Quality assessment: Some observations

Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education

Volumn 2, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 50-55

  Underwood, Simeon ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 85007883911     PISSN: 13603108     EISSN: 14607018     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713847930     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. The original term ‘Teaching Quality Assessment’ was changed to ‘Quality Assessment’ and has recently been changed again to ‘Subject Review’. I have followed the middle path. The subject of this article is the English system; but given the recent convergence of the Scottish system, readers north of the border may be interested and, perhaps, alarmed.
2. Higher Education in the Learning Society: Report of the National Committee, July 1997, paragraph 10.68. I am intrigued by the implication that ‘lecture presentation’ is a proxy for teaching and learning: it confirms all one’s suspicions.
3. HEFCE Report on Quality Assessment 1992-95, November 1995. No comparable figure is given in the report for 1995/96.
4. Association of University Professors and Heads of French, Survey on TQA exercise, June 1996.
5. University Council of Modern Languages Assessing the Assessors: issues arising from the UCML Quality Assessment questionnaire; own copy undated, para. 7.1.
6. HEFCE circular 39/94, p.7.
7. published by HEFCE April 1994.
8. HEFCE Report on Quality Assessment 1995/96, p.11.
9. HEFCE Report on Quality Assessment 1992-95, p.10, 11 22, para. 58 the figure for self-assessments is given as 976.
10. ‘Quality official predicts failures’, THES, 13/1/95.
11. UCML Report THES, 13/1/95.
12. ‘Chemical heads slam ‘jargon’, THES, 27/12/96.
13. HEQC, Graduate Standards Programme: Final Report, 1997, volume 1, p.13.
14. HEFCE, Assessors’ Handbook October 1996 to September 1998, p.23.
15. Private conversation, 28/6/97.
16. ‘Quality matters, so let’s get serious about it’, Alan Jenkins, THES, 18 April 1997, p.14.
17. Prison Report: The Prison Reform Trust Magazine, issue no 39, Summer 1997, p. 5.
18. English Association, TQA: The Chair’s report to the Association, May 1995.
19. AUPHF, TQA: The Chair’s report to the Association.
20. UCLM, TQA: The Chair’s report to the Association.
21. This is set out clearly in HEFCE’s own report for 1992-95 and the CHES report referred to in footnotes 9 and 7 respectively.
22. At present the units being assessed are asked to give an evaluation, with supporting evidence, of the quality of education received by students, measured against aims and objectives, covering six aspects of provision and incorporating self-criticism, all in the 4, 000 words which, as it happens, is the word limit for this article. Try it.
23. ‘Assessments ‘to go’’, THES, 12/9/97.