflective writing style required of a Fellowship submission quite challenging. Therefore, the inclusion of a professional conversation provides an opportunity to offer staff an alternative route to Fellowship and using dialogue to allow them to effectively discuss their practice against the criteria for Fellowship. Therefore, the inclusion of a professional conversation provides an opportunity to offer you an alternative route to Fellowship. However, for us, the inclusion of a professional conversation is more than a simple adjustment to promote inclusivity; in practice it represents a significant shift in our philosophy in terms of how we support and provide guidance around Fellowship, and how it articulates the principal values and ethics that we associate with our accredited provision.
What is a Professional Conversation?
That is a good question to start with! Early work by Pilkington (2016) highlighted a notable lack of consistency across the sector in terms of how a non-written approach might be conceptualised and there is an evident interplay of terminology – for example Assessed Professional Conversation (APC), Final Summative Dialogue or Professional Dialogue. Accordingly, AdvanceHE posits a ‘dialogue’ as: ‘an environment; a mechanism creating space for reflection, exchange, exploration and recognition of practice through formalised conversation, as well as providing a mechanism to assess and award’ (Pilkington, 2017: 9).
For APEX, the professional conversation is an experience, the principal goal being to:
‘create a safe conversational space where participants are encouraged to celebrate their practice, and offer reflection on their teaching philosophy through engagement in a meaningful, respectful, and rewarding conversation that encapsulates alignment to Fellowship standards and descriptors’.
For us, a professional conversation is NOT a viva or an interview. Moreover, the professional conversation acts as a catalyst to bolster your confidence and self-efficacy, serving to generate personal discussion and reflection around learning and teaching. As part of our approach to marketing and branding the APEX programme, we have put notable emphasis on your journey and experience. Against this, the professional conversation is very much designed to help you not only reflect on where you have come from but also where you are going. Conversations with Fiona Smart have also influenced how we use terminology within the scheme to reflect our underpinning values. Therefore, following Edinburgh Napier’s example, individuals joining APEX are participants rather than applicants, and to avoid connotations with judgement and assessment, akin to a viva or interview, we focus on review and reviewers, and referees are advocates.
Professional Conversation Participant Notes
*PC - PARTICIPANT GUIDANCE 2022.pdfLaunch Dates for the Professional Conversation Cohorts
To start your journey towards Fellowship via the Professional Conversation you need to have attended an orientation and micro-clinic. Once you have done this you are welcome to attend a Professional Conversation Cohort Briefing meeting which acts as the formal launch point for a Professional Conversation. This launch events are held at regular points during the year and are designed to align with APEX submission points. Details for forthcoming launch events are detailed below. Please also take the opportunity to look through the guidance notes for each cohort as there is a defined programme of activities that you are expected to follow and complete as part of the preparation for your professional conversation.
Forthcoming Briefings and Launch Events
Tuesday 6th February 2024
Launch of Cohort 3: 2.00pm to 3.30pm
Book your place
*PC AND PADLET INSTRUCTIONS - COHORT 4 [APRIL'24].pdfGuidance Notes for Cohort 3 Activities
Tuesday 30th April 2024
Launch of Cohort 4: 10am to 11.30am
Book your place
*PC AND PADLET INSTRUCTIONS - COHORT 3 [FEB'24].pdfGuidance Notes for Cohort 4 Activities
Professional Recognition Guidance for Collaborative Partners
We pro-actively support all staff who are involved with learning and teaching, and who wish to gain either formal recognition or a formal learning and teaching qualification.
Formal Recognition via HEA Fellowship
Partner staff are welcome to attend workshops in our Academic Events Programme and specific APEX orientation events and micro-clinics that provide an introduction to the UKPSF and how structure and develop a claim for Fellowship. If you are collaborative partner based at Sparsholt University Centre or RAF Cranwell you can apply for Fellowship directly through the APEX Programme. Other collaborative partners need to apply directly via AdvanceHE.
Bespoke mentoring for staff seeking guidance on Fellowship applications is available and you are advised to talk to the APEX team about your specific requirements and associated costings for mentoring support.
AdvanceHE Fellowship Guidance
As a colloraborative partner, if you are applying directly to AdvanceHE for Fellowship please take the opportunity to visit AdvanceHE's online resources and familiarise yourself with the application fees that would apply depending on whether you or not you are based at a subscribing institution.
Eligibility for Fellowship
Also take the opportunity to review AdvanceHE's guidance around Eligibility for Fellowship and supporting guidance materials.
ADVANCEHE (2019) Policy Update - Eligibility for HEA Fellowship in Australasia, AdvanceHE, York..pdfADVANCEHE (2019) Policy Update - Eligibility for HEA Fellowship in Australasia, AdvanceHE, York.
ADVANCEHE (2021) Eligibility for Fellowship in the UK, AdvanceHE, York..pdfADVANCEHE (2021) Eligibility for Fellowship in the UK, AdvanceHE, York.