Educational and Student Policy

The role of Quality Contacts in faculties and departments

Report of LTS Lunch 1: Wednesday 9 March, 2005

Summary

• Quality contacts served a useful role both for Faculties and Departments and for the Education Section
• The Education Section will discuss the arrangements in individual Faculties and Departments if the current mechanism of one Quality Contact was not working to everyone's satisfaction
• The Education Section will investigate the provision of briefing sessions for new Quality Contacts
• The current systems of revising the Quality Guide (providing paper copies), and the revision of other documents provided by Faculties and Departments, worked well
• Programme specifications are published on the CamDATA website and, in future, the Education Section will explore further whether Programme Specifications should be revised as and when necessary (rather than annually)

Report

A well-attended first 'Good Practice Lunch' was held last Wednesday at the Faculty of English. It was very pleasing to see a number of colleagues attending, and amongst them a high number of people acting in the Quality Contact role for their institution, all of whom were keen to discuss the operation of the role and how we can improve things.

In a broad discussion of the QC role, the group firstly gave some thought to how the current contact system between the Education Section and the Faculties and Departments works (with one named individual in each institution).

On the whole, colleagues were happy with this arrangement, where the institution is set up well to be covered by one individual. However, it was acknowledged that where Faculties were divided into Departments, QCs at that level might be more appropriate. Where QCs wanted to try such a system, it was considered a good idea to contact their Education Section contact to discuss the feasibility of this.

It was also noted that QCs represented a fairly shifting community. If the QC was the Secretary of a Teaching Committee, for example, then often the responsibility was shifted after a year or two. QCs at the lunch suggested that the Education Section could helpfully brief new incumbents in the role.

The group discussed information (and paperwork) exchange between the Section and the QCs (and thus their colleagues) during the academic year. It was noted that QCs primarily acted as "conduits" for the revision of the documents, as they mostly required the approval of a Faculty Board or other body. QCs acknowledged that the annual return of the Statements of Quality Assurance and the Programme Specifications was not always the first priority, but that well-timed reminders, as well as helpful and willing colleagues actually making changes, could often move the process along more quickly.

The QCs present saw no advantages to setting up an online system for the return of the papers, preferring the current system of an annual paper return. To ensure that the documents were considered in a timely manner, the QCs felt that the Education Section could provide better information about the purpose of the documents and why they were important, as it would then be easier to 'sell' the University's mechanisms for Quality Assurance to colleagues at, say, Faculty Board level.

The purpose of programme specifications was particularly unclear and the Education Section reiterated that they were a national requirement rather than internally driven. It hoped that further clarification of the purpose of programme specifications would be provided shortly by the QAA and it recognised the difficulty in persuading colleagues to update them. The group suggested that programme specifications should therefore be updated as courses changed, rather than on an annual basis.

It was suggested that in future it should only be necessary to return the QA Statement, which would feature an extra section on the updating of programme specifications and changes to courses. This would help Education Section officers to ensure that Programme Specifications are kept up to date on the CamDATA website. The Education Section agreed to explore this further.

There was, finally, some short discussion about the scope for future Good Practice Lunches. Suggested topics were:

• General Board Reviews
• Perceived affects of the RAM on teaching (hopefully featuring some Secretaries of the Councils of the Schools)
• Assessment Methods