Programme Approval and Amendment Process to be improved for 2019-20

The April meeting of Education Committee approved changes to the Programme Approval and Amendment Process for 2019-20.

Following an internal audit of the process, the Programme and Module Approval Panel (PMAP) proposed a number of enhancements including:

• greater support for programme initiators at an earlier stage;
• ensuring that programme changes aligned with CMA requirements;
• and ensuring adequate space to accommodate new student numbers.

Programme initiators will receive more feedback at the outline approval rather than final approval stage. UCL Arena team, Digital Education and Library Services will provide more support between the outline and final stages in the form of development days.

The deadline for programme amendments will be brought forward to comply with Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) requirements. The deadline will be 30 November 2019 for the amendments for the 2020-21 academic session and the end of Term Three for all subsequent years. 

EdCom expressed some concerns that this might stifle academic innovation in programme design and that the earlier deadline would potentially make it more difficult to be responsive to student feedback, particularly for postgraduate taught programmes with Exam Boards in October/ November. However, it was noted that the strict CMA requirements about substantive changes to a programme after offers had been made has necessitated the earlier deadline for programme amendments.

In addition, for the new Module Catalogue and the indicative module selection process to work effectively, modules will also need to be confirmed earlier. EdCom agreed that there should still be a mechanism to approve exceptional late changes, eg. if a member of staff with a niche specialism left UCL.

In order to ensure that proposed student numbers can be accommodated, the revised process will include an opportunity for the Estates and Planning teams to comment. It was agreed that if Estates or Planning had concerns about student number proposals, it should be forwarded to the Office of the Vice Provost (Education and Student Affairs) (OVPESA) for further consideration.

EdCom heard that PMAP are currently a scoping a system to manage the approval and amendment process online, giving programme teams more time to focus on pedagogical development.

Other business included:

UCL Qatar to close

UCL Qatar will close in 2020 when the contract with the Qatar Foundation ends. EdCom heard that implementation of closure plans was already underway, with a robust teach-out plan and full student support. While the contractual closure date was 31 October 2020, UCL is negotiating an extension to 31 December 2020 to cover reassessments and deferrals.

Suspension of recruitment for academic partnership programmes without MoAs

EdCom received a paper detailing amendments to the Academic Partnerships Framework 2019-20, including updated terminology, the incorporation of policies already approved, and amended regulations and forms for terminating partnerships and agreeing exit strategies.

Recruitment will be suspended for any academic partnership programmes that do not have an up-to-date Memorandum of Agreement in place by 1 September 2019. Academic Services would be writing to the small number of departments where MoAs are not yet in place to advise of the steps which would be taken to suspend recruitment. The affected faculties are invited to contact the VP (E&SA) if they need further support to engage the partner.

Taught students to be assessed across entire main examination period

 A significant increase in the number of UG examination candidatures has made it increasingly difficult to schedule all undergraduate exams within the current five-week period. As a result, EdCom agreed that exams for all taught students will take place across the entire main examination period from the next academic year onwards.
In a consultation run by the Examination Operations Group chaired by Director of Academic Services, the majority of respondents favored retaining the timeline for June marking and exam board activity, rather than delaying the timetable for Late Summer Assessments and potentially affecting students’ progression to the following year. In order to retain the June timeline, postgraduates and undergraduates will be examined during the full range of dates 27 April – 5 June 2020.

Changes to overseas exam arrangements

At its February 2019 meeting, EdCom agreed that students should be expected to take their exams at UCL and approved the proposals to allow overseas exams only for Distance Learning students and students who could not obtain a visa. The changes have come into effect for the 2018-19 examinations period, will be formalised in the Academic Manual from 2019-20 onwards. The UCL fee will increase to £100 per exam to reflect the costs of offering the service.

Proposal for a new UCL Student Complaints Procedure

A new UCL Student Complaints Procedure 2019-20 has been proposed in response to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator’s requirement for all institutions to have their own internal appeals mechanism. At present, UCL students wishing to appeal the outcome of a complaint have recourse to an externally-chaired panel and this sometimes results in mitigation that is uninformed by (or even contrary to) to UCL regulations or principles. EdCom heard that the proposal had been discussed in a number of fora, and consultation was also underway with the Students’ Union. The proposal was to be submitted to Academic Board for consultation on 15 May and to UCL Council for formal approval on 4 June.