Introduction
A team of auditors from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) visited the University of Plymouth (the University) from 28 February to 4 March 2005 to carry out an institutional audit. The purpose of the audit was to provide public information on the quality of the University's programmes of study and on the academic standards of its 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 resources 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 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:
- the active use and continuous development of the staff and student intranet portals, allowing both currency of information and relevance of communication to be maintained during a period of extensive organisational change
- the effectiveness of Internal Quality Audit as a mechanism for investigating the operation of key quality processes
- the partnership between the University and its Student Union to improve student representation
- the work of the Educational Development and Learning Technologies unit in supporting staff academic and professional development, as exemplified by its comprehensive guide, Designing your Programmes and Modules
- the effectiveness of the SkillsPlus strategy in drawing together policies relating to student academic support, skills development and employability
- the support for postgraduate research students provided through the Graduate School, facilitating development of the University's research student community.
Recommendations for action
The audit team also recommends that the University should consider further action in a number of areas to ensure that the academic quality and standards of the awards it offers are maintained.
Recommendations for action that is advisable:
- to give the necessary impetus to ensure full implementation of the University Assessment Policy at faculty and school levels, with an emphasis on achieving local consistency in arrangements for the moderation of marking and the provision of feedback to students.
Recommendations for action that is desirable:
- to be proactive in monitoring the effectiveness of associate deans in interpreting institutional quality requirements and promoting local ownership and consistent operation of quality assurance and enhancement processes in their faculties, while working to achieve an equivalence of student experience across faculties
- building on the practice in certain subject areas of publicising module reviews to students, to adopt a university-wide approach to utilising module evaluation and communicating resultant action.
Summary outcomes of discipline audit trails
The audit team also looked in some detail at several individual programmes in the four discipline areas of Psychology, Computing, Architecture and Design, and Human and Social Geography to find out how well the University's systems and procedures were working at programme level. The University provided the team with documents, including student work, and members of the team spoke to staff and students from each discipline area. As well as its findings supporting the overall confidence statements given above, the team was able to state that the standard of student achievement in the programmes was appropriate to the titles of the awards and their place within The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FHEQ), published by QAA. The team was also able to state that the quality of learning opportunities available to students was suitable for the programmes of study leading to the 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 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 findings of the audit suggest that the University has responded appropriately to the Code of practice for the assurance of academic standards in higher education, the FHEQ, subject benchmark statements and programme specifications.
The audit process includes a check on the reliability of information about academic standards and quality published by institutions in a standard format, in line with the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) requirements for Information on quality and standards in higher education: Final guidance (HEFCE 03/51). At the time of the audit, the University was making progress towards fulfilling its responsibilities in this area. The information it was publishing about the quality of its programmes and the standards of its awards was found to be reliable.
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