Guidelines for Assessment Committees
To the chairman of the assessment committee
What to do first
Non-conforming application
Inclusion of additional material
Deadline
To all members of the assessment committee
Remunertion
Confidentiality
Guidelines concerning the assessment of applicants
Formal basis of the assessment
Assessment of research qualifications
Assessment of teaching qualifications
Summary of the assessment of applicant
Grading
Disagreement
To the chairman of the assessment committee
What to do first
The Academic Council has approved the assessment committee. However, you must make sure that no member of the committee is disqualified for this task.
As a chairman you must contact the other members of the committee in order to plan the assessment process. But first and foremost you must brief the committee on the formal basis of the assessment in accordance with the present guidelines and make sure that they have received the material.
If you are in any doubt about the assessment procedure or the interpretation of the job advertisement, please feel free to contact HR in order to clarify the matters.
As chairman of the assessment committee you must see to it that all applications are complete and comply with the job advertisement. If an application is non-conforming, i.e. does not comply with the formalities set out in the job advertisement (e.g. failure to enclose list of publications, documentation for teaching qualifications or other documents stated in the job advertisement), HR will ask the individual applicant to submit the material before the assessment process is initiated.
If you find that the application is still non-conforming, you can ask HR to contact the applicant. However, it is not obligatory to ask for missing material, since it is up to the applicant to make sure that the application meets the formal requirements.
The applications will be evaluated in the form they are submitted. This implies that a manus which by the deadline was categorized as ‘submitted’ will be counted as only submitted, even if you are later informed that it was accepted
However, if an applicant has published a particularly important scientific work, e.g. in the form of a thesis, or if the applicant has been awarded an academic degree, after the deadline, and if the inclusion of such material in the assessment may be of decisive importance to the outcome of the overall assessment, the assessment committee may decide that the applicant should be given the opportunity of having the material included in the assessment. If the inclusion of additional material is permitted, this applies to all applicants. A deadline must therefore be fixed for the submission of additional material, of which all applicants must be informed, and all additional material submitted by all applicants must be included in the assessment.
The Appointment Order requires that the hiring decision is made no more than six months after the deadline for applications. It is therefore important that the committee finishes it’s work by the closing date. If the deadline cannot be met after all, please inform Human Resources immediately via and state the reason for your request for extension. The Dean decides whether your request can be granted.
The assessment must be forwarded from you to .
Signatures are not required, neither from you nor from the other committee members.
To all members of the assessment committee
You will receive the applications to be assessed from the Human Resources via along with the job advertisement and contact details of the assessment committee members
The chairman of the committee will take the initial contact in order to plan the work of the committee.
As an external member of the assessment committee you will receive remuneration, and any travel expenses will be reimbursed.
Please note that names of applicants and number of applicants are and remain confidential.
The Job Structure:
Applicants for a position of professor are assessed on the basis of the qualifications stipulated in the job advertisement, but must also be able to document a high degree of original academic production at international level, which documents that the applicant has contributed to developing the academic
discipline. Emphasis must also be placed on an assessment of the applicant’s ability to manage research and any other management functions, for example in relation to the university’s cooperation with the outside world.
As regards the professors with special responsibilities the qualification requirements correspond to those of ordinary professorships. Emphasis must, however, be placed on whether the applicant has the potential to continue the development of the discipline and has documented original academic production at international level. Special emphasis must also be placed on an assessment of the applicant’s opportunities to perform the special responsibility or responsibilities associated with the specific post.
The Ministerial Order on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities in Denmark:
The assessment committee or the experts decide whether the applicants possess the academic qualifications in research, teaching, communication, etc. stipulated in the job structure and fulfil the other academic and professional requirements stipulated in the advertisement. A non-prioritised, reasoned and written assessment of the applicants' academic qualifications is submitted to the Rector. In the event of differences of opinion between the members of the committee, this must be stipulated in the assessment.
The formal basis for your work is the job advertisement. You cannot add further qualification requirements to your assessment.
Applicable criteria are primarily documented qualifications, the applicant’s scientific merits, academic breadth and, depending on the circumstances, how long the applicant has taken to produce the scientific output presented etc. In this connection, please disregard any maternity/paternity leaves.
Emphasis must also be placed on the applicant’s description of the plans for development of the academic field in regard to both research and education.
The assessment of the individual applicant is written in a separate document that does not require the reader to consult the application or the applicant’s written work..
The assessment must be sufficiently detailed, clear and thorough to make it possible to follow the thought process from premises to conclusion. The wording of the assessment should be neutral.
Every member of the assessment committee is obliged to familiarize himself with the available material, so that all applicants are assessed by the committee as such. However, a division of work will normally be agreed on as regards the preparation of draft assessments. In the final editing of the assessments, you should, moreover, eliminate any inconsistencies that may be the result of the division of work between you.
Of course each committee members must be able to commit himself to the overall assessment. In cases of strong disagreement on the assessment of the individual applicants, it is possible to have committee members prepare and submit separate assessments.
At LIFE the assessments are formally approved by the academic reference group under the Academic Council. If the academic reference group finds that the assessment does not comply with the LIFE guidelines, they may ask the assessment committee to rewrite or supplement its assessment. Once that has happened Human Resources will send the assessment to the individual applicant .
The assessments are at no point made public by the University of Copenhagen.
Assessment of research qualifications
The assessment of the applicant’s research qualifications is based on material submitted by the applicant.
The publications assessed should be clearly categorised. Typical categorisations would be peer-reviewed articles, other scientific articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, teaching materials, popular articles, and theses (eg. PhD or doctoral thesis). The categorization should be done according to the normal practice within the specific discipline and may thus differ between these. Work in the form of translations, lecture notes etc. may be included in the categorization of the original work. Cited work and other documentable qualifications are assessed to the extent deemed necessary for you to prepare the assessment. This means that you decide how much of the submitted material should be included. The applicant is not entitled to an assessment of all the material submitted.
Bibliometric analysis should be done in the same way for all applicants. The committee can use the applicant’s own bibliometric analysis (you can ask the applicant to do it) or prepare their own
Assessment of teaching qualifications
The assessment should include a detailed and specific description of the applicant's teaching qualifications on the background of the submitted materials. Assessment is made in accordance with the weight placed on the specific areas in the job advertisement.
Please note:
Teaching qualifications must meet the qualifications described in the job advertisement. If these specific qualifications cannot be met by the applicant, the applicant is not qualified for the position. On the other hand the common University of Copenhagen requirements concerning teaching portfolio do not prevent the employment of scientific personnel with limited teaching experience. In such special cases, a competency development plan is developed for the employee's pedagogical qualifications.
The criteria for assessing the teaching qualifications are:
a. The extent, breadth and documented quality of the applicant's teaching experience and other experience within the pedagogical area. ‘Breadth' refers to subject, institution, target group/level, teaching form and teaching language. With respect to documented quality, the assessment is to place emphasis on documentation in the form of submitted examples of teaching materials and evaluations.
b. The integration of teaching practices and pedagogical understanding, i.e. the applicant's demonstrated competencies as the basis for their own pedagogical understanding - focusing on the students' learning - to analyse their own teaching, make reflected decisions about its further development and carry out changes to their own teaching practice.
The committee should furthermore describe the role of each applicant as PhD, MSc and BSc supervisor: how many students as main supervisor and how many students as co-supervisor.
If the applicant has failed to provide a teaching portfolio, you should decide whether the submitted documentation for teaching qualifications is sufficient or whether you require additional documentation. If so, please contact Human Resources.
Other qualifications stated in the job advertisement should be assessed too.
This could be for instance ability to communicate, managerial experience, track record in fundraising, cooperation with industry etc.
Summary of the assessment of the applicant
The assessment must be limited to the specific professorship applied for and must never conclude that the applicant is in general competent to (or not competent to) be appointed to a professorship.
Your conclusion as to whether the applicant is qualified must be unambiguous and unconditional.
Grading
You should not normally grade your conclusion concerning the applicant’s qualifications - simply state wheter the applicant is qualified or not.
However, you may chose to grade your conclusion concerning the applicant's qualifications positively using such terms as “highly qualified” or “qualified”. However, such grading should be seen in relation to the professorship and not in relation to the other the applicants.
You may, after careful consideration, chose to grade your conclusion concerning an applicant's qualifications using such terms as “not yet qualified” or “not qualified based on the present research output”.
In case of disagreement among you, simply state in the assessment ‘[number of] members find the applicant qualified, [number of] members find the applicant not qualified’. Reasons must then be given for the different points of view.
Please feel free to use LIFE’s assessment template.
Karen Vestergaard Petersen, - siden er sidst opdateret d.15. juli 2011