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

Quality, standards and enhancement
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Interrogating practice
How are the processes of institutional audit and academic review impacting
on your work?
ENHANCING AND MANAGING QUALITY: THE ROLE OF
THE LECTURER
It is often hard for individual academics to make connections between their fundamental
concern to do a good job for their own and their students’ satisfaction, and the
mechanisms and requirements associated with ‘academic quality’. Educational quality
is everyone’s responsibility.
At institutional level, arrangements must be set in place for the formal management of
quality and standards in accordance with the national agenda described above. External
reviews by the QAA and PSBs (e.g. in medicine or engineering) can provide a framework
for internal quality management and a focus and milestone towards which many
institutions work.
All institutions have a formal committee structure, part of whose function it is to
manage and monitor quality, including external examining. This is supported by an
administrative function (often in Registry) to collect and collate data relating to academic
quality (e.g. student feedback questionnaires, annual course reviews, external examiner
reports, admissions or examination statistics). Structures and processes vary between
institutions, but they should enable issues concerning educational quality to be identified
and addressed in a timely and appropriate way. One of the senior management
team(e.g. a pro-vice-chancellor) often has a remit for ensuring educational quality
and maintaining academic standards. Clear mechanisms for the approval of new
programmes, a regular system of programme reviews and a means of enabling
feedback (from students, staff, employers and external reviewers) to be considered should
be in place.
Additional formal mechanisms usually operate at faculty and departmental level
in order to enable the consideration of more detailed issues and to quickly address
concerns. Committees (such as teaching and learning committees) include representatives
from programmes. They act to promulgate, interpret and implement organisational
strategy, policies and procedures; to develop and implement procedures for managing
the monitoring and review of faculty/departmental programmes and procedures;
and to respond to demands from review, accreditation or inspection bodies. Staff–
student liaison committees are another example of committees operating at programme
level.