Introduction
A team of auditors from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (the Agency) visited Loughborough University (the University) from 22 to 26 March 2004 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 University's awards.
To arrive at its conclusions the audit team spoke to members of staff throughout the University, to current students, and read a wide range of documents relating to the way the University 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 academic 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 University is that:
- broad confidence can be placed in the soundness of the University's current and likely future management of the quality of its academic programmes and the academic standards of its awards.
Features of good practice
The audit team identified the following areas as being good practice in the context of the University:
- the diligence with which the Associate Deans (Teaching) (AD(T)s) discharge their very considerable responsibilities; the thoroughness with which the University's periodic programme reviews (PPRs) have been undertaken; the many links the University has developed with employers which have assisted it in the provision of placements and the development of the curriculum;
- the contributions of Staff Student Liaison and Consultative Committees across the University to quality management;
- the development by the University of its Learn virtual learning environment (VLE), which is closely tailored to its teaching and learning needs, and provides easy access for students to authoritative and up-to-date information; the staff development activities it has undertaken to encourage staff to make use of the VLE;
- the many steps taken by the University to support the development of its staff, including the care taken to assist and support probationer teaching staff, for example, by monitoring their teaching loads and supporting them as they begin research; the support provided by the University for its graduate teaching assistants; the use of transparent workload models by departments to enable a balance to be struck between activities in research, teaching and administration; and the support provided by the Counselling Service for staff;
- the work of the Mathematics Education Centre and the Engineering Education Centre;
- the close attention paid by the University to monitoring the development of its distance learning provision;
- the University's support for its students whether domiciled in the UK or overseas, for example, through its personal tutor arrangements, including the use of Co-Tutor software to track and record students' meetings with their tutors, and the provision of support for students' sporting activities at all levels;
- the steps taken to ensure that active researchers contribute to the teaching of undergraduate programmes; and
- the University's support for its Careers and Guidance Service, and many features of the work of the Service itself; and the work of the Department of Student Guidance and Welfare and the Counselling Service.
Recommendations for action
The audit team advises the University to:
- develop strategies to ensure that communication across the University's matrix quality management arrangements are less reliant than is the case at present on the contributions of the AD(T)s;
- ensure that an external peer perspective can be brought to bear on the approval of new undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes, updating its Academic Quality Procedures Handbook to reflect its requirement that the external membership of PPR panels does not include serving or recently retired external examiners as the external peer, and that the balance of the membership of periodic programme review panels is less weighted towards those with a direct interest in the programme or programmes under review;
- considering how the appointments process for its external examiners might be made more visibly the responsibility of a senior committee, such as the Learning and Teaching Committee; and
- continue to enhance the development of the Corporate Information Services, to enable the provision of cohort analyses, trend analyses and admissions data to inform annual programme review and PPR.
The audit team suggests that it would also be desirable for the University to:
- identify responsibility for overseeing the quality management of collaborative provision more specifically, and review whether, and how, the University's routine quality management arrangements might require enhancement to support collaborative provision;
- continue to apply its PPR process to the review of combined and joint honours programmes, and to take forward the recommendations of the recent PPR in Social Sciences, in order to bring forward measures which will ensure that the learning support of students (including contact hours) is always appropriate to the demands of the learning outcomes of programmes;
- ensure that reports from professional, statutory and regulatory bodies can be considered at University level, to ensure the dissemination of good practice institution-wide, and consider how the dissemination of good practice could be made less dependent on the good work of the AD(T)s;
- work with the Loughborough Students' Union to ensure equitable representation for all students studying for the University's awards; and
- introducing further measures which will allow the University to check that its departments are responding to central initiatives and are applying the University's own Codes of Practice and Regulations, and clarify the procedures to be followed at University, faculty and departmental level, in checking and confirming the accuracy of published materials.
Social science; sociology, communication and media studies, criminology and criminal justice; English and drama; sports science; economics; civil engineering
To arrive at these conclusions the audit team spoke to staff and students, and was given information about the University as a whole. The team also looked in detail at programmes in the above areas. The team came to the view that the standard of student achievement in the programmes is appropriate to the titles of the awards and their location within The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FHEQ). Again, in each case, the quality of learning opportunities available to students is suitable for a programme of study leading to the relevant awards.
National reference points
To provide further evidence to support its findings the audit team also investigated the use made by the University of the academic infrastructure which the Agency 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 findings of the audit suggest that the University has responded appropriately to subject benchmark statements and programme specifications, and has taken note of the FHEQ, but that further work would be advisable to bring the University's arrangements for the approval of new programmes of study and the periodic review of existing programmes of study more closely into alignment with the guidance offered in the Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education, published by the Agency.
From 2005, the institutional audit process will include a check on the reliability of information set published by institutions in the format recommended in the Higher Education Funding Council for England's (HEFCE's) document 02/15, Information on quality and standards in higher education, as updated in HEFCE 03/51 Final guidance. At the time of the audit the University was taking steps to fulfil its responsibilities in this respect.
>> Main report
>> Findings
ISBN 1 84482 133 1
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