Program Quality Enhancement
The College has in place a transparent program quality assurance system, within the context of the Bologna framework, that involves both internal processes – intended to build a quality culture – and external validation and benchmarking and/or accreditation – intended to build trust that the quality standards achieved are acceptable. Its focus is on the arrangements for the design, monitoring and review of the program learning objectives, program intended learning outcomes, program curriculum and course syllabuses. Its objectives are three-fold:
- to improve the quality of teaching and learning;
- to demonstrate a program’s content, academic standards and assessment are in accordance with the chosen benchmarking standards; and
- to enhance the flow of information concerning effective evaluation and improvement practices that demonstrates that appropriate academic standards underpin the degrees awarded, so as to facilitate degree comparability and student-centered quality accountability.
Program Design
An approved program of study must have:
- a clear set of program learning objectives and intended learning outcomes;
- a curriculum that
- is benchmarked against external reference points; and
- reflects:
learning progression,
an appropriate balance between:
the academic and practical curriculum elements;
personal development and academic outcomes; and
breadth and depth in the curriculum; and
a coherence that ensures that the overall student learning experience has a logic and an intellectual integrity that relates to clearly defined program purposes; and
- specifies how the intended learning outcomes will be promoted, demonstrated and assessed.
Program Monitoring and Evaluation
Structures and processes are in place to monitor and evaluate an approved program so as to be able to demonstrate, at the constituent course level, that:
- the course intended learning outcomes are clearly stated in a way that students know what is expected of them and relate to its host program’s intended learning outcomes;
- the design, organization and content of the learning enables students to achieve its intended learning outcomes;
- the teaching is informed by research, scholarship or professional activity and effective in relation to the intended learning outcomes and syllabus content;
- the academic guidance, feedback and supervisory arrangements support the satisfactory achievement its intended learning outcomes;
- the appropriate learning resources and support is available to enable students to achieve satisfactorily the intended learning outcomes;
- the teaching and learning facilities and equipment support the achievement of the intended learning outcomes;
- the assessment system is adequately specified;
- the range and type of assessment tasks used measure appropriately students’ achievement of the knowledge, skill and understanding identified as intended learning outcomes;
- the assessment standards are clearly and publicly specified and uniformly applied; and
- the assessment system must be such that in order to pass the course students have to have demonstrated that they have achieved the intended learning outcomes at least at the minimum expectations set for the awarding of the degree.
4.6.3. Program Review
Measures are in place to review periodically, in an agreed cycle, the effectiveness of an approved program of study, so as:
- to ensure that it has remain current and valid in the light of developing knowledge in its fields of study and practice in its application;
- to evaluate the continuing effectiveness of the curriculum and of the assessment in relation to the program’s intended learning outcomes;
- to provide evidence of changing grading standards by reference to marking trends, so as:
- to facilitate inter-course grading comparisons, and
- to monitor exit standards at the point of graduation; and
- to assess its continuing validity and relevance in the light of:
changes in external reference points;Ъ
changes in student demand, employer expectations and employment opportunities; and
the student progression and achievement performance.
