DEPARTMENTAL RESPONSE TO INTERNAL QUALITY REVIEW (IQR)
DEPARTMENT OF SECURITY AND CRIME SCIENCE
DATE OF IQR VISIT: 24 February 2012
DATE OF DEPARTMENT'S FIRST RESPONSE: 10 September 2012
DATE OF DEPARTMENT'S SECOND RESPONSE: 10 February 2014
Recommendation (as it appears in
the IQR report)
Action taken or planned in response to the
recommendation.
Progress in implementing the recommendation
In accordance with the University equality-related polices,
the Department is committed to the recruitment and
treatment of staff and students based solely on
consideration of the extent to which they meet performance
requirements. Likewise it is committed to fostering a
working and learning environment in which the dignity and
rights of all individuals are respected, and where
harassment, discrimination and intimidation are not
tolerated.
The most recent breakdown for staff is shown in the table
below. There is very little change from last year. We
continue to approach or exceed the University target of
50% female staff. In the case of ethnicity, there is a slight
increase in the number of BME administrative staff.
Necessary Action:
1) map departmental arrangements
and review monitoring processes
with the UCL diversity policy, to
assure itself that it is in accord with it
and plan any action that may be
required to meet this (see the
Academic Manual Equalities and
Diversity information)
(paragraph 3.4).
On reviewing the University’s equality and diversity policies
we believe that the Department fully adheres to both their
spirit and content. Following the recommendations of the
IQR Panel, the Department undertakes to regularly monitor
staff and students in terms of the key diversity measures of
gender, race and disability, and to use these data to
formulate equity and diversity polices as required.
The most recent breakdown for staff is shown in the table
below.
Academic
Research
Administrative
Number
12
8
5
Female
5
4
4
(42%)
(50%)
(80)
2
0
3
BME
(17%)
(60%)
With respect to students, 44% applications, 39% offers and
29% intake were BME, an increase on the previous year.
Again, the discrepancy between applications and offers is
accounted for by the number of BME applicants who did
not meet the basic academic admission criteria. This year,
70% of the 2013 student intake was female.
Following up on points raised in my previous report:
Academic
Research
Administrative
Number
13
6
6
Female
5
4
5
(38%)
(66%)
(83%)
2
0
2
BME
(15%)

No further issues have arisen re students ambulant
disabilities, but we remain ready to respond flexibly
in such cases

Recruitment data are presented to appropriate
departmental meetings, committees, and ethnicity
and diversity issues are a standing item on the
agenda for those meetings.

The new departmental manager has been
appointed and has undertaken DEOLO training.
(33%)
With respect to gender, the Department approaches or
exceeds the University target of 50% female staff across
employment categories. Of the 6 academic staff above
lecturer level, 3 are female (two professors and one senior
lecturer). In the case of ethnicity, one category exceeds
and two categories are below the University average of
21% and target of 31% BME representation. It is noted that
because of small staff numbers, percentages can be
significantly affected by small fluctuations. We do not
believe that the current profile gives rise to significant
concerns but we will continue to ensure that staff selection
procedures are carried out in full compliance with
University polices and procedures.
In terms of students, we have examined the most recent
(2012-13) admission data. Overall, 49% of students in the
2012 intake were female. Excluding international students,
31% of applicants, 20% of offers, and 24% of the intake
were BME. (See the appendix for a more detailed
analysis.) These figures indicate a lower proportion of BME
intake than BME applications. Further investigation
revealed that this discrepancy is accounted for by the
number of BME applicants who did not meet the basic
academic admission criteria.
A further issue for the Department concerns the needs of
ambulant disabled students. Due the nature of our building
it is not possible for changes to be made to accommodate
Finally, a well-received Unconscious Bias course was run
for all Departmental staff in November 2013.
students in wheelchairs. We have previously been able to
discuss with these students reasonable adjustments to
enable their needs to be met. This has, for example,
included liaising with UCL Estates to ensure that lecture
rooms are allocated to us that have suitable access, and
arranging tutorials outside of the department. We feel
confident, therefore, that we are able to offer a supportive
environment to future applicants in a similar situation.
To ensure that there is ongoing consideration of equality
and diversity issues, the Departmental Administrator will
present the previous year’s student data at the first
Departmental Teaching Committee meeting of each
academic year. This will facilitate discussion and frame any
actions required to ensure the Department continues to
meet the standards required by UCL. The UCL diversity
policy has also been added as a standing item to all staff,
teaching and student consultative committees.
The Department is currently recruiting for a Departmental
Administrator and will ensure that the successful candidate
undergoes the DEOLO training once they are in post.
2) review the arrangements for its
private tutorials and personal tutor
meetings. There was a risk that the
current ad hoc arrangements and
possibilities for non-private
conversation with students could
potentially lead to difficulties. The
booking of specified rooms for such
meetings should be considered (see
the Academic Manual Personal
Tutor guidance and policy)
(paragraph 7.1).
Room 4.01 has been reserved as a bookable, staff-student
consultation room.
Room 4.01 continues to be reserved for bookable
consultations.
I have discussed the issue of critical mass with the Faculty
We continue to be committed to the plan of managed
Advisable Action:
3) continue with its strategy and
plans to move the Department to a
greater substantial critical mass, as
well as its aspirations to extend the
curriculum and offer more module
and programme choice. This would,
with careful planning, enhance the
student experience and further its
role as a leader in the development
of the discipline, as well as ensure
sustainability and potential for
growth (paragraph 4.5).
Dean who agrees that the Department needs to grow. In
the short to medium term, an academic staff size of at least
15 is considered necessary. Discussions with the Dean
have also focussed on the strategies required to support
financially this growth. In accordance with Faculty policy, I
have submitted a formal 5-year business plan that details
projected growth and the strategies that will fund that
growth.
In this regard we continue to explore the viability of
introducing new courses, and a move further into
undergraduate teaching (see below). Since the IQR two
new staff members have joined the Department (although
both were foreshadowed in our submission). An attempt to
recruit an additional staff member in the forensic sciences
was aborted due to a judged lack of suitable applicants.
growth outlined in the previous report. The previously
mentioned position in forensic science was reconfigured as
a research fellowship. The logic of this was to allow us to
employ a relatively junior person who would be given the
opportunity to grow into the role. This strategy proved to be
successful and we filled the position with an excellent
young academic.
We are currently one academic staff position under our
allocation and are currently on the process attempting to fill
that position. Further expansion will depend upon growth in
enrolments (and hence the department’s ability to fund new
positions).
We plan to re-advertise this position in early 2013.
4) carefully consider the implications
of engagement with the Faculty’s
undergraduate programme plans.
Whilst the involvement of the
Department is commendable (see
Good Practice 2 above), care should
be taken to ensure that the impact
on both academic and administrative
staff and resources are fully
considered and that the necessary
risk assessments are taken
(paragraph 4.6).
As noted above, some engagement in undergraduate
teaching is regarded as essential for the sustainability and
growth of the Department. Proposed developments in this
area have been discussed with the Dean and the Faculty
tutor, both of whom are supportive of this initiative.
We recognise the risks of an unplanned and rapid
commitment to undergraduate teaching. Increased
commitments and growth must move in step. With careful
management, engagement in undergraduate teaching will
provide the income not just to resource the increased work
load that the extra teaching involves, but to increase our
research, teaching and administrative capacity more
generally.
For the 2012-13 academic year we have introduced one
undergraduate module – the Psychology of Crime – that
we are offering University-wide as an elective within other
programmes. This module is currently running with 44
enrolments and early reports suggest that it is being well
received by students. The module is being covered by an
existing Board of Examiners. We will assess our
The Psychology of Crime module proved to be very
successful both in terms of demand and student feedback.
On this basis, in addition to re-offering this module in 201314, we offered another module for psychology students –
Forensic Psychology – in term 1 2013. This likewise proved
to be popular and to receive excellent student feedback.
We are encouraged by these successes to steadily
increase our undergraduate offerings. We are now
committed to proceed with the 3-module minor in the
Integrated Engineering programme due to start 2014-15
(although our modules would be in the second and third
years of the degree and so not come on line until 2015-16).
As explained earlier, we will use the increased revenue
from such ventures to build teaching and administrative
capacity to support this expansion.
experience with this module early next year with the view to
introducing another undergraduate module in 2013-14.
As detailed in our original IQR report, we also have plans
to offer a 3-module minor in the new integrated
undergraduate engineering degree, again an initiative that
has been fully discussed with the Dean and Faculty tutor.
In view of these developments, an Undergraduate Tutor
has been appointed.
5) review its pedagogical
approaches to distance learning and
explore the UCL support and advice
available, for example from the
Learning Technologies Support
Service (Information Services
Division) or the Centre for the
Advancement of Learning and
Teaching (CALT) (paragraph 5.6).
Our plans to expand our distance learning offerings have
also been discussed with the Dean and Faculty Tutor. As
noted in our IQR submission, the major problem associated
with developing distance education is that UCL does not
provide any centralised support infrastructure, meaning
that a considerable commitment of resources would be
required by the Department.
In the short term we are committed to offering a graduate
certificate by distance learning, but further expansion
needs to be carefully considered. In a helpful meeting with
the Faculty Tutor and CALT, strategies for making existing
modules ‘distance-friendly’ were discussed. The rationale
is that all modules – whether internally or externally
delivered – can benefit from greater use of multi-media
delivery strategies and with these strategies in place the
progression to distance mode at some point in the future
becomes less problematic.
More recently, the Dean has indicated that he intends to
explore at a Faculty level the possibility of developing
partnerships with professional distance education providers
as a way of providing the necessary infrastructure support.
6) explore ways to make more use
of the resources and expertise
available from the UCL Careers
Service and ensure that students are
aware of this additional source of
advice and assistance (paragraph
7.2).
Direct contact has been made with the UCL Careers
Service and they have provided general advice on the
services that they can provide and on strategies for
providing more specific career advice within the
Department. A link has now been provided on the
Department’s careers website to the UCL Careers Service.
The Service is promoted to students in one-to-one
We have had very close engagement with the UCL ELearning Environments Advisory group to assist us our elearning strategy. We have held workshops for all staff to
encourage and enhance their capacity to develop them elearning strategies in all modules. Further, we have
nominated 6 modules which will comprise and distance
learning certificate in Security and Crime Sciences, which
will be offered in 2014-15. The convenors of these modules
were designated ‘e-learning champions’ and received
additional assistance from E-Learning Environments.
For a summary of the Department’s engagement in elearning, see the report on the Engineering Faculty by the
E-Learning Environments Advisory group:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=
web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F
%2Fadvancedteaching.cs.ucl.ac.uk%2Ffileadmin%2Fadva
ncedteaching%2FDocuments%2FEngineering_ELearning_Reportv1.0_3.pdf&ei=4WD3UqnXGqSv7AanpoG4Dg&usg=AFQj
CNEk6EYi86mPGFU_vsahGm6-YWr6sA&sig2=emn4DepBp052uJc_peUUQ&bvm=bv.60983673,d.d2k
We are continuing with the strategies outlined in the
previous report. The foreshadowed professional seminar
series has gone ahead, but runs fortnightly rather than
weekly.
discussions with the Department’s career adviser, and will
be included in the material presented at this year’s
Departmental career event.
In other developments, a downloadable crime and security
careers handbook is now available on the website. A series
of weekly (Wednesdays) presentations by industry
professionals has also been scheduled for the upcoming
term.
Desirable Action:
7) consider how its relationships to
the Faculty of Engineering Sciences
and the Jill Dando Institute might be
better communicated externally.
Whilst it is clear that this is
understood within the Department,
more could be made publicly of the
uniqueness of its position and
relationship with the two (paragraph
3.3).
In June 2012 the issues of the JDI/Department confusion
was discussed at some length at the JDI Board, which had
expressed similar concerns. The view of the Board was
that ‘JDI’ was the recognisable brand and that the external
community is not interested in internal UCL administrative
structures. We are currently revising our website that
visually shows the JDI as an overarching, cross-University
structure that hosts a number of activities and draws
support from several UCL departments.
8) schedule the PhD students
upgrade events for the same day.
The Department might wish to
discuss this with the Departmental
Graduate Tutor of the Department of
Chemistry, where this practice has
been found to be very useful
(paragraph 5.7).
This issue was raised at a staff meeting and while there
was some support for moving in this direction there was
also significant resistance. In particular, a number of staff
members were concerned that changes to the current
practice might inhibit examiners providing open feedback to
candidates. In these circumstances I do not believe that it
is prudent to push ahead with this plan at this stage. As a
compromise position, we will explore holding thesis
presentation days that are separate from the formal
We continue build on our location within the Engineering
Faculty. The new Centre for Security Technology is proving
to be a useful vehicle for highlighting the links between our
department and science and engineering disciples.
With respect to the role that engineering plays in crime
science, a new centre within the JDI – the Centre for
Security Technology – has just been created. Under the
directorship of Dr Karl Woodbridge from the Department of
Electronic and Electrical Engineering, the aim of the centre
is to highlight the relationship between technology and
crime and to provide a focus and a forum for academics
working in this area, as well as to provide a coherent
message to external stakeholders.
There is no change form the previous report. Based on
staff feedback, up grades continue to occur on an
individual basis.
upgrades.
9) ensure that, should the
Department intend to extend the
doctoral students’ involvement in
teaching from the current
demonstrator/assistant role to that of
more formal teaching (e.g. in running
seminar groups), the UCL
requirements for their training and
development, as well as the
necessary support, are met
(paragraph 5.8).
There are no immediate plans to engage PhD students in
more formal teaching roles, but if and when this occurs the
necessary training and support will be provided as
recommended.
We have begun to use post-graduate students as TAs on a
limited basis. All existing and intending PGTAs have been
required to go on the CALT training. Furthermore, a
departmental PGTA policy and training document has been
produced setting out a framework for the graduated
development programme for students interested in
undertaking the PGTA role.