Agenda and Papers - University of Edinburgh

Senate Quality Assurance Committee – 25 May 2011
ECA Merger: Quality Framework & Internal Subject Review
At its meeting of 21 April 2011 the Academic Integration Working Group received
notification of the quality framework that will apply to ECA disciplines following
merger and endorsed the broad way forward. The detailed proposals are set out
below.
Background
The Merger Proposal document indicates that:
13.6 … The University’s schedule of Teaching Programme Reviews and
Postgraduate Programme Reviews will be modified to include ECA
disciplines. External examiners currently in place for ECA
programmes already have the University’s approval, and they will be
invited to continue to serve as external examiners for those
programmes following merger. The new ECA would be treated as
within CHSS for the purposes of academic governance.
13.7 The University’s academic policies and regulations, and its associated
quality assurance regime, provide an overarching framework that
allows academic units the flexibility and freedom to design approaches
that meet the requirements of their disciplines and professional
bodies, while also enabling scope for academic innovation. The
University is confident that its framework will enable ECA to maintain
appropriate teaching, assessment and quality assurance
arrangements in Art and Design, Architecture and Landscape
Architecture. Indeed, as a result of the arrangements for the
University’s accreditation of ECA programmes, ECA’s academic
regulations, policies and quality assurance regime are already broadly
aligned to the University’s own. However, ECA has some distinctive
and valuable features of its approach to assessment, which may
require some modification to the University’s overarching framework.
13.8 In advance of merger, ECA and the University of Edinburgh will
conduct a review of the University’s academic policies and
regulations, and its associated quality assurance regime, and where
necessary will modify them to ensure that it can accommodate
requirements specific to ECA’s disciplines….
To take this forward, the Academic Integration Working Group agreed several
specific areas for action in relation to periodic and annual quality review
arrangements:
• Modify the University’s schedule of Teaching Programme Reviews and
Postgraduate Programme Reviews to include programmes currently within ECA.
• Review the University’s TPR and PPR procedures to ensure that they
accommodate requirements specific to programmes currently within ECA.
• Review HSS annual QA guidelines to ensure that they accommodate
requirements specific to programmes currently within ECA.
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