ANNUAL MONITORING REPORT PROCESS
October 2005
At its meeting on October 5th 2005, Senate agreed a new process for Annual Monitoring Reports, with immediate effect. The overriding principle of the new process is to recognise that Schools have the maturity to effectively address Annual Monitoring within their own internal processes, and the University has confidence that this meets the QAAHE criteria to assure the quality of our courses.
This document outlines the revised annual monitoring processes to be applied to courses of the University for the 2004-05 session, with the following exceptions:
· courses where there is no evidence of good standing (i.e. who did not submit a satisfactory report for the previous session); and
· Collaborative Provision (including Bradford College).
1. Schools will undertake an annual, critical review of courses. The format and content of this review will be owned and determined by the School, and will include input from all relevant bodies and stakeholders in the School, as appropriate, for example: reports from course teams; pedagogic review/away days; views of Assessment Committees and/or Boards of Examiners; learning and teaching issues; External Examiners reports. External and professional body input will be sought where appropriate.
2. Schools may wish to report on undergraduate and postgraduate courses separately or together. This will be a matter for the School Board to decide.
3. Schools should use the action plans from 2003/4 and any outstanding actions outlined in the Final Feedback Report identified by the Annual Monitoring Team which considered the reports as part of their critical review of courses for the 2004/5 session.
4. In addition to a critical review of each course, Schools will prepare an overall annual report against performance indicators as defined in Appendix 1. Most of the information in this report will be produced centrally, from SAINT, and will then be completed by the School. It is hoped that, in the future, the SAINT data could be made available as an electronic report that Schools could run as and when they needed it. It is also planned to revise the way that student feedback is collected and interpreted so that this is also done electronically. However, for the 2004/05 reports at least, the data will be collected centrally and distributed as a printed report (or several reports), as previously.
5. Schools will submit their critical reviews (as in 1 above) and their annual report of performance indicators (4 above) to the School Board (or delegated authority) for consideration and approval. The School Board will review all the reports and will note and consider any areas of concern. The School Board will also report on any exceptions in the performance indicators. As an example, one of the performance indicators shows the number of courses for which there is no External Examiner and it is expected that this will be zero. Should the number be anything other than a zero, an explanation of the reason for this will be required in the School Board minutes.
6. Schools will specifically note in the School Board minutes how the student voice has been engaged in the process.
7. The School Board minutes, together with the annual report of performance indicators, will be submitted to APC 4 or APC 5 for consideration. There will be no requirement to submit the critical review to APC. The School Board should submit its minutes to the ASSU before Monday 24th April 2006 for the meeting of the APC to be held on 3rd May 2006; or before Monday 15th May 2006 for the meeting to be held on 26th May 2006.
8. The critical review and the annual report of performance indicators will be sent by the School to the course External Examiners immediately following the APC.
9. There will be no requirement to submit the reports to an Annual Monitoring Team. These teams will therefore be disbanded for campus based courses, although for at least the next two years there will continue be an AMT for the Collaborative Provision courses, Bradford College courses, and University courses where there is no evidence of good standing, as these courses will still be considered under the old process.
10. Should any concerns about the quality of courses be raised at APC, the Chair of APC and the Head of ASSU will meet with the Dean and his or her team to discuss the issues raised. The outcome of this will be reported back to the next APC.
11. The APC will prepare a report to the Senate on the quality of the courses.
12. This process is in place with immediate effect, i.e. for the 2004/5 session.
ASSU
October 2005
Appendix 1
Annual Monitoring Report
Performance Indicators
1 Number of: - courses reviewed
- new courses
- courses not reviewed
- courses to be closed
2 Number of: - courses with increased student numbers
- courses with decreased student numbers - courses regularly increasing student numbers
- courses regularly decreasing student numbers
(intake numbers from the HESES data of the 1st December of the year under review will be provided to inform the Schools in the production of these numbers)
3 Number of: - courses without an external examiner
- external examiners coming to the end of their office in the coming
year
- external examiner reports received
- external examiner reports not received
- issues raised by external examiners classified by the School as major
4 Number of: - courses considered by CARTS
- courses considered by CART in absence of External Expert
- courses approved by CART
Proportion of Chair’s Actions completed by the scheduled date
5 Progression and Completion
- School progression rate from Level Zero to Stage One
- School progression rate from Stage One to Stage Two
- School progression rate from Stage Two to Stage Three
- School progression rate at end of first Stage for students admitted with a waiver
- School completion rate
Number of: - courses with an increasing progression rate
- courses with a decreasing progression rate
6 Student Body
Proportion of: - mature students
- male / female students
- MEG students
- low socio-economic group
- disabled and / or those with special needs
- from Bradford
- from West Yorkshire
- from East Lancashire
7 Entry Qualifications
School average intake tariff
Number of: - courses below School average
Proportion of: - students from Access Courses
- students from A Levels
- students from Foundation Year
- students admitted with prior credit
- students admitted with a waiver
- other
8 Benchmarking
This section is for Schools to complete should they wish to do so.
Institutions used for benchmarking purposes
Courses performing better than those benchmark Institutions
9 Process
This section is for Schools to complete
Number of: - AMR reports submitted on time
Date(s): - on which Academic Committee reviewed the reports
Date: - on which School Board reviewed the report
10 External Recognition
Number of: - courses with PSB accreditation
- courses with no accreditation but negotiated exemptions
- other external recognition
11 Student evaluations
University performance target is a 60% response rate.
Number of courses which fall below the performance target
School average satisfaction rate
Number of courses below the School average
Number of courses below the School average for two or more consecutive years.
12 Employment statistics
First destination of graduates by course.