5. 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:
- A programme of reviews at subject level, to be run by the institutions themselves (known as Internal Reviews of Learning & Teaching at St Andrews).
- An institutional-level review (Enhancement-Led Institutional Review – ELIR). The University was last reviewed in 2011 when confidence was reported in all areas (the best possible result).
- Improved public information on the quality of higher education.
- A greater voice for student representatives in institutional quality systems, supported by the student participation in quality Scotland (sparqs) service.
- 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 Group monitors a broad range of internal review processes and structures by receiving reports on the following:-
- External Examiners’ Reports
- Student Survey Results
- Annual Academic Monitoring
- Internal Review of Learning & Teaching
- Module Evaluation
- Professional Accreditation
- ELIR and Quality Enhancement
- SCQF compliance
- Bologna (European Higher Education Area)
- Collaborations & Exchanges
- Student Progression (Undergraduate & Postgraduate) - reports from Pro Deans
- Grade Distributions - reports from Deans
AMG also considers any other matter relating to the quality of the academic provision or student experience offered by the University and, where necessary, submits reports to the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Committee. The AMG reports to Court via the Academic Assurance Group.
The Learning & Teaching Quality Officer (LTQO) is a member of the AMG and has responsibility for management of the above processes.
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.