10th ANNUAL CONFERENCE:
Quality Management: future directions
Thursday 1 October – Friday 2 October 2015
Aston Business School Conference Centre, Birmingham
Each year at the QSN Annual Conference, quality managers meet to consider developments in the higher education landscape, and the implications for their practice. This year, the conference – QSN’s tenth – coincides with decisions on potentially the most profound changes in quality management since the establishment of the QAA.
Abruptly, foundation stones are being tossed around like toys; where they will land is unclear, but it is unlikely things will be the same again. How can we, as leaders in quality management, influence the future, and how will we adapt to possibly revolutionary change?
Fundamental features such as external review and the external examiner system - even the continued existence of the current external regulatory body itself - are being questioned afresh, together with grading and classification systems and a Green Paper on a metrics-based and externally-assessed teaching parallel to the Research Excellence Framework. There is the likelihood of significant direct engagement of governing bodies in quality management and systematic monitoring of outcomes data. The increasingly diversified nature of the sector and consideration of a more risk-based approach has provoked discussion of stratified quality assessment – And not only stratified, also potentially no longer unitary: the current review of the Scottish Quality Enhancement Framework is revealing no desire for significant departure from the current enhancement-based approach, potentially rendering any read-across more difficult. And to what extent will Wales and N Ireland follow changes in England? There is also the question of impact on our collective global reputation. Whither the UK HE brand?
At the same time, we still face issues such as the nature of the provider/student contract and embedding student engagement, and providers still face review using current methods. We are also all aware of the expansion in the volume of data available to us, and QSN has itself funded a project to look at how providers are beginning to consider what assistance this information can provide in supporting quality.
The themes, workshops and talks at our 2015 Conference will again provide the opportunity to discuss with other engaged and constructive professional colleagues where we might be headed and the best ways to continue to assure the quality of the student experience.
Programme:
Day One – Thursday, 1 October
1400 / Arrival & Registration1500 / Welcome from the Chair
1505 / Keynote presentations & discussion on Conference theme –
Alex Bols, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Guild HE
Professor Phil Cardew, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Leeds Beckett University
1620 / Presentation - Gavin Lee, Head of Learning & Teaching, Universities Scotland
‘Student Engagement: Issues and Progress’
1650 / Workshop: The HEFCE Review: potential outcomes and implications
1915 / Champagne Reception in Bar
1945 / Conference Dinner After dinner reflections: Chair of QSN and Emeritus Professor Peter Bush, founding Chair of QSN
Day Two – Friday, 2 October
0845 / QSN Annual General Meeting0920 / Dr Helen Thomas and Tony Turjansky
QSN research project: Use of Data to support Quality Management
1000 / Parallel facilitated workshops
See separate sheet for themes
1100 / Refreshment break and interaction with workshop outcomes in the lounge
1145 / Parallel facilitated workshops (repeated)
1245 / Conference Plenary, highlighting key issues for QSN. Closing remarks
1300 / Lunch
1400 / Final workshop: emerging themes (see separate sheet)
1430 / ‘Everything you wanted to know about quality but were afraid to ask…’ (see separate sheet)
1515 / Conference Close
Parallel elective workshops - Regulation and a risk-based approach
Friday, 2 October – 1000, repeated 1145
No. / Workshop title / Indicative Content1 / External Examining: Where next? / The external examining system has moved in and out of favour as a means of assuring quality. For some it is the bedrock of QA; for others, its ability to deliver comparability is a weakness. What appropriate ways are open to us to enhance its effectiveness? What changes are afoot?
2 / How do we know classification schemes and grading systems produce consistent outcomes within and across providers especially when delivering programmes internationally? / Using the experience of a UK provider in adopting a new grading scheme based on an Ivy League university, this workshop offers the opportunity to reflect on how easily or otherwise comparability might be demonstrated.
3 / Addressing national system change / With much discussion of tiered approaches to quality assessment taking place, what might this mean for SSIs, private and other new providers? How should they best shape their activities to accommodate differential levels of review activity?
4 / Students and providers – a binding contract / Consumer organisations and the media are regularly commenting on levels of student contentedness, and the CMA have stepped in, looking at the applicability of consumer legislation to the student/ provider contract. Surely the relationship is more than transactional? How do we better inform student and other stakeholder expectations of what each will contribute?
5 / HER: The Institution’s and Reviewer’s Tales / Regardless of longer-term change, colleagues still face review under current methodology. In a double-header session, one university offers its account of lessons learnt to assist those still to undergo HER, and a reviewer uses his perspective on the exercise to assist institutions with their approach to HER.
6 / Fair cop, Guvnor? – Implications of an enhanced role for governing bodies in quality management / Governing body annual reports to the Funding Council and the loss of primacy in academic matters for academic boards are already live issues in Scotland. What are the Scottish lessons for the rest of the UK?
7 / QSN Research: Use of Data to support quality management: Next Steps and Case Studies / This workshop follows on from the plenary presentation on QSN’s research project on data in quality management, providing detail of how institutions are making use of data in practice, and looking at what further work the project can usefully do for the sector.
Sessions for Friday afternoon:
Emerging Themes
Using the outputs from the workshops, the key issues arising in discussions during the conference will be identified. This session will provide the opportunity to reflect on these hot topics and push our thinking that bit further…
Everything you always wanted to know about quality but were afraid to ask…
Those questions that eat away at you. Shouldn't you know this? The final part of the conference provides a forum to ask those troubling questions and benefit from the collective wisdom of the QSN membership. Delegates will have the opportunity to submit – anonymously! – topics and the leading contenders will provide the substance for discussion.
Conference Fee:
Free to holders of QSN Season Ticket 2015/16* (one member per institution, see below)
£240 for delegates from member institutions
Unsubsidised fee of £350 for representatives from institutions that have not subscribed as members of QSN
The fee includes the Conference dinner, and overnight accommodation at the conference centre for the night of Thursday, 18 September. Places are limited so early booking is advised to avoid disappointment. Booking is not restricted to the institutional representative - a nominee can attend in his/her place.
QSN Season ticket 2015/16
The Network offers a QSN Season Ticket.
For an annual fee of £495, you receive:
· Institutional membership of QSN
· One free QSN Conference place
· Subsequent Conference places at Member rates
· A free place at (a minimum of) two Symposium events during the year, and member rates for subsequent Symposium delegates.
Any additional events during the year (such as extraordinary meetings to consider specific developments) will also be available at a preferential rate. The place is allocated to the institution, and is not tied to a named individual.
* Some institutions joined with a Season Ticket during 2014/15 but after the 2014 Conference. The Executive has agreed that these institutions can use the free place which this Season Ticket generated for the 2015 Conference.