Evaluation and Revalidation Processes

AGREED BY TEACHING AND LEARNING COMMITTEE AT ITS MEETING ON 23 APRIL 2008

The following key changes were endorsed by the Committee for implementation with effect from the 2008/9 academic year.

· Reduced overall documentation requirements with a single template for both evaluation and revalidation documents.

· No detailed scrutiny of evidence of demand as already considered by Academic Planning Sub-Committee or through annual planning exercise.

· Reduced description of assessment expectations in module descriptions – teams are no longer encouraged to identify in which particular assessment component an identified learning outcome is to be assessed. Panels will assume that the team will ensure that all outcomes are adequately assessed and that detailed assessment requirements are given to students.

· Removal of all contextual information provided to panels except subject benchmark (and relevant PSRB) standards and external examiner reports.

· A three week deadline for submission of documentation for single course events and a four week deadline for larger events.

· Process to be phased for partner institutions in relation to the completion of the institutional approval process. Until a college has been approved or re-approved at institutional level, current sections C1 – 4 (Equality of Opportunity, Admissions, Student Support and Quality Assurance and Enhancement) to be retained.

· Reduced internal panel membership to one (previously two), in addition to chair.

· CA7 Preliminary Comments form to be revised to encourage external subject experts to comment specifically on curriculum matters.

· Academic Office’s preliminary comments will no longer be circulated to internal and external panel members. They will be provided only to the Panel Chair in advance of the meeting and to the Faculty on the day of the meeting.

· Addition of a meeting with a representative group of students (to include class representatives where this is the form of student consultation) - normally revalidation only.

Programme Specification

· Full version of programme specification to be used for validation purposes only with Faculties publishing a reduced version, removing the detailed structure diagrams and grid of learning outcomes, so that the programme specification does not require frequent revision.