Quality Model
This document describes the School's course/programme processes for Quality Assurance. These are compatible with the Quality Assurance policies of the College of Science and Engineering. We also endeavour to adhere to the University's policy on the support of students with disabilities.
1. Roles
The following posts have responsibilities which particularly impinge upon quality matters within the School:
Quality Assurance Officer - Overall responsibility for quality matters within the school and for liaison with College, University and external quality processes.
Director of Teaching - Delegated responsibility from Head of School for the running of the School's teaching, and Teaching Organisation.
Director of Graduate School - Delegated responsibility from Head of School for the running of the Informatics Graduate School.
Convenors of Exam Boards - As specified in College and University documentation, with an emphasis on liaison with External Examiners.
Course/Year Organisers - Each programme year has a Year Organiser who is primarily responsible for the running of the course, liaising and reporting as necessary to the relevant committees. The Year Organiser is also responsible for ensuring that all the Informatics courses that can be taken by students in that year run smoothly.
Degree Programme Coordinators - Each UG degree has a Degree Programme Coordinator, responsible for monitoring the structure and coherence of that degree curriculum and its delivery, reporting as necessary to relevant committees.
Personal Tutors - Responsible for the provision of pastoral and academic advice to students, in accordance with definition provided in School Personal Tutoring Statement. A wider School Student Support Statement is also available online.
Directors of Research Institutes - Directors of Research Institutes have responsibilities which include a contribution to the annual monitoring of PhD and MPhil students within their institute.
2. Committees
Agenda, papers and minutes of the following committees are published on the school web site.
2.1 Planning and Resources Committee
This committee deals with strategy and allocates all resources within the School. It is convened by the Head of School, and its members include the Director of Teaching, Director of the Graduate School and Directors of Institutes.
The Informatics Teaching Committee exists to develop policy on the delivery (rather than the syllabus) of taught courses and to monitor activity within those courses. It also develops and monitors policy in the areas of recruitment, undergraduate admissions, and schools liaison. It is chaired by a convenor appointed by the Head of School. Its core (ex-officio) membership consists of:
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Undergraduate and MSc Course Organisers
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Chairs of Exam Boards
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Schools Liaison Officer
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School TQA Officer
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Undergraduate Selectors
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Representatives of; administrative staff, support and technical staff, PG tutors and demonstrators, on-course students.
Committee meetings are open to all other interested members of staff.
The Board of Studies is responsible for the curriculum approval process within the School of Informatics, providing a forum for discussion within the School, appropriate consultation with other Schools, and approval of submissions to the relevant bodies at higher levels within the University.
It is chaired by a convenor appointed by the Head of School and includes all Informatics academic teaching (AT) staff, at least two members external to the School and at least two student representatives. In practice, much of the detailed work is performed by working parties, who refer recommendations up to the Board of Studies for ratification, modification, referral or rejection.
3.1 Informatics Teaching Organisation
The Informatics Teaching Organisation (ITO), of which the Director of Teaching is Head, oversees the procedures of undergraduate teaching and (in collaboration with the Informatics Graduate School) of taught-course postgraduate activity. It provides administrative support for students and teaching staff. Its particular responsibilities are to:
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maintain UG/PGT student records and class lists for all years;
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support course organisers in the administration of taught courses;
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administer the examination process, including general communications with the external and internal examiners;
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provide administrative support for the activities of the Board of Studies;
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provide administrative support for the activities of the Teaching Committee;
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support selectors in the administration of undergraduate admissions;
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support the schools liaison officer in the administration of recruitment activities and schools' liaison;
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implement taught programme QA procedures and prepare QA (and similar) submissions;
Each course has a secretary nominated from within the ITO staff. Course Organisers retain overall responsibility for their course, devolving administrative tasks to the ITO as appropriate, while retaining control over matters which require academic judgement or leadership.
3.2 Informatics Graduate School
The Graduate School aims to build a postgraduate community, coordinate recruitment and publicity and develop and monitor policies affecting postgraduate students. Under its Director, the dedicated administrative staff have responsibility for:
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welcome and orientation of new PGR students
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maintenance of PGR student records
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administration of the PGR Monitoring Processes
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interacting with various PGR related bodies within and beyond the University
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concessions (extensions, interruptions, leaves of absence)
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nominating internal and external examiners
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PGR student recruitment, admission and offers (funding and academic)
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handling devolved Institute for Academic Development (Roberts) funding
- implement research programme QA procedures and prepare QA (and similar) submissions;
4. Reporting and Monitoring (UG and PGT)
Matters related to undergraduate and taught postgraduate degrees are presented in this section. The corresponding details for postgraduate research degrees are discussed in section 5 below.
Course Organisers and student representatives are invited to table reports for each Teaching Committee meeting, and any significant points from these reports are discussed.
After a UG course has been fully examined the Course Organiser prepares a report which is submitted to the ITO. It is the responsibility of the Director of Teaching to extract any relevant points and bring them to the attention of the Board of Studies or the Teaching Committee as appropriate.
The Course/Year Organiser may call a meeting of the staff involved with the course if there are issues which could usefully be discussed at this level.
A similar process is carried out in October for MSc courses.
Undergraduate Degree Programme Co-ordinators annually (in September) submit a report on how the degree course has run in the past year. These reports are submitted to the ITO. It is the responsibility of the Director of Teaching to extract any relevant points from these reports and bring them to the attention of the Board of Studies or the Teaching Committee as appropriate.
4.4 Elicitation of Feedback from Students
Individual students can provide feedback on all Informatics courses using an on-line feedback questionnaire. Responses are stored anonymously by the Informatics Teaching Organisation and will be seen by (at least) the course lecturers and the Year Organiser of the year in which the course is offered.
Each year has elected student representatives, who are full members of the Teaching Committee and Board of Studies. Student reps interact with the school and course organisers both informally and more formally through meetings of the relevant staff-student liaison committee (SSLC).
Additionally, the Facilities, Learning and Teaching group meets weekly to deal with immediate issues concerning the teaching facilities and teaching and learning issues. Its membership comprises the Director of Teaching, any Informatics Class Rep who wants to attend together with a representative from the ITO and, when possible, a member of the Research and Teaching computing support group. The FLT group is intended to deal with pressing matters urgently, in order that Teaching Committee, Board of Studies and Staff Student Liaison Committees are able to take a longer term view.
Minutes of the SSLCs are published on the course web page. Individual course lecturers are encouraged to use further feedback methods (e.g. online mechanisms for informal discussion or course-related issues, opinions and problems) to keep in touch with their classes, but these are not part of our formal QA model.
4.5 Role of External Examiners
These are as recommended in the College's documentation. Matters arising from the External Examiners' reports are considered by the Teaching Committee or Board of Studies as appropriate.
4.6 Provision of Information to Students
At the start of a course, students are provided with information covering at least the following points:
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An overview of the aims and objectives of the course.
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Prerequisites.
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A condensed syllabus and learning outcomes.
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Expected workload, including lectures, tutorials and practicals.
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Timetable in as much detail as possible, including first week arrangements, lectures and practical deadlines.
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Assessment procedures.
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Details of the Quality Assurance mechanisms as seen by the students (e.g. staff-student committees, newsgroups, hot-lines, questionnaires).
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Reading list.
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Staff involved (including secretarial and technical support) and how to contact them.
Substantial use is made of electronic newsgroups, email lists and web pages both in providing general and course specific information and documentation. Email lists are generated daily from information held in the ITO database and all messages to these lists are held in web archives which can be read by list members.
4.7 Accreditation and Other External Input
All honours degrees put forward for accreditation by the British Computer Society on a five year cycle. Recommendations resulting from the process are considered by the Teaching Committee and Board of Studies as appropriate.
Degrees which involved Electronics may also accredited by the Institute of Electrical Engineers. Accreditation of degrees involving Psychology is handled by the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences.
The Informatics Industrial Advisory Board comprises members of the School together with industrial nominees. There is a deliberate mix of members, with some from large corporations and others from small companies and also with a balance between local and more distant prospective employers. This committee gives the industrialists a chance to comment on the material and the style of teaching. The meetings also give an opportunity to foster collaboration with industry in other ways, involving industrialists in project work and professional issues where appropriate.
5. Reporting and Monitoring (PGR)
5.1 Individual Student Monitoring
The Graduate School defines a detailed framework for the monitoring of individual PGR students, expressed as a series of milestones (typically five or six for each of the first three years) and related review processes. Most substantially, these include annual submission of an appropriate proposal/progress document by the student, to be presented to a panel comprising supervisors and at least one independent member of staff. This panel provides the student with feedback and reports to the Graduate School. It also feeds into the supervisor's formal annual report to College. All reports are monitored by the Director of the Graduate School.
5.2 Institute Level Monitoring
Each Research Institute annually reviews the progress of all its research students, primarily by considering all review panel reports submitted since its previous meeting, and with further input as appropriate from supervisors. The meeting is attended by all supervisors, by the institute's Director and PhD selector, and by the Director of the Graduate School. The Director of the Research Institute takes responsibility for ensuring that any resulting actions are addressed.
5.3 Elicitation of Feedback from Students
The Research, Facilities & Student Development group comprises the Director of Graduate School, Deputy School Administrator and student representatives. All PGR students are encouraged to participate via a wiki, or pass their feedback or concerns via their student rep. The group meets monthly and works through a standard agenda on the following topics:
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Academic Issues; e.g. PhD progress reviews, quality of supervision, rules and regulations.
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Student Welfare; e.g. relationship with supervisor, Firbush-style events, roof-top barbeques.
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Career Planning; e.g. internships, postdoc grant application workshop, tutoring or commercialisation opportunities.
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Admin, Computing and Support; availablility, attitude and responsiveness of IGS and Computing Support teams.
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Forum / Research Environment; e.g. the Forum, PhD office space, computing facilities.
5.4 Role of External Examiners
These are as recommended in the College's documentation. Matters arising from the External Examiners' reports are considered by the Teaching Committee or Board of Studies as appropriate. All External Examiners' reports are reviews by the Director of the Graduate School.
5.5 Provision of Information to Students
The Graduate School organises orientation events and events preparing students for the major milestones, maintains detailed web pages and acts as a point of contact for informal enquires for PGR students. Information is maintained and disseminated covering at least:
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Registration and Matriculation
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Induction
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Welcome and other Social Events
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Monitoring and Milestones
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Research Student Travel Grants
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Resolving Problems
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Transferable Skills
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Research Training
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Good Research Practice
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Links to relevant University Services
