abstract Forum 113 Teaching excellence An assessment dilemma AIRI ROVIO-JOHANSSON There is a need to distinguish among different ways of describing «teaching excellence» when higher education teachers are evaluated as teaching instructors. The last and the present decade’s discussion about «the scholarship of teach- ing», emanating from Boyer´s (1990) four scholarships, of dis- covery, integration, application and teaching, is far from con- cluded in the international debate. Boyer (1990) wanted higher education to move beyond the old division between teaching and research, and instead move toward a focus on student learning. If we accept that scholarship exists in all aspects of academic work, the conceptualising of the scholar- ship of teaching and learning, as an investigation of student learning, becomes a valuable and viable form of scholarship (Shulman, 1998; Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin & Prosser, 2000; Cottrell & Jones, 2003). Furthermore, Shulman (1993) asserts that in order for teach- ing to become a form of scholarship, teaching must be made public in the community of the discipline, subject to critical peer review and evaluations and communicated to others inside and outside the institution. Kreber (2002, p. 6) argues that: [t]here is a tendency in both Britain and Australia to conceive of the scholarship of teaching as a campus activity, in other words, as an Rovio-Johansson Airi, 2004: Teaching excellence – an assess- ment dilemma. Nordisk Peda- gogik, Vol. 24, pp. 113–129. Oslo. ISSN 0901-8050. Teaching excellence has been an important aspect of the role of the academic’s role as a teacher at universities for at least 150 years in Sweden. Despite the heritage from the 19th and 20th centuries, where the assessment of the teacher was of concern, the main issue remains the ques- tion of which criteria can be used to assess merits of research and merits of teaching. The change in the Higher Education Ordinance of January 1, 1999, indicates that «equal and the same accuracy» must be taken into account in the assessment of both research and teaching merits. A survey investigates how the new regula- tions are used in practice. The results of the survey indicate that there is an awareness among the institutions of the new regulation and as well as knowledge of what is counted as teaching and pedagogical merits. There is still a need of research in; (i) the process of assessment of teach- ing and pedagogical merits, and (ii) knowledge of the criteria used in the assessment process. Airi Rovio-Johansson, Depart- ment of Education, Göteborg University, P .O. Box 300, SE-405 30 GÖTEBORG, Sweden. E-mail: airi.rovio-johansson@ ped.gu.se