The QAA
The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) is an independent body funded by subscriptions from universities and colleges of higher education and through contracts with the main higher education funding bodies (such as HEFCE).
QAA is responsible for safeguarding the public interest in the standards of higher education qualifications. They work with universities and colleges to encourage continuous improvement in the management of the quality of higher education.
They do this through reviews of universities and colleges of higher education, carried out by teams of academics, and known as peer review, and through the Academic Infrastructure (see below).
These reviews are based on published methods, such as institutional audit.
Information on all the peer review methods used by QAA can be found at www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/
For more information on QAA see www.qaa.ac.uk
Institutional audit
In England, universities and colleges of higher education are reviewed through an institutional audit. Institutional audit aims to ensure that institutions are providing higher education awards and qualifications of an acceptable quality and an appropriate academic standard and exercising their legal powers to award degrees in a proper manner.
At the end of an audit QAA publishes a report on the audit team's findings, including the judgements they make. Judgements are based on a variety of information sources. These include a self-evaluation document that the institution produces about itself. This contains a mixture of facts and figures and self-analysis. The team also uses the student written submission, which is a document that the student representative body has the option to produce.
A guide to student representatives’ role in institutional audit can be found at: www.qaa.ac.uk/students/guides/instauditguide.asp
Further information on institutional audit can be found at www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/institutionalAudit/default.asp
Collaborative provision audit
As well as running courses on their own campuses, universities can work with partners to provide higher education in different settings to suit different students. This is known as collaborative provision.
For instance, over 10 per cent of UK higher education is provided in further education colleges, some at honours degree level, but mostly Foundation Degrees and Higher National Diplomas and Certificates. Other courses are run both with private companies in the UK and with partners in countries around the world.
A university is responsible for the standards and quality of all the qualifications it awards, whether on campus, at a college in the next town, or in another country, and whether taught by lecturers in classrooms or by email and over the internet.
Some universities have so many links with partners that it would be hard for an audit team to cover them all in a standard review. These are the cases where an additional review, collaborative provision audit, will be needed.
Academic Infrastructure
The Academic Infrastructure is a set of nationally-agreed reference points that were developed by QAA and professionals from higher education. It consists of:
- The Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards
- Frameworks for higher education qualifications
- Subject benchmark statements
- Programme specifications.
The Code of practice
The Code of practice offers guidance on maintaining quality and standards for universities and colleges of higher education. It is made up of 10 sections that were written in consultation with individuals who work in higher education and relevant professional bodies and individuals from industry.
It can be found at www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/codeOfPractice/default.asp
Frameworks for higher education qualifications
There are two frameworks for higher education qualifications - one for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and one for Scotland. The frameworks are concerned with qualifications and the associated knowledge and skills students should have. They contain qualification descriptors for the main qualifications at each level. While the frameworks are different, the descriptors for honours, master's and doctoral degrees are equivalent across the UK.
You can find more information at www.qaa.ac.uk/students/guides/UnderstandQuals.asp
and the frameworks can be found at www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/FHEQ/default.asp
Subject benchmark statements
Benchmark statements describe the attributes, skills and capabilities that a graduate in a specific subject might be expected to have. Each statement has been written by a group of academics and other specialists (such as representatives from professional bodies, industry and commerce) from the subject area. Benchmark statements are not a national curriculum in a subject. They have been written in a way that allows ample scope for diversity amongst programmes.
The statements are currently being reviewed and revised.
They can be found at www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/benchmark/default.asp
Programme specifications
Programme specifications are published by universities and colleges for each of the courses that they offer. They outline the intended knowledge, understanding, skills and attributes of a student completing a single programme of study (or course). A programme specification should also give details of teaching and assessment methods as well as linking the course to the framework for higher education qualifications.
Further information on programme specifications can be found at www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/programSpec/default.asp
Outcomes to institutional audit: text provided by QAA
Context
One of the purposes of institutional audit is to feed back information on good practice to individual institutions, and to higher education institutions more generally, to help improve the quality of students' learning opportunities.
For some time, QAA has drawn on its institution-level and subject-level reports to produce reflective overviews for the benefit of institutions. These have appeared in a series of publications with the generic title of 'Learning from ...'. Reports in this series generally follow the conclusion of a round of review or audit activity and can take some time to be published.
To feed back information to higher education institutions more rapidly, in 2005 QAA introduced a new series of working papers 'Outcomes from institutional audit'.
Outcomes papers are short (usually less than 20 pages). They map features of good practice in the audit reports thematically, listing and discussing the features of good practice (identified by institution) and outlining where analysis of the reports as a whole has shown that recommendations of a similar character occur in more than one institution.
Outcomes papers for student union officer and staff readers
At first sight, only a limited number of papers may seem to be directly relevant to student interests eg:
- student representation and feedback
- arrangements to support international students
- academic advice, guidance and support
However, student representatives and officers may find other Outcomes papers also worth reviewing. For example, those who participate in institutional quality arrangements linked to the development of new courses and programmes of study, their monitoring, and their periodic review, may find it helpful to use the relevant Outcomes papers, together with the institutional audit report for their own institution, to put the latter's arrangements into perspective.
Student representatives and officers may also find the Outcomes paper on assessment arrangements provides a helpful overview of how such systems work.
To read the outcomes papers please go to: www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/institutionalAudit/outcomes/default.asp
