UCL Academic Manual

Procedure for the Conduct of Internal Quality Review (Academic Units and Programmes)

contact: Sandra Hinton, Senior Quality Assurance Officer, Academic Support, Registry and Academic Services

Procedure

Key to abbreviations:

AC	Academic Committee
CALT	Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching
DEOLO	Departmental Equal Opportunities Liaison Officer
DTC	Departmental Teaching Committee
EdCom	Education Committee
ELE	E-Learning Environments
ft	Full-time
FTC	Faculty Teaching Committee
fte	Full-time equivalent
IQR	Internal Quality Review
IT	Information Technology
LTS	Learning and Teaching Strategy
PSRB	Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Body
pt	Part-time
QME	Quality Management and Enhancement
QMEC	Quality Management and Enhancement Committee
RDC	Research Degrees Committee
SES	Self-evaluative Statement
StARs	Student Academic Representatives

Introduction

1. Internal Quality Review is UCL’s central academic quality management and enhancement process. IQR is a rolling programme of peer review, which operates on an approximately five-yearly cycle and includes all academic departments of UCL (as well as a small number of non-departmental academic units and interdepartmental degree programmes).

2. An important purpose of IQR is to review a department’s operations in relation to statements of policy and good practice which appear in the UCL Academic Manual. IQR is concerned with reviewing not the academic content of programmes but rather a department’s management of its programmes and their constituent modules, of its learning resources, of its staff development arrangements, and of its students’ educational experience. IQR also aspires to be a genuinely developmental process which provides an opportunity for departments to review and, in partnership with the review team, identify ways of enhancing their existing QME structures and systems.

Summary of IQR

3. Each IQR comprises seven main stages:

• submission by the Department¹ to the review team of a self-evaluative statement (SES), with a list of supporting documentary evidence (which should, in order to minimise any burden on the Department, be made available electronically eg. on the Department’s website, on a memory stick or CD Rom etc.);
• scrutiny of the SES and supporting evidence by the review team;
• a visit by the review team to the Department, normally lasting one working day, when interviews with members of the Department take place;
• production of an IQR report;
• preparation by the Department of a preliminary plan of action to be taken in response to the recommendations contained in the IQR report;
• a meeting between the review team and the Department at an agreed point after the review (and after the IQR report has been finalised). The main purpose of the meeting to is to discuss the Department’s preliminary plan of action in response to the findings of the review team as set out in their report [see also 54 below];
• subsequent consideration by the QMEC’s Internal Quality Review Panel of (i) the IQR report and (ii) the Department's action plan. Approximately one year after the IQR visit to the Department has taken place, the Head or a nominated representative of the Department will attend the meeting of the IQR Panel which considers the report and action plan; the Head or other representative of the Department will be invited to discuss with the Panel at that meeting the perceived usefulness of the IQR process, report and recommendations and the progress and perceived effectiveness to date of the Department's action plan. Approximately two years after the original IQR visit, the Department will be asked to submit to the Panel a written update on how useful it feels the IQR process is proving to be and on progress in implementing its action plan [see also 59-62 inclusive below].

The review team

4. The review team will normally comprise three reviewers who are members of staff of UCL (at least two of whom will be academic members of staff) one reviewer external to UCL and an administrative secretary. The members of review teams will be appointed by QMEC. Following a review in 2012 by a working group of QMEC of the IQR process, QMEC supported the principle that student reviewers should become full members of IQR review teams from 2012-13 but, in order to work through any logistical issues or challenges during the first, transitional year, this will be introduced on a limited scale in 2012-13, using one Sabbatical Officer and two StARs. This will also allow for any necessary refinements to be made to recruiting/briefing/training and for feedback to inform the process prior to its implementation across the full quota of IQRs in 2013-14. Departments, IQR teams and student reviewers involved will be notified and briefed separately.

5. QMEC will nominate one of the internal reviewers to serve as team leader. The role of the team leader is:

• in advance of the review visit, to provide a first point of contact and advice for the administrative secretary and a point of contact and advice, via the secretary, for other members of the team (including the external reviewer);
• to chair the review team’s planning meeting. In the planning meeting, the team leader may also propose that particular members of the review team take responsibility for shaping the team's agenda in particular areas being explored by the team. The team leader is not, however, expected to be solely responsible for, e.g., reading the SES or other briefing material or asking questions during interviews on the review visit; these are all shared responsibilities of all members of the review team;
• during the review visit, to introduce other members of the team and explain briefly the purpose of the visit at the start of each interview with staff or students;
• at the end of the review visit, to make an oral report to the Head of Department² summarising the review team’s main findings and conclusions [see 41below];
• after the review visit, formally to approve the IQR report once a draft of this has been agreed by all other members of the review team and by the Department reviewed;
• to chair a meeting between the review team and the Department at an agreed point after the review (and after the IQR report has been finalised). The main purpose of the meeting to is to discuss the Department’s preliminary plan of action in response to the findings of the review team as set out in their report.

6. All internal members of the review team, including the administrative secretary, will have received formal briefing in advance of undertaking an IQR [see also 14 below].

7. The external reviewer will be a senior member of staff, either academic or administrative, of another institution of higher education. Teams will be advised as to the external reviewer’s professional background, areas of expertise and experience of processes similar to IQR.

8. The external reviewer will undertake:

• to read the SES;
• to attend at least one meeting of the review team prior to the review visit [see 19 below];
• to participate fully in interviewing staff and students during the review visit;
• to make an appropriate contribution to the preparation of the IQR report;
• to attend, if practicable, the follow-up meeting with the Department [see 54 below].

9. External reviewers will be given the opportunity (but will not be required) to participate in IQR briefing and to make whatever further contributions they feel able to make to the IQR process.

10. Given that IQR is not intended to review programme or curricular content but to explore issues relating to, inter alia, the management of programmes, neither the internal members nor the external member of the review team will normally be specialists in the subject(s) offered by the Department being reviewed. Internal members of the review team should not normally be members of staff from the same Faculty as that of the Department being reviewed.

11. The administrative secretary will normally be a member of staff of Academic Support, Registry and Academic Services. The administrative secretary will:

• liaise with the Department concerned on behalf of the review team in advance of the visit;
• in consultation with the Department and reviewers agree a date for the review team’s visit to the Department and then devise the overall timetable for the conduct of the IQR, including deadlines for, or dates of, the key stages in the process;
• receive from the Department its SES in electronic form, (eg. on the Departmental website, on a memory stick or CD Rom etc.) which will either (i) contain within the text of the document links to supporting material which is available on the Department’s website or (ii) contain a separate index of links to supporting material;
• discuss and clarify during the departmental briefing, the most efficient means of providing the SES and supporting material with the Department concerned;
• discuss and clarify with the Department in advance how access to any departmental intranet sites for (i) UCL staff and (ii) external reviewers will be obtained;
• clarify with individual team members the format in which they wish to receive the SES and supporting material; ie. in hard or soft copy;
• read the SES and supporting material and prepare a report for the review team in advance of its planning meeting. The administrative secretary’s report will not be a precis of the SES, but an analysis of the SES and supporting material. This analysis will provide the reviewers with an initial indication of the following:
• (i) those areas where the Department’s policies and procedures appear to be fully in accordance with UCL policy and/or good practice as set out in the UCL Academic Manual and which therefore might not be priority areas to be reviewed during the IQR (although the review team might still wish to ask questions in these areas when meeting the Department’s staff and students in order that the department might be allowed to demonstrate the quality of its approach. Also, these areas might contain elements of good practice for wider dissemination);
• (ii) those issues which the review team might wish to explore in further detail, either because it is not clear from the SES and supporting material whether departmental policy and/or procedure accords with UCL policy and/or good practice or because the Department itself has raised significant issues which it wishes to discuss with the review team; such issues should be regarded as constituting the ‘core’ areas to be examined during the IQR;
• where applicable, provide the review team with a copy of the previous IQR report on the Department and the associated action plan. Teams will wish to assure themselves that all ‘necessary’ actions from the previous review have been implemented [see 44 (iv) below];
• take notes of interviews during the visit (and, with the prior agreement of the reviewers, ask questions during interviews);
• draft for approval by the reviewers and transmission to the Head of Department, etc, a summary of the main findings of the review team [see 42 below];
• be responsible for drafting [see 43 below] and co-ordinating the production of the IQR report.

The Head of Department, Programme Co-ordinator and Departmental Contact

12. Where the subject of a review is an academic Department, the Head of Department (or a person nominated by the Head for this purpose) will be responsible for co-ordinating preparations within the Department for the review visit, including liaison with staff and students of the Department [see also 13 below]. Where the subject of a review is an interdepartmental degree programme, the Programme Co-ordinator will be responsible for co-ordinating preparations for the review visit, including liaison with all relevant colleagues (staff and students) in the Departments concerned.

13. The Head of Department/Programme Co-ordinator (or their nominee) may nominate herself or himself or a colleague (either academic or administrative) as a Departmental Contact. The Contact’s essential role will then be to co-ordinate preparations within the Department for the review visit on behalf of the Head of Department. The Departmental Contact can also help to ensure that the review team, who will not normally include subject specialists, has an adequate understanding of the particular nature of the Department in advance of the visit to the Department

Preliminary briefing

14. At the start of the IQR process each year, Academic Support officers will make arrangements to brief each of the following groups (see also 4 above):

• Heads of Department and/or Departmental Contacts, etc, in the academic units to be reviewed during the coming academic year;
• IQR reviewers, including external reviewers (if the latter so wish);
• administrative secretaries to IQR teams.

The Self-evaluative Statement

15. The SES offers an important opportunity for the Department to shape the agenda of the review team. The SES should discuss both strengths and weaknesses in the Department’s provision [see also 28 below].

16. The SES should be completed by the Department according to the format suggested below [see 22-31 inclusive below] and submitted electronically eg. via a Departmental website or on a memory stick or CD Rom to the administrative secretary to the review team, for receipt at least five working weeks before the date of the review team's visit to the Department. Before finalising the SES, the Department may, if it wishes, invite preliminary comments from the team leader on a draft version of the document (to be submitted to the team leader via the administrative secretary).

17. Departments should issue the draft SES to the Departmental Teaching Committee for approval, before the document is submitted to the review team. Departments should also consult students more widely in the process of developing the SES. Departments should ensure that the final version of the SES is received by the DTC and the Departmental Staff-Student Consultative Committee before the review team’s visit to the Department.

18. The Department should also send a copy of the SES (including a list of what the supporting material made available to the team comprises) to the Senior Quality Assurance Officer, Academic Support³. On receipt of the SES from the Department, the Senior Quality Assurance Officer will copy the SES to: the Dean of Faculty concerned; the Faculty Tutor concerned; the Faculty Graduate Tutor concerned, inviting them to send comments on the SES to the IQR team, via the administrative secretary.

19. The review team will read the SES and all supporting documentation in conjunction with the administrative secretary’s report in advance of its planning meeting. At its planning meeting, the review team will agree the core areas that it will wish to explore during the review visit and how the team will organise its scrutiny of the relevant supporting material. The supporting material made available through its web pages by the Department should provide most of the briefing documentation required by the review team. The team may subsequently request from the Department additional briefing material in advance of their visit to the Department but the amount of any additional material requested should be kept to a minimum. (The Department should submit such additional material in the agreed format to the administrative secretary, who will forward it to the other members of the review team.)

20. In conducting the IQR, the review team will test the rigour of the SES and the extent to which it presents an accurate picture of the Department’s QME processes. The SES will not necessarily dictate the full scope of the review team’s enquiries. The team may develop independent lines of enquiry in the light of, e.g., issues raised in the administrative secretary’s report or from the reviewers’ own scrutiny of documentation made available by the Department.

21. It is an important principle of the SES that it should include a candid and, where appropriate, self-critical account of the Department’s mechanisms for assuring, managing and enhancing quality. If the review team finds the SES to be lacking in self-evaluative content, it should record this judgment in the IQR report. It should also be borne in mind, however, that the SES will form an appendix to the resulting IQR report. The SES will thus be seen by UCL colleagues other than members of the review team and will form part of a documentary record which may also be seen by external reviewers in the context of Institutional Review or other external review by the QAA. Departments who, with this in mind, feel they need advice on the inclusion in the SES of potentially sensitive material are encouraged to contact the Senior Quality Assurance Officer.

22. The SES is an evidence-based document. The text of the document should therefore substantiate the statements made therein by cross-reference to the supporting evidence contained in documents listed for submission with the SES.

23. The SES will normally consist of the following three sections (in addition to supporting statistical data - see Annexe C - and other briefing material). These three sections are expected to comprise a total of around 12 pages, although there is no formal prescription of page length:

• summary statement on the Department’s students, staff and learning resources;
• description of the Department’s QME framework and its articulation with faculty- and institution-level QME frameworks;
• self-analysis, including summary of the Department’s perceived strengths and weaknesses and other matters which the Department wishes to draw to the attention of the review team. Departments may also wish to demonstrate awareness of equality/diversity issues by noting the outcomes of the Race Equality training which all UCL departments have now undergone as part of the Equality Action Planning initiative.

24. The section on students, staff and learning resources should provide a brief factual description of the Department's student profile, staff profile and learning resources (in the form of equipment, IT and library resources and teaching accommodation), including details of:

• number of students on each programme (full-time, part-time, full-time equivalent);
• a summary of the Department’s participation in inter-departmental programmes if relevant;
• number of academic staff in the Department (ft, pt, fte);
• number of non-academic support staff (ft, pt, fte);
• summary of other staff resources that contribute to the Department’s activities.

25. The QME framework should comprise a description of the Department’s arrangements in respect of those areas of its operations covered by the following constituent sections of the Academic Manual:

• Curriculum planning and design;
• Learning, teaching and assessment;
• Student recruitment, admission and reception;
• Student support and guidance;
• Staff support and development;
• Academic quality review, monitoring and feedback framework;
• Management and organisational framework.

26. The Academic quality review, monitoring and feedback framework section should also include a summary of the way in which the Department has developed its Learning and Teaching Strategy or contributed to the development of a faculty-level LTS in the period since its previous IQR.

27.The student support and guidance section should contain explicit information regarding the Department’s provision of careers advice and how it embeds employability issues within the support and guidance it offers to students.

28. The self-analysis section provides an opportunity for the Department to highlight its own view of its strengths and weaknesses, as well as other issues which it wishes to draw to the attention of the review team. Where weaknesses are acknowledged, the self-analysis section should include discussion of the actions planned or needed to address these.

29. The Department should, in its SES, provide a statement reflecting on (i) any issues arising from its previous IQR; (ii) any issues arising from the previous year’s Annual Monitoring reports; (iii) if relevant, any issues arising from any recent accreditation by a PSRB.

30. The Student Data Services Section of Registry and Academic Services will supply Departments with certain categories of statistical data relating to students and applicants by the start of the academic year in which the IQR is to take place (normally by 30 September)⁴, see Annexe C.

31. The other supporting material made available to the review team by the Department through its web pages or via the other methods listed [see 16 above] should consist of documentation which the Department believes provides relevant evidence of its QME processes. A list of the core documentation which IQR teams normally expect departments to submit, together with the SES, in advance of their IQR visit. Can be found at Annexe B to this procedure document.

The IQR agenda and visit to the Department

32. The review team is expected to survey a Department's QME operations generally. Within that brief, however, the team (i) should explore issues highlighted by the Department in its SES and (ii) may devise and pursue particular 'audit trails'.

33. The areas explored by the review team should normally be those areas of operation which come under the main section headings of the Academic Manual [see 25 above] and issues identified by the Departmental SES [see 27 above].

34. The IQR team’s visit to the Department should normally last one working day. The visit will not normally exceed one working day, except in the case of particularly large and/or complex provision. It is helpful to build into the timetable for the visit one or more sessions in which the team can reflect on interviews which have already taken place and identify matters which need to be pursued or explored in remaining interviews. Any tour of the department to be reviewed may be undertaken on a separate occasion, for example, immediately after the planning meeting, in order to save time on the review day.

The interview programme

35. The review team will agree with the Department in advance of the visit a detailed timetable of interviews to be conducted on the visit. Please see Annexe A for a sample timetable. This provides an indication of the types of meetings that the IQR team may wish to hold during the course of the IQR visit. The team will also wish, either prior to or during the visit, to be given a tour of the department and its facilities.

36. The members of the Department interviewed should always include:

• the Head of Department;
• a range of academic staff including established staff and those more recently appointed;
• key administrative and support staff, including the Departmental Equal Opportunities Liaison Officer (DEOLO);Departmental Tutor and departmental Careers Advisor;
• students (including both undergraduate and taught graduate students, wherever the Department teaches at both levels, as well as graduate research students).

37. Where the subject of a review is an interdepartmental degree programme, those interviewed should normally include the Programme Co-ordinator and the Chair of the relevant Board of Examiners.

38. The IQR team should normally meet with the following officers from outside the Department:

• the Dean of Faculty concerned;
• the Faculty Tutor concerned;
• the Faculty Graduate Tutor concerned.

39. It is considered good practice to meet faculty-level officers early on the morning of the visit day.

40. Attendance at each interview session should normally be restricted to those being interviewed within that particular session. Departments should bear in mind the need to provide, as far as possible, a fully representative and balanced sample of staff and students for interview. Please note that it is also considered good practice to meet students in the morning, usually immediately after the meeting with the Head of Department, as this ensures that student views help to set the agenda for the day’s enquiries.

Oral and written feedback to the Department

41. At the end of the interview programme, the team leader will, on behalf of the review team, make an oral report to the Head of Department concerned, summarising the reviewers’ main findings, in terms of both good practice identified and areas which the team feels need to be addressed, either by the Department or by another body or other bodies within UCL. The purpose of this feedback is to ensure that the Department is immediately informed of the main findings of the review. The Head of Department is not expected to comment on the team’s findings at this stage [see 50 below].

42. The administrative secretary to the review team will prepare a written summary of the main findings of the team, presented as a series of bullet points indicating (i) good practice identified and (ii) areas which the team feels need to be addressed. This summary should be agreed by all members of the review team and should normally be forwarded to the Head of Department for receipt within two working weeks of the end of the review visit.

The IQR report

43. The administrative secretary will normally have main responsibility for drafting the report in consultation with the team leader and other members of the team as appropriate.

44. The IQR report should normally include (in the following order):

i. the composition of the review team;

ii. a commentary on the Department's QME operations and summary of any audit trails followed, set out under the main Academic Manual section headings and any other key areas explored by the review team [see 53 below];

iii. a list of good practice in QME in the Department (cross-referring to the corresponding preceding section(s) of the IQR report) - the list should clearly distinguish (i) those of the Department’s procedures which reflect points of good practice as noted in the UCL Academic Manual or from (ii) the reviewers’ own perceptions of other good practice in the Department;

iv. a list of recommendations for improvement in the Department's QME operations (cross-referring to the corresponding preceding section(s) of the IQR report) - the list should clearly distinguish improvements as either ‘necessary’ or ‘advisable’ or ‘desirable’. A ‘necessary’ action point will be either (i) dictated by policy as defined in the UCL Academic Manual or (ii) concern an issue which the review team considers sufficiently significant to warrant immediate action by the Department; an ‘advisable’ action point is dictated by good practice as noted in the Academic Manual. A ‘desirable’ action point reflects a suggestion for improvement based on the personal views of the review team but which is not (at present) prescribed in the Academic Manual⁵;

v. where such matters arise in the course of a review, a recommendation to the appropriate faculty- or institution-level committee to consider an aspect of UCL's institutional-level or faculty-level QME processes.

45. IQR reports may refer to resource issues and the concluding lists of good practice and needs for improvement identified by the review team may, e.g., commend the Department's efforts to improve its learning resources or invite the Department to consider the need for such improvement. Resource-related issues may thus be addressed for attention to the Director of the relevant Corporate Support Service, Senior Officer or Chair of the relevant committee.

46. However, IQR reports will not normally include explicit recommendations, either to the Department or to any other body or bodies within UCL, for additional resources.

47. Any recommendations in IQR reports which are to be addressed by another department or bodies or bodies within UCL, rather than by the Department which is the subject of the review, should be clearly indicated as such in the concluding list of recommendations.

48. Where a sensitive or potentially confidential issue has arisen, the review team should, through the team leader and/or administrative secretary, seek guidance on how to address the issue in the IQR report from the Director of Academic Support⁶.

49. The IQR report should normally include as appendices:

i. the Department's SES (with a list of the items of supporting documentation);

ii. a list of the individuals or groups interviewed on the visit;

iii. a list of items of additional briefing material requested and received.

50. The full draft IQR report should be agreed by all members of the review team and should normally be forwarded to the Head of Department, for receipt within eight working weeks of the end of the review visit, with an invitation to notify any factual corrections needed to the report.

51. The draft report should be circulated to the DTC before corrections are notified to the administrative secretary to the review team. If the report is received by the DTC, the Department’s response to the draft report should be received by the administrative secretary no later than 10 days after the date of the DTC meeting. In any event, the Department’s response to the draft report should be received by the IQR secretary not more than four weeks after the date on which the draft report is sent to the Department⁷.

52. The review team will consider the Department's comments on the factual accuracy of the draft report and will then decide what changes, if any, to make to the report in the light of these comments. The final version of the report will be submitted by the administrative secretary to the review team to: (i) the Head of Department; (ii) the Senior Quality Assurance Officer.

53. Academic Support will provide new review team secretaries with an IQR report template, which will indicate the main section headings for the report, although this need not be regarded as an inflexible prescription of the structure of the IQR report. (For example, additional section headings may be used to reflect any other areas actually looked at by the review team.)

Follow-up

54. Once the final version of the IQR report has been submitted to (i) the Head of Department or Programme Co-ordinator and (ii) the Senior Quality Assurance Officer by the administrative secretary to the review team, the team will, as soon as possible thereafter, arrange a follow-up meeting with the Department. The purpose of this meeting will be to assist the Department in the development of its response to the recommendations of the IQR report. To aid this process, the Senior Quality Assurance Officer will provide the Department with a template for preparing its action plan setting out how it intends to respond to the recommendations contained in the IQR report. The template comprises juxtaposed lists of (i) recommendations in the IQR report and (ii) action taken or planned in respect of each of these recommendations. The Department will be requested to produce a preliminary action plan, using the template provided, for discussion at the follow-up meeting with the review team. During the follow-up meeting, the administrative secretary will take a note of any modifications to the draft action plan suggested by the review team. After the follow-up meeting, the secretary will write to the Head of Department, with a copy to the Senior Quality Assurance Officer, to confirm the review team’s comments on the draft action plan. Once the follow-up meeting has taken place, the review team will have completed its work.

55. Where the IQR report makes recommendations concerning another Department or other Departments, the Senior Quality Assurance Officer will write to the other Head(s) of Department(s) concerned, asking them to submit, by a specified deadline, a similar summary of action taken or planned.

56. Where the report makes recommendations to be addressed by another body or bodies within UCL, the Senior Quality Assurance Officer will write to the officer(s) concerned, asking them to respond, by a specified deadline, to relevant recommendations.

57. Departments should:

(i) ensure that they make the final IQR reports and action plans accessible to students in the department, e.g. by making these public on departmental intranets;

(ii) submit the IQR reports and action plans to the relevant DTC for discussion

58 IQR reports will be sent by the Senior Quality Assurance Officer to the officers of the faculty concerned, with a note which makes clear the faculty’s particular responsibilities to:

(i) submit the IQR reports and action plans to the FTC for discussion;

(ii) note and disseminate within the faculty good practice and/or recommendations for improvement identified in the IQR report;

(iii) follow up any recommendations addressed to the faculty specifically.

IQR Panel/QMEC

59. The Senior Quality Assurance Officer will write to the Heads of Departments concerned, asking them to submit, by a specified deadline, the final summary of action taken or planned by the Department in response to the recommendations of the IQR report for submission to QMEC’s IQR Panel.

60. On receipt of the action plans, responses and comments requested, the Senior Quality Assurance Officer will refer these for consideration by QMEC's IQR Panel, in conjunction with the IQR reports to which they refer.

61. Sustained dialogue between the Department which has been reviewed and those responsible for oversight of the review process is an essential element of IQR. Consequently, as stated previously [see 3 above], approximately one year after the review visit has taken place, the Head or a nominated representative of the Department will attend the meeting of the IQR Panel which considers the IQR report and action plan. The Head or other representative of the Department will be invited to discuss with the Panel at that meeting the perceived usefulness of the IQR process, the report and recommendations, and the progress made by the Department in implementing the action plan.

62. If the Panel is not satisfied with any of the responses to the IQR report and recommendations, the Senior Quality Assurance Officer (as Secretary to the IQR Panel) may request further information or clarification. Once the Panel has approved responses, the Senior Quality Assurance Officer will obtain the agreement of QMEC that the IQR report, the Department’s action plan and any other responses to the report be formally approved.

63. Following QMEC approval of responses to an IQR report, the Senior Quality Assurance Officer will confirm approval in writing to the Departments concerned.

Dissemination of findings of IQR reports

64. Following QMEC approval of responses to all the IQR reports produced in the previous academic year, the Senior Quality Assurance Officer will:

• prepare an annual report on that year's IQR programme for submission to and formal approval by QMEC;
• disseminate to the Heads of all academic Departments (with the instruction that these should be submitted to DTCs), Directors of the Corporate Support Services and the Head of the Graduate School (i) points of good practice and (ii) recommendations for improvement identified in the IQR reports - with particular examples of good practice attributed to the Department(s) responsible for these (and contact details provided, so that other Departments may request further information about the good practice identified);
• forward to the Head of the Organisational and Staff Development unit (i) points of good practice and (ii) recommendations for improvement identified in the IQR reports, to take into consideration when considering UCL’s future staff training and development needs.
• The Summary of Recommendations and Good Practice arising from IQR should also be circulated to: (i) Faculty Tutors for submission to FTCs and (ii) QMEC.

65. In early autumn, a meeting is held between the Chair of the IQR Panel and the Head of the Graduate School in order to in order to update the Head of the Graduate School on progress made in addressing those recommendations concerning research student issues arising from IQR during the previous session. These recommendations and any progress noted are then discussed at the autumn meeting of the Research Degrees Committee.

August 2012

Annexe A - Sample IQR timetable (PDF file)

Annexe B - A list of the core documentation which IQR teams normally expect departments to submit, together with the SES, in advance of their IQR visit (PDF file)

Annexe C - IQR Dataset (PDF file)

¹ Except where otherwise indicated, 'Department', in the context of these Guidelines, means 'the unit of activity being reviewed'; this will in most cases mean an academic department of UCL or an interdepartmental degree programme, although ‘Department’ in these Guidelines also subsumes relevant academic units which are not formally academic departments established by Council. Responsibilities for (i) quality management and (ii) oversight of quality management have been defined in a number of such academic units of UCL. In some cases, the unit itself is subject to IQR. Where this is not the case, QMEC has agreed that, where quality management or oversight of quality management of such a unit is the responsibility of an established academic Department, the IQR of that department should include review of the unit's operations and of the department's quality management responsibilities therefor. QMEC has also agreed that, where oversight of quality management of such a unit is the responsibility of a UCL faculty, the IQR of the unit or of the academic Department with which the unit is most closely associated should include review of the faculty's oversight of quality management.

² Except where otherwise indicated, references in these Guidelines to the ‘Head of Department’ should be understood as meaning the Head of Department or, where the subject of the IQR is an interdepartmental degree programme, the Programme Co-ordinator.

³  Contact Sandra Hinton (telephone 020 7679 8590; internal extension 28590).

⁴ For further information, contact Gary Smith, Head of Student Data Services (telephone 020 7679 2044, internal extension 32044).

⁵ Before the draft IQR report is referred to the Department concerned, the administrative secretary to the IQR team should submit the list of recommendations included in the team’s draft report to the Director of Academic Support for confirmation that the proposed grading of recommendations as ‘necessary’ or ‘advisable’ or ‘desirable’ is appropriate. If the team wishes to specify these gradings in the summary written feedback sent to the department at an earlier stage, the administrative secretary should submit the draft summary to the Director of Academic Support.

⁶ Contact Jason Clarke (telephone 020 7679 8594; internal extension 28594).

⁷ Note that if timing of the DTC meeting makes this timeframe impossible, all members of the DTC, including student representatives, should be sent a copy of the draft report by email and their comments invited.

---