Roles and Responsibilities for Quality Assurance

Outside of the Institution

What is the QAA?

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) has the role of upholding standards and quality in the higher education establishments in the UK.

Their mission statement is to safeguard standards and improve the quality of UK higher education.

The QAA

They do this by offering help and guidance to universities and colleges to ensure that the students enjoy the best possible learning experience. They carry out reviews and publish reports on the colleges they assess highlighting where improvements might be made and where there is already success and good practice.

To help higher education institutions develop their policies and in order to meet ideal standards, they produce a number of resources and reference points.

UK Quality Code

There is a new UK Quality Code for Higher Education which has replaced the Academic Infrastructure.

It has three sections on standards, quality and public information.

http://www.qaa.ac.uk/AssuringStandardsAndQuality/quality-code/Pages/default.aspx

Strategy Aims 2011-2014Their strategy states their aims for 2011-14.

meet students' needs and be valued by them

safeguard standards in an increasingly diverse UK and international context

drive improvements in UK higher education

improve public understanding of higher education standards and quality.

http://www.qaa.ac.uk/AboutUs/strategy11-14/Pages/default.aspx

Location

The QAA is based in Gloucester with a smaller office in Glasgow.

Their role in the QA process is to conduct reviews of institutions and publish reports detailing the findings. These reports highlight good practice and give institutions advice to help improve their quality. The peer reviewers on the review teams have all got experience in the role of providing or assessing higher education. A student reviewer is also included in each team.

Hyperlinks to QAA

Reviewshttp://www.qaa.ac.uk/InstitutionReports/types-of-review/Pages/default.aspx

Reportshttp://www.qaa.ac.uk/InstitutionReports/Pages/Institutions-A-Z.aspx

Peer reviewers http://www.qaa.ac.uk/AboutUs/glossary/Pages/glossary-p.aspx#p20

Student reviewer http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Partners/students/reviews/Pages/Student-reviewers.aspx

The pictures are a joke…….

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I am happy to go with the wiki but thought I would try this out in case you all thought we had to present it…..or incase we do…