Quality Assurance and Quality Enhancement relationships and perspectives

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Quality Assurance and Quality Enhancementrelation
ships and perspectives

• Nick Harris
• Director QAA Development and Enhancement Group

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UK contexts for QA and QE

• the hefce principles (and for Northern
  Ireland?)
• assurance/standards (before?) enhancement
• within a QA Framework
• a jigsaw of enhancement activities
• or crazy paving ?
• the Scottish Funding Council approach
• ELIR framework encompasses assurance
• focussed enhancement themes
• students built in from early planning
• Wales
• currently under evaluation / development

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Quality enhancement the new hope?

• what is it? what is it becoming?
• danger of being bureaucratised to form of QA
• and / or form of educational busy-ness ?
• (e.g. new interactive e-learning
  establishing work experience)
• new forms of imposed frameworks
• that cabin and confine institutions and
  academics ?
• the potential may go unrealised

Question Can QE encourage HEIs to engage
with fundamental problems of student
development, curriculum innovation, and
pedagogical transformation? and think
the impossible?
from Prof Ron Barnetts talk to QAA 4
June 2008
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a QAA perspective

• In Scotland
• ELIR mk2 agreed upon
• In England and NI
• institutional audit includes a definition
• this is for audit purposes ..
• it is NOT regarded as the definition
• There is NO expectation that HEIs should follow
  some real or perceived best practice model
• for QE strategy and implementation

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a QAA perspective

• sees a diverse (differentiating?) sector
• improvement / doing things better will take
  different forms from HEI to HEI
• QA methods must (be able to)
• take account of plurality
• collate / disseminate the good stuff without it
  becoming the must do or appear to do stuff
• enhancement as a late extra or an integral
  part ?
• how do we
• avoid a new mechanistic orthodoxy ?
• deal with Heisenberg ?

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a personal perspective 1
enhancing excellence in HE learning and
teaching is this really possible in the
current context? do we know / agree what higher
education is / should be .. now ? and if we
dont know / agree do we just set a minimum
.. .. but can we really then talk about
enhancement? resources matter but enhancement
within a diminishing unit of resource? it
should take time thinking / planning /
doing takes time but is there enough time?
.. a value for money student experience what
is enhancement in this context? or should
enhancement (like a good 2i) just be
something we know when we see it ?
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Barrys questions

• is continuous improvement the same as quality
  enhancement?
• to what extent is there, or can there be, shared
  understanding of good practice?
• how can dissemination move beyond getting the
  word out to getting the word used?
• what is the relationship of QA to QE?
• what implications do different understandings of
  the relationship have for structures and
  processes?
• to what extent does QE involve risk, and how
  might it be mitigated?
• how broad are the aspects of the student
  experience that are addressed by QE?
• to what extent can enhancement be part of
  institutional strategy, or does that run the risk
  of demotivating innovative staff?

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Ron Bs questions

• is QE the new hope?
• can it encourage HEIs and their staff to engage
  with
• fundamental problems of student development,
• curriculum innovation, and
• pedagogical transformation .. and
• think the impossible?

Nicks question is enhancement the new
stairway to heaven ?
show us what its like !
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and just a reminder ..
a song of hope !?
enhanced !!??

• ..
• Call some place paradise ..
• Kiss it goodbye ..

last lines of last track on the Eagles Hotel
California album