Academic review of UK higher education
Introduction
A Subject provision and overall aims
B Academic standards
Intended learning outcomes
Curricula
Assessment
Student achievementC Quality of learning opportunities
Teaching and learning
Student progression
Learning resourcesD Maintenance and enhancement of quality and standards
Summary of the main review outcomes
Subject provision and the overall aims
The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (the Agency) helps to provide public assurance that the quality and standards of higher education are being safeguarded and enhanced by conducting academic reviews of higher education provision.
In developing its method for academic review, the Agency has published a wide range of materials designed to provide a background against which the reviews can take place. These are:
The Agency carries out reviews of individual subjects through service level agreements with the main higher education funding bodies. It also carries out institutional reviews of higher education institutions. The judgements made by the subject reviewers can contribute substantially to institutional review.
Subject review is a peer review process. It starts when institutions evaluate their provision in a subject in a self-evaluation document. This document is submitted to the Agency for use by a team of reviewers who gather evidence to enable them to report their judgements on the academic standards and the quality of learning opportunities. Review activities include meeting staff and students, scrutinising students' assessed work, reading relevant documents, and examining learning resources. Full details of the process of subject review can be found in the Handbook for academic review, QAA, 2000.
The range of judgements that reviewers may utilise when they have completed a subject review are summarised below.
To reach this judgement, reviewers look at:
Reviewers make one of the following judgements for each of three aspects of
learning opportunities:
The three aspects of quality of learning opportunities are:
Reviewers also report the degree of confidence they have in the institution's ability to maintain and enhance quality and standards in the subject under review.
1. This report presents the findings of a review of the academic standards achieved, and the quality of the learning opportunities provided, in law programmes at Leeds Metropolitan University. The review was completed in the academic year 2003-04.
2. Leeds Law School is one of five schools within Leeds Business School, a large faculty of Leeds Metropolitan University based at the Beckett Park campus about three miles from the city centre. Leeds Law School offers a range of educational opportunities in law. The programmes covered by the review are:
In 2003-04, there are 118 students enrolled on the two postgraduate programmes, and 771 on the undergraduate programmes and Graduate Diploma. Students are supported by the 26 full-time equivalent (FTE) academic staff who teach on these programmes.
3. The mission of Leeds Law School is to equip students for careers in both legal and non-legal environments and to provide the opportunity to engage in further studies. The principal aims of each programme are set out in the programme specifications. The generic aims of the provision are to:
4. There are common aims and learning outcomes for all the programmes falling within the Law Undergraduate Scheme: the LLB, BA (Hons) LIT and HND LIT. The relevant external reference points are The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FHEQ); the Subject benchmark statement for law and, as both the LLB and BA (Hons) LIT have qualifying degree status, the Joint Announcement on Qualifying Law Degrees (Law Society and General Council of the Bar). The aims and intended learning outcomes (ILOs) are clearly stated and one in accordance with these reference points. The aims of the subject provision are also consistent with the University's mission. However, whereas the ILOs are appropriate to the standard of the LLB (Hons) and BA LIT awards, they are less well matched to the prior educational experience and achievement of HND LIT students, and thus do not answer the learning needs of many of the students on this programme.
5. The aims and ILOs of the graduate and postgraduate programmes are appropriate for awards of this level. Both the CPE and the LPC meet the formal requirements of the Law Society and the Bar Council. The learning outcomes of the LLM as set out in the programme specification are also appropriate for study at this level. However, in practice there are no students who follow this course in its entirety. The only students currently admitted to the LLM are those who have achieved credits from completion of the LPC. They have exemption from the taught course and are only required to complete a dissertation in order to achieve the award. The learning outcomes for these students are thus, in practice, rather narrower than those set out in the programme specification; a refined specification that reflects this might have more direct relevance to students.
6. The programme specifications were developed through a number of staff away days that took place during 2000 to 2002, and are the result of wide-ranging debate among all staff. The main mechanism for communicating learning outcomes to students is through course handbooks and module documentation; students on all courses confirmed that they were aware of both course and module learning outcomes.
7. The undergraduate curricula are appropriate to support the ILOs and external reference points. There is clear progression in terms of intellectual and transferable skills mapping onto the appropriate level of the FHEQ for all undergraduate programmes. Legal and key skills, including personal skills, are clearly articulated in the scheme documents, and are mapped across the law curricula at all levels. Curricular design is also aligned to the Faculty strategy of developing progressive problem-solving.
8. There is flexibility of entry and exit points. Study is available in full or part-time modes on all programmes except the HND, and transfer is possible between these modes. Students successfully completing an access course at Park Lane College may be admitted on to the HND LIT. The curriculum for the HND LIT is identical to that of the BA LIT, except for an unassessed programme of study-skills sessions amounting to 24 hours spread over the first two semesters. This commonality offers an unusual and potentially attractive opportunity for HND students to progress directly to the final year of a qualifying law degree. To benefit from this, students must generally achieve 50 per cent Merit grades at level 2. Students on the CPE, LLB and BA LIT may progress to the LPC.
9. The HND and BA LIT provide an innovative combination for students on, or progressing towards, a qualifying law degree, offering one or more information technology (IT) modules at each level of study. Although the BA LIT prospectus states that 'much of legal study draws on the use of IT as a research and information management tool', there is evidence that students have difficulty in making links between the IT and law modules. Strategies for enhancing integration of the two disciplines are under review, both in terms of curricular design and within the context of the School's IT review.
10. An appropriate range of specialist option modules is offered for level 3 students on the LLB. This provides good choice and enables the modules to be studied at a relatively high level of academic specialisation. Some imaginative provision can be found among these modules; for example, the module Law and Literature. The BA LIT students have a more limited, but appropriate, range of specialist law options. There is one option module at both level 1 and level 2 for HND students.
11. The curriculum for the CPE incorporates the foundations of law and the skills required for use in a career in legal practice. Students are required to undertake an independent legal research project of 5,000 words in a chosen area of law. The LPC includes three compulsory subjects of property law and practice, business law and practice, and litigation and advocacy, plus three electives, together with the skills prescribed by the LPC Board. The range of electives on the LPC addresses local needs and reflects the expertise of the teaching team. For both these programmes, the curriculum is appropriate and meets the standards required by the professional bodies.
12. Curricular currency is assured through the staff's engagement in research, publication, conference attendance and other developmental activities such as secondments to practice. Syllabuses and reading lists are up to date and relevant. The curricula are regularly reviewed and amended in light of internal feedback, regular review activities and away days, and external developments such as the requirements of the LPC Board. Plans for the development of a criminal justice degree and consideration of a foundation degree, and for development of a pro bono law module, demonstrate ongoing review and innovation.
13. There is a clear relationship between the module ILOs and assessment, and students are aware of this. The assessment of each undergraduate module is also designed to test certain key skills on a pass/fail basis. Although the operation of this process is well understood by LLB students, those from the BA LIT and HND LIT are less clear.
14. The University's standard assessment regulations define different classes of achievement. External examiners are provided with these at induction and are generally satisfied that the resulting classifications are consistent and comparable with similar courses elsewhere. The LLB students understand the role of these criteria, although other undergraduate and CPE students are less clear about the distinction between them and the marking guidelines for content provided for each assignment.
15. Assessment is conducted in a manner consistent with the principles set out in the Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education (Code of practice), Section 6: Assessment of students, published by the Agency. There are clear procedures for setting, marking, moderating and reviewing assessments. The newly introduced subject groups play an important role in this process, also scrutinising all assessments to check that they are capable of testing the relevant learning outcomes. The LPC team has a well-established formal meeting to fulfil this function; the extension of this good practice to other courses is to be welcomed. Anonymous marking for both coursework and assignments, consistent with the Faculty's operating procedures, enhances the equity of the assessment process.
16. Considerable efforts have been made to combat plagiarism. Strategies for eliminating the opportunities for plagiarism by careful assessment design are contained in the University's good practice guides and have been adopted by the School. The Faculty runs staff workshops on the identification of plagiarism using electronic detection software. Plagiarism is clearly defined in student handbooks and the penalties are set out in the University's Academic Principles and Regulations. The incidence of students seeking to gain unfair advantage is monitored by the Academic Quality and Standards Committee, which noted a marked decrease in proven cases in 2002-03 in Leeds Business School, including the Law School. The School is to be commended for the vigour with which it has addressed this problem.
17. A variety of appropriate assessment methods is employed across courses, including unseen examinations, essays, projects and advanced release case studies. Formative assessment takes the form of mock examinations, oral skills exercises and time-constrained tests in class. Module workbooks provide opportunities for reflective learning and informal assessment. Written feedback is provided on cover sheets when work is returned. The detail in those examples scrutinised by the reviewers varied and did not in all cases appear to be helpful. In future, subject groups will be responsible for monitoring the quality of feedback to ensure that it is consistent and of value. Designated feedback days provide students with an opportunity to discuss assignments with staff on an individual basis. This is greatly valued by students, and represents good practice.
18. The record of student progression, achievement and destination for graduating cohorts for the full-time LLB programme, the CPE and the LPC is consistent with national expectations. However, completion rates on the BA LIT and HND LIT give rise to some concern. Over the last three cohorts of the BA LIT, the average completion rate has been 64 per cent. For the only HND cohort to have completed the course so far, the rate was 48 per cent. While not all students who fail to progress do so for reasons of academic failure and the HND LIT cohort is small in number, the disappointing completion rates for HND students in particular, indicate that a significant proportion may not have the requisite skills for the level of challenge associated with the first two years of a qualifying law degree. Revisions to the curriculum intended to address the problem on the HND LIT and on the BA LIT have not yet resulted in appreciably improved results, and the School has decided to discontinue recruitment to the HND LIT at present.
19. A majority of students completing the LLB and BA LIT courses over the past three years achieved an Upper Second class award or better. Around 60 per cent of graduates for whom destinations are known went on to further study, generally the LPC; 4 per cent were unemployed when the census took place, and the remainder of those available for work were employed, many in law-related areas. Over 90 per cent of the CPE students progressed to the LPC, and over 80 per cent of the LPC students entered employment.
20. Overall, external examiners, in their reports on the full range of the provision, judge that the standards being achieved by students are comparable with those achieved at other institutions. Most external examiners comment positively on student achievement. This general view is supported by the reviewers' scrutiny of students' assessed work. However, there are some instances where marking is perceived to be generous by both external examiners and the reviewers. This is despite a rigorous process of auditing marks and formal analysis of the standard deviation of marks for all modules, overseen by each subject leader.
21. The reviewers scrutinised work from all courses and levels, including unseen examinations, dissertations, essays, projects and reports. This generally provided clear evidence that student achievement matches the intended outcomes and levels for the provision, and there was ample demonstration of students' knowledge and understanding and of their legal and transferable skills. On occasion, however, external examiners have expressed concern, in respect of parts of the undergraduate provision, about students' ability to evidence the development of analytical skills; this is a view with which the reviewers would agree. The School recognises this as a problem and has revised the Law Undergraduate Scheme to introduce modules at level 2 which have a strong analytical and research dimension.
22. With respect to academic standards, the reviewers conclude that:
Overall, the reviewers have confidence in the academic standards achieved by the programmes in law at Leeds Metropolitan University.
23. The School's teaching and learning strategy is student-focused. Students from the full range of courses commented positively on the supportive ethos of the School, which they find very conducive to learning, and on the high quality of teaching from full-time staff. The general consensus among current and former students was that staff are enthusiastic, accessible and clearly want the students to succeed. The LPC Board's monitoring team conducted a review of the LPC in December 2003 and graded the provision as good. This review included classroom observation. Staff teaching on the LPC also teach across other courses and levels; students value the contribution made by practitioners to delivery of the LPC. The LLM is not a taught course but the standard of supervision appears, on the evidence available, to be good. The only departure from the generally very positive comments about teaching quality related to some part-time lecturers. This issue was recognised by the School and dealt with promptly and decisively. Peer observation of teaching, which started on the LPC, has now been extended to all programmes as a vehicle for sharing best practice.
24. Programme handbooks explain the teaching and learning strategy to students with varying degrees of detail and clarity. The LPC and CPE handbooks provide information on teaching and learning activities largely in relation to delivery methods, whereas the BA LIT handbook explains skills for learning in terms of the university support available. When the handbooks come to be revised, they might usefully incorporate features of both these approaches, to give students a more comprehensive understanding.
25. The School uses a variety of teaching and learning methods, including lectures, seminars, workshops, guided independent activities and student presentations. Many modules are taught to all undergraduate cohorts, in which event the syllabus and teaching sessions are structured identically, but only lectures are delivered in common. There are dedicated seminar groups for students from the LLB, BA LIT and HND LIT. The School considers that the different learning needs of HND and BA LIT students can be accommodated in this way.
26. At each level of undergraduate study there is a skills development module, which ensures a good progression of development from basic study skills in law, through research methodology and culminating in development of advocating skills. Skills for independent learning, particularly independent legal research, are developed through all levels of the curricula. A recent innovation, to foster development of personal effectiveness skills, is the incorporation of a reflective learning journal in the Criminal Law modules. Skills in line with LPC Board requirements are developed within and alongside legal subjects. A range of extracurricular activities, for example, mooting (legal debating) and interviewing competitions and visiting speakers, makes a valuable contribution to the development of legal skills.
27. Module workbooks are of very good quality, clearly supportive to students' learning and universally appreciated by students and former students. Students reported that the workload is demanding but generally manageable. The reviewers consider that the load on students is appropriately challenging overall, but agree with students that the demands of a part-time CPE course are inevitably very heavy.
28. The School is addressing the issue of student attendance, which has been problematic. Timetabling has been adjusted to be more sensitive to students' other commitments. Attendance is now systematically monitored and it is policy on all courses to send letters to students who fail to attend.
29. The provision contributes substantially to the achievement of the intended outcomes, with most elements demonstrating good practice.
The quality of teaching and learning is commendable.
30. All programmes operate induction periods to provide students with support at the point of entry. These involve both academic and support staff together with staff from the learning centre, and aim to ensure that students are aware of the demands of their particular programme. Students reported that they are provided with clear and relevant information.
31. Pastoral support is provided in all programmes. First-year undergraduate students have dedicated personal tutors with whom they are required to meet at the end of the first semester to discuss their general progress. Additional meetings take place on demand. At other levels, pastoral support is provided by the year tutor or course leader. Students' concerns over specific academic matters are dealt with by individual module tutors. Students reported that the systems work well and that staff are accessible and reactive to students' concerns.
32. Progression from year one to year two for the most recent three cohorts on the LLB was 80 per cent, but much lower on the BA LIT and HND LIT at 60 and 50 per cent respectively. In response to the disappointing progression and completion figures for the BA LIT, the School has now raised the entrance qualification to bring it in line with the LLB. This is in recognition of the fact that the disparity was anomalous as the degree represents an at least equal and arguably because of its bidisciplinary nature, greater challenge to students. In the past, the existence of double modules at level 1 meant that, under the University's regulations, students' progression to level 2 was prejudiced by failure in one subject. These modules are now divided into single modules for assessment purposes. Specific retention strategies have also been introduced. These have been on two levels: firstly, to ensure that students engage with the Law School by encouraging participation in the Student Law Society and, secondly, on an academic level, to ensure acquisition of the relevant skills needed for study in higher education.
33. The School has appointed a Skills Coordinator for the HND and BA LIT. The Skills Coordinator conducts dedicated skills workshops, which include group work during the induction period and encouragement to students to exploit the facilities of the learning centre, which provides a range of diagnostic and support services to aid student learning. These skills sessions continue throughout the first year. Attendance and the submission of work are closely monitored and the skills coordinator writes to students not only if their attendance is poor, but also to acknowledge good attendance. The course team is to be commended for these initiatives.
34. In addition, the University has addressed the issue of retention through a working group, which planned in conjunction with the Students' Union, a series of events in semester one entitled 'Making the Most of Your Time at Leeds Met'. This project has proved successful for both staff and students. It identified that a safety net of multilayered support and activity was needed to reduce withdrawal rates. There are plans to follow it up with other similar events in the future.
35. Although completion rates for the HND LIT have been disappointing, progression rates to the BA LIT from the first cohort demonstrate the course's value in widening access to a qualifying law degree. From the first cohort, 10 out of the 11 students who completed were eligible to proceed to level 3 of the BA LIT, and nine took advantage of this opportunity.
36. Former inadequacies regarding support for careers advice are recognised. It was rather unstructured and there was a lack of coordination between the University's central services and the School. Undergraduate programmes now incorporate timetabled sessions on careers, and the Careers Development Unit (CDU) is involved in induction. A programme of outside speakers has been instigated by the LPC team and students on all programmes are invited to attend. The LPC team has also set up a mentoring scheme for its students, and this is being cascaded down to third-year undergraduates.
37. The provision contributes substantially to the achievement of the intended outcomes, with most elements demonstrating good practice.
The quality of student progression is commendable.
38. The Law School is situated in Cavendish Hall on the Beckett Park Campus, a pleasant site with plenty of green open space. As well as staff offices and seminar rooms, Cavendish Hall also contains a student common room with refreshment facilities, a room which can be used as a moot courtroom, and rooms equipped for video-recording for use by the LPC. The Law School is a short walk from the main lecture theatres, which are relatively new and well equipped. Teaching accommodation is provided with audiovisual facilities and is generally of a high quality.
39. Academic staffing is increasing from 26 to 28 FTEs, and recruitment to four further posts, plus a research student/teaching assistant, is imminent. This will reduce the reliance on part-time staff, which has been recognised as a problem in the past. However, legal practitioners' involvement in the LPC will not diminish, as their knowledge and experience of current practice are considered to enhance the course, a view endorsed by students. Many staff are professionally qualified as well as holding a first degree in law; just over half have a higher research degree.
40. The School is well supported by nine administrative staff, including a school administrative officer. Technical support is provided centrally by the University. Students are particularly appreciative of the support provided by course administrators. An educational technologist assigned to the Faculty supports the development of e-learning.
41. Individualised induction programmes are provided for new staff. The University has an extensive staff development programme for academic and administrative staff. The School holds its own staff development events and there are faculty-wide sessions. Recent examples include workshops on student retention, provided by the Committee for Access to Legal Education, and on employability and career development and progress files, organised by the CDU. The University funds practising certificates for LPC staff, to facilitate contact with practice. Staff undertaking PhDs receive 20 per cent remission on their teaching load. Staff are also encouraged to attend conferences and engage in relevant extracurricular activities.
42. The collection of law books, journals, legislation, digests, encyclopaedias and law reports is housed in the main learning resources centre (LRC) at Beckett Park. The learning adviser appointed to support the Law School agrees the annual strategy for the deployment of learning resources with the Head of School, consistent with the Faculty's learning and teaching strategy. Library resources are supplemented by the use of electronic databases, such as Westlaw and Lawtel. Learning Centre Online provides access to these and a wide range of other databases, and can be accessed remotely as well as on campus. Not only does this enhance all students' access to a wider range of law sources, but it is also a particular advantage for part-time students. In addition, students use the European Documentation Centre on the City Campus, have on-line access to the regional Legal Information Gateway, and the University provides transport to the British Library at Boston Spa. The University's library is open 24 hours a day at key times of the year. At other times it opens from 0830 until 2300 or 2100 hours, depending on the day of the week. Some students would welcome an earlier opening time.
43. The learning adviser liaises with academic staff in monitoring the currency of the book stock, consistent with module and course requirements. Recent additional investment in law resources has enabled currency to be maintained in some areas. The Collection Development and Information Access Policy Statement (CDIAPS) provides a commendably comprehensive and honest analysis of library resources. The CDIAPS for 2003-04 highlights a number of causes for concern, which are endorsed by student comment. For example, it states that it is currently impossible to purchase all new editions; the purchase of monographs is not possible at present and the collection is being eroded. It is policy to weed out the stock every two years to remove obsolete materials, but the reviewers note that there are seriously outdated books on the shelves. Students also highlighted this as a concern in their meetings with the reviewers.
44. The LRC also contains the main provision of computers for the campus. Term-time opening of 24 hours has recently been introduced. There is also a dedicated IT laboratory for LPC students, consistent with Law Society requirements, and the Faculty of Information and Engineering Systems has extensive dedicated IT provision to which BA LIT and HND LIT students have access. Most students consider the provision to be adequate, and the reviewers saw no evidence of queuing.
45. The School, having previously developed internet-based learning through Blackboard software has, consistent with the University and Faculty's learning and teaching policies, recently adopted WebCT as the platform for delivering the virtual-learning environment. As a result of this conversion the School is not as advanced as it might be with provision of internet-based resources. It does, however, have a clear strategy for developing staff expertise to provide staged delivery of modules on WebCT.
46. The provision enables the intended outcomes to be achieved, but improvement is needed to overcome weaknesses.
The quality of learning resources is approved, but
47. The quality maintenance and enhancement procedures operated by the School are based primarily on the University's regulations and guidelines, within which the relevant sections of the Code of practice have been subsumed. These are supplemented by specific faculty procedures and Law Society requirements.
48. The University has formal mechanisms for the maintenance and enhancement of quality and standards. These provide a reporting line from course committees, through school level, faculty level and upwards into the Academic Board's Quality and Standards Committee. The reporting procedure for course committees and school advisory boards requires reports to identify issues for enhancement and the production of action plans. These reports demonstrate a transparent approach to quality and standards matters and it has been possible to identify, for example, in relation to careers advice, evidence of problem management and resolution.
49. The University has recently introduced subject boards as a tier of the examination board. The subject board has responsibility for ensuring the academic health of modules in a subject area. The minutes of the first meeting of the subject board for law suggest that this has the potential to be a forum for reflection on standards and quality within the provision, drawing upon external examiners' views, module self-evaluations by teaching teams and statistical information. Although it is too early to judge the effectiveness of the subject board, it is encouraging that its first meeting undertook its work in a manner that demonstrated a commitment to enhancement.
50. Students consider that they are effectively involved in the formal quality and standards procedures, being able to cite instances where matters they raised have been addressed. In addition, the Law School has instituted less formal, but apparently effective arrangements, such as school and programme away days. The School has also recently established an external law advisory board, to support the work of the School and advise on curricular and extracurricular matters.
51. The Law School conscientiously implements the University's quality assurance systems, and is committed to the enhancement of quality by being responsive to criticism and comment and sharing good practice. Accordingly, the reviewers have confidence in the ability of the University to maintain and enhance the standards and quality of the provision.
Law programmes at Leeds Metropolitan University were reviewed in the academic year 2003-04. Judgements were made about the academic standards achieved and the quality of the learning opportunities provided.
The review covered the following programmes:
Academic standards
Overall, the reviewers have confidence in the academic standards achieved by the programmes in law at Leeds Metropolitan University.
Strengths include:
Issues include:
Quality of learning opportunities
Teaching and learning
The quality of teaching and learning is commendable:
Student progression
The quality of student progression is commendable:
Learning resources
The quality of learning resources is approved, but:
Maintenance and enhancement of quality and standards
The Law School's conscientious implementation of the University's quality assurance systems, commitment to the enhancement of quality and responsiveness to criticism give the reviewers confidence in the ability of the University to maintain and enhance the standards and quality of the provision.