Preparing for institutional audit

1
Preparing for institutional audit

• Understanding the process
• Institutional Self Evaluation Document

2
Aims of institutional audit

• To meet the public interest in knowing that
  institutions in England are
• Providing higher education, awards and
  qualifications of both an acceptable quality and
  an appropriate academic standard and
• Exercising their legal powers to award degrees in
  a proper manner

3
Objectives of institutional audit

• To contribute to promotion and enhancement of
  higher quality in teaching and learning
• To ensure that students, employers and others can
  have access to reliable information about the
  extent to which institutions are offering
  programmes of study, awards, qualifications that
  meet general national expectations
• To ensure that if quality or standards are found
  to be seriously deficient the process forms a
  basis for ensuring rapid action to improve them
• To provide a means of securing accountability for
  the use of public funds

4
Institutional audit handbook

• Audit pays due attention to the quality of
  programmes and the standards of awards at the
  point of delivery, as well as to institutions
  ultimate responsibility for what is done in their
  names and through the exercise of their formal
  powers

5
Standards and quality

• Standard is a measure set against a level. A
  standard cannot be improved or enhanced.
• Quality of the learning experience that a
  student gets that enables her/him to achieve the
  specified standard/s. Quality is a process and
  can be improved or enhanced

6
Institutional audit handbook

• It is an evidence based process carried out
  through peer review, and balances the need for
  publicly credible, independent and rigorous
  scrutiny of institutions with the recognition
  that the institutions themselves are best placed
  to provide the stakeholders with valid, reliable
  and up-to-date information about the quality of
  their programmes and standards of their awards

7
And again handbook

• At the centre of the process is an emphasis on
  students in terms of the quality of the
  information they receive about their programmes
  of study, the ways in which their learning is
  facilitated and supported, and the academic
  standards they are expected to achieve, and do
  achieve in practice

8
Timetable

• Visit 36 weeks preliminary meeting (10th Feb)
• Visit 32 weeks AD confirms size of team
  and number of DATs (4)
• Visit-18 weeks SED received by QAA (31st May)
• Visit 14 weeks JMU informed of DATs auditors
• Visit 5 weeks Briefing visit (8-10th Sept)
• Audit visit (10-15th Oct)
• Visit 2 weeks Findings letter to JMU
• Visit 8 weeks Draft report to JMU
• Visit 20 weeks Report published

9
Audit team

• AD coordinates audit, conducts preliminary
  meeting, leads briefing visit and final day,
  ensures soundly based judgements, edits report
• Institutional auditors and audit secretary all
  read the SED and SWS and suggest DATs, read DAT
  SEDs suggest themes, prepare text for report
  and comment on report response
• There are 2 types of institutional auditor
• Core auditor takes institutional level lead,
  attends all inst meetings
• Institutional auditors take lead in respect of
  the DATs, attend meetings about DATs and some
  institutional meetings
• Audit secretary manages and records the audit,
  cannot ask questions in meetings, but contributes
  to discussions in private.

10
Points of reference
Institutional audit Collaborative provision
Institutional level
Discipline level
HEFCE 03/51
FHEQ Subject benchmarks Programme
specifications Code of Practice
Discipline audit trails Subject
review Developmental engagements
Academic Infrastructure
11
Outcomes of audit - 1

• Report structure
• Summary - judgements and press release
• Main report - the details a collection of
  linked short stories
• The findings the teams conclusions

12
Outcomes of audit - 2

• The judgements
• The confidence that can reasonably be placed in
  the soundness of the institutions present and
  likely future management of the quality of its
  programmes and the academic standards of its
  awards
• Confidence statements
• Broad
• Limited
• No

13
Outcomes of audit - 3

• The judgements
• The confidence that can reasonably be placed in
  the accuracy, integrity, completeness and
  frankness of the information that the institution
  publishes about the quality of its programmes and
  the standards of its awards
• Confidence statements
• Broad
• Limited
• No

14
Discipline audit trails (DATs)

• Examples of the institutions quality
  assurance processes at the level of the
  programmein order to demonstrate the validity
  and reliability of the information being
  generated by these internal processes

15
DATs - 2

• They provide
• Verification that the institutions quality
  assurance processes are operating in the manner
  intended
• A window through which the audit team can
  consider aspects of what is actually being
  achieved by students, and the effectiveness of
  the support offered to assist their learning
• A direct means of comparing the claims made by
  the institution for the accuracy, completeness
  and reliability of the information that it
  provides about quality and standards with the
  experience of students and others who have
  actually used it

16
DATS involve

• Scrutiny of the relationship between the
  programmes offered and the FHEQ, relevant subject
  benchmark statements, and relevant sections of
  the Code of Practice
• This includes discussions about the quality of
  teaching and learning and the standards achieved
  by students, and draws upon the primary evidence
  provided by a sample of students work
  (coursework and examination scripts) that has
  already been assessed

17
Teams conclusions - DATS

• Each audit trail results in a conclusion about
  the extent to which the institutions quality
  assurance arrangements are operating in practice,
  at discipline level, in a way that ensures
  acceptable quality and standards
• If the team cannot reach a decision, it can call
  in specialist advisers and receive additional
  evidence from the HEI

18
Process deadline dates

• SED and student written submission May
• DATs chosen - June
• SEDS for DATS - July
• Briefing visit - September
• Between briefing and audit visit 5 weeks
• Audit visit - October
• Last day of the audit visit
• Report

19
The institutional SED

• Annex B
• Context for audit developments since last audit
• Description and evaluation of exercising of
  responsibilities related to standards and
  quality
• Description and evaluation of effectiveness of
  quality assurance processes
• Provide understanding of how assure quality and
  standards appropriate to a confidence judgement
• Must include
• Responses to subject review and PRSB visits
• Future strategy for next years
• Exemplars of good practice
• Students in writing the SED