Maintenance of Standards

The Academic Board assures itself of the standards of its awards by its own internal monitoring and by a network of external reference, the most important part of which is the external examiner system.

Standards are monitored and controlled by reference to the external viewpoints brought to bear on all aspects of academic provision. This operates in a variety of ways. The functioning of the external examiner system is described here. By the nature of their disciplines themselves, the majority of our programmes of study are informed by a range of expertise that goes beyond what is available from the full-time staff of the institution. It is characteristic of all the subjects in creative arts that a significant amount of the teaching and marking is done by those who both teach at other institutions, or practice outside HE altogether. All students within teacher education programmes are similarly exposed to the views of professional schoolteachers as well as professional teacher educators.

All new programmes of study are exposed to external scrutiny by means of the course planning and approval process.

The committees centrally concerned with quality assurance include external members, both at school and at University levels.

The University sees these external reference points as vital to the health of its academic provision, and integral to ?peer review?.

On a regular basis, Academic Board, via AQSC, discusses a report from the Deputy Registrar on assessment and degree classifications, which identifies trends, and makes national comparisons. The annual round of reporting of programmes of study also addresses the issue of standards, with particular reference to the range and effectiveness of assessment methods.