A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

Quality, standards and enhancement
❘
193
Progress files help students to monitor, build and reflect on their development and to
produce personal statements such as CVs. Institutions must provide the opportunity for
students to undertake PDP, and staff need to ensure that adequate, appropriate and timely
assessment information is provided for the transcript. The involvement and encouragement
that teachers or other staff provide varies between institutions and disciplines.
PDP may be used as a means of structuring tutorials or meetings with students, and
different types of paper-based or electronic progress files may be developed, ranging
from a reflective ‘journal’ to a more descriptive record of development and skill
acquisition. Issues of confidentiality and responsibility need to be addressed.
Interrogating practice
How useful do students find progress files/PDP as a tool for developing a
reflective approach to study and development? How do/might you as a
teacher help students to use PDP for personal and professional development?
Code of Practice for the assurance of academic quality
and standards in higher education
The Code of Practice sets out precepts or principles that institutions should satisfy relating
to the management of academic standards and quality with guidance as to how they
might meet the precepts. The Code covers ten areas of provision:
1 postgraduate research programmes
2 collaborative provision
3 students with disabilities
4 external examining
5 academic appeals and student complaints
6 assessment of students
7 programme approval, monitoring and review
8 career education, information and guidance
9 placement learning
10 student recruitment and admissions.
Frameworks for Higher Education Qualifications
There is a single qualifications framework for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and
a separate one for Scotland. The frameworks aim to simplify the range of awards,
informing employers, students and other stakeholders about the meaning and level of