Building connected quality in independent higher education

 Author

How, often with limited resources available for the purpose, can independent HE providers create connected, proportionate quality systems that support both assurance and enhancement activities without overburdening staff? It's a reasonable question, and it's one which colleagues across the sector may well have found themselves asking. I certainly know I have.

Caspian School of Academics is a relatively small independent higher education provider based in East London, specialising in undergraduate degree, diploma and vocational provision across a range of subject areas including Business, Construction, IT, Hospitality and Travel & Tourism. With a strong emphasis on widening participation, it serves a predominantly mature student population. The institution is registered with the Office for Students and engages with sector bodies including Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and Advance HE, while working with multiple awarding and validating partners.

I have worked at Caspian School of Academics for the past year as Quality Manager. I'm responsible for institutional quality assurance, enhancement, student engagement and regulatory alignment. My work currently focuses on developing connected quality systems that bring together live data, programme-level enhancement, student voice and assurance processes within a resource-conscious institutional context.

I previously worked in a very different kind of institution – London Met – where, as part of my academic responsibilities, I had a school-based role working with colleagues in the quality team to support partnership operations. This sparked my interest in how quality conversations between educators can work at their best, to ensure we have processes which are accessible and which build healthy, happy and productive relations between colleagues.  

Working in a much smaller institution, I now experience the benefits of being part of a much more closely knit professional community, albeit one without the levels of resource and infrastructure possible at a much larger organisation.

It's a lesson that can of course apply across the whole sector, but here more than ever the buy-in of colleagues to quality processes – and therefore their understanding and appreciation of the relevance and value of those processes – has been crucial.

The development and implementation of a set of processes that can secure and maintain that buy-in – while at the same time meeting regulatory requirements and sector expectations of good practice – has depended upon the promotion of an emphatically collaborative quality culture.

My first task was to redevelop, streamline and rationalise quality materials and processes, so that paperwork could be reduced and its language and purpose made more transparent. I also set about ensuring that key quality data could be provided from the centre rather than relying on frontline teaching staff to generate it.

The introduction of a single, standardised, centrally produced dataset has helped ensure that we are addressing the key metrics associated with the B conditions of registration set by the Office for Students. It has meant that we have consistent and comparable data structured in relation to set timepoints and drawn from the same source, data that has legitimacy and can be viewed holistically across the institution and indeed across the sector.

And by generating that data centrally and sharing it with our programme teams we've also signalled that we're sharing the workloads involved in quality processes – so that we could free up the time of frontline colleagues to consider the key data – around such issues as progression, completion, attainment, and student feedback at module and programme levels – and to focus on developing and delivering responsive, relevant and effective plans for the enhancement of the quality of their provision.

Alongside that, we've established processes through which we regularly come together with our colleagues from across the institution to complete our quality documentation collaboratively, in a forum where ideas can be shared and shaped, challenges defined and enhancement plans developed.

(I'd add at this point that this commitment to communities of enhancement shouldn't take place only within institutions – but that opportunities to share practice between institutions and across the sector are also invaluable, whether through institutional partnerships, collaborative projects or sector networks – and that such opportunities can support colleagues across quality, academic, professional and management roles – which is why, for example, colleagues from Caspian and I have this year been enriching our development of approaches to student engagement through our participation in QAA's Student Engagement Networking Community.)

So, how has our new approach gone down? Feedback from colleagues has so far been very positive. We feel we're now able more clearly to demonstrate (to each other and to our students), and to recognise, the chain of connection between quality assurance processes, quality enhancement initiatives and their impacts upon learner outcomes and the student experience.

To underpin the buy-in of all those involved, it's vital to develop an almost intuitive sense of connection between regulatory requirements, sectoral good practice and the design and delivery of provision, through data-driven and collaborative processes of assurance and enhancement.

This helps to give colleagues the space, the time, the motivation and the confidence to develop interesting, innovative and effective initiatives and interventions which can be implemented swiftly in response to real-time data.

In short, we've found that the development of a limited number of clearly defined tools, supported by live institutional data and dedicated collaborative meeting spaces, can help embed the shared ownership of quality processes. Centralising data collation, reducing duplication and presenting information holistically can strengthen an understanding of regulatory expectations, while respecting staff time and capacity. In this way, student voice, external expertise and programme-level dialogue can be integrated into a single quality lifecycle aligned with the principles of the UK Quality Code, underpinning the robust maintenance of standards and assurance of quality, alongside dynamic approaches to enhancement and staff development, through systems designed to be lightweight, lucid, meaningful and impactful in practice.

It doesn't have to be excessively burdensome or overcomplicated. It's about working together to produce the best outcomes with what we've got.