Quality and Relevance in Graduate Studies: Canada-China Academic Forum August 25 – 27, 2010 Enhancing the Quality and Standard of Graduate Education Barbara Evans The University of British Columbia

From a Dean’s perspective…. What do we mean by the ‘quality’ of graduate education? Who is responsible for quality assurance? How can/do we measure quality? How do we ensure improvement?

‘Quality’ should be tightly linked to student outcomes The goal – to provide the best possible educational experience for each graduate student, so that they successfully complete an excellent and relevant program in a timely fashion, with embedded and additional opportunities to develop skills & competencies for productive future employment in a variety of careers. Achieving this goal will also meet the needs of the other key stakeholders in graduate education – institutions, academic disciplines, professions, governments, industry and society. Quality assurance should be based on values of consistency, transparency, efficiency and equity (not equality).

The ‘graduate educational experience’ depends on the inputs of – academic program content and resources – supervision – administrative processes Quality can be inferred from output measures such as – timely successful completion – graduate student satisfaction – skills acquisition – the products of the students’ research – program evaluations Measuring these inputs and outputs of graduate education will inform improvement.

Some quality measures that are/can be used to inform program improvement: relevance/importance high valuelower value ability to provide easy. student satisfaction with - supervision - resources. completion rates - timely completion rates - post-confirmation/candidacy completion rates. number of ‘publications’ from thesis. conference presentations (esp. oral). professional development provisions. current graduate student load. completion times moderate. quality of entering students. attrition rates. stage of withdrawal. ‘quality’ of theses. acquisition of attributes & skills. benchmarking of processes. other outputs – knowledge exchange. employment/career outcomes difficult. ‘quality’ of publications/patents from thesis. graduate satisfaction (X years out). employer feedback

Ensuring Quality is a key role for Graduate Schools selection of students & transition student funding & scholarships facilities & resources available program structure, content, approval & review flexibility & mobility within & between programs monitoring academic progress evaluation of outcomes at institutional level assessment & examination developing excellence in research supervision ensuring transparency & equity in graduate administrative procedures handling grievances professional & transferable skills ethics, integrity & global awareness proactive policy development & procedural oversight Aspects of quality usually overseen by Graduate Schools:

Measuring quality Gathering the data The tools we use Supervision Program outcomes Research outputs Student professional skills Administrative processes

Using data effectively How do we ensure that gathering data actually leads to Improvement? Determine WHAT you are going to do with the data BEFORE you conduct the survey. Also consider – the ethics of gathering and NOT using data, – the importance of reporting back – closing the loop with those who provide the data, – the immense value of using data to drive quality improvement, – how to use data most strategically within your institution – with faculty & staff, students, Deans, senior committees and decision makers, on web-sites, – and remember - MONEY always makes people pay attention!