Quality assurance and enhancement
General principles
The teaching quality management structure is underpinned by the following general principles:
- that continuous improvement of the student experience is at the core of all quality assurance and enhancement activities
- that all members of staff take a personal responsibility for the quality of their contribution to the student experience
Main components
- The formation of a quality framework to ensure consistency of standards whilst enabling appropriate diversity in local practice.
- A teaching quality management structure designed to support quality assurance and enhancement and foster a culture of critical review and reflection.
Framework aims and purpose
The formation of a quality framework ensures consistency of standards whilst enabling appropriate diversity in local practice.
The University’s quality framework is developed and maintained by the Academic Quality and Standards Committee (AQSC) and managed by the Quality and Academic Development team (QUAD). The framework is constructed with due regard to the Office for Students (OfS) ongoing conditions of registration which providers must meet to stay registered as a degree awarding body:
Condition B1: Academic experience
Providers must ensure that the students registered on each higher education course receive a high-quality academic experience. A high-quality academic experience includes but is not limited to ensuring all of the following:
- each higher education course is up to date;
- each higher education course provides educational challenge;
- each higher education course is coherent;
- each higher education course is effectively delivered; and
- each higher education course, as appropriate to the subject matter of the course, requires students to develop relevant skills.
Condition B2: Resources, support and student engagement
Providers must take all reasonable steps to ensure:
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each cohort of students registered on each higher education course receives resources and support which are sufficient for the purpose of ensuring:
- a high-quality academic experience for those students; and
- those students succeed in and beyond higher education; and
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effective engagement with each cohort of students which is sufficient for the purpose of ensuring:
- a high-quality academic experience for those students; and
- those students succeed in and beyond higher education.
Condition B3: Student outcomes
Providers must deliver successful outcomes for all of their students. Outcomes must be recognised and valued by employers, and/or enable further study. The condition is assessed in two stages. The first considers the absolute outcomes delivered by a provider for its students. The second gives consideration of the context in which these outcomes are achieved.
As the OfS assess the condition they will also conduct a risk assessment to determine the risk of a provider breaching the condition once it is registered. Where the OfS conduct an assessment which shows an increased risk of a future breach of the condition, they can apply regulatory interventions, such as a specific condition, to mitigate these risks.
Condition B4: Assessment and awards
Providers must ensure:
- students are assessed effectively;
- each assessment is valid and reliable;
- academic regulations are designed to ensure that relevant awards are credible;
- academic regulations are designed to ensure effective assessment of technical proficiency in the English language in a manner that appropriately reflects the level and content of the course; and
- relevant awards granted to students are credible at the point of being granted and when compared to those granted previously.
Condition B5: Sector-recognised standards
Providers must ensure that, in respect of any relevant awards granted to students who complete a higher education course provided by, or on behalf of, the provider (whether or not the provider is the awarding body):
- any standards set appropriately reflect any applicable sector-recognised standards; and
- awards are only granted to students whose knowledge and skills appropriately reflect any applicable sector-recognised standards.
The University’s quality framework also gives due regard to the Quality Assurance Agency’s (QAA) UK Quality Code for Higher Education and other sector-wide guidance.
The University’s framework consists of five key elements:
- Approval
- Annual Review of Courses (ARCs)
- Periodic Reviews
- External Examiners
- Student Representation and Feedback
These five elements are further supported by guidelines governing specialist areas, such as work-based or distance learning.
The purpose of the University’s quality framework is to enable the monitoring and enhancement of academic standards and the quality of the student experience. The framework operates within the context of established standards, determined by Senate, and expressed within the University’s undergraduate and postgraduate taught Rules of Assessment, credit frameworks, assessment policies and marking policy.
The framework is aimed at ensuring that there is equivalence in the security of degree-awarding function across all University of Essex degrees, whether students study at the University itself or at partner institutions. Within the overarching structure of the quality framework, there is flexibility to accommodate variation at the level of the faculty, department, centre or partner institution, as long as the required outcomes are not compromised.
The ongoing effectiveness of the Framework is kept under review by AQSC in light of internal experience and external best practice.
Governance structures
A teaching quality management structure is designed to support quality assurance and enhancement and foster a culture of critical review and reflection.
Committees of Senate
The teaching quality management structure has, at its pinnacle, the University’s Senate. Beneath Senate, teaching quality is managed by:
Education Committee
The Education Committee is responsible to Senate for the development and recommendation for approval by Senate of the University’s Education Strategy and for oversight and monitoring of the Strategy’s effective implementation.
The committee has a number of key responsibilities in relation to the University’s commitment to excellence in Education, including consideration of issues related to all aspects of Education policy and practice across all University awards and oversight of the quality of the student experience in the broadest sense.
Academic Quality and Standards Committee (AQSC)
The Academic Quality and Standards Committee (AQSC) supports the development and maintenance of the University’s policies and procedures for assuring academic quality on behalf of Education Committee. AQSC approve, monitor, review and discontinue all University of Essex Awards, including those of partners.
Faculty Education Committees
Each of the three Faculties has a Faculty Education Committee (FEC), which is responsible for oversight and delivery of all aspects of the University’s Education Strategy within the Faculty.
Reporting to the Education Committee, the FECs provide a forum for discussion of student and education-related matters in the Faculty and strengthen academic links between Departments, Schools, and Centres within the Faculty, across the University and with collaborative partners.
The committees also recommend, for approval by AQSC, proposals to establish, change and discontinue taught programmes of study, and ensure the effective implementation of the University’s academic quality and enhancement policies, procedures and activity and the student experience.
Student Experience Committee (SEC)
The Student Experience Committee (SEC) consider issues related to the student experience in its broadest sense on behalf of Education Committee, providing a forum for the oversight of mechanisms for harnessing and championing the student voice.
Departments, partners and other teaching units
Departments, partners and other teaching units are responsible directly for the quality of the student experience.
Quality at Essex Handbook for academic departments and schools (.pdf)
Executive and Faculty Deans
The Executive and Faculty Deans (UG, PGT) of the Faculties form a key role in liaison between the different tiers of the decision-making process. The Faculty Deans (UG, PGT) are key members of AQSC, chair FECs and also sit on the Education Committee.
Deans maintain an overview of the quality of teaching and learning within teaching units, and take forward any actions arising from this. Both within and outside the formal committee structure, Deans encourage the dissemination of good practice and consult Faculties, departments and collaborative partners on proposed University-level policy developments.
Deans also play a central role in quality assurance procedures and are responsible for overseeing the annual and periodic process of course review, departmental response to external examiners and the outcomes of student feedback mechanisms.
