QAA: past, present and future

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QAA past, present and future

• Dr Gillian King
• Deputy Director (Audit)
• Reviews Group

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Summary

• What is the QAA and its mission?
• Where did it come from?
• What does it do now?
• Where is quality assurance going?

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Workshop plan

• 9.30 9.40 Whos here?
• c.9.40 10.10 QAA background
• c.10.10 - 10.45 Small group work
• c.10.45 - 11.00 Plenary
• 11.00 Close

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What is the QAA?
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• Established 1997 to provide an integrated quality
  assurance service for UK higher education
• An independent body funded by subscriptions from
  universities and colleges of higher education and
  through contracts with the main higher education
  funding bodies.
• Governed by a Board which has overall
  responsibility for the conduct and strategic
  direction of our business.

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QAAs Mission

• is to safeguard the public interest in sound
  standards of higher education qualifications and
  to inform and encourage continuous improvement in
  the management of the quality of higher
  education.

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QAAs core values

• the importance of higher education 
• the entitlements of learners 
• the significance of the responsibilities of the
  providers of higher education
• the validity of the public interest in higher
  education  

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What are we trying to do in QAA?

• provide a guarantee of threshold standards for UK
  awards
• protect the public interest
• identify and promote good practice
• help reduce not-so-good practice
• help institutions to strengthen their own
  self-regulation
• provide a valid basis for the reputation of UKHE

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What are we not trying to do?

• control HE
• stifle innovation
• damage institutions
• prescribe solutions

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Where did QAA come from?
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Pre-1988
Council for National Academic Awards
(CNAA) Polytechnics HE Colleges
National Advisory Body (NAB)Polytechnics HE
Colleges
University Grants Committee (UGC)
UnregulatedUniversities
1988
Education Reform Act 1988
Universities Funding Council (UFC)
Polytechnic and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC)
1989
1990
CVCP Academic Audit Unit
1991
Higher Education A New Framework (White Paper)
1992
Further and Higher Education Act 1992
HEQC (Audit)
HEFCE/HEFCW/SHEFC Subject Assessment
1993
1994
1995
1996
Joint Planning Group for QA in HE
1997
QAA
SHEFC

2000
QAA
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Modern history

• 1997 QAA founded
• 1997 Dearing Report on future of HE
• 1998-2001 QAA develops Academic Infrastructure
• 2001 HEFCE, UUK, SCOP and QAA devise new Quality
  Assurance Framework to be introduced in England
  from 2002-03
• 2002 QAA designs and implements new systems for
  England and Scotland (three year interim cycle)
• 2003 QAA designs new system for Wales
• 2004-05 Review of English Quality Assurance
  Framework
• 2006-7 Revised E/NI audit method rolled out (six
  year cycle)
• 2007-8 QAFRG Review of collaborative provision
  review activities

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The UKs Quality Assurance Framework comprises

• the Academic Infrastructure
• published information about quality and standards
  in individual institutions
• student surveys
• regular institutional audits

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The Academic Infrastructure

• Code of Practice
• two qualifications frameworks (England, Wales and
  Northern Ireland Scotland)
• subject benchmark statements
• programme specifications
• Developed in consultation with the UK HE sector

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What does QAA do now?
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More than just audit

• ELIR/Enhancement (Scotland)
• Institutional review (Wales)
• Institutional audit (England and NI)
• IQER
• HERRG Concordat
• European involvement
• Frameworks, systems and guidance
• Access revised recognition scheme
• DAP and UTs

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QAAs review processes 1997-2006
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Institutional audit

• Institutional audit is an evidence-based process
  carried out through peer review.
• At the centre of the process is an emphasis on
  students and their learning
• The process is set out in the Handbook for
  institutional audit England and Northern Ireland
  2006

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6 basic quality assurance questions

• what are you trying to do?
• why are you doing it?
• how are you going to do it?
• why is that the best way to do it?
• how do you know it works?
• how can you improve it?

PURPOSES REASON METHOD OPTIMISATION EFFECTIVENESS
ENHANCEMENT
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Focus on enhancement

• Audit teams comment specifically on
• approach to developing and implementing
  institutional strategies for enhancing the
  quality of educational provision

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Definition of enhancement

• 'the process of taking deliberate steps at
  institutional level to improve the quality of
  learning opportunities'
• Handbook paragraph 46

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Enhancement

• is about systematic institutional-level planning
  to bring about steady, reliable and demonstrable
  improvements in the quality of learning
  opportunities
• is NOT about a collection of examples of
  innovation and/or good practice

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Enhancement of what?

• Academic standards
• No, academic standards are a defined level of
  achievement they can move to another defined
  level, but cannot be enhanced
• Quality of learning opportunities
• Yes, learning is a process, and its quality can
  be enhanced

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Where is quality assurance going?
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Quality assurance in the UK the trajectory,
1993-2006

• From subject review to institutional audit
• From inspection to quality assurance
• From external prescription to internal rigour
• From process to outcome
• From the implicit to the explicit
• From assertion to verified information
• From accountability towards enhancement
• From suspicion towards trust

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What the UK has learnt about quality assurance

• Only providers can assure quality
• Purpose should determine process
• Evolve, dont repeat
• Move from the specific to the generic
• Work with the grain of academic life, not against
  it
• Less is more
• Standards and quality are not the same thing
• Quality is expensive
• Quality assurance is not the answer to all
  problems

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Some food for thought

• Current cycle of audit ends 2010-11
• What should replace it?
• What will HE be like in 2011?
• What assurance activities will HE need?
• Assurance v. accountability v. enhancement

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To get you thinking

• Peer review?
• Inspection?
• Connoisseur judgements?
• Criterion (or standards)-based judgements?
• Quantitative models?
• Excellence models?
• Self-regulatory models?
• Compliance models?
• Risk models?
• Institution v. subject level?
• Accreditation v. review?

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Where is quality assurance going? Your views

• In small groups
• Spend c.10 minutes talking about main changes to
  HE by 2011
• Spend c.25 minutes talking about what HE will
  need in terms of QA at that stage
• Formulate 3 principles for QA in 2011

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Where is quality assurance going? Your views

• At 10.45 plenary resumes
• Share your three principles with those from the
  other groups.

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