Foreword
1 This is a report of an academic quality audit of the University of Dundee undertaken by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). QAA is grateful to the University for the willing co-operation provided to the audit team.
2 The audit was carried out using a revised process approved by the former Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC), and endorsed by HEQC’s successor body, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. The modified process has been introduced following completion in 1997 of the original national academic quality audit programme which began in 1991 under the auspices of the CVCP’s Academic Audit Unit (AAU) and subsequently taken over by HEQC in 1992. The principal purpose of this revised process is to offer an opinion on the extent to which individual institutions are discharging effectively their corporate responsibilities for the academic standards and quality of their awards and associated programmes of study. The process takes as its starting point the assumption that institutions have appropriate quality assurance policies and procedures in place, and also assumes that they can provide convincing evidence that these are working to good effect. The audit checks the extent to which this is the case and that the methods used are sufficiently reliable to continue to provide stakeholders with the necessary assurances for the future. The audit process focuses on four main topics: the institution’s quality strategy; academic standards; the learning infrastructure; and communications.
Method and process
3 The primary source of documentary information and evidence used by the audit team about the University’s quality assurance arrangements was its Analytical Account (The Account). The University also supplied a number of supporting documents, including the Annual Planning Statement, June 1997; a summary of the Academic Standards Handbook; its Undergraduate Prospectus, entry 1998; and the Graduate Prospectus, entry 1997-98. Other documents available to the team were the AAU academic audit report of 1992 and the 1993 HEQC report of the University’s validation arrangements (see below, paragraphs 12 and 13); the University’s documents on its World Wide Web (WWW) site; and 25 published reports of Teaching Quality Assessments (TQA) conducted by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC).
4 At a briefing meeting held to discuss the University’s submission, the audit team considered the University’s Account, and proposed a programme of meetings for a visit to the University. The team found the Account commendably clear and helpfully structured, although during the audit visit there emerged some important areas where coverage of the University’s self-analysis was less than comprehensive.
5 The University supported its Account with a selection of key documents, and references to a wider range of evidence. In addition to materials provided with the Account, the audit team asked the University to supply certain documents prior to the audit visit. The team frequently consulted the comprehensive collection of further documents, minutes of meetings, departmental records, and so on, at its disposal, and found them conveniently and accessibly arranged. The team was also able to consult the several University WWW sites ‘on-line’- a facility which it particularly appreciated.
6 The audit team visited the University from 12 to 14 May 1998. For the duration of the visit, the University made available to the team a base room containing the documents referred to in its Account, and the additional items of information requested by the team at its briefing meeting. The team held a total of 15 meetings with staff and students of the University. These meetings, together with the documents supplied by the University, provided the information, examples and evidence upon which this report is based.
7 The University’s Account was drafted by the Director of Quality Assurance in close association with the Quality Advisory Group, with ‘extensive collaboration from senior staff at faculty and central administrative levels’, and ‘was approved by a sub-group of the Senate Academic Standards Committee, convened by the Principal’. The Account was structured in six main sections:
- Executive summary;
- Developments;
- Institutional quality strategy;
- The academic standards of programmes and awards;
- The learning infrastructure; Internal and external communications.
8 In the Executive summary the Account listed several ‘key strengths’and ‘key limitations’, as examples of its own self-awareness. Within each of the main sections of the Account, more detailed breakdown was given of perceived strengths and limitations, accompanied by an indication of evidence to support the former, and of action to deal with the latter. The audit team noted the claims in the Account that only ‘a small minority of academic staff...view course and programme monitoring procedures as primarily a bureaucratic exercise’, the majority seeing the procedures as ‘a means of helping the University to achieve its mission of promoting excellence in teaching and research’, in a ‘spirit of reflection’. The team considered the University’s Account, and the accompanying key documents as evidence of the University’s capacity for self-reflection, and of its ability to generate and use information to support an effective analysis of its management of quality and standards.
9 The audit team comprised Professor J S Bell, Dr D O Edge and Professor R Ryan, auditors, and Mrs H J Douglas, audit secretary. The audit was co-ordinated for QAA by Dr D J Buckingham, Assistant Director, Institutional Review Directorate.
10 A brief guide, University of Dundee - facts and figures 1998, prepared by the University, is attached as appendix 1 (page 17). A list of the University’s collaborative partnerships, current at 1 January 1998, is included as appendix 2 (page 19).
The context for the audit
The University of Dundee
11 The University of Dundee has a structure based upon five faculties: Arts and Social Science; Science and Engineering; Law and Accountancy; Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing; and Duncan of Jordanstone College (see below, paragraph 14). The University has not introduced a modular structure for its programmes, and each faculty offers a cluster of named degree programmes within its range of subject specialisms. In 1994, the University rejected a motion to move to a two-term semester-based curriculum, and will continue to operate a three-term academic year ‘for the foreseeable future’. Its Mission Statement includes reference to providing ‘education of the highest quality coupled with a leading contribution to the advancement of knowledge, thereby creating in our students the imagination, talents, creativity and skills necessary for the varied and rapidly changing requirements of modern life’.
The 1992 and 1993 audit reports
12 A quality audit of the University of Dundee, conducted by the AAU, was finalised in May 1992. At that time, the University was implementing its new quality assurance procedures, now renamed the ‘Academic Standards’(AS) procedures. The AAU report commended these procedures, and made several suggestions for their consolidation and improvement. In particular, the report stressed the importance of: rigour and diversity in these procedures at faculty level, with the role of deans more clearly defined; the need to inform and support students, strengthening welfare services and the ‘personal tutor’system, and ensuring that students are fully integrated into AS processes; the extension of AS procedures to postgraduate courses and research students; and developing staff training and induction programmes (the innovative work of the Centre for Medical Education was particularly commended). The University’s formal response (November 1992) indicated intentions to meet all these points.
13 A quality audit of the University’s validation arrangements for programmes offered by Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art was carried out in 1993 by HEQC, and its report published in July. This report looked forward to the forthcoming merger of the College into the University, as a new faculty, to be known as the Faculty of Duncan of Jordanstone College, and suggested how some mutual benefits might be derived. In particular, the report stressed ‘the desirability of making greater use of the different experience and expertise of College staff in more general University discussions of the development of good practice’.
Recent organisational change
14 Since 1992, the University has experienced a number of important developments and influences. The merger with Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art has been completed and, in September 1996, the Tayside and Fife Colleges of Nursing and Midwifery became a new School of Nursing and Midwifery within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing. With the completion of these mergers, at the time of the 1998 audit visit the University had no current collaborative provision. Negotiations for a merger with the Dundee Campus of the Northern College of Education were well advanced (and its possible impact was being discussed), and a SHEFC Strategic Change initiative had led to some suggested exchanges with the University of Abertay, Dundee.
15 The 1992 AAU report recorded that ‘the actual student number for 1991 was 4,121’, and that the University’s Development Plan anticipated that the figure would rise to 6,000 in the year 2000. The Account gave an actual full-time student figure of 8,343 for 1997-98. The audit team fully recognised the implications of such figures for staff workloads, and the consequent potential impediments to the active engagement of staff with the new AS procedures, training and initiatives.
16 Several other developments since 1992 have influenced the University’s implementation of its AS procedures. Notable among these has been the first cycle of SHEFC assessments at subject and programme level of quality in teaching and learning (TQAs). Early TQA results were disappointing. The University took swift action. According to the Account, it ‘strengthened management and administrative support for this activity and deliberately sought to exploit developmental opportunities from participation in the process’. A Director of Quality Assurance (DQA) was seconded from the teaching staff (initially part-time, but from September 1997 full-time), and a Quality Advisory Unit was formed, now retitled the Quality Advisory Group (QAG). The University has adopted the SCOTCAT credit tariff, and the view expressed in its self-appraisal was that ‘this will increasingly influence the definition of courses and programmes’.
17 In 1994, a new Principal took office and, in 1995, instituted an ongoing process of Strategic Review (see below, paragraph 20). To date, this has had several important effects: the University’s Mission Statement has been redrafted; the roles of deans and faculties have been revised, with faculties now being the main budget centres; the Admissions and Student Recruitment services have been restructured; a central Registry has been established; and a Learning & Teaching sub-committee (L&TSC) of Planning & Resources Committee (PRC) has been formed. An Executive Group (comprising the Principal, Vice-Principal, three Deputy Principals, Finance Officer and University Secretary) meets weekly. Two small-group residential Strategic Review meetings have been held: the audit team was provided with an aide-memoire of the second (November 1997). The University has given careful attention to the results of recent Research Assessment Exercises (RAEs), and stresses in its Mission Statement, and in its self-analysis, the importance of a strong relationship between teaching and research. The ‘concept of sustainability’of groups and programmes has become a key feature of the University’s strategic planning (see below, paragraph 21).
The University’s quality strategy
The strategic framework
18 The Account stated that ‘the University’s quality strategy is built on the basic line of responsibility and reporting from the individual member of staff, through department/board of studies level, to faculty and then Senate. The University’s Academic Standards (AS) policy follows this basic structure and defines operational procedures’.
19 Development of the University’s strategy for quality assurance has been pursued alongside significant organisational change. In particular, the faculty structure has been strengthened by the relocation of responsibility to deans for the distribution of resources to departmental level and for the quality of teaching and research in their faculty. At the same time, the University has expanded in size and breadth of provision through its mergers. In addition, the University has developed and introduced a framework for the continual testing of the University’s academic achievements and its resource allocation policy in the context of a set of sustainability criteria (see below, paragraph 21).
Strategic Review
20 Following the University’s relative under-performance in the 1992 Research Assessment Exercise, and in the first round of SHEFC TQAs, the incoming Principal entered into a vigorous process of Strategic Review. This process, which began in 1995 and is continuing, has led to some significant organisational change, including the revision of the University Mission Statement and its associated objectives. The Account stated that the delivery of ‘the University’s quality strategy is based on clear identification of responsibilities at the operating level with reporting to, and monitoring by, Senate and/or Court as appropriate via committees convened by the Principal’. The audit team’s attention was drawn to a section of the Annual Planning Statement, June 1997, on the Review of academic activities and strategies for development, where a policy for restructuring, collaboration, teaching quality, research assessment and recruitment was outlined.
Sustainability
21 The University’s Strategic Review process identified a range of criteria for determining the sustainability of academic activities. The Account comments that the concept of sustainability was ‘an important policy...which was accepted by Senatus in 1995 and directs decisions regarding the University’s portfolio of disciplines and academic and financial planning’. The sustainability criteria are benchmarks of quality in teaching and research, and of financial viability. They include the expectation that each discipline should ‘produce research outputs of a standard that is rated, or has good prospect of being rated, at grade 4 or better’, ‘teach at a level of expertise rated as "highly satisfactory" or better’, and ‘generate sufficient income to cover both the costs directly associated with its activities and its allocated contribution to University overheads’. The sustainability criteria give clarity and openness to the University’s processes of decision-making about the development of its academic units, and indicate opportunities for the exploitation of new academic initiatives. In all of its discussions with staff, the audit team noted a wide degree of understanding of these criteria, and the high level of acceptance which staff showed towards them. The team formed the view that the definition of clear sustainability criteria by the University, and the obvious success of efforts to ensure that they were widely understood and accepted was a commendable example of good practice in the communication of its quality strategy.
22 The University’s concept of sustainability requires the devolution of effective decision-making about academic and resource issues to faculty and departmental levels. In support of this policy, the University’s decision to strengthen the role of the faculty deans through increasing their power over resources, has shown immediate and demonstrable benefits. Nevertheless, the concentration of decision-making at the faculty level does present problems of redistributing resources when inter-faculty initiatives are proposed. The University has considered this issue, and has formulated a policy to cope with such contingencies should they arise. This policy would require the active mediation of the Principal and the Executive Group, which acts as a forum for advising the Principal. In addition, it was put to the audit team in discussion with staff that such a system could be greatly enhanced by the central retention of some money via a top-slicing mechanism. This is an area of development that the University has still to resolve effectively.
Monitoring and review of programmes
23 Academic Standards committees (ASCs) operate at departmental, faculty and University level, and are concerned with the monitoring and review of programmes of study, and with ‘identifying needs and opportunities for improvement’. The Account notes that, at faculty level ‘faculty/school secretaries have an administrative role in support of quality management in general, and specifically in servicing the faculty/school AS committee’. They have a particularly important role in preparing the summaries of actions which form a significant part of the annual course review reporting to Senate ASC. The audit team received ample evidence from documentation supplied in the base room, and from its discussions with staff, that the University’s ASCs were rigorous in monitoring the teaching and learning activities within departments through a well defined set of procedures. These procedures and policy statements are gathered in the Academic Standards Handbook. The first section of the Handbook lists policy statements by AS numbers for ease of reference; for example, statement AS6 covers the procedures for course monitoring at departmental/board of studies/course committee level. The policies and guidance set out in the Handbook appeared to be well understood by all staff who met the team. The team considered that this comprehensive Handbook made a very positive contribution to the clarity, and understanding, of the University’s structures for the management of quality and academic standards.
24 In reviewing the University’s quality assurance procedures, the audit team sought to establish that course-reporting procedures were robust, effective and efficient. In terms of their robustness, the team was satisfied by the evidence available to it that all departments appreciated the importance of the open reporting of problems, and were committed to the presentation of timely information and analysis through the AS6 (course monitoring) reporting procedure. From documentary evidence, and from discussions with staff, the team found good adherence to the stated procedures at departmental levels, and an effective system of ‘reminders’that came into operation within faculties when problems arose.
25 In terms of the effectiveness of the quality assurance procedures, it appeared to the audit team that the academic committee structure was able to motivate action where necessary and to extract issues of general concern where appropriate (see below, paragraph 40). The team did note, however, at least one instance where the formal reporting of the discussion of an important issue at the Senate ASC could have been better targeted on the substance of what the team learnt was a substantial and informed debate rather than on its form (see below, paragraph 66). On other occasions, documents have been commended by the ASC for wider dissemination, but it was not made clear what particular aspect of that document deserved attention or the lessons which should be drawn. The team took the view that the reporting of the business of the Senate ASC, although full in respect of recording decisions, did not always give guidance for further discussion or action. The team considered that this weakened the University’s ability to remember and to learn through its written records.
26 In terms of its efficiency, the audit team was concerned to test the speed with which the system was able to respond to issues of quality management, and took particular note of the speed with which the lessons from SHEFC teaching quality assessments had been absorbed and acted upon. The University had responded, both procedurally and organisationally, in a particularly rapid and effective way to the receipt of an ‘unsatisfactory’TQA grade in one academic area. While this had been taken as an opportunity to promote change within the department concerned, it had also been viewed as a ‘critical incident’that was used in a variety of ways to stimulate reflection and action at all levels of the University.
27 In its procedures for course approval, annual course monitoring, and programme review, the University seeks to ensure that resources are adequate and are appropriately deployed to support its quality strategy. The formal processes for course approval ensure that the Library and IT service are aware of new demands and can flag these, and the audit team saw clear documentary evidence that the annual course monitoring process did take account of resource issues. The team noted, however, that it was possible for there to be an interval of some 18 months between the completion of the AS6 review procedure and the final consideration of the responses from University learning resource committees to the Senate ASC, and there were many ways in which matters could frequently be resolved by other means during this interval. For example, as budget holders, deans are able to take effective direct action in negotiation with the relevant service. In addition, the informal links which exist between the departments and the service providers are often effective in ensuring a resolution of the problem. Even so, the existence of formal procedures does allow the University at its highest levels to be aware of any emergent problems, and to monitor and check that they are effectively resolved. It was clear to the team that the combination of formal and informal procedures was suitable to provide the University with the evidence it needed to ensure that resources were adequate and appropriate to support its programmes. The University may, however, wish to reflect upon the extent to which its present procedures allow matters to remain live issues within the formal committee system after they have, in effect, been resolved by other means.
28 In respect of the University’s procedural mechanisms for the assurance of the academic quality of its provision, the audit team was satisfied from discussions and documentary evidence that these mechanisms were robust and, given the minor caveats outlined above, they were effective and efficient. The team gained a high degree of confidence in this aspect of the University’s overall quality assurance strategy.
Quality strategy in respect of teaching and research
29 The University’s Mission Statement sets as an objective that ‘the University will excel in teaching, scholarship and in pure and applied research, benefiting fully from the essential interdependence of these activities’. This statement is supported by the sustainability criteria which include the requirement that honours and postgraduate programmes should normally be taught by people with ongoing research activity. The audit team took particular note of the level of careful reflection demonstrated by staff on the relationship between research and teaching. The team met staff who expressed clear and well thought out ideas on how their two activities inter-related, and who described how this was achieved in practice. The concept of a ‘research-active teacher’appeared to be a well-developed reality. The team wishes to commend the University for the explicit and reflective quality of its efforts to relate the activities of teaching and research.
Quality enhancement: dissemination of good practice
30 Its examination of the University’s quality strategy led the audit team to consider the effectiveness of the University’s mechanisms for enhancing the quality of its processes. Of particular importance among these mechanisms is the dissemination of good practice and its take-up, to enhance the quality of provision. The QAG has a key role in both dissemination and enhancement, and the team heard numerous instances of support provided by that group, and in particular the important role played by its Director in advising departments and other groups and in promoting the spread of good practice. Consideration of the University’s communication of information about good practice is reported in the ‘Internal and External Communications’section of this report (see below, paragraph 60 et seq), but it appeared to the team that close working relationships and informal networks were a substantial strength of the University in its quality management. While the formal structures for quality assurance enable the University to have a systematic overview of its quality management, they also provide a framework which encourages reflection at departmental level. The informal activities complement the underpinning formal framework, and contribute to responsive and adaptive management of quality. In summary, the team considered that these informal systems were capable of becoming efficient vehicles for quality enhancement, and that they were evolving organically to match the emerging needs of the University as a whole.
Quality enhancement: institutional learning
31 In 1993, the imminent merger with Duncan of Jordanstone College (see above, paragraph 14) suggested that the University’s emerging quality assurance systems would benefit by the long-standing experience of College staff with CNAA validation procedures. In discussions with staff, the audit team learnt of the role of a senior member of the College staff in guiding and informing the University’s AS decisions and policy; and, conversely, many College staff spoke very positively of how the College had gained development from the University - in particular, in developing postgraduate work and a research culture, and using it to enrich teaching. Again, the team heard of the mutual learning involved in the merger with the Colleges of Nursing, whose staff all hold formal teaching qualifications, but where a research culture is relatively underdeveloped. The institutional learning and enrichment gained from these mergers was identified but not explored in the University’s self-analysis, as represented in the Account, and appears to have occurred largely through informal processes. However, that the University had implicitly learnt general lessons from these mergers was demonstrated by the positive expectations expressed by many staff over the benefits that might arise from a merger with Northern College: among topics mentioned were clarification of educational aims; increased expertise in the assessment of transferable skills and competences, and of innovations in teaching; and assistance in developing courses for HE teachers with a view to their accreditation. The University might see advantage in acknowledging such mutual institutional learning as a more explicit feature of the University’s strategy for quality development and enhancement.
Summary
32 The first impression of the Account upon the audit team was that, although the University had a clearly established mission and objectives, the strategic means of achieving those ends had not been clearly articulated. Further study of documentary evidence, however, and discussions with staff during the audit visit, persuaded the team that the University, through a sequence of policies, was seeking both adaptability and agility in entering into academically viable markets and withdrawing from them before they become unviable. In this respect, the view expressed to the team by many staff that the University was ‘adaptively reactive’was entirely compatible with its policy of sustainability as presented in its documentation. There appeared to the team to be a broad consensus within the University for this approach, and an active recognition that the University’s quality strategy could only succeed if the waste of operating below the highest quality standards were minimised.
33 The audit team’s initial hypothesis that a reactive approach might predominate was rebutted by the documentary evidence and oral testimony. To characterise the University’s developmental response to the challenge of TQA gradings as merely ‘reactive’is to do it less than justice: staff who discussed these matters with the team referred to the ‘proactive’elements in it. In responding to TQA, the University’s AS procedures were tested, strengthened and eventually shown to be effective, and staff commitment was reinforced. The team found no evidence to suggest that this positive, constructive and forward-looking style did not also characterise the University’s response to other external challenges, nor did it find any extensive evidence of alienation of staff from AS routines. The team, however, formed the view that the University’s self-analysis, as expressed in the Account, did not do justice to the strength of the informal structures and processes which existed, and which were adapting to the changing circumstances of the University, nor did it consider in depth the nature and extent of the ‘institutional learning’gained from its mergers with local colleges. The University might wish to reflect upon the apparent lack of overt recognition of these strengths, and the possibility that such lack of recognition might be a limitation in its capacity for self-evaluation, and hence in its strategic thinking.
34 The University has tried to achieve improvements in its formal quality assurance processes in a measured way. By proceeding carefully, it has tried to ensure that the processes are perceived as genuinely supportive of good teaching and are commensurate with staff workloads. The audit team gained the impression from staff whom it met that this measured progress has resulted in widespread acceptance within the University of its developing quality assurance procedures. At the same time, it was recognised by staff at all levels in the University that there was a need to reduce the more bureaucratic aspects of the processes, and to ensure that strategic direction in a changing environment was appropriately articulated.
Academic standards of programmes and awards
Defining academic standards
35 The University sets out general educational objectives in its Mission Statement and Annual Planning Statement, June 1997, and more detailed educational strategies and descriptors of academic standards are set at subject or discipline level. In its self-analysis, the University acknowledges that ‘standards have focused primarily on discipline standards, defined at the programme level’, and recognises that ‘a priority for development of future policy and procedures will be to increase the extent to which procedures and dimensions are made explicit.’It proposes a possible ‘layered’approach to defining standards, with identified responsibilities at institutional and faculty levels to support the responsibilities of boards of study at programme level. The Account refers to a ‘progressive move towards consistency across the University’in the recent approval by Senate of a common numerical marking scale and current work by L&TSC on a standardised scheme for aggregation of honours results. Common understandings of levels are developing through the application of SCOTCAT credit rating levels to all courses. The University has also followed up the HEQC report on Inter-institutional Variability of Degree Results with its own survey of degree results in Dundee.
36 In its self-analysis, the University identifies ‘formal provision for assurance of comparability across degree programmes’as a current limitation. Nevertheless, many current activities of joint teaching and curriculum review within faculties naturally lead academics from different disciplines to compare their standards, and there is experience within a number of departments of defining marking criteria which render standards explicit to students. Informally, there appears to be substantial convergence within the University on conceptions of an honours standard. Students and staff who met the audit team conceived of the honours (fourth) year as an intellectually stretching and stimulating experience in which the student was involved in learning which engaged with the research activity of scholars in the University. Both formally and informally, the University has made considerable progress towards developing a common language in which to discuss standards across the disciplines. While it recognises the necessarily specific character of disciplines and the diverse characteristics which are specific to ‘graduateness’within them, its self-analysis shows that it is aware of the need to continue to pursue more explicit comparison of standards between disciplines which reflect the understandings which currently underpin practice. In this process, the team formed the view that the University was capable of expressing values which were specific to Dundee, rather than just reacting to external statements of standards. The University will, no doubt, wish to give priority to building on recent progress to promote consistency of practice over time and to permit more formal comparison of standards across disciplines, continuing the process, already started, of making statements of academic standards more explicit.
37 Although a number of programmes of study must conform to the requirements of Professional and Statutory Bodies (PSBs) in order to secure accreditation, notably in the matter of course content, departments of the University appeared to experience no difficulty in fitting these requirements into the academic conceptions of standards and objectives for their discipline. Since 1995, the University has integrated PSB reports into its quality assurance processes through ‘the AS11 procedure...which involves formal monitoring of such reports by the Academic Secretary, Senate AS Committee and faculty AS committees’. It appeared to the audit team that the University had already achieved substantial comparability of standards between disciplines on an informal basis, and was able, through PSB reports, to benchmark the performance of some departments against external requirements.
External examiners
38 The University relies heavily on the subject external examiners to confirm that standards set are appropriate and that they are being maintained. Its self-analysis suggests that one of the University’s strengths is ‘external examining procedures which are considered to be sound and robust and represent good practice regarding moderation of standards as it has been traditionally defined’. The report forms which external examiners complete are specific in their requests for comment on standards as well as on compliance with examination procedures. All the reports of external examiners are seen by the Principal and the Academic Secretary and then by deans, and internal checks are made to ensure that appropriate action has been taken upon their recommendations. Departments are expected to reply on issues raised by external examiners to their faculty ASC and to the Academic Secretary. Documentary evidence available to the audit team confirmed that standards issues raised by external examiners were identified at the highest levels in the University and were investigated thoroughly by faculty ASCs and the Senate ASC.
39 External examiners’reports are used to identify not only issues which are specific to a programme of study, but also those which are of general application within the University as a whole. The latter are identified by the University centrally and passed on to the L&TSC, and the Academic Secretary produces annually an overview report on the external examiners’reports and actions taken. Summaries of responses and actions taken in relation to external examiners’comments form part of the AS6 annual course review monitoring procedure, but this is distinct from the consideration external examiners’reports and preparation of a formal reply to them. The AS6 reporting serves therefore as a formal check that appropriate staff have seen and responded to external examiners’reports. The University might consider it advisable to review how far the well developed procedures for handling external examiners reports can more effectively be linked to annual course monitoring, so as to reduce potential for duplication of reporting processes.
40 The University is to be commended on the thoroughness with which external examiners’reports are considered at the highest levels within the University. Its procedures match effectively the central place which it attaches to this evidence that standards are maintained. There was clear evidence available to the audit team that this process of considering external examiners’reports was able to trigger institutional debate on University-wide issues - for example, discussion of a common marking scheme arose from a report in a particular department. The team also traced papers reporting debate over comments about ‘undemanding’honours courses (see also paragraph 66). A comment in an external examiner’s report had led a department to identify as a ‘problem’in its AS6 document for 1996-97 ‘the department’s need to participate in a broad trend towards the awarding of more First Class degrees’. The team noted that the department’s recommended responses were all aimed at improving student performance and the effectiveness of teaching and learning, with no adjustment to marking or grading scales, or any compromise of academic standards. This demonstrated to the team an appropriate concern to use the reports of external examiners to support and enhance standards of student achievement.
41 External examiners receive feedback from the University in a number of ways: at the examination board and more formally from the relevant dean. Discussions with academic staff revealed to the audit team that replies to an external examiner could, in fact, come from a number of levels within the University, and there was some uncertainty amongst staff about the mechanisms for reporting back to external examiners on the action taken. The University might wish to consider the advisability of clarifying its policy on feedback to external examiners in order to ensure consistency of practice.
42 A number of academic staff of the University perform the role of external examiner in other institutions, and some act as SHEFC TQA specialist assessors. These are well networked into their research communities, and such networking provides informal mechanisms for discussing issues relating to the support for student learning. The Account suggests that these mechanisms offer the University a resource of external comparison in relation to its standards. From its discussions with staff who took these external roles, the audit team formed the view that they were well used by departments to relate local academic standards to those of other institutions. There was, however, no clear evidence that the insights gained by Dundee staff in other institutions were used systematically to inform deliberations at University level. The University might wish to consider the merit of establishing appropriate mechanisms for making effective use of the insights provided by staff with responsibilities for monitoring academic standards outwith the University.
Monitoring standards through the AS procedures
43 The University has sought to make use of the demands of SHEFC TQA activities in a developmental way to ensure greater adherence to internal AS procedures and to promote reflection on improvements to the support of student learning, and the maintenance of academic standards. The DQA and the QAG have been major agents of change acting effectively in active, supportive and developmental collaboration with departments. The AS procedures respect the approaches and values of academic disciplines by making individuals more clearly aware of their responsibilities for assuring the quality of the learning they support. It was claimed by some staff who met the audit team that the University has promoted a cultural ‘sea change’in attitudes towards quality enhancement in learning and teaching, with the AS procedures being seen as a lifetime commitment, maintaining the momentum of change even though the external pressure of TQA may disappear. Reviewing all the available evidence, the team was convinced that the internal review procedures made a positive contribution to the maintenance of the academic standards of the University’s awards, which would stand it in good stead in any wider move towards reliance by external agencies on internal processes.
Standards in postgraduate provision
44 In its Account, the University recognised as a limitation that ‘the extent of implementation of the academic standards procedures (for postgraduate provision) is not currently as comprehensive as that for undergraduate provision’, and identifies as a priority for action the effective application of AS procedures to postgraduate courses. The positive attitude of staff towards quality enhancement through the work of the Postgraduate Forum, which reports formally to PRC and Senate ASC, suggested to the audit team that the University could build effectively on this goodwill to ensure formal and systematic reviews of postgraduate provision. The team gained the impression that the University had properly identified appropriate mechanisms to achieve its objectives in defining standards in postgraduate provision, and that these, supplemented by information from the Postgraduate Forum, would enable it to be more fully satisfied of the quality of its taught postgraduate provision.
Personal transferable skills
45 The promotion of transferable skills is becoming an increasingly prominent aspect of the University’s conception of the standard of achievement of its graduates, and responsibility for developing such skills is vested in the local level of faculty, school or department. The Account stated that ‘University policy regarding personal transferable skills in the curricula is currently somewhat limited. Whilst there is some excellent practice within individual programmes, and reference to personal transferable skills is included in AS procedures for both programme approval and annual monitoring, the University has no stated general policy on the minimum provision of training and assessment of personal transferable skills.’Since 1997, the University has required new programmes to contain explicit statements of the personal transferable skills which are to be developed through it, and specific comment on transferable skills is included as part of AS5 and AS6 annual programme monitoring and periodic programme review.
46 For a number of years, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has run the GENESIS programme which seeks to provide students with effective study skills. It also runs the EXODUS programme which makes students more aware of the personal transferable skills which they will need in employment, and several departmental projects were undertaken in 1996 in this area under the SHEFC Staff Development Initiative. There is a well-developed informal network of staff whose expertise and good practice can be drawn upon, and the University has given formal support for the exchange of information on skills development by funding a personal transferable skills website, the content of which will be written by staff in a number of departments. The University has effective processes for identifying, encouraging and facilitating local initiative through formal monitoring and funding decisions. From the documentation available to it, the audit team concluded that the University had sound mechanisms and information to provide it with evidence on progress in this area, and had made substantial progress towards realising this aspect of its conception of ‘graduateness’in at least part of its provision. Discussion with staff suggested to the team that there would be further progress in the articulation and recognition of personal transferable skills as part of the University’s graduate standards.
Employment and academic standards
47 The University includes within its Mission Statement reference to the provision of programmes ‘appropriate for the lifelong requirements of professional employment and the needs of society’. It requires that consideration is given to the concerns of employers in course approval and review, and that departments poll the views of their past graduates. A number of departments have very effective industrial liaison committees which discuss proposals for new programmes and strategic direction. Some departments also go to significant lengths in conjunction with the Careers Service to conduct detailed analysis of employment data and to examine trends in graduate employment. In professional areas, involvement with employers is a normal part of running accredited programmes, although some of the TQA reports for non-professional areas suggested that this policy was not fully implemented. The Account lists among the limitations of the current situation that ‘formal links between curricula and the world of employment in some non-vocational areas are limited’, and goes on to note that actions are being taken as part of the University’s review of standards. From its discussions and from the available documentation, the audit team found that actions had already been taken in some areas, and considered that the situation was perhaps less troubling than suggested in the University’s self-analysis. The QAG review will enable the University to be more assured about the extent to which this aspect of its Mission Statement is being effectively achieved.
Collaborative provision
48 The University demonstrates its desire to maintain the rigour of the academic standards of all awards given in its name by its canny approach to validation and overseas collaboration. Although at the time of this audit visit the University had no current collaborative provision, it has developed clear guidelines, conforming to HEQC codes of practice, which it would be able to invoke should it wish to engage in collaborative activity. It appeared to the audit team that the mechanisms through which the University could satisfy itself that the academic standards of collaborative provision met its own standards were appropriate but untested.
Standards in student recruitment and access
49 The University’s approach to access for mature and non-standard entry students was commended in the 1992 Audit report, and the long-standing ‘Access Programme’and ‘Summer School’are still flourishing. The University’s administration of admissions has been reorganised as the result of the Strategic Review, with the creation of a combined Admissions and Student Recruitment Office with a new Director, but too recently for the effect of this to be assessed by the University or the audit team. One of the objectives of the new office is to ensure that prospective students are fully aware of the University’s entry standards, designed to enhance the advice already provided at central, faculty and departmental level. Postgraduate admissions are approved by the relevant dean so as to ensure that the faculty’s entry standards are maintained. These mechanisms appeared to the team sufficiently robust to enable the University to ensure that prospective students were made aware of the expectations which would be placed upon them.
Internal and external communications
Introduction
60 The audit team chose to explore a number of ways in which the University manages communications with internal and external audiences. Within this section of the report, the team comments upon the dissemination of good practice as an illustration of the effectiveness of internal communication, although such dissemination is an aspect of the University’s quality strategy, and, as such, was also included in that earlier section.
Information Strategy
61 The University’s Account highlighted the formation of an Information Strategy Group and the emergence of an information strategy. At the time of the audit visit, this was in the early stages of implementation. The strategy document states:
‘In short, the University’s aim is to provide at affordable cost:
- the "right" information to the "right" people
- by the "right" means
- at the "right" time.’
62 The audit team noted that this strategy was aimed at the efficient provision of accurate information, and at means for its delivery. In its Account, the University expressed the hope that, in time and inter alia, the strategy will help to alleviate ‘paperwork overload’. Although the Account cited ‘the costs of meeting continually increasing demands for IT provision’as ‘a major concern’, and listed it as a key limitation, electronic means of communication are already widely used on campus: e-mail is routine for staff/student messages, and several websites are now in operation, with both internal and external access. The main AS policy documents are on the WWW, as will be the next revision of the Academic Standards Handbook. Some ‘topsliced’funds are available for such moves, and the University has recently appointed a Web Administrator to co-ordinate the presentation of information for access by external users, and to advise on-campus groups. Much of the current staff development programme is devoted to courses on IT skills development.
63 The audit team also noted, however, that the strategy seemed to presuppose a widespread need to receive information: the strategy document stated that the first phase of its implementation ‘will consist of a pilot study in which selected individuals...will list information that they routinely issue in any form and categorise it’. The team suggests that, once the strategy has been sufficiently established, its major challenge will be to develop a committed ‘market’of users, who appreciate the need to consult and apply this information. For example, staff of an active teaching department explained to the team that they expected to consult the central database of performance indicators only when preparing AS5 and AS6 review documents. It would be ironic, and unfortunate, if the demand for an emerging system intended to reduce paperwork was generated only by the paperwork itself, and not by the day-to-day needs of teaching, learning, research and development.
64 Otherwise, the University’s self-analysis in the Account stressed the more formal aspects of communication: reporting through the committee structure; central communications with staff through e-mail lists and Contact (the staff magazine), and with students from their recruitment onwards, through guidance in faculties and departments; student representation on committees, and their support through central agencies; staff and student induction programmes; and the provision and co-ordination of publicity and recruitment material, and course and programme information (for both internal and external users).
65 Although the Account listed as a key limitation that ‘institutional co-ordination and monitoring of information and publicity material prepared at local levels could be improved’, having reviewed all the documentary evidence at its disposal, and spoken at length to staff and students, it was the view of the audit team that the University’s self-analysis failed to do justice to the extent and strength of the many informal communication networks active within the University. Repeatedly, staff and students who met the team stressed the relaxed ‘openness’of informal communications on campus. The team considered that this was a strength which the University would wish to recognise, develop and harness more directly. To achieve its aims for effective communication (see above, paragraph 61), the University might expect to relate its information strategy to patterns of staff needs and development, employer liaison, student welfare and the Students’Association, and self-help websites, take into account the effectiveness of these informal networks, and ‘work with them’.
Communication through the committee structure
66 When asked by the audit team for illustrations of ‘bottom-up’initiatives which have become topics of strategic importance through their upward progress in the committee structure, the most frequently cited case was the recent standardisation of marking and grading schemes across faculties. This arose from departmental experience, and eventually, through Senatus, emerged as a University issue. The team considered an instance, tracked through minutes of relevant committees, of a potentially general issue (‘undemanding’honours courses) which had been raised in a departmental review, discussed and reported at faculty, but which had not appeared in the minutes of the Senate ASC (see also paragraph 40). In discussions with the team, a member of that committee stated that this issue had been raised, and had been ‘diffused and discussed informally’, explaining that its disappearance from the formal papers did not mean that it did not continue to attract interest, and that it was still the focus of debate. The team was told that the weekly meetings of the Executive Group ‘tapped into informal networks’, although this was not recognised in the University’s self-analysis. It was clear to the team that informal mechanisms were crucial to the evolution of strategic policy and informing cross-faculty agendas, and that they acted in parallel to the formal procedures.
Dissemination of good practice: communications
67 A similar pattern emerged when the audit team asked how good practice in teaching and learning was disseminated on campus. Several members of staff who met the team emphasised the importance of cross-faculty membership of faculty ASCs in the diffusion of good practice. Winners of the Honorary Graduate Award for innovation in teaching expressed to the team the view that details of their work had been efficiently publicised in Contact and gc (the Graduates’Council magazine), on a WWW site and in press releases, although its inclusion in, for example, staff development workshops had been less systematic. While some winners spoke of approaches from interested colleagues (and from other universities), few seemed to have developed a ‘market’of any size on campus. This experience confirmed the team’s view that there was a potential strength here awaiting more careful development.
68 The audit team noted other mechanisms for dissemination of good practice. The formal staff development programme has a central role to play; its timetable lists events which will disseminate good practice across campus. The Institute of Education and Life Long Learning, and the Centre for Medical Education, are also well placed to play crucial roles in this dissemination process. The Postgraduate Forum seemed to be active in cross-faculty initiatives based on departmental experience, and a recent proposal to institute ‘PhD thesis committees’for postgraduate students was mentioned to the team. The team was told of the effective collegial operation of QAG and L&TSC, with the supportive style of the DQA particularly praised.
69 The emergence of active self-help groups and websites (for example, the Distance Learning Forum, and a network focused on transferable skills) indicate development needs identified by a ‘bottom-up’process. The audit team learnt that a central database held details of staff involvement in courses run by the Staff Development Office, and that it was planned to enlarge this to include involvement in such activities at faculty and departmental levels. Usage of websites can also be monitored electronically. The University might wish to consider how the sensitive use of data on usage of websites by staff might be used to identify the developmental needs which staff themselves believe that they have.
Student representation and support
70 The Account noted that ‘student participation is a critical input to the University’s quality strategy’. Views expressed to the audit team by students - for example, ‘students feel part of the University, and don’t just attend it’; ‘you are heard and you matter’- reinforced the significance of informal communication on campus, supplementing the formality of student representation as set out in the Account. Students are represented on all major committees, and in AS procedures, and the team was told that ‘staff listen because students’comments are constructive’. Departmental staff/student liaison committees meet fortnightly (with a Library representative present), and the team heard of prompt (and visible) action on decisions about, for example, library and IT needs and on resource issues. From documentary evidence, and from discussions with staff, it was clear to the team that the University set great store by its ability to respond to student concerns about the quality and content of learning support, although this had been somewhat underplayed in the Account. The team commends the level and character of student involvement in the University’s quality assurance and planning processes.
71 Student welfare support has been strengthened since the AAU audit in 1992, and these services seemed to be well used and monitored, although informal support is also provided locally in departments, through tutors and other teaching staff. Careers guidance is provided both centrally and in most departments. The needs of disabled students are adequately voiced: every department has a Disability Support Officer, and staff development programmes emphasise issues of equality of access. Overseas students are well supported: the staff of the Centre of Applied Language Studies (which runs remedial courses in English) are an additional focus for meeting wider student concerns. The Student Affairs Committee reviews these services regularly. It appeared to the audit team that students had a variety of effective routes to voice their concerns and meet their needs. The team endorsed the University’s self-analysis of the effectiveness of student representation and support.
72 However, the picture presented by the University in its self-analysis appeared to the audit team to be incomplete. The team was surprised that, with one exception (below), the Account made no mention of the Students’Association. During its visit, the team learnt that the Association was indeed ‘as alive and well as ever’, proactively and articulately involved in University procedures and debates. The team formed the view that the Students’Association was well integrated into decision-making processes within the University, playing an active role in Senate ASC. The Association maintains its own student support network (with its own website), and works closely with the University services; the Student Affairs Committee is the formal locus of this relationship, developing University policies on issues such as drug abuse. The Account noted that, for the past two years, a member of staff in the Academic Secretary’s Office had been designated to liaise with the Association, ‘to foster and enhance the effectiveness of student liaison...and support student representatives on their role’; the team saw an attractive and helpful Class Rep Guidance Pack, recently produced jointly by the Office and the Association for this purpose. The Account presented no evidence on which to assess how satisfied students were with their experience of representation. The team was told, however, that, since the Account had been submitted, two well-attended meetings had been held with student class representatives, and their reports suggested a high level of student satisfaction. The team gained the impression that these activities provided the University with its only reliable information on the views of students regarding its arrangements for student representation, and strengthened regular contact between the administration and the Association.
Student Charter
73 In June 1997, the University Court approved the text of a Student Charter. The Account noted that this was prepared ‘with the assistance of the Students’Association’. It is available on WWW and, from September 1998, will be routinely issued to all entrants. It contains the statement: ‘This document explicitly defines the quality of the service which we believe that you, as a student, are entitled to expect; but it also allows us to express the standards which we, in return, will expect of you’(emphasis in original). The audit team found that this clearly laid-out document was not well known on campus; many staff and students who met the team had neither seen it nor heard of it. The Student Charter will need ‘translation’into local practice before its precepts can be widely influential. The team learnt, however, that at least one department had instituted a learning contract with its students, and intended to bring this into line with the Student Charter once the latter had achieved effective visibility.
Employer and industrial liaison
74 The Account does not discuss the matter of how University teaching programmes are informed by ‘the marketplace’, and identifies ‘policy regarding explicit linkage of curricula to the needs of employment’as a key limitation. The procedures defined in the Academic Standards Handbook, however, include the requirement of input from the world of employment, and the audit team found many examples of effective mechanisms of this type at department and faculty level. In particular, the team was struck by the activities of the Industrial Liaison Board set up in the restructured Department of Applied Computing, following its ‘unsatisfactory’TQA rating. The Board papers revealed its detailed scrutiny of syllabuses and teaching arrangements, and members who met the team (especially one student member) spoke very positively of its work. However, other departments and faculties maintain similar mechanisms, and surveys of graduates’views seemed to be common practice. The evidence available to the team showed that liaison with employers and industry was active, and was appropriately recorded, although it might benefit from better dissemination of established good practice.
Promotional material
75 With the reorganisation of the Admissions and Recruitment Office, and the appointment of a Web Administrator, the University is now in a position to manage and co-ordinate its ‘public face’more coherently. The audit team was impressed by the 1999 Undergraduate Prospectus, and by its sampling of materials available on the WWW. The team considered that the procedures for ensuring the continuing accuracy of promotional material were appropriate, and found no suggestion from students whom it met that promotional materials of their experience were other than fair and realistic.
Formal and informal communications
76 The audit team, in its meetings with staff and students, was repeatedly told that the University maintained an open, friendly and democratic culture, with communications unhindered by formal constraints. The team’s exploration of internal communications did not sustain its initial hypothesis that there might be some tension between ‘central’and ‘local’approaches to the assurance of quality and standards. In particular, the team concluded that the ‘central’location of DQA, QAG and L&TSC disguised their collegial and supportive style of operation. A senior member of the University, when asked by the team how he knew ‘what is happening’in the institution, cited both formal and informal channels, adding that these were inseparable, and that ‘the formal introduces reliability, but is sterile if not informed by the informal’. The general effectiveness of the University’s internal and external communications appeared to the team to owe as much to well established informal processes as to the formal structures, a view that was largely missing from its self-analysis as represented in the Account. Reflection upon these matters might allow the University to find ways to reduce a perceived ‘paperwork "overload"’. The team suggests that the University might wish to give greater recognition to the importance of maintaining a harmonious balance between the formal and the less formal elements in its present practices.
Conclusion
77 Since the quality audit of 1992, the University has significantly developed its capacity for self reflection on its delivery of high quality teaching and learning. It can offer ample evidence that it has a firm understanding of its standards and procedures, and that it has pursued a gradual devolution of responsibility for, and ownership of, quality management. In its Account, the University identified limitations and strengths that were broadly confirmed by the audit. In general, the findings of the current audit constitute an endorsement of the essential soundness of the University’s quality strategy and procedures, and of the mechanisms and evidence which underpin their monitoring and enhancement.
78 The University demonstrates firm guardianship of its standards and is engaging in processes towards their better definition and expression. Robust processes of monitoring and review operate at discipline level and are reported in such a way as to enable the University to assure itself that its objectives are being satisfied, while there are numerous effective and principally informal mechanisms to facilitate shared understandings. Nevertheless, the University is aware of the limitations of defining academic standards primarily at the programme level, and is actively engaged in developing a standards framework with greater emphasis on faculty and institutional level involvement.
79 The University has developed a strong, if implicit, strategy for achieving its objectives. This might be characterised as one which is both flexible and quality-driven. In order to secure this strategy the University has implemented procedures for taking up new opportunities and for divesting itself of activities where it can no longer offer any academic advantage or which no longer serve to fulfil its mission. It has developed a set of sustainability criteria which supports its quality mission, enables cost minimisation and reduces the dangers of cost cutting as a reaction to unforeseen events. The development of these sustainability criteria embedded within a culture of openness and dialogue is a model of good practice. Concern remains, however, that the faculty structure may restrict the winning of new opportunities, especially when initiatives emerge that cut across faculty boundaries. The University will, no doubt, wish to explore how such initiatives can be promoted without undermining the position of faculties.
80 The University has established clear and effective systems which enable the formulation of academic standards at the discipline or subject level which are then rigorously scrutinised at faculty and University level. It has made a significant investment in the development of appropriate administrative support, notably in the formation of a new central registry, which has clear potential to become a focal point for information sharing throughout the University. Senior managers of the University are in close contact with quality issues, illustrated, for example, by the involvement of the Principal in actively reviewing external examiners’reports. The academic monitoring procedures work, in parallel with the external examining system, to provide a framework for the management of quality and standards that is robust, effective and efficient.
81 A concern remains about whether there are appropriate mechanisms in place to permit the effective management of teaching quality while preventing the systems for assurance of quality and standards from becoming too bureaucratic. The University may wish to reflect upon the role of its senior committees, considering whether their main function is to provide a forum for considered debate for the enhancement of quality or to monitor adherence to quality assurance procedures by faculty and departmental committees. The strength of the formal quality assurance procedures is complemented by less formal processes. The University’s self-analysis does not do justice to the strength of the informal structures which exist, and which are adapting to changing circumstances, or to the extent of the ‘institutional learning’derived by all parties in the mergers with local colleges.
82 The University engages effectively with the student body, through active participation of the latter in quality assurance and student liaison committees. The student body places great value on this involvement. Students have a strong network of advice at both the formal and the informal level and there is a sound integration of the support services with the committee structures. Management of student learning resources is well integrated into the University’s quality assurance procedures, with strong informal links between service centres and academic departments.
83 The effectiveness of the penetration of structured staff development is less convincing, with many staff apparently unaware of the developmental opportunities available to them. New initiatives have already begun to strengthen this area, but senior managers will need carefully to monitor their progress and reinforce them wherever possible. Within departments, however, informal mechanisms for staff development and training are strong, although there would be advantage in making more cross-disciplinary use of the range of expertise available within the University.
84 The University has an ethos of openness and dialogue between all levels of its structure which gives confidence that it is a self-aware organisation which will continue to reflect and seek improvement across the broad spread of its activities. It presented to this audit evidence of excellent practice in managing a University under pressure for resources, and in facing the potential tensions and opportunities at the interface between its research and teaching objectives.
Points for commendation
85 The audit team would like to commend the University for its many good practices, in particular:
- establishing an effective Quality Assurance Group and appointing a full-time Director of Quality Assurance to support its quality assurance and enhancement processes (paragraphs 16, 30, 68);
- establishing and disseminating a clear set of sustainability criteria for assessing the viability of academic programmes (paragraph 21);
- its well developed Academic Standards procedures, and the effective role in their application of the Academic Standards Committees at department, faculty and University levels (paragraphs 23, 28, 38, 43);
- its emphasis on integration of research and teaching, and the concept of the ‘research active teacher’(paragraph 29);
- its effective and thorough consideration at senior management levels of issues of quality and standards raised by the reports of external examiners and professional and statutory bodies (paragraphs 37, 38, 40);
- the development of forums as vehicles for the development of policy and dissemination of good practice, in areas such as postgraduate provision and distance learning (paragraphs 44, 68, 69);
- the active participation of the student body in quality management (paragraphs 70, 72).
Points for further consideration
86 As it continues to develop its systems and arrangements for assuring the quality of its educational provision and the standards of its awards, the University may wish to consider the advisability of:
- giving greater attention within its institutional self-analysis to how the formal and informal elements of its quality management processes interact so that they might be more mutually supportive (paragraphs 33, 65, 76);
- prioritising the continuing University-wide development of academic standards in order to promote consistency of practice, and to permit more formal comparisons of standards across disciplines (paragraph 36);
- reviewing the links between annual course monitoring and the external examiner reporting procedures to minimise duplication of activity, and ensuring greater consistency of practice in reporting back to external examiners (paragraphs 39, 41);
- accelerating the work already in progress on the definitions of excellence in teaching, and the establishment of clear criteria for promotion under this heading (paragraph 56).
87 The University may also wish to consider the desirability of:
- seeking ways to facilitate inter-faculty developments and initiatives (paragraph 22);
- improving the efficiency of the committee system by terminating the formal consideration of issues that have been effectively dealt with through executive action (paragraph 27);
- exploring ways in which the informal processes for the dissemination of good practice between disciplines can be sustained and reinforced (paragraphs 42, 67);
- extending the awareness among all staff of the opportunities available to them for sharing good practice and for personal and professional development (paragraphs 5 4, 69).
Appendix 1
History
The origins of the University can be traced to the founding of University College, Dundee, in 1881. In 1897, the College became part of the University of St Andrews and, following constitutional changes within that university, was renamed Queen’s College in 1954. In 1967 a Royal Charter was granted, and Queen’s College became the University of Dundee. In 1994, the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art merged with the University. In 1995 the University was successful in its bid to the Scottish Office for a five year contract to run the existing Colleges of Nursing and Midwifery in Fife and Tayside, leading to the creation of the School of Nursing and Midwifery within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing.
Mission
The mission of the University is to provide education of the highest quality coupled with a leading contribution to the advancement of knowledge, thereby developing in our students the imagination, talents, creativity and skills necessary for the varied and rapidly changing requirements of modern life. Building on the long and admirable tradition of higher education in Scotland, the University will enhance further its international and national standing and will contribute significantly to social, cultural and economic well-being and to improvements in the quality of life.
In meeting these aims the University will:
- excel in teaching, scholarship and in pure and applied research, benefiting fully from the essential interdependence of these activities
- offer a broad but sustainable subject coverage, appropriate for the lifelong requirements of professional employment and the needs of society whilst focusing on its particular strengths
- foster an institutional culture and physical environment which encourage leadership and support individual and collective development and achievement
- meet creatively the evolving and varied needs of students and academic disciplines taking full advantage of the unique corporate strengths of a multi-disciplinary university
- promote continuous improvement through effective management and sound financial policies
- develop and promote constructive relationships with other HE and FE institutions, with research institutes and industry, and with the local and regional community
Key statistics (1997-98)
Number of students - 11,257
Number of staff - 2,850
Number of taught courses - 74 (undergraduate); 72 (postgraduate)
Faculties
Arts & Social Sciences
Duncan of Jordanstone College
Law and Accountancy
Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing
Science and Engineering
Number of students (1997-98)
| Faculty | UGFT | UGPT | PGFT | PGPT | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arts & Social Sciences | 1,649 | 168 | 113 | 704 | 2,634 |
| Duncan of Jordanstone College | 1,400 | 1 | 91 | 151 | 1,643 |
| Law and Accountancy | 820 | 0 | 149 | 117 | 1,086 |
| Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing | 2,309 | 839 | 132 | 584 | 3,864 |
| Science and Engineering | 1,471 | 2 | 278 | 279 | 2,030 |
| Total | 7,649 | 1,010 | 763 | 1,835 | 11,257 |
Student characteristics (total population)
Gender
| FT | PT | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 3,745 | 1,031 | 4,776 |
| Female | 4,667 | 1,814 | 6,481 |
| Total | 11,257 |
Age
Proportion of total student population who were aged 21 or over on entry = 32%
Domicile
| Scotland | Other UK | Other EU | Overseas | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Undergraduate | 5,698 | 2,225 | 447 | 289 | 8,659 |
| Postgraduate | 1,490 | 472 | 180 | 456 | 2,598 |
| Total | 7,188 | 2,697 | 627 | 745 | 11,257 |
Number of students graduating (1996-97)
| Faculty | Undergraduate | Postgraduate |
|---|---|---|
| Arts & Social Sciences | 362 | 39 |
| Duncan of Jordanstone College | 360 | 58 |
| Law and Accountancy | 184 | 45 |
| Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing | 235 | 92 |
| Science and Engineering | 378 | 101 |
Student accommodation (full-time students)
| Undergraduate | Postgraduate | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| University Accommodation | 1,778 | 239 | 2,017 |
| Private Accommodation | 4,070 | 404 | 4,474 |
| Home (own or parental) | 1,286 | 49 | 1,335 |
| Private Lodgings/Other | 515 | 71 | 586 |
| Total | 7649 | 763 | 8412 |
University staff (1997-98)
| FT | PT | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academic & related | 1,040 | 274 | 1,314 |
| Administrative, Library & Computing | 190 | 23 | 213 |
| Clerical | 364 | 152 | 516 |
| Technical | 242 | 40 | 282 |
| Manual/domestic | 525 |
||
| Total | 2,850 |
Finances (1996-97 accounts)
| Income (1996-97) | £K |
|---|---|
| Scottish Higher Education Funding Council | 33,308 |
| Tuition fees | 21,282 |
| Research grants and contracts | 21,899 |
| Endowment income and interest receivable | 2,586 |
| Residences | 4,005 |
| Other income | 7,014 |
| Total | 90,094 |
| Expenditure (1996-97) | £K |
|---|---|
| Academic departments (including research) | 57,062 |
| Administration | 5,257 |
| Academic services | 5,003 |
| Premises | 6,866 |
| Residences | 3,863 |
| Other expenditure | 11,168 |
| Total | 89,219 |
Appendix 2
Following the merger with Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, the University has no validation arrangements for awards with other institutions.
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