Power-based Resistance Training Reduced Serum Oxidized Low-Density Lipoprotein in Athletes

Power-based resistance training (PRT) allows athletes to improve athletic performance by enhancing both strength and power simultaneously. However, it is unclear whether athletes who participate in PRT can positively alter serum lipid and lipoprotein parameters. Thus, the current study investigated the effects of 6-weeks of PRT on serum lipid and lipoprotein parameters in male and female collegiate athletes. Twenty one collegiate athletes (12 female soccer players and 9 male football players) participated in PRT (4 days/week) for 6 weeks. The PRT program was composed of a variety of Olympic-style and traditional weightlifting movements along with plyometrics. Overnight fasting blood samples were collected before and after 6-weeks of power-based resistance training to analyze serum lipid and lipoprotein parameters including TG, TC, VLDL-C, LDL-C, HDL-C, Lp(a), and ox-LDL. All serum lipid and lipoprotein parameters remained unchanged, except ox-LDL which significantly (p = 0.036) decreased by 3.81% or 1.87 U·L -1 (from 49.05 ± 9.17 to 47.18 ± 9.78 U·L -1 ) following 6 weeks of power-based resistance training. The 6-weeks of PRT, designed to improve strength and power, can provide cardioprotective health benefits for male and female collegiate athletes by lowering ox-LDL.

Introduction
Card iovascular disease (CVD) has been recognized as a major leading cause of death in A merica for mo re than 10 decades, and approximately 2,200 A mericans die of CVD everyday [1]. Abnormal blood lip ids and lipoproteins known as dyslipidemia are considered one of the primary risk factors for development of CVD and characterized by elevated total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and lo wered high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) [2]. In addition, a strong body of evidence suggests that elevated serum oxidized LDL (o x-LDL) is a key factor that accelerates the incidence of CVD by promoting the atherosclerotic progression of plaque [3].
Physical activity, as a non-pharmacological treat ment, is often reco mmended fo r sedentary ind ividuals or pat ients w ith CVD to p o s it iv e ly mo d ify b lo o d lip id s an d lipoproteins [2]. Accord ing to the meta-analysis, aerob ic exercise can decrease TC (2.0%), LDL-C (3%), and TG (5.0 -9.0%) and increase HDL-C (2.0 -3.0%) in adults [4,5]. However,the effects of anaerobic exercise such as resistance training on b lood lipids and lipoproteins are equivocal [6][7][8].
One meta-analys is has recent ly repo rted that res istance exercise may decrease TC (2.7%), LDL-C (4.6%), and TG (6.4%), but not HDL-C, in adults [6], whereas another review study has reported no strong evidence of beneficial effects of resistance exercise on modificat ion of blood lip ids and lipoproteins [7]. Moreover, only a few studies have previously examined the responses of ox-LDL to exercise training, and the results are inconsistent [9][10][11][12].
American Heart Association and American College of Sport Medicine recommend moderate intensity resistance exercise to be part of the main exercise program for sedentary or untrained indiv iduals because it helps prevent CVD and pro mote muscular strength and endurance, functional capacity, health, and fitness [7,13,14]. Unlike sedentary or untrained individuals whose main goal of resistance training is to improve their health or fitness, most trained athletes usually participate in relatively higher intensity resistance exercise to promote athletic performance rather than health or fitness. Power-based resistance training (PRT) is often reco mmended by many strength and conditioning professionals because it allows athletes to enhance athletic performance by gaining both strength and power simultaneously [15]. The reco mmended form of PRT is a co mb ination of a variety of Oly mpic-style and tradit ional weightlift ing movements and plyometrics [16]. Several studies have previously reported the positive effects of PRT on improvement in strength and performance in athletes [17][18][19][20]. However, it is unclear whether athletes participating in high intensity resistance training such as PRT can obtain cardioprotective health benefits as well. To date, no study has examined the effects of PRT on serum lip ids and lipoproteins includ ing o x-LDL in athletes. Thus, the current study investigated whether 6-weeks of PRT can provide male and female co lleg iate athletes with cardioprotective health benefits.

Participants
Twenty one collegiate athletes (12 female soccer players and 9 male football players), between 18 and 23 years of age, participated in the study during the off-season. All participants were physically active (defined as a regular physical activ ity perfo rmed mo re than 4 days a week), free of any self-reported in jury and cardiovascular or metabolic diseases, and not taking any medications known to alter blood lip ids and lipoproteins. The participants provided written informed consent and the medical history forms prior to performing any study protocols. All study procedures were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board. The participants were encouraged to maintain a normal dietary reg imen, and refrained fro m any types of strenuous exercises other than PRT throughout the study period. In addition, no co mpetitive football or soccer games were scheduled during the study period.

Procedures
The participants were tested for one-repetition maximu m (1-RM ) in clean, incline press, and Olymp ic-style back squat (angle of knee < 90°) on a separate day to determine the lower and upper body strength. The initial weight for the 1-RM test was determined by the participant's training history. Once the participants successfully lifted the first weight, additional resistance (2.5 -5.0 kg) was added until the participants were not able to successfully comp lete a lift. The participants rested for 3 minutes between each 1-RM attempt to recover fro m the previous attempt, and the last successful lift was recorded as 1-RM.
The 1-RM for other upper and lo wer body movements was estimated by pre-determined 1-RM of clean, incline press, or squat. For instance, the 1-RM fo r the fo llowing Oly mpicstyle weightlifting movements was estimated by the clean 1-RM; snatch -60% of clean 1-RM, clean pull -120% of clean 1-RM, hand clean and Ro man ian deadlift (RDL)-90% of clean 1-RM, jerk variations -90% o f clean 1-RM, snatch pull -72 % of clean 1-RM (equivalent to 120% o f snatch 1-RM), and hang snatch -54% of clean 1-RM (equivalent to 90% of snatch 1-RM ). The 1-RM for the tradit ional horizontal bench press was estimated to be 120% of incline press 1-RM . The Oly mpic -style back squat 1-RM was used to estimate the 1-RM for the front squat (80% of squat 1-RM) and lunge variations (25% of squat 1-RM). The PRT program consisted of a comb ination of various Oly mp ic-style and traditional weightlifting movements along with plyometrics as shown in Table 1. The participants performed PRT for 4 days per week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday) for 6 weeks. After performing a series of selected warm-up activ ities for 15 minutes, the participants performed each PRT session around 60 minutes. In the current study, following weekly undulating periodization was used; week 1 -70% 1-RM, week 2 -80% 1-RM, week 3 -75% 1-RM, week 4 -90% 1-RM, week 5 -80% 1-RM, and week 6 -95% 1-RM. For a cool-down, a variety of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretches targeting upper (chest, rotator cuff,deltoids, and upper back) or lower (hamstrings, hips/glutes, lower back, and quadriceps) body muscle groups were performed for 10 minutes after each workout. All PRT sessions were supervised and led by a certified strength and conditioning professional to ensure maximu m co mpliance.

Anal yses of TC, TG, and Ox-LDL
The participants reported to the laboratory for blood draw between 07:00 and 08:00 AM after 10 -12 hours of overnight fasting. Blood samples were collected at pre-(week 0) and post-PRT (week 7). After 15 minutes of resting in a chair, venous blood was drawn fro m the antecubital vein. Immediately after blood draw, blood samples remained at room temperature for 20 minutes to be clotted, and then were centrifuged at 1,800g for 15 minutes to separate serum. Seru m samples were then immediately fro zen at -80 °C for the further analysis of seru m lipid and lipoprotein parameters.
Seru m samples in duplicate were assayed for TC (Kit# 85430, Cliniqa, San Marcos, CA) and TG (Kit# 85460, Clin iqa, San Marcos, CA) by an enzy mat ic co lorimetric method, and ox-LDL was analyzed by an enzy me-linked immu mosorbent assay (Cat# 10-1143-01, Mercodia, Uppsala, Sweden). Optical density was measured by the Spectra Max Plus 384 microplate spectrophotometer (Molecular Devices, Sunnyvale, CA ). Each assay was performed as instructed by the manufacture's assay procedure. To min imize inter-and intra-assay variability, all serum samp les for each assay were analy zed at one time in a single plate.

Anal yses of Serum Li poprotein-cholesterol
Seru m lipoprotein-cholesterol including VLDL-C, LDL-C, HDL-C, and Lp(a) were analyzed by electrophoresis (Cat. # 3438 SPIFE Vis Cho lesterol, Helena Laboratory, Beau mont, TX) using the SPIFE 3000 electrophoresis system (Helena Laborato ry, Beau mont, TX). The lipoprotein -cho lesterol analysis was performed as instructed by the manufacture's assay procedures, using a co mmercially availab le control (Cat. # 3218, Helena Laboratory, Beau mont, TX). In brief, 80 μL of serum samples, in duplicate, were applied to an agarose gel follo wed by 20 minutes of electrophoresis at 16 °C with 400 volts. After applying a staining regent (Cat. # 3438, Helena Laboratory, Beau mont, TX), addit ional electrophoresis was performed at 30 °C for 15 minutes. The gel was washed and dried at 70 °C for 20 minutes, and the density of stained lipoprotein-cholesterol bands were measured in a scanning densitometer (Epson Perfection V 700, Long beach, CA) using Quick Scan 2000 software (Helena Laboratory, Beaumont, TX). To min imize inter-and intra-assay variability, all seru m samp les were analyzed at one time in a single gel.

Statistical Analyses
The sample size was calculated by G* Power 3.1.0 software [21], given an alpha level at 0.05, an effect size of 0.40, and power at 0.80. The appropriate samp le size was estimated to be 16 participants for the current study design. All statistical analyses were performed using the IBM Statistical Package fo r the Social Sciences 19.0 (IBM SPSS, Armonk, NY) and reported as mean ± standard deviation (SD) unless stated otherwise. The Shapiro-W ilk test was emp loyed to test the normality of data, and indicated that data were normally distributed. An independent-Samp les T test was used to examine the baseline differences in anthropometrical and physiological variables between males and females. A 2 (group; males and females) X 2 (t ime; preand post-PRT) repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to determine the significant changes in serum lipid and lipoprotein parameters. If the main or interaction effects were significant, Bonferroni pairwise co mparisons were conducted to examine the significant mean d ifferences. A p-value < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.

Results
The demographic and physiological characteristics of participants at baseline are presented in Table 2. No serum lip id or lipoprotein parameters at baseline were significantly different between groups, whereas height (males: 180.90 ± 8.28 vs. females: 167.11 ± 6.44 cm) and weight (males: 102.58±18.30 vs. females: 65.00±8.21 kg) were significantly different (p=0.001).However, these anthropometric variables were not significantly altered within each group following 6-weeks of PRT.
The main effects for group and time on changes in serum lip ids and lipoproteins are presented in Table 3 and 4, respectively. There were no significant main effects for group and time o r the group X time interaction for any of the serum lip id or lipoprotein parameters, except o x-LDL which had a significant main effect fo r t ime, indicating that o x-LDL significantly (p = 0.036) decreased by 1.87 U·L -1 or 3.81% (fro m 49.05 ± 9.17 to 47.18 ± 9.78 U·L -1 ) following 6 weeks of PRT (Table 4).

Discussion
This study was the first to examine the effects of PRT on cardioprotective health benefits in male and female collegiate athletes. Although we do not discuss about the results of PRT-induced strength gain in this paper, our unpublished data have shown that the participants significantly imp roved upper and lower body strength up to 15.0% fo llo wing 6-weeks of PRT.
In the current study, no serum lipid or lipoprotein parameters, except ox-LDL, significantly changed following 6-weeks of PRT. Th is result was consistent with other previous studies reporting that resistant training lasting for up to 16 weeks improved upper and lower body strength, but did not significantly alter serum lipids and lipoproteins in a variety of subject groups including untrained men [22] and wo men [23], patients with type 2 d iabetes [24], obese individuals with CVD risk factors [25], or postmenopausal wo men [26]. So me studies that examined the effects of different intensities or repetitions of resistance training on serum lip ids and lipoproteins in men or wo men have also found no beneficial effects of resistance training [27][28][29]. Moreover, several studies have reported an exercise-induced increase in Lp(a) or TG following 24 weeks of low-intensity resistance training or a single session of circu it-resistance exercise [27,29].
In contrast, other studies have reported a favorable effect of resistance training on serum lip ids and lipoproteins including a decrease in TC, LDL-C, and TG and/or an increase in HDL-C [30][31][32]. For instance, sedentary wo men who participated in 3-days of non-consecutive resistant training (85% 1-RM) fo r 14 weeks decreased TC, LDL-C, and the TC to HDL-C ratio, increased HDL-C, but did not change TG [32]. Similar results have also been observed in obese women who participated in 9-weeks of resistance training; however, the TG concentration in obese women significantly increased following resistance training [30]. Another study examining the effects of high intensity resistance training (3 sets of 8 repetitions) has reported an increase in HDL-C and a decrease in TG without changing body weight or diet in healthy, active postmenopausal wo men [31].
Based on the previous studies, it is d ifficult to conclude whether resistance training can positively alter seru m lip ids and lipoproteins. One of the recent review papers has suggested that if resistance training could positively influence on serum lip ids and lipoproteins, the primary outcome would be a reduction of LDL-C for both men and wo men, with a reduction of TC being a secondary outcome for only wo men [33]. One of the possible explanations for the lack of significant changes in serum lipids and lipoproteins in the current study may be our participants' good training background. All participants in the current study were physically active (perfo rmed physical activity more than 4 days per week) and trained for many years. Most studies that have reported a significant change in serum lip ids and lipoproteins investigated in sedentary or untrained individuals. Additionally, the init ial seru m lip id and lipoprotein parameters at baseline for our participants were within the normal range.
Only a few studies have previously examined the effects of exercise train ing on o x-LDL metabolis m, and most of the studies employed aerobic exercise training as an intervention [9][10][11][12]. Fu rthermore, the results of these studies are inconsistent. The concentration of ox-LDL decreased after acute prolonged or moderate intensity aerobic exercise training in healthy [10] and obese [9] ind ividuals. However, individuals with some types of metabolic d iseases such as untreated mild hypertension with atherogenic lip id profiles [11] o r type II diabetes [12] increased ox-LDL following acute resistance exercise. The authors have speculated that one of the possible exp lanations for an increase in ox-LDL following resistance training observed in patients with metabolic diseases could be a co mpensatory mechanis m to preventing free radical tissue damage [12].
In the current study, the serum o x-LDL concentration was significantly reduced by 3.81% (or 1.87 U·L -1 ) following 6-weeks of PRT. Similar to the current study, only serum ox-LDL, but no other lipid or lipoprotein parameters, significantly decreased after high-intensity strength training in obese adults [9] that performed lo wer body strength training for 12 weeks at 90% of 1-RM along with several abdominal and back exercises consisting of 3 series of 30 repetitions [9]. According to several studies that examined the relationship between physical training status and ox-LDL levels in young female [34] and veteran endurance male [35] athletes, the trained athletes tend to have lower o x-LDL than their untrained counterparts, suggesting that atherogenic risk can be favorably influenced by participation in exercise training and affected as early as in adolescents [34].

Conclusions
Our study suggests that 6-weeks of PRT consisting of a combination of Oly mp ic-style and traditional weightlifting movements and plyometrics can provide colleg iate athletes with cardioprotective health benefits by lowering o x-LDL. Although the exact mechanis m by wh ich exercise decreases ox-LDL has not been fully understood, high-intensity resistance training such as PRT may p revent risk for atherosclerosis and CVD in indiv iduals without atherogenic risk factors.


extfieldsofstudy:
Political Science
Medicine

text:
English in the nursing degree: a pending subject

Objective: The new competence profile of nursing professionals, scientific and medical development, the free circulation of health professionals worldwide, and the increasing social and cultural diversity requires that nurses have specific abilities in spoken and written English. The objective of this research is to describe the characteristics of the English language training required for a Bachelors of Nursing in Spain. Method: A descriptive cross-sectional observational study has been performed in forty-six Spanish universities that offer the Bachelor in nursing degree. Results: In line with the directives of the European Higher Education Area, all universities contemplate the mandatory credit of a second language emphasizing English, although there is considerable variability in the emphasis: 39.4% do not include any English subject, and of the remaining 60.6% who do include it, 60% considered it an elective subject, 32.5% basic education, and 7.5% mandatory. Conclusions: The English training has different characteristics in each university, which implies a different commitment from each center for this learning. This fact questions the adequacy of the education in relation to the new competence profile required by the European Higher Education Area, which may adversely affect future professional development.

Introduction
In the current reality, an unprecedented worldwide transformation is occurring in higher education. As reflected in the World Declaration on Higher Education in the XXI century by UNESCO (1) , higher education and research are fundamental to the development of individuals, communities, and nations, which are the engine of the global knowledge society.
Thus the Convergence Process among National Higher Education Systems of European Universities arises, whose primary goal is the creation of a single European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The purpose of this ambitious project is to increase the mobility and employment of graduates, ensuring international competitiveness and the quality of higher education.

Within this process of change the Tunning Project for
Latin America (2) has been designed in order to define the academic and professional profiles based on abilities and to achieve higher educational convergence in this environment.
In the European context, numerous initiatives have been developed to promote learning of a common language to facilitate the exchange of students and professionals. Among them, the Common European Framework of Reference for learning, teaching, and evaluation of languages, which is part of the language policy of the General Council of Europe, promotes an intensification of learning and the teaching of languages to facilitate greater mobility, more effective international communication, increased access to information, and improved industrial relations (3) .

Spain: English language education
The National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA) developed in 2005 the basis for the formation process of the nursing degree in the White Paper of the Nursing Degree (el Libro Blanco del Grado en Enfermería) (4) , redefining job profiles and abilities (5)(6) .
The list of the most relevant abilities related to the learning of a second language is described in Figure 1.
Source: White Paper of Nursing Degree (4)

Code
General Competencies

CG7
Knowledge of a second language CG11 Information Management Skills (to search and to analyze)

CG22
Appreciation of diversity and multiculturalism

CG23
Ability to work in an international context

CE 11
Capacity to enforce clinical judgments to ensure that quality standards are achieved and the practice is based on evidence

CE 23
Relevant knowledge and ability to implement national and international policy In parallel, the new regulation of college graduate studies introduced access to Master and Doctoral programs in the Spanish university system, opening a complete educational development for nursing, which also emphasizes English training and mobility within the European Area (7)(8) . There are numerous studies that highlight the need to encourage training in English in both the clinical and teaching fields, as well as in the undergraduate and postgraduate researcher (9)(10)(11) .
Curricular strategies should be oriented towards including specific assignments that include clinicalcare application and that deepen the approach in the scientific and research field, with reference to the new competence profile and with the aim of optimizing the teaching-learning process (12) .

Competence Profile of Nursing Professionals
Among the objectives of the nursing studies within the higher education framework, reform is intended to respond to the current complexity of the health services reality (13) . The heterogeneity in nursing education in Latin America, as reported by several authors (13)(14)(15)(16) also reflects the need to unify criteria, especially those related to research and the use of scientific evidence.
In this sense, and because of the common linguistic characteristics between Latin America and Spain, it is imperative to establish English language transmission mechanisms to enhance the full development of the nursing discipline.

New horizons in the academic and scientific-research field
In the scientific and academic fields, English is the common language and the implementation of English is essential for analyzing the most relevant results in research, and therefore, the incorporation of scientific evidence into practice. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) argues that the general care nurse must possess skills related to the design and evaluation of programs and research projects (17) .
Among the most notable difficulties for the full development of nursing research includes, among others, limitations in the use of the English language, essential for searching international databases and for the international dissemination of research, given that the scientific journals with the greatest impact are published in this language (8)(9)(18)(19) . The new competencies related with research highlight the urgent need to base nursing practice on the results of scientific evidence and as key to its achievement, English proficiency (20) .

Socio-demographic and cultural changes
The growing cultural diversity within our society requires that health care services and its professionals have the ability to respond to a very diverse population with significant language barriers, which make it difficult

International mobility
The importance of international mobility, one of the cornerstones of the EHEA, aims to promote the free movement of students and professionals from different fields. This international mobility in the field of nursing materializes from two perspectives: on one hand, the exchange of teachers and students through mobility programs and research visits, and on the other, the mobility of already skilled professionals who contemplate international projections as a new labor perspective, where English language proficiency plays a fundamental role (23) .
These exchanges are for learning or perfecting a second language and to promote projects of cooperation and exchanges of experience in teaching and research.
This reality, coupled with the restructuring of health systems in many countries, is causing a massive demand for healthcare professionals, which translates into new opportunities in the labor market.

Objectives
To describe English language training within the new study plans (SP) of the Bachelor of Nursing in Spain.
To determine its characteristics in relation to the number of courses, number of credits, structure, methodology, objectives, content, skills and assessment systems.
To assess the adequacy of English training according to the guidelines set by the EHEA.

Data Analysis
Given the nature of the study, a quantitative analysis was performed, by calculating frequencies and percentages through the SPSS statistics program, v.18, and a qualitative analysis through which the designation of the subjects, the objectives, content and skills set were analyzed.
To protect the interests of each university, the centers have been listed, but without specific details about each one of them. The data has been described broadly, in line with the objectives of the study.

Access profiles to the title of Degree in Nursing
The

Type and number of credits
Of the 66 centers included in the study, the mean frequency of SP that did not include a specific English subject was 39.4% (n=26), with a 60.6% (n=40) of the SP that did include. Among the centers that offered a course in English, 60% (n=24) considered it to be an elective, 32.5% (n=13) included it in basic training, and 7.5% (n=3) considered it mandatory, as detailed in Figure 2.

Abilities
The general competencies proposed within the English subjects in the nursing degree can be summarized as:

Ability to communicate verbally and in written
English, according to the needs of the field of study and the demands of the academic and professional environment.
Information management skills (ability to retrieve and analyze information from various sources).
Ability to work in an international context.
Knowledge and ability to speak, understand, and write a second language.

Methodology and assessment systems
These areas exhibited similar characteristics, highlighting the continuous monitoring during the teaching-learning process and the use of resources to promote interaction between teachers and students, with an emphasis on progressive self-learning. The most often used assessment systems were portfolios as evidence of learning, combined with written and oral tests.

System of accreditation in a second language
All the SP of the Nursing Degree manifested the mandatory accreditation of a second language, assessing English as one of the indispensable languages, even in universities which did not offer any English subject.
Second language accreditation systems varied slightly from one university to another, but in general, the guidelines set by the Common European Framework for Language were followed, which determined that the acquisition of B1 level certifies an acceptable level of language proficiency in those places where it was used (work, study, and leisure) and to standardize international requirements. In this sense, and despite the fact that the Therefore, in order to obtain a Bachelor's in Nursing, it will be necessary, despite passing all subjects in the study plan, to demonstrate proficiency in English or another foreign language (2) .

Existence of mobility programs
All universities had mobility programs for teachers and students through Erasmus or pre/postdoctoral research programs.

Discussion
There is little doubt that learning a second language is one of the cornerstones of the new EHEA, as evidenced by the documents in the framework of the Nursing Degree and numerous studies which recognized that proficiency in English is essential at the academic, clinical, and research level (1)(2)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) . However, this These differences may adversely affect the motivation and interest of students towards learning English, as some studies describe (25) .  training needs that are not being covered in a uniform manner. Thus, the need arises to reach consensus on English language formation within the Bachelor of Nursing, and to potentiate the educational opportunities available, integrated into the required accreditation system and with adequate guidance regarding the needs of students, and the new competency profiles within the national and international health care system, which serve to consolidate a true knowledge society without language differences as a barrier.


Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice Benchmarking with the BLASST Sessional Staff Standards Framework Benchmarking with the BLASST Sessional Staff Standards Framework

Abstract Benchmarking as a type of knowledge-sharing around good practice within and between institutions is increasingly common in the higher education sector. More recently, benchmarking as a process that can contribute to quality enhancement has been deployed across numerous institutions with a view to systematising frameworks to assure and enhance the quality of higher education. However, to date, sessional staff who are the majority of teachers in higher education, have been mostly excluded from or invisible in this process, both within individual institutions and across the sector. To ameliorate the effects of this exclusion and to acknowledge the contribution made to quality teaching by sessional staff, the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) funded BLASST project is establishing a national sessional staff standards framework which sets in place standards to evaluate and support the quality of performance and outcomes in learning and teaching, and in management and administrative policy, procedure, and practices affecting sessional teachers in higher education. In this paper, we present four case studies of benchmarking across four Australian universities that piloted the sessional staff standards framework in order to enhance and support quality learning and teaching by sessional staff. We discuss some of the strengths and limitations of this approach to supporting sessional staff and show how the benchmarking process facilitates active engagement for and particularly by sessional staff in enhancing quality teaching and learning. four case of Australian benchmarking a sessional-staff standards framework that addresses these as part of a and project. Entitled Benchmarking Leadership and Advancement of Standards for Sessional Teaching (BLASST), this project aimed supporting with the project’s key deliverable is a framework that establishes national standards to enhance quality sessional teaching, support sessional staff and sustain good around , The the transferability of a draft developed Four benchmarking workshops, with participants from four institutions, to pilot the framework and a prototype benchmarking tool. Outcomes from these workshops are presented here as case studies to illustrate some the potential uses for benchmarking with the BLASST framework and interactive and

Introduction
Benchmarking as a form of knowledge-sharing (Epper 1999) about good practice within and between organisations is increasingly common in the higher-education sector. Because it lets organisations evaluate current practice against previously determined reference points (Cameron, Harvey & Solomonides 2010), benchmarking has also been used to systematise institutional frameworks to assure and enhance the quality of higher education. However, to date, sessional and casual teaching staff, who are the majority of teachers in higher education (May, Strachan. & Peetz 2013;Harvey, Fraser & Bowes 2005;Brown, Goodman & Yasukawa 2010;Percy et al. 2008), have been excluded from or invisible in these processes, both within institutions and across the sector. This exclusion has not been limited to qualityenhancement processes, however. Sessional staff have also routinely been overlooked or excluded from learning and teaching plans (Kimber 2003); professional development and other opportunities to develop and sustain good practice for quality teaching (Dearn, Fraser & Ryan 2002); and full integration into short-and long-term workforce planning (Hammond & Churchman 2008;May, Strachan & Peetz 2011). This paper presents four case studies of Australian universities benchmarking against a sessionalstaff standards framework that addresses these issues as part of a national learning and teaching project. Entitled Benchmarking Leadership and Advancement of Standards for Sessional Teaching (BLASST), this project is aimed at supporting quality learning and teaching specifically with sessional staff. Commencing in 2011 and due for completion by August 2013, the BLASST project's key deliverable is a framework that establishes national standards to enhance quality sessional teaching, support sessional staff and sustain good practice around sessional teaching. , The project's first year was been dedicated to testing the transferability of a draft standards framework developed at one Australian university to other institutional contexts. Four benchmarking workshops, with participants from four institutions, were held to pilot the framework and a prototype benchmarking tool. Outcomes from these workshops are presented here as case studies to illustrate some of the potential uses for benchmarking with the BLASST framework and interactive tool, and specifically to develop multi-level and cross-institutional leadership capacity to address sessional staff issues.
The first part of this paper provides a brief review of the use of benchmarking for quality learning and teaching in higher education, along with details of the methodology used to obtain the evaluative feedback that constitute the benchmarking case studies. The second section of the paper presents the case studies, and concludes by reflecting upon the shared outcomes from the workshops and the implications for wider use of the framework and interactive tool. The cases are illustrated with excerpts from pre-and post-workshop surveys and interview transcripts from each workshop.

Background to Benchmarking with the BLASST Framework
Issues relating to sessional teaching and the implications for the sector have been highlighted in two major publications on sessional teaching in Australian higher education: the Australian Learning and Teaching Council publication The RED Report (Percy et al. 2008) and Training, Support and Management of Sessional Teaching Staff, produced by the Australian Universities Teaching Committee (AUTC 2003). Through these and other publications by quality agencies and bodies, the Australian higher-education sector has been consistent in identifying a need for quality learning and teaching standards that incorporate what is now the majority of the teaching 2 workforce. In 2012, as part of a project funded by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT), a draft sessional-staff standards framework, developed and piloted at one institution, was further piloted at three project-partner institutions. This was achieved through workshops that asked participants to engage with an online interactive tool to benchmark the policies and practices of their institution against the sessional staff standards (Harvey 2013).
The first year of the project has been dedicated to refining, testing and evaluating the draft framework through workshopping a prototype interactive benchmarking tool, originally designed and piloted as a generic spreadsheet. This tool was developed as an evaluative instrument that individuals could use to self-assess or evaluate against the sessional-staff standards at four levels: institutional, faculty, department and individual. Working with the tool at the institutional level, for example, is suitable for those working at a whole-of-organisation level or who are focussed on the role and contribution of sessional staff to the organisation, and/or those who wish to obtain benchmarking data for their organisation. Working at the faculty (or school or division) level is suitable for those working in or with a faculty or school, and/or who have responsibility for a faculty's management, support, recruitment, administration or professional development of sessional staff. Working with the tool at the department level is suitable for those working in or with a department and who have responsibility for the management, support, recruitment, administration or professional development of sessional staff in the department. This level may also be most relevant for unit convenors, subject coordinators, program leaders or directors of teaching and research centres. Working at the individual level is suitable for sessional teachers who wish to self-evaluate against the sessional staff standards.
At each level of the benchmarking tool, there are three sections with statement sets that correspond to the framework's three key principles: Quality Learning and Teaching, Support for Sessional Staff and Sustainability (refer to Harvey, 2013). In each section, respondents are asked to pick the set of statements that best apply to current practice at their institution, and then provide a reason and evidence for their selection. At the end of the process, the tool automatically generates a summary benchmarking report against the sessional-staff standards; the statement is colour-coded to indicate whether Good Practice or the Minimum Standard is being achieved, or if current levels of practice are Unsustainable. The report can then be saved as a PDF or printed for the respondent's own use. No data or personal information entered by respondents is retained in the system; however, with repeated engagement and use of the tool, it will be possible to measure enhancements in practice over time. An important advantage to this tool is that the entire benchmarking process, from training to engagement, debriefing and reporting, is streamlined, taking less than one working day to complete; this can be an important factor for organisations where heavy workloads are standard (McKinnon, Walker & Davis 2000).

Benchmarking for Quality Learning and Teaching with Sessional Staff
Quality assurance and enhancement in higher education can be achieved through a wide range of strategies; for example, peer review as applied to research (and increasingly to teaching activities), and for professional development (Byrne, Brown & Challen 2010). The alignment and development of the BLASST framework, with benchmarking as a quality assurance and enhancement practice, however, was a strategic choice, as benchmarking for "best practice" is a process that has been enacted within international universities (Epper 1999) and nationally (ACODE 2007, CADAD 2010, Cameron, Harvey & Solomonides 2010, albeit not with regard to sessional-staff issues. The methodology of benchmarking, with its "conceptual emphasis on openness of analysis, organisational learning, and an examination of processors rather than narrow focus on input or output data" (Schofield 1998, p6), also offers a good fit with a university culture that values collegiality and shared decision-making (Rytmeister 2009). Furthermore, benchmarks need to be specific to the context -in this case to sessional teachers in the Australian highereducation sector -and, as has been argued (Massaro 1998), benchmarks cannot be transferred from other industries or from other contexts. Benchmarks also need to provide flexibility to respond to institutional diversity, which may be achieved by working with a philosophy informed by the "tuning" process: where the goal is to achieve standards as points of reference, convergence and common understanding, rather than uniformity (Gonzalez & Wagenaar 2003). Universities have also raised as an issue the need for any benchmarking process to be user-friendly (McKinnon, Walker & Davis 2000) and time-and resource-efficient. The BLASST interactive tool, with an easy-to-use online interface and automatically generated summary reports, meets these needs.
The overall purpose of the BLASST framework is for quality assurance and enhancement of learning and teaching with sessional staff; therefore its points of reference are examples of good practice. The development of statements of good practice, together with the standards that serve as performance indicators, was informed by a meta-analysis of data on sessional staff in Australian higher education (refer to Harvey 2013) as recommended by Cameron, Harvey and Solomonides (2010). With the development of sessional-staff standards for good practice, the BLASST framework thus enables two types of benchmarking activity. A comparison between units (departments and/or faculties) within the same university organisation is an example of internal benchmarking (Alstete 1996, cited in Schofield 1998. The BLASST framework also enables sector benchmarking, where a university benchmarking partner or partners are selected (Woodhouse 2000, cited in Stella & Woodhouse 2007 to allow them to compare "like with like" and share knowledge for mutual benefit. Benchmarking using the BLASST framework may be undertaken as a strategy to assess the current standards of practice within one institution, but partner institutions would also benefit from "intrinsic and ongoing" (Garlick & Pryor 2004, p46) reference to the standards. This cross-institutional approach, embedded in quality systems, supports continuous improvement, and monitors and affirms shared progress towards good practice.

Benchmarking with the BLASST Framework: A Methodology
Because this project focussed on quality enhancement of learning and teaching with sessional staff, and on developing good practice, the data generation and collection was undertaken using a mixed-methods approach (Creswell & Plano-Clarke 2011). This allowed the project team to draw on methods and strategies appropriate for the key deliverables of the project, and that were in line with the project's employment of the MERI evaluation approach (Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Improvement) (Wadsworth 2011). The analysis and discussion here is based upon the qualitative and quantitative feedback collected during workshops held at each partner institution, where participants engaged in benchmarking activities with the BLASST Sessional Staff Standards Framework using a prototype of the online interactive tool. In line with the wider project aims, the specific focus was on identifying the effective and useful aspects of the BLASST framework andinteractive tool, and how both the framework and the tool might be further developed as a tool for quality enhancement with sessional staff. On another level, the project team were also interested in gauging awareness of sessional-staff issues, both broadly and with reference to the BLASST framework's key principles of quality learning and teaching, support for sessional staff and sustainability. This stage of the project received approval from the humanethics committees of the participating institutions.

The benchmarking workshops
Partner institutions taking part in the pilot benchmarking workshops included a large, suburban metropolitan university (University W); a small, city-based university (University X); an interregional, multi-campus institution (University Y); and a large, inner-city institution (University Z) ( Table 1). Each university's benchmarking workshop was jointly organised by members of the project team, facilitated by a project partner with assistance and input from the project leader and/or the project manager. While each workshop differed in duration and in the numbers and types of participants, all included a version of the suggested workshop program (Appendix). This five-and-a-half-hour program (including lunch and two breaks) incorporated a "think-aloud" exercise, where a seniorlevel participant verbally worked their way through the tool in front of the larger group; individual and collective direct engagement with the tool; and opportunities for small-and larger-group discussion. This format provided role-modelling for working through the main benchmarking activity, and established the tenor for the day's activities.

Data collection
There were three phases of data collection ( Table 2). The first phase involved conducting preworkshop surveys that canvassed participants' awareness of the broad issues around sessional staff in higher education, as well as participant awareness and/or understanding of how the policies and practices within their own institution aligned with the BLASST framework's key principles. These pre-workshop online and paper surveys were carried out at two of the four workshops. The second phase of data collection was a two-stage process. Participants at all workshops provided written feedback on hard copies of the BLASST framework as they worked through it. They then provided additional feedback on the framework, the interactive tool and the workshop in an online post-workshop survey.
1 University X's organisational structure does not include departments Both the pre-and post-benchmarking surveys were designed as five-point Likert-scale questionnaires, where respondents are asked to specify their level of agreement or disagreement on a symmetric agree-disagree scale for a series of statements. Surveys included positively worded and negatively worded items, with the latter being reverse-scored. The final phase involved semi-structured interviews with the project-partner convenors, held immediately after each workshop. Two questions were asked in each interview -What went well in the workshop today? What didn't go so well? -with additional prompts as required. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed in abbreviated note form.

Benchmarking with the BLASST Framework: Case Studies
Four universities representing each project partner institution led the piloting of the benchmarking workshops with the BLASST framework. The outcomes and key learnings for each university are presented here as case studies. Case studies are a useful qualitative approach for studying a phenomenon -the "case" -in its real-world context (Yin 2011). In this instance, the four benchmarking workshops are presented as real-world university contexts that illustrate a "phenomenon": the transferability and potential usefulness of the BLASST framework in initiating multi-level discourse on sessional staff standards, supporting multi-disciplinary networks involving sessional staff and sharing good-practice strategies for enhancing quality learning and teaching with sessional staff.
Case study 1: The large, suburban university Using a prototype tool, the first intensive benchmarking pilot was conducted at a large, suburban university (University W). All four levels of the BLASST framework were represented by 20 workshop participants: individual sessional staff, departments, faculties and university executives. Two faculties led the process, inviting three departments and sessional-staff representatives. A team of university executives representing the Office of the Provost, Human Resources and the Learning and Teaching Centre opened the benchmarking process.
The process was scaffolded with a structured program (Appendix 1), simple user instructions and project-team members to offer support to participants during the day. One full day had been scheduled for the process; however, the efficiency of the benchmarking tool was demonstrated by the process's completion in less than a day. Additional benefits of using the BLASST framework in this format included the open and honest discussion modelled by the university's executives at the beginning of the process, which established a collaborative and collegial standard for discussion and communication for the day. The benchmarking process required participants to provide evidence to support their self-assessment of standards achieved. This was beneficial, as "talking about reasons and evidence prevents (one) from being too positive or negative about their own performance" and "if you couldn't provide evidence at least [the process] made you think about what you were saying and why you couldn't provide evidence" (University W -workshop evaluations, 2011). Another benefit noted was the generation of cross-disciplinary and cross-level discussion throughout and after the benchmarking exercise. Discussion was stimulated as the university executives, the faculty and department representatives and individual sessional-staff members compared their evidence against the framework's criteria and openly debated the ratings for each level. One positive outcome from this discussion was the sharing and learning of diverse strategies and practices to assure and enhance the quality of learning and teaching with sessional staff.
Feedback was collected from all participants about the usability of the online tool, and more specifically, the readability and language of the criteria and standards. All feedback was collated, considered by the project team and reference group and incorporated into the next version of the BLASST framework. The framework, which had been developed at this university, offered the potential to contribute to sector-wide good practice, but it was necessary to further pilot both the framework and the tool to ensure they would be valid, reliable and contextually applicable to other higher-education institutions. Further benchmarking pilots were organised to take place in other institutional contexts, including a small, city-based institution, a regional, multi-campus context and a large, inner-city university to test the applicability of the standards framework across the sector.
Case study 2: The small, city-based university University X supports the development of nationally benchmarked faculty-level programs and resources. This has involved the development and implementation of a strategic plan to raise the quality of learning and teaching in the case-study faculty through support for sessional staff. This plan provided an alternative model to the traditional faculty processes for employment of sessional staff by including external professional staff on a two-year secondment to the faculty. These "clinical professional staff" remained employees of the employing authorities, but also became resident and functioning teaching staff in the faculty. The plan included orientation and professional development for these sessional staff, mentoring partnerships with experienced teachers and establishment of a sessional-staff community of practice.
The opportunity to participate in the development of national standards to support and enhance quality learning and teaching by sessional staff was particularly timely for the case-study faculty.
Trialling the BLASST interactive tool in a whole-of-faculty workshop context supported the faculty implementation of sessional-staff strategic initiatives by increasing participants' level of awareness of the initiatives, and importantly, of the national and faculty-specific drivers behind their introduction. All participants agreed that the workshop provided an opportunity to reflect on the challenges and opportunities faced by sessional staff in the higher-education sector. Following the workshop, participants reported increased awareness in terms of: • sessional-staff issues across the Australian higher-education sector. Prior to the workshop, 50% of participants had had "some" or a "high" awareness of these issues. On completion of the workshop this percentage had increased to 78%; • how their faculty supports sessional staff. The percentage of participants who had "some" or a "high" awareness of these initiatives had increased from 75% prior to the workshop to 89% at its completion; • the extent of sustainability of the sessional-staff practices in their faculty. Prior to the workshop, 38% of participants were unsure of the extent to which the initiatives for sessional staff were sustainable, and only a slightly higher percentage (41%) had some awareness of the potential for sustainability. On completion of the workshop, the percentage unsure of the extent of sustainability had decreased to 11% and the percentage with some awareness of the sustainability of the new practices had increased to 67%.
Workshop discussions were valued by University X participants because they stimulated the sharing of personal experiences, areas of concern and good-practice tips that enabled individual reflection on personal practice. In fact, participants indicated that the conversations were the aspect of the workshop that was most helpful. They reported that the discussions helped them "appreciate the variety of roles we undertake", and provided an opportunity to "network" and "discuss issues" and an "opportunity to share our experiences and learn about new research in this important area" (University X -post-benchmarking survey, 2012). Participants also felt they had identified strategies for collaboration and networking with their colleagues that would be likely to enrich their work as sessional staff and enable them to support other sessional staff.
The workshop activities also facilitated particular sorts of cross-faculty conversations that might not otherwise have occurred, further enhancing participants' knowledge and understanding of the national context and their faculty's initiatives. For example, as she undertook the benchmarking of the faculty initiatives through a think-aloud exercise, the Associate Dean (Education) shared the thinking behind each strategy adopted in the faculty, as well as the details of each strategy's implementation, to reveal the complexity of establishing good practice for sessional-staff teaching at the faculty level. One complexity that group discussion revealed was the extent of cultural change involved in the faculty's strategic initiative to establish communities of practice for sessional staff when such communities of practice, and the opportunities for conversations about teaching and learning they offered, were not something staff members were used to. There was consensus that change at the sessional-staff level was really about change at the faculty level (and indeed at the institutional level in relation to communities of practice).
The honest and open dialogue throughout the day facilitated a constructive environment for testing the framework, and opened spaces for ongoing cross-faculty conversations. The benchmarking workshop helped maintain staff enthusiasm for the faculty's initiatives, as well as being "invaluable in assuring quality for both sessional staff and the faculty" (University X -postbenchmarking surveys, 2012). All participants agreed that the workshop offered a potential framework for supporting the faculty's sessional staff and enhancing their learning and teaching. While contextually significant to the case-study faculty, the learning from the workshop has the potential to influence sessional-staff support in other faculties.
Case study 3 -The inter-regional, multi-campus university As an inter-regional, multi-campus university, University Y has a need to approach all institutionwide issues in an inclusive manner. Consequently video-conferencing is a well-used communication strategy that enables all campuses to be "at the table" for consultation and decision-making. Given the centrality of the workshop format to benchmarking with the BLASST framework and interactive tool, and given the multi-campus context, it was decided to use videoconferencing for this pilot benchmarking workshop.
With the exception of the use of video-conferencing as the medium for discussion and plenary sessions, University Y's workshop followed a similar format to those at the other partner institutions. The workshop participants included representatives of the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Students and Education), a head of school, unit coordinators and members of sessional staff. Four of the seven faculties were represented. The workshop was also attended by representatives (including the coordinators) of two programs that employ current undergraduate students in sessional teaching roles, for programs such as peer-assisted study sessions and as student learning mentors. With no Human Resources representative at the workshop, however, university management and executive were not as well-represented as would perhaps be optimal for this process. There was a strong commitment to supporting sessional staff amongst the participants in the workshop, all of whom attended voluntarily (with appropriate payment made to the sessional staff who were in attendance). The pre-workshop survey indicated that the majority of the participants had some awareness of sessional-staff issues and practices at University Y. However, four participants indicated low to no awareness prior to the workshop on policies, practices and/or issues of sustainability.
The workshop opened with a think-aloud activity, followed by participants at each campus working in groups on appropriate levels of the framework. The groups then reconvened through video-conferencing in a plenary session to discuss findings and give feedback on the process. Given the composition of the group, it is perhaps unsurprising that a vibrant and passionate discussion ensued, demonstrating both the qualitative and quantitative differences across groups, roles and levels, and among individual participants. It was also evident that practices varied across the institution, even within individual faculties, and that participants found the workshop useful for getting updated with current practice across the institution: As the tool is finalised it will be good to have sessions like this actually using it to get a report on our institution (University Y -post-benchmarking survey, 2012) The requirement to identify sources of evidence to support the selection statements around current levels of practice within institutions was instrumental in participants uncovering examples of good practice within the institution. These served as a counterpoint to those cases of unsustainable practice in other schools and faculties. One important observation regarding the uneven distribution of quality learning and teaching practice was from two postgraduate sessional teachers, who noted that while their school was very supportive of their development activities in research, it had not encouraged any development in learning and teaching.
A comparison of the summary reports identified strong support for sessional staff in at least one faculty and in the student programs. In these cases, the summary reports also indicated where substantial work had been undertaken in the areas of induction, provision of professional learning and ongoing support and mentoring.. The comparison also unearthed sustainability as an area of concern common to all programs, particularly from those who were achieving good practice in a certain area and wanted to sustain that growth. Undertaking an appraisal at each of the organisational levels of the framework also shed light on issues of communication between these levels. It was clear that, at least in some schools, there was an inadequate level of awareness of institution-wide practices and programs.
The benchmarking workshop, by virtue of its interactive and collaborative structure, had a positive effect on the level of awareness of sessional staff issues. The post-workshop survey indicated all respondents reported having "some" or a "high" level of understanding. This awareness appeared to have been supported through the workshop activities and discussion, without the need for an explicit focus in the workshop on identifying sessional staff issues: Feedback from the workshop also provided clear endorsement of the benchmarking process as a method of engaging at an institution-wide level, and was especially useful for discussing the framework in context. Importantly, too, the use of video-conferencing was not considered an impediment to this process; there was no reference in feedback to any difficulties posed in engaging with the framework or the interactive tool through this medium. Participants at both campuses saw the BLASST framework as an excellent tool for promoting a whole-of-institution approach to supporting sessional staff. The opportunities for reflecting on current practices and sharing examples of good practice across campuses were also highly regarded, with the caveat that the current format of the workshop did not allow for the identification of practical strategies for collaboration, or for the leadership of sessional staff. For University Y participants, however, the BLASST framework did present a powerful tool to move on to this next important stage.

Case Study 4: A large, inner-city university
A large, inner-city university (University Z) participated in the series of pilot benchmarking workshops, in part as a means of evaluating and building upon recent initiatives implemented over the previous four years. In the case of University Z, these include the development of a dedicated website, paid annual professional-development workshops and conferences, as well as special categories created within the institutional teaching awards for sessional staff (or "casual academics", as they are referred to at this institution). The practice orientation of this university also means that a relatively large number of practitioners are employed on a sessional basis. The principles set out by the BLASST framework are therefore well aligned to institutional priorities.
The benchmarking workshop at University Z included 34 participants from five faculties, ranging from Arts and Design to Engineering and Business. Workshop participants represented a wide range of roles across all four levels of the BLASST framework, including individual-level sessional academics; departmental-level subject coordinators; faculty-level professional (administrative) staff and course coordinators. At the institutional level academic developers, a divisional executive officer, a human resource specialist, senior leaders and a member of the university executive also participated. Following an introduction to the project, framework and interactive tool by the project team, the think-aloud exercise provided in the exemplar workshop format (Appendix) sparked wide-ranging discussion. Opportunities to work in pairs or groups and share perspectives on the different framework levels provided another catalyst for important conversations across the organisational levels.
The comprehensive nature of the framework and the multiple perspectives embedded in its levels provided participants with a useful "overview of issues relating to sessional staff", according to post-benchmarking survey respondents. Importantly, it also provided "a clear outline of best practice for sessional staff". The opportunity the workshop offered to reflect upon the challenges and opportunities faced by sessional staff was valued by respondents (92.3%) (University Z postbenchmarking survey, 2012). The workshops' "introduction to the framework tool" and "hands-on work with the program" gave participants valuable experience in working simutaneously with a benchmarking process and a tool. However, in this case the greatest value of the benchmarking workshop approach for participants lay in the opportunity for contextualised discussions together.
This aspect of the workshop was the most important for the majority of respondents. Their comments included: hearing and sharing "others' views and experiences"; finding out "about practice outside my own faculty"; "different perspectives" and being able to compare views and work with a partner as highlights. Meeting other sessional staff -"appreciating the variety of roles we fulfil" and "being listened to" by each other and staff in other roles across the institutionalong with "networking and giving feedback to university (executive)" were also valued by the sessional-staff participants.
As an action-research project, the workshop was also a pilot for the draft framework and the online tool. Some issues regarding the functionality, navigation and flexibility within the spreadsheet version of the tool used for the workshop emerged. The language and structure of the questions within each level and the institutional "fit" at each level also caused issues for some participants, but provided useful feedback for the project team. This benchmarking exercise is relatively timeefficient compared to similar processes; the process required several hours on the day, including the various activities from introducing and demonstrating the framework, tool and levels individuals completing the framework at a particular level from their own perspective or in discussion with others, and whole-group discussions. This was perceived as time-consuming by some participants. However, the workshop timing was sufficient to produce summary benchmarking reports from all participants, as well as offer opportunities for reflection and conversation around current practice, with the extended and extensive discussion time highly valued by most participants (University Z -post-benchmarking survey, 2012).
The use of the benchmarking process in a large group, incorporating extended discussions, meant that specialist and senior staff were able to hear from a diverse group of sessional staff. Alongside the chance to do some "reflection on current action", comments included references to the fact that meeting to discuss issues with and get "feedback from sessional staff was invaluable". A majority of respondents thought the summary report was useful, and the reports themselves revealed surprisingly common perceptions of standards across participant roles and faculties (University Z -post-benchmarking survey, 2012). Conversely, participants considered the standards to be implemented unevenly across the institution. This confirms anecdotal feedback regarding the faculty-or department-dependent nature of the experiences of sessional staff at this university, which coexists alongside the many centrally funded sessional-staff initiatives. The potential of this framework for supporting sessional staff at the institution was recognised by 92.3% of respondents (University Z -post-benchmarking survey, 2012), providing a compelling rationale for implementing the benchmarking tool and process.

Concluding Reflections
The benchmarking pilots for the BLASST framework across four Australian universities, aimed to test the transferability of the draft framework and the accompanying interactive tool across a range of institutional contexts (including a small, city-based university, an inter-regional multi-campus institution and a large, inner-city university) using different media, including video-conferencing. Through benchmarking workshops and the collection of evaluative data before, during and after the workshops, the project team sought to identify the useful aspects of the framework and tool, and gather feedback on how both could be refined. The case studies presented here discuss the outcomes of these endeavours in terms of the perceived efficacies of the framework and tool as these emerged through the workshop feedback.
As the case studies indicate, the workshops offered a potential framework for enhancing the quality of learning and teaching by sessional staff. The BLASST framework and interactive tool offers an active, multi-level benchmarking approach, which may provide a viable alternative to the policy-driven strategies that are common across Australian institutions (Harvey 2013). As the case studies here also indicate, the deep cross-and intra-institutional engagement with the framework through the benchmarking tool and process illustrates the potential for the framework to effect change through its support of evaluating and reflecting upon current and possible future practice to foster quality in sessional-staff learning and teaching. The framework's alignment with the three principles of quality learning and teaching, support for sessional staff and sustainability for workforce planning actively recognises and incorporates the contribution of sessional staff within a particular institution. Another strength of the framework is that it supports planning and improvement across institutions and at a range of organisational levels. The flexibility of the framework was evidenced by its use across diverse institutions and different cohorts of sessional staff, including seconded professionals and student leaders. This planning is further facilitated through day workshops and instant summary reports.
The case studies here have also highlighted both the benefits and the limitations to benchmarking with the BLASST framework within the context of a workshop. One of the key benefits to running the workshops across the participating institutions was the provision of a unique opportunity (or "space") for important conversations on sessional staff issues across the institution, structured and supported by a scholarly, evidenced-based and tested framework. Discussions framed around the sessional-staff standards enabled friendly but frank exchanges incorporating very different perspectives across faculties, roles and subjects. The different experiences and priorities that were highlighted through the discussions, as well as through the summary reports, provide a foundation for future institutional and individual planning and development, as well as (in some cases) extending current strategic projects and initiatives. Responding to the need identified by Case Study 3 for an opportunity to "identify practical strategies", the summary report has since been upgraded to support the development of action plans.
The majority of participants across the four participating institutions considered the otherwise rare opportunity for review, reflection, (self-) evaluation, conversations and network-building within and across organisations a major benefit. The scaffolding of open and honest exchange as modelled through the think-aloud exercises generated what were generally considered necessary cross-disciplinary and cross-level discussion of current institutional practice, including instancesand evidence -of good practice, as well as areas for improvement. The workshops also provided the valuable opportunity to gather stakeholders from across the university to highlight key issues and clarify the diverse practices in different faculties from a range of different perspectives, while creating a sense of community for all those involved with sessional-staff issues. This was particularly significant for sessional-staff participants across all four universities, who appreciated the opportunity to raise particular areas for concern and also just to share information: All of this workshop was useful as it was an opportunity to share our experiences and learn about new research in this important area. (Post-benchmarking survey comment, 2012) A very useful workshop…as a course convener it has helped me to identify some issues that need to be addressed (Post-benchmarking survey comment, 2012).
Piloting the framework and tool through benchmarking workshops provided an opportunity not only to test the potential of this alternative approach, but to simultaneously engage sessional staff and those responsible for working with and managing them in the benchmarking and evaluative process. Again, this contrasts to other approaches where sessional staff are absent or not consulted, or are otherwise excluded from institutional plans that directly affect the quality of learning and teaching. However, as noted in the case studies, engaging stakeholders at the university management and executive level was an issue at some of the participating institutions. Responding to calls for a time-effective benchmarking process, each of the case-study institutions undertook the full benchmarking activity using the BLASST framework within the timeframe of one day. This demonstrates a time efficiency compared to traditional benchmarking practices that rely on paper-based reporting. Such efficiencies provided time for the important discussions, debates and reflections on new learning about good practice that were stimulated by the tool.
Over 95% of post-workshop survey respondents agreed that the benchmarking workshops offered an opportunity to reflect on the challenges and opportunities faced by sessional staff in the highereducation sector. This feedback provides a strong rationale for building these types of interactions into the university more systematically to further develop quality learning and teaching with this essential group of teaching staff. The results of the pilot workshops provide compelling rationales for implementing the framework and tool not only at the individual institutional level, but also across the sector to keep the momentum and share good practice cross-institutionally, sustaining initiatives that support sessional teachers while complementing other strategic initiatives.
In conclusion, benchmarking with and through the BLASST framework not only ensures important discussions regarding good practice with sessional teachers, with sessional staff actively included and engaged in the process, but also provides a starting point and appropriate instruments to work towards good practice in supporting quality learning and teaching with sessional staff. The case-study data indicate that the BLASST framework is transferable and can be used reliably across a range of higher-education institutions. We, the BLASST project team, now invite others to engage in benchmarking with the BLASST framework and with the BLASST benchmarking interactive tool (now known as the B-BIT) and to further develop multi-level leadership capacities with sessional staff, both within their own institutions and across the sector.