Evaluation of the landscape architecture programme offered by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning (ILP)
at the
Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB)
Self-evaluation report
Table of contents
Chapters Page
1 Introduction 5
2 Learning goals 5
2.1 Relevance 6
2.2 Benchmarking and recommendations for improvement 10
3 Program structure and delivery 10
3.1 Appropriateness for attaining learning goals 10
3.2 Evaluation and benchmarking 14
3.2.1 Program structure 14
3.2.2 Materials and learning methods 16
3.2.3 Assessment of student learning 18
3.2.4 Total learning environment 19
4 Competence and research basis for the program 21
4.1 Competence basis 21
4.2 Research basis 23
5 Future labour market 26
5.1 Relevance of the program 26
5.2 Broader labour market 29
6 Resource use and recruitment 30
6.1 Competitiveness 30
6.2 Admission requirements 31
6.3 Recruitment 31
6.4 Economic sustainability 31
7 Learning results and quality assurance 33
7.1 Attainment of stated learning goals 33
7.2 Benchmarking of learning results 34
7.3 Quality assurance practices 34
8 Organizational framework 35
8.1 Institutional support and framework factors 35
8.2 Relationship between programmes and specializations 35
8.3 Use of UMB and partner resources 36
9 References 36
10 Appendix list 37
Appendices 1-6 List of tables Table 1: 15
Student exchange to and from the LA-programme at ILP-UMB in the last 5 years. Table 2: 19
Number of admitted students to the programmes first year at Ås from 1988 to 2008. Table 3: 26 Number of publications from staff of the LA-programme the last three years.
Table 4: 28 Ca. number of graduated students from the three specializations in the last 5 years.
Table 5 : 30
Applicants, no of admitted students and admission points for LA- students , 2004-8.
Table 6: 32
Economic sustainability (shown in NOK) of the Landscape Architecture programme at UMB, calculated on the basis of courses taught by ILP in 2008-2009 and the number of students who passed these courses in 2006 and 2007.
1 Introduction
This self-evaluation report has been written by Anne Katrine Geelmuyden, Head of the department of Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning’s Landscape Architecture Section, in cooperation with the programme advisory board (Programrådet). (See
organization: http://intern.umb.no/imt/?viewID=26291). Special thanks to Corinna Clewing for valuable comments and discussions, as well as to Anne Svinddal, for providing valuable statistical material and for making and organizing the students inquiry. The statistical material is mostly ( and when mentioned) taken from “Felles studentsystem”
(FS), which is an electronic database common for all Norwegian universities. The student inquiry was carried out electronically in November 2008 as a complement to the present evaluation report. It will be referred to and commented under specific relevant topics.
The results of this inquiry will be available as a document in the Classfronter room allocated to the evaluation committee.
Under each heading, the content of the following chapter is outlined in italics. Each chapter ends with a self evaluation of the main points that are mentioned. Detailed self evaluative remarks may be included in connection with each topic in the text.
2 Learning goals
ILP’s strategic plan:
ILP has not formulated a strategic plan, but on its webpage declares that - Instituttets hovedmål er å gi undervisning og utvikle kunnskap og innsikt innen fagområdene
landskapsarkitektur, arealplanlegging, arealjus og jordskifte. (The Department’s main goal is to provide education and develop knowledge within the fields of landscape architecture,spatial planning and spatial law and land consolidation).
Den faglige kompetansen nyttes til samfunnsplanlegging innen feltene: Hage- og parkanlegg, boligområder og byrom, friluftsområder, kulturlandskap, store landskapsinngrep, arealplanlegging, arealbruk, eiendomsrett og eiendomsformende prossesser og virkemidler. (Professional competence comes to use in the following situations:
garden and parks, residential areas, urban spaces, recreational areas, cultural landscapes, large scale developments, apatial planning, land use, property law and property generating processes and measures.) The learning goals that are stated for the landscape architecture programme as a whole (Studiehåndboka 2007/08) can be summarized as follows:
After completed education -
The students should be able to conceive of ideas and solutions to various place- making tasks and implement these, and to plan and manage the urban as well as the rural landscape in accordance with the intentions of the European Landscape Convention.
The students should understand ongoing changes and be able to plan for development in the urban and rural landscape using design and management measures. Proposals
should include functional, aesthetic, social, legal, ecological and economical considerations.
Students should be able to cooperate with other professionals across disciplinary boundaries and with the general public.
The students’ proposals and ideas should be communicated in an understandable way, and in a way that explicates their consequences.
The program’s learning goals are designed to suit the requirements of the profession of landscape architecture.
2.1 Relevance
Evaluate the relevance of the learning goals (knowledge, skills and attitudes) of the programme and the set of programmes viewed as a whole, in light of current and future challenges and societal needs:
Current challenges and societal needs in the field in the regions where students will work after obtaining their degree.
Norwegian, Nordic and international policy and strategies in the fields.
Education- and research strategies and priorities at UMB and co-operating partners.
First of all, it may be stated that the explicit learning goals of the programme are very profession-oriented. Little is said about aiming at critical thinking and scholarly reflection.
2.1.1 The European Landscape Convention (ELC)
Concern about the landscape has risen dramatically over the last decade in Europe and in 2004, the European Landscape Convention (ELC) entered into force. The convention text as a whole is an important document that outlines challenges and societal needs (http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/176.htm). It gives the following definition:
"Landscape" means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors;
The convention aims at promoting landscape protection, management and planning, and at organizing European co-operation on landscape issues. It has set up the following
“general measures”:
Each Party undertakes:
a to recognise landscapes in law as an essential component of people’s surroundings, an expression of the diversity of their shared cultural and natural heritage, and a foundation of their identity;
b to establish and implement landscape policies aimed at landscape protection, management and planning through the adoption of the specific measures set out in Article 6;
c to establish procedures for the participation of the general public, local and regional authorities, and other parties with an interest in the definition and implementation of the landscape policies mentioned in paragraph b above;
d to integrate landscape into its regional and town planning policies and in its cultural, environmental, agricultural, social and economic policies, as well as in any other policies with possible direct or indirect impact on landscape.
Further, the convention’s “specific measures” are especially relevant here:
A Awareness-raising: Each Party undertakes to increase awareness among the civil society, private organisations, and public authorities of the value of landscapes, their role and changes to them.
B Training and education: Each Party undertakes to promote:
a training for specialists in landscape appraisal and operations;
b multidisciplinary training programmes in landscape policy, protection, management and planning, for professionals in the private and public sectors and for associations concerned;
c school and university courses which, in the relevant subject areas, address the values attaching to landscapes and the issues raised by their protection, management and planning.
As a follow-up of the ELC, landscape policies have been formulated by the Directorate for Nature Management (DN) and The Directorate for Cultural Heritage (RA) in “Strategi for arbeid med landskap”. (“Strategy for work with landscape”), 2007. This strategy includes the following points:
Strengthen landscape work on community level
Develop good landscape management in cooperation with the main space consuming sectors.
Enhance the population’s awareness of and engagement in the landscape.
Strengthen the knowledge base and the landscape perspective in the authorities’
environmental policies.
In “Goals for spatial policies” (Stortingsmeld.ing Nr 21 - 2004-2005 - The Government’s Environmental Policy and the State of the Environment in Norway) by the Norwegian Ministry of Environment, the following national targets are formulated:
1. Mountain areas shall be managed through a whole-landscape approach that safeguards their cultural and natural resources while providing opportunities for appropriate types of commercial development and outdoor recreation.
2. The environmental qualities of landscapes shall be safeguarded and developed through improved knowledge and targeted planning and land-use policy.
3. Areas of wild reindeer habitat shall be safeguarded.
4. The annual conversion of high-quality arable land for other purposes than agriculture shall be halved. Particularly valuable areas of cultural landscape shall be documented and management plans put in place by 2010.
5. Coordinated planning procedures, including evaluation of user and environmental interests, shall be followed for the establishment of energy generation plants requiring large areas of land.
2.1.2 The professional organization
The professional corps of landscape architects in Norway (Norske
Landskapsarkitekters forening - NLA) automatically accepts graduates from ILP’s landscape architecture program as members. For the time being, this is the only
educational program in Norway that is recognized by NLA as a full landscape architecture education. NLA is a member of the European Foundation for Landscape Architecture (EFLA) and the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). As a response to the Bologna Agreement on higher education in Europe, EFLA is currently working on common accreditation guidelines for the accreditation of landscape architecture schools.
One of the preparatory documents, the “IFLA/UNESCO charter for landscape architecture education” from august 2005 (www.iflaonline.org/education/ifla_uesco_ed.pdf, last accessed July 2008), is introduced as follows:
We, the landscape architects, concerned with the future development of our landscapes in a fast changing world, believe that everything, influencing the way in which the outdoor environment is created, used, and maintained is fundamental to sustainable development and human well-being.
We, being responsible for the improvement of the education of future landscape architects to enable them to work for a sustainable environment within the context of our natural and cultural heritage, declare:
I. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Our modern world presents complex challenges with respect to ecological, social and functional degradation of human settlements and regional landscapes. This makes it essential for education and research conducted in academic institutions to formulate new solutions for the present and the future.
1. The ideals of landscape architecture including providing for the quality of the natural and built environments, the way landscape relates to buildings and infrastructure, and respect for our natural environmental and cultural heritage are matters of public concern.
2. It is in the public interest to ensure that landscape architects are able to understand and to give practical expression to the needs of individuals, communities and the private sector regarding spatial planning, design organization, construction of landscapes, as well as, conservation and enhancement of the built heritage, the protection of the natural balance and rational land use planning for the utilization of available resources.
3. Methods of education and training for landscape architects are varied and that this fact be recognised as a cultural richness which should be preserved.
4. We require a common ground for future action with the aim of achieving an appropriate elevated level by establishing criteria which permit countries, schools and professional organizations to evaluate and improve the education given to the future landscape architects.
5. The increasing mobility of landscape architects between the different countries calls for a mutual recognition or validation of individual diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal
qualification.
6. The mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates or other evidence of formal qualification to practice in the field of landscape architecture has to be founded on objective criteria, guaranteeing that holders of such qualifications have received and maintain the kind of training called for in this Charter.
7. The vision of the future world, cultivated in landscape architectural schools, should include the following goals:
a decent quality of life for all the inhabitants
an approach to landscape planning and design interventions which respects the social, cultural, physical
and aesthetic needs of people
an ecologically balanced approach assuring sustainable development of the built environment
a public realm landscape which is valued and expressive of local culture.
ILPs LA-program was last recognized by EFLA’s education committee in October 2007 for a period of 5 years.
2.1.3 National laws
There are, obviously, national laws regulating landscape planning and design, the most important are The Planning and Building Act, The Nature Conservation act, the Cultural Heritage Act and the Energy Act.
2.1.4 UMB’s educational strategies
In its “strategic plan 2005-2008” (http://www.umb.no/11939), the university states that - UMB shall allocate its resources to ensure that:
Study programmes are flexible, efficiently organised and adapted to the students’ and society’s needs.
Teaching is based on close cooperation between the departments, as well as between staff and students.
UMB graduates develop action-oriented skills based on the university’s core values, interdisciplinary approach and environmental profile.
UMB carefully increases its educational capacity to about 3000 students. The number of national and international applicants to UMB’s study programmes increases. The current level of PhD programmes, with about 40-50 completed degrees per year, is maintained.
All teaching is research-based. Educational quality is enhanced by the teaching staff’s participation in international research and pedagogical development programmes.
An international perspective is developed through cooperation with universities abroad. UMB students are encouraged to participate on study-abroad programmes at foreign universities. The share of international students at UMB increases. At the MSc level, an increasing percentage of courses are being taught in English
UMB is characterised by an inspiring learning environment and excellent student welfare.
UMB has a quality assurance system that efficiently detects the need for improvements of the university’s educational and research activities.
Continuing education programmes are developed in step with the needs of both the public and the private sector. UMB shall be able to provide continuing education services in all of its core areas.
As it is clearly stated that UMB’s teaching should be research based, we also include the university’s main research goals:
Research at UMB includes basic research and targeted research, providing a foundation for education, research training and research geared towards the private sector.
Research is focused mainly on Environmental Sciences, Food Science, Biotechnology, Aquaculture and Business Development and has a strong interdisciplinary approach.
There is a strong link between research and the study programmes; students at the Master- and PhD level are often actively involved in many of UMB’s research activities.
Self-evaluation and suggestions for possible changes
ILP’s landscape architecture program is explicitly dedicated to implement all ELC- guidelines in accordance and cooperation with the relevant Norwegian authorities. The programme goals are relevant in light of internationally and nationally formulated current societal challenges in the students’ future field of work.
The programme’s intentions are also in accord with the criteria set up by the international professional organisations.
However, one could criticize the fact that detailed learning goals have not been set up for the programme as a whole, but only exist for each individual course (see chapter 2.) Work with formulating detailed learning goals has started and first results will be available in feb.
2009.
From the point of view of UMB – strategies, one might see a discrepancy: Although the programme fulfils the general strategies of UMB’s study programmes, and research in the Environmental Sciences, to a degree, encompasses landscape architectural research, the programme clearly lies on the margins of the university’s priorities, as it has its main focus on humanistic research and epistemology. As a consequence, the programme’s efficiency and cooperation with other UMB departments is not an important point in the programme’s learning goals. Also, the programme learning goals do not make a point of the students’
learning environment, which, according to UMB-strategies should be “inspiring”. There is no point made of an increase in courses taught in English. These issues will be discussed in more detail in later chapters of this report.
2.2 Benchmarking and recommendations for improvement
Compare the programme goals with comparable offerings at other internationally reputable educational institutions and with international standards, as understood by the committee. Make suggestions for revising and improving the programme goals.
We leave this point to the evaluation committee.
3 Programme structure and delivery
3.1 Appropriateness for attaining learning goals
Evaluate whether the programme content and current delivery of the programme are appropriate as a means to achieve the learning goals.
ILP’s landscape architecture programme is a 5-year master’s programme, with a two year common introduction for all the students and 3 specialisation options starting from the third year. The three specialisations are “Detailed landscape design”, “Landscape planning” and
“Urban green space and landscape management”. The programme was last revised in 1999-2000, as a consequence of the first year being moved from Høyskolen I Aust Agder Grimstad (a college in the south of Norway) to NLH (UMB). Apart from the relocation of the first year of the programme at the Ås - campus, the revision also aimed at offering a third specialization opportunity for the students in landscape management and at strengthening
the students’ basic design and drawing skills. Before that the programme underwent several revisions and evaluations. (See: Dyring, A.-K. Og M. Eggen, 1986; “Studentinnspill til studierevisjonen, 13. mars 2001”; Eggen, M., M. Fuller-Gee, A.-P. Johansen & HJ.
Osuldsen, 1997; and Halvorsen Thoren, K., 2001)
The programme introduction of two years aims at giving the students a core of knowledge and working philosophy, where the basic components are design principles, visual understanding and communication, and knowledge of the discipline’s typical tasks and tools as well as its traditional and current values. The following years of specialisation are structured around studio work on specific topics with supplementing knowledge courses.
The last three years also contain courses that aim at preparing the students for academic work, such as research tasks, scholarly reflection and work with the master’s thesis.
The charts in appendix 1 show the compulsory curriculum for the first two years and the curriculum for the three specialisations as they apply for the students that started in 2008.
Appendix 6 gives a list of all the programme’s courses.
The two year introductory programme stresses the profession’s basic tools and the discipline’s history and tradition as well as an introduction to Norwegian wild flora and ecology. The studio courses of the first 4 terms are given with the following topics in chronological succession:
a) the garden and meeting points in a semi-urban situation, b) the urban open space,
c) the housing area, d) the countryside
During the three specialization years, the students are expected to take more responsibility for their own learning, but the structure of the courses are the same as in the introductory years. The fourth year of the programme has been left open to allow the students to exchange a year at Ås with a year at another school in Norway or abroad.
The specialisation in Landscape design has more compulsory drawing and design
courses, and less compulsory credits totally than the management specialization, whereas the planning specialization has the same amount of compulsory courses as the design specialization.
The Landscape planning specialization has been offered by the department for a long time, and has courses in common with the Spatial Planning programme (By- og
regionplanlegging (Town and region planning) – BYREG). This specialization has, until recently had few optional courses for the students and the courses have been organized by the Byreg.-section of the department with very little control or cooperation from the LA- section. As a revised Byreg.-programme is now being implemented this situation will hopefully become much better. There should be a great potential for a much improved planning specialization.
Most of the courses are taught in Norwegian. Only some of the digital-presentation courses (LADxxx) and the landscape ecology course are taught in English. Design and studio
courses are tutored in English on request, but lectures are (as a rule) held in Norwegian.
One could consider the need for more courses in English, since the programme has few options for foreign students., which is a pity. On the other hand, increase it is important to teach and develop the students’ professional language skills in Norwegian primarily. We ask the committee to comment on this issue.
The structure and content of the programme is currently under scrutiny, due to external as well as internal pressures:
First, there is a pressure that has arisen from within:
o The students’ progress in design skills from 3rd to 5th year have been evaluated as too low by some teachers in the recent years.
o There are not yet enough students that follow the Landscape
management specialisation to warrant the specialised courses. It may lack a clear enough profile, compared to the landscape planning specialisation or the students may not be sufficiently exposed to that aspect of the profession in the two basic years.
o The programme is not economically sustainable (see chapter 6 below) and structural measures need to be taken to better the situation.
There is a pressure towards harmonising the LA-programme with a substantial revision in the department’s Spatial Planning programme (Byreg.). A
harmonisation aims at more flexibility for the students and more efficient use of the departments total teaching resources. The detailed aim is
o to bring students from the two programmes together in studio courses and thus achieve a higher degree of interdisciplinarity,
o to increase the students’ exposure to legal, institutional and economical aspects of spatial planning and design and
o to assure better economic sustainability for both programmes.
A potential revision also should aim at taking advantage of teaching resources at other UMB departments.
There is a pressure arising from the competition for the best students from other schools that have recently started LA-programmes: The Oslo School of
Architecture (AHO) and the architecture department at the Norwegian University of Technology in Trondheim (NTNU), as well as Bergen arkitektskole (BAS, as well as a landscape planning programme at the College of Sogn og Fjordane. Of the three, the AHO raises the greatest challenge because of its geographical proximity and because of its substantial advantage in teaching resources and teaching environment, with students of architecture, landscape architecture and industrial design located in new buildings in central Oslo. A possible restructuring would be to “fill in” the fourth year, and to offer attractive and large (e.g. 20 ECTS) studio courses in all the terms of the specialisation years. This might, though, jeopardise our aim to facilitate the students’ chance to spend a year or a term studying landscape architecture abroad.
Last, there is a pressure towards a reconsideration of the programme content in light of the dramatically increased demand for landscape architecture, planning and management expertise in new societal arenas, such as sustainable urban development, integrated development and protection schemes in regional and national park management.
Self-evaluation and possible changes
As a general conclusion, the curriculum is appropriate to meet the learning goals that are stated for the programme in what concerns structure. Also the content of the individual terms seems to be mostly appropriate. There is one exception to that: The students do not have enough opportunity to cooperate and interact with students of the other disciplines at ILP and UMB, be it teachers or students. This is serious since the conception of ideas and solutions for place-making and place-managing problems represent the core of the programme. One might therefore question the possibility of the students to rise above basic or intermediary level in complex landscape design, planning and management tasks.
For the design specialisation, cooperation with other design students could be achieved with UMB’s “structural engineering and architecture programme at IMT, Department of Mathematics and Technology, http://www.umb.no/?avd=22&static=showsp&sp=M-
BA&lang=en , but this education has its man focus on technology and we so far evaluate it as unsatisfactory from a design point of view as it suffers from the same isolation from a larger architecture and design learning environment as does ILP’s LA-programme. A cooperation with AHO in Oslo seems more desirable and should be encouraged.
In their response to the student inquiry, the students mention that some of the terms are not well coordinated in what concerns the order of the courses. As an example, they mention that LAA 215 (construction design) comes after LAA221, the course where they learn how to describe constructions for the contracter/builder.
As mentioned above, the programme lacks more specified learning goals that are adjusted to the current situation, as outlined above. Such learning goals should take into account what advantages the LA-programme has in being located at UMB, compared to Landscape architecture programmes at other schools, and that should be enhanced and promoted in the future. Also its strengths and differences compared to the new Byreg-programme should be made explicit. This work has already been started by the programme advisory board: a meeting to establish common agreement of detailed learning goals for the programme is scheduled for week 3 in 2009.
For the planning and management specializations, a possible change could be that LA- studio courses could be offered to students from other ILP-programmes and even from other departments at UMB, such as the Department of natural resources Management (IØR) and the Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management (INA).
The specialisation in landscape management is still under development. The management focus is on urban green spaces. But from 2009 we will also offer a course in strategic Landscape Planning where the aim is to strengthen the landscape architecture students’
understanding of integrating ecological problems, legal frameworks, societal institutions and economic considerations, as well as other professional perspectives on the landscape.
(Appendix 2) Such courses, however, are expensive and the economic sustainability should be assured before starting them.
The landscape management specialization has, so far, not been “popular” enough. The following points are hypothetical reasons:
a) The management specialization has too many mandatory courses and leaveslittle opportunity to take other LA-courses.
b) The students are unsure of the labour market and want to make sure that they have all the courses needed to apply for any landscape architect job.
c) The students are not given or are not able to acquire enough insight into what type of competence and into the importance of the work that the specialization aims at.
It is possible that this specialization option should be offered as a master programme for people with work experience.
Another important question to consider is also the fact that the programme is not divided into a “bachelor” and a “master”. This, to some degree affects the students’ flexibility to the worse, and may contribute to fewer students applying to the programme on a higher level, because it is more complicated and many of these students cannot achieve a master degree in only two years.
We ask the evaluation committee to consider these points carefully.
3.2 Evaluation and benchmarking
For each sub-point, evaluate and compare the programme, compare with the international “state of the art” as understood by the committee and suggest possible improvements. Benchmarking implies making evaluations of academic standards and level of instructions; currency of literature and contents; and whether the course package viewed as a whole adequately equips the student for working in the field at the appropriate level.
The evaluation committee is asked to assess these aspects of the programme, taking into consideration the following, more detailed pieces of information.
3.2.1 Programme structure
Course structure and progression; thematic content of required courses; international content and opportunities for studies abroad; course flexibility/opportunities for individual profiles.
The course structure and content of each course may be viewed by clicking the course codes in the charts in appendix 1.
The studio courses are typically structured as a combination of lectures and small assignments that prepare the students for the site and topic which make up the main design / planning assignment. Small assignments can be written papers, oral presentations on a theoretical issue related to the site or problem, or they can be small design or analysis assignments. The students are tutored and given feedback on request in addition to a preliminary presentation of their main assignment some weeks before deadline. Some of the small assignments may be evaluated and the grades contribute to the students’ final
grade (e.g. LAA 234); sometimes final grades are based on the largest and final assignment only (e.g. LAA 215, LAA 214, LAA 308). This structure also applies to the theory course where assignments are written (LAA 312).
Other courses, e.g. the Planting Design (LAA 223/224) course are structured as a series of shorter assignment, each focusing on a specific topic concerning plants. Each student is given feedback to each of his or her assignment as they are presented. A portfolio of all the assignments is then delivered by the students at the end of the course, which is then evaluated.
The basic drawing and design courses (LAFT xxx) are always a series of smaller assignments and a whole portfolio is evaluated at the end of the term. In addition to teaching specific courses, the “art-teachers” participate in some of the studio courses to varying degrees in the first three years as tutors. This has not been practiced for very long and may be done to a much larger degree. We ask the evaluation committee to consider the interconnection between LA-studio courses and drawing-design courses specifically.
In the last three years of the programme, greater independence is expected from the students in analysing the problems that need to be solved in different sites and in gathering the background information they need to solve their assignments.
The international content varies. The Norwegian literature in the field is practically non- existing, so that all literature is either in a Nordic or in English language. The studio courses have an emphasis on Norwegian locations and problems but to some extent present international examples in lectures and seminars. The students are encouraged to be aware of current landscape architecture as presented in the foreign magazines. The department has some of these on display in the “magazine library”. Unfortunately, this is presently located in a place where only few of the students have their studios. Several of the studio courses contain field trips and excursions abroad, especially to Sweden and Denmark, but also to other European countries. As mentioned earlier, the fourth year of the curriculum is left fairly “open” so as to allow the students to choose individual studies abroad. Also, it means that assuring a progression in the competence of the students is less in the hands of ILP, as the students’ work abroad varies considerably. The study- advisor of the Landscape Architecture programme recommends a list of schools with which ILP has exchange agreements and also officially gives credits for the student’s courses, on the basis of each foreign school’s own course description.
From To Year Coming
to ILP Europe/Erasmus Other
Going out
of ILP Europe/Erasmus Other
2004 1 1 5 3 2
2005 1 1 11 4 7
2006 3 3 6 3 3
2007 2 2 4 2 2
2008 3 2 1 2 2
Table 1: Student exchange to and from the LA-programme at ILP-UMB in the last 5 years.
Table 1 gives the number of foreign students who take a course or courses offered by the programme and the number of ILP students who take part of their education abroad.
Many of the students travel within the Erasmus network. But some travel to universities, with which ILP has bilateral agreements, such as with the University of Western Australia and California Polytechnic in the USA.
The last two years of the programme together allow the students some degree of individuality of profile, in addition to the standard specialisations offered within the programme at ILP (see above). Optional courses make up 65 ECTS out of 180ECTS (in total) for the design and planning specializations, and 40 ECTS in the management specialisation. The topic of the master’s thesis is chosen by each student with advice and supervision by the teachers. (See for a list of master theses in the recent years:
http://www.umb.no/?viewID=9313
3.2.2 Materials and learning methods
Quality of course materials, teaching facilities and equipment; guidance and supervision of students; hands-on practicals/laboratory/field work; current issues, and use of external lecturers (from business, industry, public management, research, etc.), project methodology, problem-oriented learning; the role of the students:
Encouragement of students to participate actively and critically. Expected and actual student work load;
student responsibility for learning; student inquiry./
The programme is designed with an emphasis on “problem-based learning”. The studio courses make up at least 30%, sometimes up to 60%, of each term’s course work. Course topics and work sites vary from year to year, addressing current problems in specific locations and up-to-date issues in the landscape architecture profession. The field work in these courses encompasses extended contact with professionals in the local municipalities and/or counties and, in some cases, with local inhabitants. The course teachers make an effort to provide maps and other background material pertaining to the term’s assignments.
Field trips and excursions are an important part of this learning method. They make up ca.
70 % of total course expenses (see appendix 4) not counting wages for permanent staff.
Project methodology is actively taught especially in the 2nd and 3rd year of the programme.
Already from year 1, site analysis and conception of solutions to urban design problems are practiced.
External lecturers are chosen from landscape architecture or architecture firms, in Norway and sometimes abroad, and make up ca. 13 % of the total teaching hours offered in the courses. Each year, a lecture series is offered at a set time of the week
(Torsdagsforelesninger”, (see http://www.umb.no/27216, for the programme) , when all the students have the opportunity to attend, which aims at reflecting the state of the art within the professional world and in research. Resources available for external lecturers and supervisors have decreased over the last years, as the economic situation has worsened.
Only few pure lecture courses and courses that are typically research based are offered in the programme by ILP. Those are law courses, landscape architecture history and theory and landscape ecology. In these courses there is a standard literature that can be viewed
in each course description and the department’s PhD-students are actively involved as supervisors or lecturers in those courses. These courses are also meant as preparation for thesis work and stress writing and critical inquiry and academic reflection. Other courses that stress basic scientific knowledge are geology, soil science, and plant identification. It may be discussed to what degree all the mentioned subjects should be integrated more into the studio courses or whether more “knowledge-courses” with exams should be part of the programme.
The department offers all the computer programs that are necessary and that the students receive lectures on. The department has three fully equipped computer labs, in addition to a Virtual Reality lab for special teaching and research purposes. (See
http://www.umb.no/?avd=140 )
Lecture rooms are offered by the university. There is shortage of rooms on campus generally for larger groups of students (more that 20). There is a critical lack of presentation rooms, in which the students’ design work may be discussed for a larger audience and where it can be displayed for periods of a few weeks. At present there is also a shortage of spaces for group work.
The UMB-park is an important “laboratory” for the students of landscape architecture. It represents an example of neo-classical garden design in Norway, it has examples of modernistic landscape design and it is an arboretum. It is actively used in plant identification courses, in several of the early design courses and it provides project localities in the planting design course. Also, the university’s nursery is put to use as an outdoor classroom.
Students’ responsibility for their own learning is emphasized at the beginning of the programme. However, there is a general impression among teachers that the students do not acknowledge the important role they play in acquiring basic as well as advanced skills in landscape architecture. In this connection the ILP library is an important resource. The department subscribes to a series of journals, both through the UMB main library system, but also in a specific ILP-library which is located near the department reception. Over the years, this library has not been kept well up to date in all fields. It has depended on individual teachers and varying course and department budgets whether books have been supplied. (see http://www.umb.no/?viewID=10852 )
One conclusion from the student inquiry is that many are dissatisfied with the amount of work they are expected to do. Tthey perceive the courses in each term as badly coordinated. UMB’s term structure means that many courses run simultaneously, especially in the first two years, and the students get exhausted.
Self evaluation and possible changes
We assess our teaching methods and materials as satisfactory. One might, however, raise the question whether the students are being made aware of the philosophy behind our teaching methods. Landscape architecture is regarded as a subject where knowledge and skills are acquired through practice, reflection on attitudes and values to the environment and to aesthetic questions, and thus, through maturing. The theory of the profession is
closely linked to this and should, perhaps, have a larger place from the beginning of the programme.
The availability of digital programmes and teaching resources is evaluated as above average, but there are too few computers available. The computer rooms are not well ventilated. This is also said by the students in the inquiry.
There is currently a lack of good presentation rooms and locations to present the students’
work to a larger audience, that is, to other students and teachers of the department or UMB.
The use of the park and the areas connected to the UMB nursery could be used much more intensively. Cooperation with the UMB’s park department should be strengthened and the staff of the plant department should be more actively involved in teaching landscape architects within the studio courses. The University nursery areas could be taken advantage of to a much greater degree.The students ask for more plant courses and plant courses that are better coordinated with the design courses.
3.2.3 Assessment of student learning
Evaluate the exams and other methods used to assess student learning and suggest improvements in light of current international practice as understood by the committee.
Only very few of the programme’s courses make use of an exam for evaluating the students (only LAA111, Landscape Architecture History). Written term papers are evaluated either with an oral or written critique, or with just a grade that is set by the teacher and an external evaluator jointly. The evaluation of studio work is carried out orally as a critique of the students’ presentation of their work. Each teacher is encouraged to list her or his criteria of evaluation and make them known to the students. The students are given feedback throughout the semester either individually through tutoring or as a group.
The students remark that evaluation criteria in studio courses are often too vague.
There is no overall pedagogical policy in the programme for whether course work should be evaluated with grades or “passed/not passed”. This is up to each individual teacher.
All evaluations are carried out in cooperation with an external examiner. External
examiners must be approved by the board of the department. They practice as landscape architects or are employed in public management. History and theory courses are
evaluated by examiners who hold academic positions. (See appendix 3) Self evaluation and possible changes
The programme’s evaluation methods may certainly be improved by giving the students more individual and written critiques. This, however, must be balanced against the cost in time and for hiring examiners for a longer time. It may be possible if the number of courses that need to be evaluated can be decreased. We encourage the evaluation committee to give their opinion on the issue of student evaluation with external examiners and of grades versus passed/not passed evaluation.
3.2.4 Total learning environment:
Psychological learning environment including interaction with teachers, team teaching, student assistants and interactive use of information technology.
There is one student advisor for ca. 210 LA-students, Anne Svinddal. She is available for the students every day, and offers help on programme and study formalities as well as more personal matters.
The staff members working in the LA-programme all make an effort to meet the new students in their first year. The introductory courses in landscape architecture (LAA 112) and in drawing (LAFT 101) are structured so that the students become well acquainted with each other and the teachers from the start: there is extensive group work and tutoring in groups and individually. The introductory course aims at letting the students get a comprehensive impression of the profession and discipline. The first two terms of the programme are not evaluated with grades so as to leave the students time to get
acquainted with the way of working and to feel secure about what is expected from them.
A seminar within the LAA 214 “Buildings and landscape” course in the fall of the 2nd year focuses specifically on team work. Guidelines on group work are to be found on the internal web page: http://www.umb.no/?avd=92
As studio work implies individual tutoring, contact between teachers and students during courses, as a rule, is good throughout the programme. In addition, “Classfronter”, an interactive programme for teaching purposes, is used to communicate with the students and facilitate distribution of learning material. The potential of this programme, however, is not exploited by many teachers as very few use it a medium for discussions and debates amongst students.
Also, the student groups have grown during the last 20 years and there is a pressure (for economical reasons) from UMB to compensate for decreasing applicants to other UMB- programmes, and from ILP towards admitting more students into the introductory term in
Year Admissions 1st year Total perm. staff
1988 Raised to 25 from 20 (only 4 years at UMB) 6 full tie equiv.
1998 Raised to 33 from 25 (only 4 years at UMB) 7 full time equiv.
2002 1st. year moved to UMB 7,5 full time eq.
2003 - 2007 Between 42 and 46 12,5 full time eq.
2008 48 15,5 full time eq.
Table 2: Number of admitted students to the programmes first year at Ås from 1988 to 2008. (Source FS)
The 15,5 full time-equivalents represent 28 permanently employed persons.
order to compensate for the current tendency of a loss of students (ca. 7) in the 4th year to AHO or to other places. During the same period, administration has increased substantially in Norwegian Universities generally and the number of permanent staff has not increased
in proportion to the number of students. This means has resulted in less time for individual tutoring and personal contact. This has especially affected the basic drawing courses.
They require individual tutoring and evaluation and the time for each student has decreased substantially in those courses.
The restructuring of the Spatial Planning programme may involve more joint courses with the LA-students and thus, more students in the studio courses. Larger groups in the introductory years will make it more difficult for the teachers to attend to each and every student in the same way. Our assessment is that the size of the groups (ca. 45) lies at a critical limit as it is. Larger groups will require another course structure and less
personalised teaching methods.
Student assistants as tutors have not been used frequently. Our experience is that studio work, even in the beginning years, is of a complexity that requires more maturity and experience than one can expect from students. An exception is computer design courses and, to some extent, basic exercises in shaping of terrain and rendering of terrain.
The students claim that the work load is heavier than what the ECTS-points of many courses indicate. There is, they also claim, a pressure to “produce” rather than to learn.
(communicated to the student advisor).
During the last ten years the department and the programme teachers have changed offices and the students’ studios and lecture rooms have been relocated within the campus several times. In the fall of 2007, most of the staff was finally gathered in one building, but teaching localities are still scattered in four different buildings. This has resulted in an unstable physical learning environment, the students having to move from one place to the other, often several times per day. It also has resulted in frequent confusion about where to meet. Each year, the students are assigned their own work space, but the students from the different years are not located together. Also, there are practically no rooms for group work. Only students from the first two years are located in the same building as most of the teachers. This has resulted in fewer opportunities for the students to learn from each other and discuss their work informally, “over the drawing table” or at the computer. Many of the students also choose to work at home.
The unstable and unsatisfactory location of the department also affects the learning environment in that there is no one place to signpost and spread information on what is going on in the department as a whole (lectures, visitors, research seminars, etc.).
Teachers and students from the different programmes have few formal and no informal meeting places and there is a general lack of information on the whole. This is only partly compensated through the internal web pages.
These last points are mentioned by the students as one of the reasons for wanting to move to the AHO master’s programme in landscape architecture for their last two years.
Self evaluation and possible changes
There is a need to relocate the whole department, teachers as well as students, in one building. It is extremely urgent.
There should be a more careful coordination between courses within the programme.
The internal web pages must be used much more efficiently to spread practical and academic information. They must be kept up to date daily.
The programme-committee may have to reconsider the number of courses taught in light of the work load for the students in each term and the opportunity for proper reflection and evaluation of their own work.
It may be considered to integrate LAFT- courses more with studio courses. This can be done I the early years of the programme or in the later years. We ask the evaluation committee to consider this point carefully.
Larger students groups in the first three years may require a restructuring of courses so that there will be less individual contact between teachers and students. Other ways to increase teaching efficiency may be required. This is a difficult balance and we invite the evaluation committee to consider this.
4 Competence and research basis for the programme
4.1 Competance basis
Evaluate and suggest possible improvements in the competence network associated with each programme.
Consider both subject matter and pedagogical competence.
An overview of the staff members with a link to their UMB-network pages is to be found here:
http://www.umb.no/?avd=16&ans_enh=16&order=seksjon&ort=DESC . Click on the arrow after “Seksjon” and the Landscape architecture programme staff will be sorted out in the list.
The staff competence in total must cover two main areas, -
a) professional expertise and up-to-date-ness in the fields of landscapes design, -planning and management, as it is practised in Norway and Europe on the one hand and b) experience in research and knowledge in the scholarly fields of landscape architecture
history and the current applied as well as theoretical debates and reflections within the discipline.
Competence in the first field is provided by a number of staff members that combine their position in the department with a job as a landscape architect or artist or by those that are employed as lecturers (“lektor”= teaching position with about 15% time for competence development).. The artists of the department are presented here:
http://www.umb.no/?viewID=2739 . Presently, 10 persons of the permanent staff (= 4,2 full- time-equivalents) are employed on such terms. This field of competence, in the ILP department, includes digital presentation techniques, planting design, urban design, construction details, landscape management organisation, and drawing and general design skills. It goes without saying that these teachers draw on practice and a network of
colleagues in the landscape architecture and art professions and use them as guest lecturers. Some of these teachers also hold part time and /or temporary positions at other universities, such as The Oslo School of Architecture (AHO) or the Architecture department of the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTNU, Trondheim), but within the UMB-framework they only teach LA- and planning students. Several of these staff members, but also others,
are members of permanent of temporary juries for landscape architecture competitions, prizes, etc.
The department has an agreement with two public authorities that includes teaching contributions, one with the Norwegian Public Road Administration (Vegdirektoratet) and the other with The Housing Bank (Husbanken). Over the last 10-15 years, Vegdirektoratet has financed teachers’ positions in the department, two of which are 20 % teachers with the responsibility for a course each (LAA 305 and LAA 315). Also, the agreement includes examiner services from road building experts. The Husbanken agreement is very recent and includes a 20% position in the field of “understanding of place” (stedsforståelse). A new course is under development with a contribution of that person (LAA 250), that will be compulsory for LA-students from 2010. (It will substitute the introductory part of LAA 234).
Most of the compulsory courses (75% in the first two years, more than 90% for the design and planning specializations and 80% for the management specialization) of the programme are taught by the programme’s own staff. Other departments at UMB teach the basic natural science subjects of geology, soil sciences, plant ecology and horticultural plants, as well as some social science subjects and theory of science.
The programme staff members have international experience. 6 persons have a non- Norwegian background, as an architect, artist, a landscape ecologist or as landscape architects. Others have lived or studied abroad for longer or shorter periods.
4.1.1 Pedagogical competence
All permanent staff with teaching duties must pass a course in University Pedagogy offered by UMB. Most of the staff have passed this course with exception of the staff that was appointed before 1984.
ILP has been among the more active participants in ECLAS – the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools. Since the establishment of the organisation the department has had a representative – professor Karsten Jorgensen - in the Executive Committee. ILP was also involved when the application for Erasmus funding for a thematic network was sent after the ECLAS conference in 2000. The application was accepted, and ILP-LA has been part of the steering committee of the Le:Notre project since it started. we have attended the L:N-workshops and been responsible for L:N-project work, e.g. the survey concerning the PhD-education at the Le:Notre member schools in 2007. In 2004, ILP arranged the ECLAS conference..
Over the last three years, international workshops have been offered to the students from the 3rd year on as an option. These workshops are intensive projects in a location in Europe.
They have been design workshops (Malta 2008) and landscape management workshops (Landscape Ambassador Workshop, In Slovenia 2006, Portugal 2007 and Sweden 2008).
(See http://www.iale2009.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=156&Itemid=98)
Self-evaluation and possible changes
We evaluate our staff’s competence as good. The relatively low scores achieved in the course evaluation may be explained by structural difficulties in the programme: There might be too many relatively small courses in landscape design, so that only one teacher can be responsible for each course at a time. Time allocated for each studio course is short, because the students have other courses that run parallel to the studio courses for most of the term.
4.2 Research basis
Assess the degree to which the programme is informed and supported by research and development work at UMB and partner institutions. Suggest how the research base could be more effectively be utilized.
Research competence is mainly provided by those that are employed full time as professors or assistant professors, or through the contribution of PhD-students. It should be noted, however, that the teaching load, until 2002-3, when the number of staff started to increase, was so high that the time left for research work has been too limited to allow for any substantial research activities. Most of the time not spent on teaching has been spent on administrative work, PhD-tutoring and keeping up to date with current research and practice in each person’s field of expertise.
From 2002-2008 the number of staff was doubled from 7 to 15,5 full time-equivalents, giving the opportunity to do more project and research work. The programme draws on several, more or less formalized competence groups, with 5 PhD studies underway:
One group, which has only very few teaching responsibilities within the landscape architecture programme, is a group working within a natural science tradition on the perception of visual landscape features and development of landscape analysis methods based on environmental psychology research. (See staff members Gary Fry, Mari Tveit, Helena Nordh, Carloline Hägerhall) in the Byreg.-section.
A second group, only recently formally established, focuses on the history and theory of landscape architecture (see staff members Karsten Jørgensen, Bjørn Anders Fredriksen, Annegreth Dietze, Anne Katrine Geelmuyden, Tore Edvard Bergaust, Morten Clemetsen, Marius Fiskevold, Veronique Simon) and involves the two main topics:
Garden and landscape architecture history, cultural heritage:
o Bygdøy Kongsgård, restauration project
o The development of the 1800s ”folkepark” at Bygdø Royal estate, Oslo PhD (finishing year 2010)
o The schoolyard’s landscape A historical study of Oslos schoolyards in the 20th century, seen in a landscape architectural perspective (finished 2008/9) (PhD)
o Several garden history documentation and garden archaeology projects o Karsten Jørgensen is editor of JoLA – the peer-reviewed journal established
by ECLAS
Its Research network includes:
The Norwegian Directorate of Cultural Heritage (www.riksantikvaren.no) The Norwegian Museum of Cultural Heritage (www.norskfolkemuseum.no) The Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage Research (www.niku.no) Faculty of Landscape Architecture at Corvinus University, Budapest Le:Notre project, Working group History and Conservation
ICOMOS-IFLA International Committee on Historic Gardens – Cultural Landscapes
Bergen University Tromsø University
Several contact with garden history researchers in Leiden. Dresden, Hannover and Bristol
The landscape concept, Landscape interpretation, landscape analysis
Implication of the Landscape Convention for landscape planning
o Landscape and scenery in Norwegian Road Planning (PhD, to be finished in 2011) o PhD, finished in 2009 :”Hortus conclusus": Change, perception and meaning in
Artas Valley, Palestine”
o Perceived boundaries as an expression of landscape interpretation (PhD, to be finished in 2011)
o Several projects about new management regimes for national and regional parks.
Protection and development.
Its research network includes:
Nordic Landscape Research Network
http://www.lpal.slu.se/ShowPage.cfm?OrgenhetSida_ID=6250 Department of geography, NTNU
Oslo school of Architecture, see http://routes.no Swedish Agricultural University
University of Evora, Portugal
University of Western Hungary, Sopron
Bordeaux school of Architecture and landscape architecture, France Enita Clermont-Ferrand, France
A third group carries out research on urban planning and management issues in
connection with health issues and is made up of Kine Halvorsen Thoren, Renata Aradi,
PhD to be fininshed in 2012: “Environmental correlates to physical activity in adolescents, and gender differences in these factors
How the environment affords physical activity. A transdisciplinary study of the environmental correlates of physical activity in adolescents
Mapping of urban green structure with the help of satellite data.
Pedestrian Quality Needs Its Research network includes:
Cost action 358 network on “Pedestrian Quality needs”, see http://www.walkeurope.org
Høyskolen i Telemark and Prof. Owe Loefman at Institutt for Matematiske Realfag og teknologi, UMB
Specialists in satelite technologi, Geodatasenteret AS and Norsk Regnesentral i Oslo, Stephan Pauleit at LIFECopenhagens university and Oslo og Omland Friluftsråd.
NOLA –network for Nordic landscapes, by the NOVA-BOVA-universities: SLU
(Swedish agricultural University), LIFE Københavns universitet, Agricultural University of Iceland
The research school Architecture and Planning in the Urban Landscape (APULA) University of Washington’ s Urban ecology team
Norsk Inst. for by og regionforskning, especially the archiitekts Lene Schmidt and Jon Guttu
Transportøkonomisk institutt, Oslo
The Norwegian Public Roads Administration Byboligaksjonen
A fourth strong competence underlying the programme is computer visualization of landscapes. UMB/ILP has invested in a Virtual Reality Laboratory,
(http://www.umb.no/?avd=140), which is slowly being tested and put to use in teaching. It consists of Ramzi Hassan, with the assistance of Knut H. Wik and Steinar Taubøll (other section). The following projects are running or under development:
European Cost action TU0801 project “Semantic enrichment of 3D city models for sustainable urban development”. Participation as end-user testing VR city models at VR-Lab for community groups. (running)
World Bank project with Birzeit. Integration of virtual Reality in education. (running)
Developing a new project application with University of Oslo (UIO) and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) to start a research project for the Virtual reconstruction of historically important landscapes. The case of Bygdøy. (in
development stage)
Project with Norsk Treteknisk Institutt. Using the VR-lab for conducting a study experiment on psychological benefits of wood used in the indoor environment. The VR-lab experiments will deal with people's preferences for various indoor
environments (wood vs. non-wood). Investigating people's impression about which building that can be considered natural, and which materials that are considered artificial. (in development stage)
In the process of developing a project with Statsbygg (Public Construction and Property Management) for using VR-Lab as a tool for developing project scenarios for placing new buildings for the veterinary school as part of the UMB campus. (in development stage)
In the process of developing VR model for UMB's science centre (Liv Levende). (in development stage
Two PhD-student finished during the last 3 years. The table below shows the number of published journals and book chapters during the last three years, as they are registred in the Forskdok system. Other publications have been issued that, for different reasons, were not registered in this system.
Year Articles in journals Books / chapters / PhD-diss.
2006 2 2
2007 4 3
2008 2
Table3: Number of publications from staff of the LA-programme the last three years. Source:
Forskdok (Research documentation system for UMB) Self-evaluation and possible changes
For two reasons, one being the quality of the programme, the other the economic survival of it, we see it as an imminent danger if the LA-staff’s research activity cannot be increased.
One strategy to achieve a higher research activity is to make teaching more efficient. But then, there is a trade-off between time spent on teaching and time spent on research.
Greater efficiency will have to be achieved with structural changes, such as e.g. fewer and larger studio courses and fewer optional courses (see earlier chapters on course structure and content).
As it is, we regard the balance as acceptable from the point of view of maintaining a high enough teaching quality, especially in the fields of landscape architecture theory and history and computer visualization technology. In the field of green space management, construction design and planting design, the course quality depends largely on the teachers maintaining a degree of competence by keeping up to date with research that is being done elsewhere, or to a degree through, master theses. The competence basis in planting design could draw on the competence at the Department of Plants and Environment (IPM) more than at present.
However, there are structural obstacles to achieving this cooperation, as the staff members implied, Ingrid Ødegård and Corinna Clewing, both have teaching positions and do not have the capacity to engage in research development and, similarly, he staff in the plants
department are very few compared to the teaching load. Possible research topics could be:
”green roofs”, “ecological treatment of sewer”, “methods for more sustainable green space management”, etc. We encourage the evaluation committee to consider this point and, if possible, suggest organizational solutions that could facilitate inter-departmental
development work.
Regarding the economic sustainability of the programme, the balance is not satisfactory.
(See more about this below and in the chapter 6 about economic sustainability.)
5 Future Labour market
5.1 Relevance of the programme
Consider the labour market for our graduates and assess the degree to which the programme corresponds to demands in the labour market.
The Norwegian Association of Landscape Architects (NLA) gives the following figures for employment (NLA / Marit Hovi, e-mail from 11.13. 2008):
