Quality Assurance and Enhancement at Middlesex University Ian Pearson, Head of Academic Quality

Centre for Learning and Teaching Enhancement (CLTE) The Academic Quality Unit (AQU) in CLTE manages various aspects of quality assurance and enhancement at an institutional level including The validation and review processes; Some work with collaborative institutions (most especially in terms of the approval of new partners); External Examiners – their appointment, contracts, reports, responses and payment; Annual Monitoring processes; Student feedback, such as programme feedback and the National Student Survey; Preparations for any quality-based audits of our work at Middlesex – particularly from the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA); Management of the procedures at Middlesex which appear in the Learning and Quality Enhancement Handbook, which is updated annually

Responsibility of the schools for quality assurance and enhancement Middlesex schools co-ordinate quality across their departments and act as the link between CLTE and the departments, and also: Organise the validation and reviews for their schools, and then send the outcomes to CLTE; Deals with early stages of approval of new collaborative partners by completing a Preliminary Enquiries form – all arrangements are then dealt with through CLTE; Works with its external examiners at assessment boards, and then responds to reports sent to CLTE; Manages the ongoing relationships with collaborative partners, providing link tutors for each partnership; Schools produce an overview report for annual monitoring based on all their provision – these reports form the basis of an overview report on annual monitoring for the University

Use of data and statistics in quality There are a number of areas where data is central to quality processes – both in terms of assurance and enhancement; It is used for analysis, and can be used to analyse whether actions have been met – and to inform future actions – rather than just for box ticking; All annual monitoring reports include data sets, and we would expect a commentary on these in the reports – high level data would then be considered by schools and CLTE; All programme reviews would include data – mainly that from annual monitoring, but with a view of considering trends; There is a considerable amount of student feedback related data – at programme level, and also through the National Student Survey; All CLTE overview reports also include data – for example – overview on external examiners, validation and review etc.