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Overview of Quality Assurance & Enhancement

The Scottish Funding Council, Universities Scotland, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education Scotland (QAA  Scotland), the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and student representative bodies have worked together closely to develop an approach for quality assurance in Scottish HEIs, the Quality Enhancement Framework (QEF).

The QEF comprises five elements as follows:

1. A programme of reviews at subject level, to be run by the institutions themselves (known as Internal Reviews of Learning & Teaching at St Andrews).
2. An institutional-level review (Enhancement-Led Institutional Review – ELIR).  The University was last reviewed in 2006 when broad confidence was reported in all areas (the best possible result).  The University is being reviewed again in February/March 2011.
3. Improved public information on the quality of higher education.
4. A greater voice for student representatives in institutional quality systems, supported by the student participation in quality Scotland (sparqs) service.
5. A national programme of developing and sharing good practice in learning and teaching in higher education (quality Enhancement Themes).

At an institutional level, the Academic Monitoring Assurance Group has responsibility for oversight of academic quality monitoring and for the implementation, management and monitoring of the University’s Quality Enhancement Strategy.  This is carried out by means which are managed by the Learning & Teaching Quality Officer (LTQO) and include the following:

1. An annual check by the LTQO that practice conforms to the national guidelines issued by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education Scotland (QAA Scotland).
2. The Annual Academic Monitoring process which requires an annual report from each Head of School evaluating all learning and teaching during the previous academic year; interviewing a selection of Heads of School and Directors of Teaching on the basis of the report; and ensuring that results are reported and appropriate action is initiated.
3. Conducting periodic Internal Reviews of Learning and Teaching (IRLTs) in each School and student-facing central service unit on a cycle linked to that for Enhancement-Led Institutional Review.
4. Initiating special reviews, following requests from the Deans, of individual programmes.
5. The centralised service provided by SALTIRE for the production and analysis of module evaluation questionnaires.

The TLAC Enhancement Sub-Committee provides a forum for discussion of all University activities that relate to the enhancement of learning and teaching and the student experience.  It serves as an advisory group for the Vice-Principal (Learning & Teaching) and others interested in quality enhancement.

The resource that brings together a wide range of information, policies and guidelines, all of which have a bearing on the quality of learning and teaching at the University of St Andrews was launched in September 2008 and is known as the Teaching, Learning & Assessment Handbook (TLA Handbook).  The TLA Handbook is intended as a resource for both staff and students and is normally amended prior to each new academic year to ensure that all codes, policies and regulations included or referred to are those currently in force in the University.