Engaging academics in developing excellence: releasing creativity through reward and recognition

This article explores the importance of giving academics the space to be creative in developing new teaching materials in the context of a government drive to increase the quality of the student experience, and what this means for 'academic staff development'. Academics who have engaged with a UK Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) in one institution were interviewed about their experiences of the creative process and the reward and recognition strategies put in place to support its activities. The paper acknowledges the pressures and challenges facing academic staff in attempting to develop innovative materials, yet find that enthusiasm for looking at new ways of teaching and learning is still fervent. The paper argues that financial rewards are least important to staff when undertaking projects with the CETL, yet to managers with targets for income it is perceived as a priority. The importance of a supportive team and environment when engaging with CETLs is evident in building staff capacity and developing skills to take learning to a new level. A model of engaging with the CETL in creating e‐learning materials is suggested to illustrate the stages academics go through in the pursuit of developing innovative exemplars of best practice. Keywords: creativityrewardrecognitionacademicsspaceteaching and learningexcellence Notes 1. There are many definitions of creativity. For the purpose of this paper, we have adapted the following definition: 'A novel learning resource or piece of research that attains some level of recognition for the individual/team, and delivers a specific uniqueness to teaching and learning.' (Sawyer Citation2006, 33). This definition was chosen to represent the aims of the CETL in attempting to create original materials to enhance student learning. The time and space enables academics to 'take risks', and 'develop', which is an essential ingredient for creativity and one not often promoted in organisations (Robinson Citation2006). 2. The CIPeL repository stores and catalogues all learning resources and can be found here http://www.cipel.ac.uk/learning_objects/learning_objects.htm. 3. The electronic questionnaire contained 11 questions (seven closed and four open‐ended) to consider motivations for the secondment and thoughts about reward and recognition. 4. Eighty‐six percent of respondents were not concerned with financial reward. Ninety percent of respondents felt that financial reward was important to their managers. 5. Ninety‐one percent of respondents felt recognition for their work was highly important.