ILQR is a key part of the new Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF). It is a periodic review of subject areas and relevant professional services contributing to the student experience within colleges and universities. The expectation that universities have ILQR processes has been in place for many years. This expectation is new for Scotland’s colleges in academic year 2025-26. Although new for colleges, colleges will have existing systems in place such as annual review and should consider how these can be mapped and/or adapted to the requirements of ILQR.

ILQR is not a six yearly version of annual review. Though Annual Review (AR) will contribute to the process of ILQR, there are significant differences.  ILQR allows for learning between programme teams, and for the institution to have a view of the consistency of the student experience across a wider area. It aims to ensure long-term quality and relevance, whilst AR keeps programmes running smoothly year to year.

 

Key Differences at a Glance

 

	Institution-led Quality Review	Annual Review
Frequency	Every 5-6 years	Every year
Scope	Subject area, department or professional service	Individual course
Depth	Strategic, reflective and evaluative	Operational and reflective
Drivers	Institution-led with external membership	Delivery Team
Output	Enhancement strategy and assurance and Institutional Action Planning	Programme Action Plan for next year +

ILQR:  ILQR takes a deep, strategic look at the quality and sustainability and student experience of a subject area or group of courses. Curriculum design, staffing, resources, student outcomes and experience, and alignment with institutional goals are evaluated as part of this process. Critically, ILQR will look at data trends over a six-year period and will include externals and students in the review panel.

AR:  Annually, AR reflects on and looks to improve a course every academic year. Immediate issues such as student feedback, assessment outcomes, progression rates, and delivery challenges are considered. The process is more granular and immediate than ILQR.

 

There is no prescribed methodology for ILQR. The process that is developed within an institution should be proportionate and should meet the needs of the institution. However, SFC do set out a number of requirements of ILQR:

• A review cycle of no more than six years for all subjects/professional services
• Each review team should include a student and at least one member external to the institution with a relevant background (from industry, professional practice or with wider international experience)
• Students are expected to be partners in all stages of the internal review process including the development of the self-evaluation and as full members of review teams, and in the follow-up activity
• ILQR should demonstrate that programme design and learning outcomes are consistent with appropriate external reference points
• Data and evidence are critical to the process (see FAQ 8)

 

ILQR is a critical way in which institutions produce robust, comprehensive, and credible evidence that the academic standards of awards are secure, that learning, teaching and assessment is of the highest standard, that the curriculum is current, that student support is comprehensive enabling student success, and that provision in Scottish institutions is of high quality and being enhanced.

All provision must be reviewed on a cycle of not more than six years. Each institution is expected to produce a schedule for reviewing their provision with some form of review activity taking place within each academic session. The review schedule does not have to be submitted to SFC, but it should be kept up-to-date and made available for discussion on request by SFC or QAA. If an ILQR was to fall out with the six-year cycle, this must be raised with SFC through the Outcome Framework and Assurance Model and QAA would expect to be informed as early as possible.

 

All SFC-funded provision (credit-bearing and non-credit bearing) falls within the scope of ILQR for universities and colleges, but ILQR must include all higher education provision regardless of whether it is funded by SFC. This includes all provision delivered in collaboration with others, work-based provision – including apprenticeships – and placements, online and distance learning, taught postgraduate awards, supervision of research students and transnational education.

All professional services contributing to the student experience should be included in the ILQR schedule. It is a matter for each institution to determine how this is undertaken. There may be a different approach/method used for review of professional services than that used in subject ILQR. It may be that a thematic review approach is taken. SFC expects that institutions’ approaches to the review of professional services should be systematic, planned, and timely, covering all non-academic services or departments that contribute to the overall student learning experience and considering their effectiveness and interactions with subject areas and programmes within the six-year review cycle.

 

The ILQR review of subject areas or professional services should have sufficient granularity to allow for adequate scrutiny of each aspect of provision and include sufficient scrutiny by external panel members. Excessive aggregation should be avoided if it means the process cannot examine the ‘fine structure’ of provision and does not facilitate the identification of specific issues affecting programmes. Whatever the approach taken, the evidence should allow the institution to reflect on the outcomes of ILQR to continually enhance the quality of the delivery. Sometimes this is done by school, a group of cognate subjects, or a specific thematic area such as the postgraduate student experience or the Modern Apprenticeship experience. What is important is that it meets institutional needs.

 

Data used should be benchmarked internally and externally, where possible. The data used for ILQR (and annual review should consider any themes arising from and responses to External Verifier and External Examiner reports, student voice data including from internal and external surveys, performance data on recruitment, retention, progression and achievement; and data trends, particularly those data within the monitoring returns identified in SFC’s Outcome Framework and Assurance Model guidance.

 

ILQR is a critical way in which institutions produce robust, comprehensive, and credible evidence that the academic standards of awards are secure, that learning, teaching and assessment is of the highest standard, that the curriculum is current, that student support is comprehensive enabling student success, and that provision in Scottish institutions is of high quality and being enhanced.

It is expected that students will be partners in all stages of the internal review process including the development of the self-evaluation, as full members of review teams, and in follow-up activity.

ILQR should gather additional specific information from students as part of the evidence base for reviews. Institutions are encouraged to use the buildings blocks of the sparqs Student Learning Experience Model to support discussions with students.

Internally, it is up the institution how they report ILQR, though it is expected there will be academic governance of the outcomes of review. The outcomes will be reported to SFC through the SEAP process and feedback will be received on the outcomes and approach to ILQR through feedback mechanisms including the annual institution liaison meeting (ILM) with QAA and meetings arranged with SFC under the Outcome Framework and Assurance Model.

Given the enhancement-led approach in Scotland, an institution can and should adapt their process as they learn from the ILQR process. It is up to each institution to identify the best mechanism for process evaluation within their institutional context. Any adaptions to the process should be reported in the institution’s SEAP.

While individual institutions will adopt differing approaches to ILQR to suit their unique context, they all must meet the criteria laid out in Annex A: Guidance on Institution Led Quality Review.

Typically, an ILQR event will be a single day event involving staff, students and relevant external stakeholders. Where an institution chooses to align its ILQR with re-accreditation activity, the event may be 2 days (or longer). In some cases, the meetings with students occur in advance of the review event, with a sub-set of the panel.

The review panel are provided with relevant documentation to read prior to the event. This bulk of the material will generally be based on existing data, including the results of annual monitoring, but often includes an over-arching reflective document.

The size of the review panel will be dependent on institutional context and the granularity of the subject or programme aggregation. The panel size should be proportionate. In existing models of ILQR, review panels usually consist of 5 or 6 reviewers, including at least one student and one external reviewer.

ILQR should build on and consolidate many existing quality assurance and enhancement processes within colleges. Primarily, ILQR provides a longitudinal view of the robust data typically gathered through annual monitoring processes. ILQR extends the year-on-year data comparisons made during annual monitoring and provides a longer-term picture of emerging trends.

Similarly, the SFC requirements for student partnership and externality embed existing collaborative approaches. Colleges can make use of strong student voice mechanisms (such as liaison groups, committees, and surveys) to provide a clear view of the student experience. Additionally, colleges’ strong connections with industry and other colleges can provide shared communities of practice and opportunities for panel representation.

QAA has published several documents focussed on the previous Institution-led review (ILR) methodology, including institutional approaches to ILR and a guide to engaging students with ILR.

The 2022-21 Focus On project explored current institutional approaches to professional services review (PSR) and developed a suite of resources to support institutions in their development and evaluation of PSR. As part of the project, QAA published:

• An analysis of current practice and approaches to PSR
• A set of reflective questions to support PSR development
• A summary report on Student Reflections and understanding of PSR
• A set of reflective questions for institutions to use when considering students’ understanding and engagement in PSR

QAA and the College Development Network (CDN) are currently developing a selection of resources, including a workshop, a short guide to ILQR, and a toolkit helping institutions implement and reflect on their ILQR processes. These resources will be launched at the Managing Quality in Challenging Times event on March 10th.

Universities, in their ILQRs, should explore the use of specific aspects of the UK Quality Code, and especially how Subject Benchmark Statements,  Characteristics Statements and the SCQF Handbook are used in setting and maintaining academic standards.

SFC encourage colleges to begin to explore the use of the Quality Code in developing ILQR.  The UK Quality Code enables providers to understand the key features of provision that are fundamental to securing academic standards and to offering a high-quality student learning experience. Each of the 12 Key Principles are underpinned by a series of Key Practices, providing clear examples for self-evaluation. These Principles and Practices offer a framework for institutions to evaluate and enhance policies and practices.

QAA are currently developing a resource to support colleges in engaging with the Quality Code, including a set of reflective questions.