The British Experience in QA and NQF
or
Doing it right when no one is looking!
Dr. Anthony J Vickers
The University of Essex,
UK Bologna Expert
Presentation Summary
• The National Qualification Framework for England, Wales,
and Northern Ireland
• Defining Quality Assurance (QA)/Enhancement(QE)
• The role of the QAA
• QA at the University of Essex
• Professional & Statutory Bodies (PSB)
• Summary
“Quality means doing it right
when no one is looking.”
Henry Ford
The National Qualification Framework for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland
http://www.qaa.ac.uk/england/credit/creditframework.asp
Quality Assurance
“A planned and systematic pattern of all actions necessary to
provide adequate confidence that the product optimally fulfils
customers' expectations, i.e. that it is problem-free and well able to
perform the task it was designed for.”
http://foldoc.org/
Quality Enhancement
"taking deliberate steps to bring about continual improvement in the
effectiveness of the learning experience of students."
QAA's Handbook for enhancement-led
institutional review: Scotland (April 2003)
The Role of the
Quality Assurance Agency
• The primary responsibility for academic standards and
quality in UK higher education rests with individual
universities and colleges, each of which is independent
and self-governing.
• QAA checks how well they meet their responsibilities,
identifying good practice and making recommendations
for improvement.
• They also publish guidelines to help institutions develop
effective systems to ensure students have high quality
experiences.
• http://www.qaa.ac.uk/aboutus/WhatWeDo.asp
QAA Responsibilities
They meet their responsibilities by:
• conducting reviews of universities and colleges
• publishing reports on the confidence that can be placed in an
institution's management of standards and quality
• providing guidance to universities and colleges on maintaining
academic standards and improving quality, in line with the Academic
Infrastructure
• investigating causes for concern about academic standards and
quality
• advising governments on applications for degree awarding powers
and university title
• engaging with European and wider international developments.
• http://www.qaa.ac.uk/aboutus/WhatWeDo.asp
QA/QE @ The University of Essex
Overview
The individual procedures
for quality assurance and
enhancement at the
University are designed to
interconnect in order to
create a rigorous but not
overly burdensome
whole. This can be
demonstrated by this chart.
Approval of new modules
http://www.essex.ac.uk/quality/pages/newcourseapproval.htm
Approval of new courses
Annual monitoring
The purpose of annual monitoring is to ‘consider the
effectiveness of the programme in achieving its stated
aims and the success of students in attaining the
intended learning outcomes’ (QAA Code of Practice).
Internally, annual monitoring and periodic review are the
two ways we monitor and review our provision. These
processes are designed to feed into one another, with
annual monitoring reports becoming one of the key
documents for periodic review, providing over time a
clear history of the development, evaluation and quality
enhancement of schemes.
Periodic Review
Periodic Review is a University level procedure designed to reapprove
academic courses on the basis of an evaluation of the previous five years of
their operation.
The procedure for Periodic Review consists of two stages. Stage 1 (covering
QA procedures for all departmental provision) and Stage 2 (concerned with
re-validating provision).
Courses will normally be subject to Periodic Review once every five years.
Programme specifications
•
Programme specifications are a means of providing transparent
information about programmes of study in higher education, in a consistent,
accessible format.
•
Each programme specification identifies the learning outcomes for an
award, of which a student should demonstrate positive achievement, and
the relationship of that programme to the Framework of Higher Education
Qualifications (FHEQ).
http://www.essex.ac.uk/programmespecs/progspec.asp?prog=BENGH610++10
External Examiners
The University of Essex has two types of External Examiners, whose roles
may be summarised as follows:
(a) Award External Examiners. Award External Examiners are required to
attend Boards of Examiners and have overarching responsibility for the
standards of awards. Award External Examiners will also be Module
External Examiners.
(b) Module External Examiners. Module External Examiners attend only those
Boards of Examiners for which they are also Award External Examiners.
Otherwise their responsibilities are confined to particular modules.
Award External Examiners
The core duties of an Award External Examiner at the University of Essex are:
(a) to comment on the standards of the award and the quality and coherence of the
course;
(b) to judge the overall standards of student performance;
(c) to attend examination boards as required and judge the extent to which the
determination of awards is sound and fair;
(d) to produce an annual report to the Vice-Chancellor, summarising their findings in
relation to the above, and a summary report for publication.
In fulfilling these duties the Award External Examiner is expected to review the award,
including its structure, assessment and the overall profile of student achievement.
Professional and Statutory Bodies (PSB)
The following academic units in the University have one or more degree schemes subject to PSB accreditation:
Essex Business School:
Board of Accreditation of Accountancy Educational Courses (BAAEC)
Art History and Theory:
Cultural Heritage National Training Organisation (formerly Museum Training Institute). MA in Gallery Studies only.
Biological Science:
Institute of Biomedical Sciences and the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine (For the BSc in Biomedical Science)
E15:
National Council for Drama Training
Psychology:
British Psychological Society
CSEE:
British Computer Society
Institution of Engineering and Technology
Law:
Law Society/Bar Council
School of Health and Human Sciences:
Nursing Midwifery Council
College of Occupational Therapists (COT).
Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW), via the East Anglian Post Qualifying Consortium
The Institution of Engineering and
Technology (IET)
Learning Outcomes
• UK SPEC (The UK Standard for Professional
Engineering Competence)
•
This Engineering Council Standard describes the value of becoming registered as an Engineering
Technician (EngTech), Incorporated Engineer (IEng) or Chartered Engineer (CEng). It describes the
requirements that have to be met for registration, and gives examples of ways of doing this.
• IET Learning Outcomes
•
The learning outcomes specified for IET accredited programmes have been developed to provide for variety
and flexibility in the design of programmes and encourage innovation while maintaining a core understanding
of engineering principles.
Example IET Learning Outcomes
University of Essex
Example Learning Outcomes
• Programme Specification Level
• Specify, design, implement, test and document an
electronic system.
• Module level
• Work as an individual to specify, design, construct
and test a system to meet a project requirement.
Writing Module level learning outcomes
• Write the module level learning outcome with reference
to the Programme Specification and the IET Learning
Outcomes
• Determine the student centred Learning that will be
required in order to develop towards acquiring the
learning outcomes.
• Determine the Assessment that will be require din order
to demonstrate that the student has met the learning
outcomes.
LOLA
Transparency @ Essex
http://www.essex.ac.uk/courses/
“Quality means doing it right
when no one is looking.”
Thank you all for your attention
Questions?