Faculty Development for Research Capacity Building in Higher Education.

Research and Teaching often do not have equal dignity in the university world, research often being considered more important than teaching. Recruitment policies take into greater consideration the scientific profile of future professors, even though they must subsequently offer quality teaching to their students. Many Faculty Devolpment initiatives are spreading in Italian universities and many faculty are learning new ways to plan their teaching, innovative active teaching/learning methodologies and innovative methods for valid and formative evaluation. Lecturers who are introducing these new methodologies would like to communicate their innovative teaching experiences in a scientific way but often do not know how to write a scientific paper in higher education. Teachers who are exceptional researchers in hard disciplines, find themselves unprepared to write papers in pedagogical and didactic areas that use research paradigms typical of education. The University of Genoa has considered important to propose a training course for its teachers on planning and writing a scientific paper in higher education. 10 teachers have enrolled and are involved in a longitudinal scholars program lasting half a day, monthly, for 6 months, led by an expert in higher education and adult education. Course topics are: Rationale, research question, methods, results, discussion of results, conclusions, journal selection, referee evaluation. The 10 participants write their paper, step by step, receive feedback from the instructor and peers. This paper reports the participants' satisfaction rating and quality analysis of the 10 papers produced. We believe that publishing scientific papers dedicated to university teaching experiences can contribute to enhance and value the importance of Faculty teaching skills in the future. A model of the virtuous circle that is established between innovative teaching, research about university teaching and enhancement of teaching skills is proposed