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ISBN 1 84482 189 7
Royal Holloway and Bedford New College
Institutional Audit
FEBRUARY 2005
RG 125 06/05
Summary
Web site for Royal Holloway and Bedford New College
Contents
Introduction
A team of auditors from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) visited Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (the College) from 14 to 18 February 2005 to carry out an institutional audit. The purpose of the audit was to provide public information on the quality of the opportunities available to students and on the academic standards of the awards that the College offers on behalf of the University of London, which formally awards the College's degrees.
To arrive at its conclusions the team spoke to members of staff throughout the College, to current students, and read a wide range of documents relating to the way the College manages the academic aspects of its provision.
The words 'academic standards' are used to describe the level of achievement that a student has to reach to gain an award (for example, a degree). It should be at a similar level across the UK.
Academic quality is a way of describing how well the learning opportunities available to students help them to achieve their award. It is about making sure that appropriate teaching, support, assessment and learning opportunities are provided for them.
In institutional audit, both academic standards and academic quality are reviewed.
Outcome of the audit
As a result of its investigations the audit team's view of the College is that:
- broad confidence can be placed in the soundness of the College's current and likely future management of the quality of its programmes and the academic standards of awards offered by the College on behalf of the University of London.
Features of good practice
The audit team identified the following areas as being good practice:
- the proactive way in which faculty assistant registrars support the academic management of faculty activity, and their contribution to quality enhancement across the College
- the role of the Educational Development Centre in supporting and leading developments in teaching and learning, and its work with the departments to spread good practice
- the CAPITAL programme to support academic staff, and the inSTIL programme to support postgraduate students with teaching responsibilities and non-established teaching staff
- the college-wide culture of teaching programmes being informed by disciplinary research
- the effectiveness of central student support and learning resources services in their work with each other, with departments and through the personal adviser system.
Recommendations for action
The audit team also recommends that the College should consider further action in a number of areas to ensure that the academic quality and standards of awards are maintained. The team advises the College to:
- move as soon as possible to a consistent college-wide approach to dealing with coursework deadlines and penalties for late submission.
In addition, the College might consider the desirability of enhancing its quality management arrangements by:
- addressing more fully the recommendation of the 2001 quality audit of 'keeping under review the role of the effectiveness of the Graduate School as an agent for quality enhancement, following the transfer of postgraduate quality assurance matters to the faculties'
- managing the availability of teaching and learning space so as to safeguard the quality of the learning environment, in the context of its strategy for increasing student numbers
- remaining alert to differences in departmental approaches to student support and, where appropriate, acting to establish clear college-wide boundaries to diversity of practice
- taking the opportunity of its review of the management structure of the Halls of Residence to clarify, for the benefit of students, the channels open to them for addressing enquiries and raising matters of concern
- developing a more concerted approach to identifying and addressing the particular learning needs and expectations of international students.
Biological Science, English, History and Management
To arrive at these conclusions, the audit team spoke to staff and students, and was given information about the College as a whole. The team also looked in detail at the programmes listed above to find out how well the College's systems and procedures were working at programme level. The College provided the team with documents, including student work and, here too, the team spoke to staff and students. As well as supporting the overall confidence statement given above, the team was able to state that the standard of student achievement in these programmes was appropriate to the titles of their awards and their place in The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland . The team considered that the quality of learning opportunities available to students in each of the programmes was suitable for a programme of study leading to the named award.
National reference points
To provide further evidence to support its findings, the audit team also investigated the use made by the College of the Academic Infrastructure which QAA has developed on behalf of the whole of UK higher education. The Academic Infrastructure is a set of nationally agreed reference points that help to define both good practice and academic standards. The audit found that the College was making effective use of the Academic Infrastructure to inform its framework for the management of quality and standards.
The audit found that the College was preparing appropriately for the publication of the teaching quality information that institutions will be required to publish, and which is listed in the Higher Education Funding Council for England's document 03/51, Information on quality and standards in higher education.
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