From time to time the Quality Assurance Agency 'inspects' the university. We had a visit from them in 2003 and another in 2007. We will be undergoing an inspection in the autumn of this year. The 2003 audit was generally positive but criticised the university for having multiple means of determining degree classifications, and was exercised about the ways in which students with similar sets of marks and performance could end in different degree classes depending on which department (or faculty) they were in. We spent some time over the next couple of years creating the complex but comprehensive process for degree classification that we now have in place.
The 2007 audit was very complimentary about us, with only a couple of suggestions for action matched against four times as many points of commendation. That was a very agreeable outcome for us. We had a new Vice-Chancellor, Keith Burnett, arriving at the time of the audit, and we had chosen to write our self-evaluation document in the style of an explanation to him of how we maintain standards and quality across all our degree programmes.
We have less choice on how to write our self-evaluation document this time. The QAA has said that it doesn't want a narrative, but instead is looking for an evidence-based approach largely referring to existing documents and materials. That said, they nevertheless ask for a two page account of the main changes since the last audit. I have been working on those pages today and will be doing so over the weekend as well. It is actually quite difficult to reduce a discussion of changes between 2007 and 2012 down to a few words. There have just been so many major developments.
These are the ones I have chosen to highlight - I'd be interested to see if anyone has other suggestions as to what I should add (or subtract):
1. The new Faculty structure giving full resourcing powers to Faculties and increasing their levels of autonomy to act in ways that are more appropriate for their particular portfolios of activities. With that have come new roles such as Faculty Pro-Vice-Chancellors, FDLTs and FDRIs in place of Deans. It has also strendthened the links between the acacdemic management of programmes and the allocation of resources to them. If anyone sees any down-sides please let me know.
2. Changes in the management of the postgraduate research student experience. In particular the old Graduate Research Office has gone, to be replaced by closer integration of pgr activities into Research and Innovation as a whole and the new emphasis on Doctoral Researcher Development. That has come alongside the evolution from the old RTP to the new DDP (Doctroal Development Programme) and the creation of new Doctoral Training Centres.
3. The end of the validation activities that the University used to carry out for colleges. City College, our most important partner, has become a Faculty of the University, with full integration in the academic governance of programmes. We are involved with more collabroations world-wide, but on a basis of equal partnership arrangements, handled through new structures.
4. Changes in our stduent enhancement regimes, with the ending of funding for our two CETLs and the evolution of new ways of bringing students into enhancement and engagement activities through schemes such as SURE (Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience) and the SALTs (Student Amdbassadors for Learning and Teaching).
5. Changes in the student composition. In particular, the nearly doubling of overseas students and the consequent changes in the need for student support activities - particularly (but not exclusively) in the English Language Teaching Centre. Reductions in the numbers of undergraduate part-time students and the upcoming reorganisation of The Institute for Lifelong Learning (TILL).
Those are my top five. What are yours?
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