London South Bank University [chapter]

2018 The Grants Register 2019  
Preface The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) exists to safeguard the public interest in sound standards of higher education (HE) qualifications and to encourage continuous improvement in the management of the quality of HE. To do this QAA carries out reviews of individual HE institutions (universities and colleges of HE). In England and Northern Ireland this process is known as institutional audit. QAA operates similar but separate processes in Scotland and Wales. The purpose
more » ... of institutional audit The aims of institutional audit are to meet the public interest in knowing that universities and colleges are: providing HE, awards and qualifications of an acceptable quality and an appropriate academic standard; and exercising their legal powers to award degrees in a proper manner. Judgements Institutional audit results in judgements about the institutions being reviewed. Judgements are made about: the confidence that can reasonably be placed in the soundness of the institution's present and likely future management of the quality of its programmes and the academic standards of its awards; the reliance that can reasonably be placed on the accuracy, integrity, completeness and frankness of the information that the institution publishes, and about the quality of its programmes and the standards of its awards. These judgements are expressed as either broad confidence, limited confidence or no confidence and are accompanied by examples of good practice and recommendations for improvement. Nationally agreed standards Institutional audit uses a set of nationally agreed reference points, known as the 'Academic Infrastructure', to consider an institution's standards and quality. These are published by QAA and consist of: The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FHEQ), which include descriptions of different HE qualifications; The Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education; subject benchmark statements, which describe the characteristics of degrees in different subjects; guidelines for preparing programme specifications, which are descriptions of the what is on offer to students in individual programmes of study. They outline the intended knowledge, skills, understanding and attributes of a student completing that programme. They also give details of teaching and assessment methods and link the programme to the FHEQ. ISBN 1 84482 304 0
doi:10.1007/978-1-349-95810-8_766 fatcat:3yf36mp2ezhy3eq5y7aag72p7u