Assuring a Quality Focus in Industry Oriented Education

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Assuring a Quality Focus in Industry Oriented
Education

• Dave Carroll BSc MSc MBCS
• EMERSION Local Leader for QA, DIT Project Team
• School of Computing
• Dublin Institute of Technology
• Ireland

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A Quality Focus in Industry Oriented Education
Relationship to other Seminars
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A Quality Focus in Industry Oriented Education

• Seminar Outline
• What are our general conceptions of Education
  Quality?
• Who is responsible for Quality?
• What are the Goals of a QA system for
  industry-oriented education?
• Course QA a three stage process
• QA structures for industry oriented education
• QA in the Teaching Process
• QA in programme delivery and assessment
• QA in work placement
• QA in Final Year Projects
• Follow up workshop

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General conceptions of Education Quality?

• Standards
• Excellence
• Value for money
• Fitness for purpose

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Who is responsible for Quality?

• Key Stakeholders?
• Teachers
• Students
• Management
• Industry Employers/Collaborators

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Who is responsible for Quality?

• Individual Responsibility
• Quality of teachers course (or courses).
• Integration of course with the rest of the
  programme.
• Collective responsibility of all programme staff
• Teamwork.
• Team collaboration to ensure the overall quality
  of the programme.

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Goals of a QA system for industry-oriented
education?

• Enshrine individual and collective
  responsibility.
• Inclusiveness of all stakeholders (teachers,
  students, management, industry).
• Focus on continuous improvement.
• Monitoring and evaluation of subject/component
  delivery.
• Ensuring effectiveness of curriculum.
• Ensuring effectiveness of quality assurance
  system.
• Feedback from peer group and stakeholders.
• Teamwork.

Emersion QA
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Goals of a QA system for industry-oriented
education?

• Transparency and public accountability.
• International and professional benchmarking.
• Local and international academic external
  examiners.
• Local and international industry external
  examiners.
• Emphasis on staff training and development.

Emersion QA
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Course QA a three stage process

• Validation
• industry focus via input from industry
  representatives
• Annual Evaluation
• industry focus via external examiners
• Five yearly review
• industry focus via input from industry
  representatives

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QA structures for industry oriented education

• Course Committees
• Course Teams
• Course Chairs
• Year Tutors

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QA in the Teaching Process

• Staff Recruitment test lecture
• Staff training
• CPD
• Quality awareness

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QA in programme delivery and assessment

• Lecture, module, and programme level QA
• Quality of learning surface vs. deep learning
• Agreed quality indicators
• Data collection key documentation
• Feedback and continuous improvement
• Annual Monitoring Report
• Quality Action Plan
• Link to Curriculum seminar

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QA in work placement

• Quality of student work experience
• Key quality indicators?
• Link with work experience seminar

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QA in Final Year Projects

• Roles
• Student
• Supervisor
• Second Reader
• Project Monitor
• Link with Final Year Project seminar

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Follow up Workshop

• Ensuring a quality focus in industry-oriented
  education
• Participants (4 to 6 staff) will form groups to
  study sample QA feedback documents, prepare key
  feedback documents using example data and prepare
  a Quality Action Plan.
• QA is your responsibility
• Preparing key feedback documentation
• Annual Monitoring Report and constituent reports
• QA issues arising
• Responding to QA issues - the Quality Action Plan