Brief Bio: Professor John A. Spinks
Prof. John A. Spinks
is currently Senior Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor at The University of Hong
Kong. He has received teaching and
research awards from the University. Most
of his 90+ publications in international journals and books have centred
on human cognition but he has also published studies in educational assessment
and prediction, and has been involved in Hong Kong Government research projects
on assessment of creativity and selection of gifted/talented children.
His administrative roles in the University of Hong Kong have included being Pro-Vice-Chancellor with responsibilities for teaching and learning, as well as leadership positions in student affairs, the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Department of Psychology. He has been directing undergraduate admissions to HKU for over ten years, being currently Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Director of International Student Exchange.
He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the
Open University of Hong Kong in 2007. He
has sat on the councils or advisory boards of several universities, presently
including the HKU's School of Professional and Continuing Education and Raffles University (Singapore). His other positions outside the University include
having been President of the Hong Kong Psychological Society and Chairman of the
Joint University Programmes Admissions Scheme, a
post-qualification application and selection system for students to enter all
the government-funded universities in Hong Kong.
Within Hong Kong, Professor Spinks has
been Chair of the Internationalization Subcommittee of the Heads of
Universities Committee of Hong Kong, overseeing the development of
international student recruitment for the Hong Kong universities. He works frequently in many Asian countries,
but especially Mainland China, helping to set up collaborative arrangements and
promoting student recruitment. HKU
currently attracts over 12,000 applicants from Mainland China for the 250
places made available annually. Prof. Spinks is responsible for both local and international recruitment to HKU, and works with Ministries of Education and equivalents to align the University's actions with respective national policies and strategies.
In the field of quality assurance,
Professor Spinks was Coordinator for the universities’ liaison group for the quality
assurance exercise held in Hong Kong in 2002-3. He led the University of Hong
Kong to its successful response to this audit, and has subsequently led U21Global,
the online graduate learning arm of the Universitas21 consortium of
research-led universities, of which HKU is a member, through a number of
successful accreditations. He was, until
recently, a part-time Executive Director at U21Global. He has been a reviewer on site visits for a
number of agencies, both in Hong Kong and internationally, and has run workshops and seminars and given keynote
speeches on quality assurance in several Asian countries, particularly in the
area of the quality assurance of online education. He is currently a member of the Council of the HKCAAVQ.
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