Quality Assurance Handbook

What quality assurance means here

Quality assurance is the routine of checking that what the university promises is what it actually delivers: that a course taught this year matches the description published for it, that marking is consistent between markers and between years, that evidence of teaching exists in a form someone else can inspect, and that student feedback reaches a person able to act on it.

The handbook is the written procedure for that routine. It exists so that the checks are the same across every college and department, and so that no part of it depends on memory.

What the handbook governs

Programmes and courses

• How a programme or a module is proposed, described and approved.
• What a course description must contain — learning outcomes, assessment and its weighting, required reading.
• The course file: which documents must exist for every module taught, who assembles it, and who checks it.

Teaching and assessment

• Evaluation of teaching, including student questionnaires and what is done with the results.
• Setting examinations, moderating papers before they are sat, and reviewing marking afterwards.
• How marks are recorded, checked and released.
• The handling of student appeals about assessment, and the steps in that procedure.

Review and improvement

• The cycle of departmental self-evaluation, and the reporting that follows it.
• What evidence is collected, in what form, and who holds it.
• How findings are turned into an action plan with a named owner for each action.
• How the following cycle confirms whether the actions were carried out.

Records

• Which documents must be retained, by whom, and for how long.
• How records are stored, and who may see them.

Who uses it

• Deans and heads of department, as the authority for the reviews they must run and sign.
• Teaching staff, for the documents they are required to produce for every module they teach.
• Quality assurance coordinators, as their working manual and the source of the forms.
• Administrative staff, for the records they hold and the deadlines they enforce.
• Students, indirectly — the handbook is what explains where a questionnaire response goes and what happens to it.

How a cycle runs

1. Course descriptions are prepared and course files opened before teaching starts.
2. Teaching proceeds, with evidence collected as it is produced rather than reconstructed later.
3. Student feedback is gathered during and at the end of the course.
4. Results and feedback are reviewed at department level, and the findings are written up.
5. An action plan is agreed, with responsibility assigned for each item.
6. The next cycle opens by checking what happened to the previous plan.

Obtaining the handbook and its forms

The handbook and the templates that go with it are held by the quality assurance office; ask your college administration if you are not sure who that is in your college. Always confirm which edition is in force before completing a form, since templates are revised between cycles. Where a published copy exists it appears under Documents.

Students who want to raise a concern about a course should begin with the department, and may take the matter further if it is not resolved there. Enquiries can be sent through Contact.