Dear Colleague
As Chair of the Quality Strategy Network, I am pleased to write to you in your role as your Institution’s representative on QSN. If there has been a change of responsibility, I would be grateful if you could pass this to your successor and invite her/him to reply to the various matters below.
This newsletter is:
- to remind you of the purposes of QSN
- to give you advance notice of events that the Executive Committee has arranged
- to invite you to participate in a JISCMail facility for members
- to provide details of the QSN membership subscription
- to let you have short background information on Executive Committee members.
QSN
To remind you, the Network is a group of senior practitioners who normally hold institutional responsibility for the oversight of quality management. The purposes of QSN include strategic, proactive engagement with key quality issues.
It seeks to provide a leadership focus for its members in interacting with relevant bodies and as a source of developing good practice. These aims – to influence policy and to provide a forum for mutual support – were very strongly underscored at our inaugural conference in Nottingham in September 2006. We are also able to bring to your attention, from time-to-time, information on relevant activities arranged by other organisations.
Events
We agreed at the AGM held at the end of the Nottingham Conference to hold an Annual Conference and a number of “smaller” events.
Please put in your diary the date of the 2007 Annual Conference. This will be held at the University of Aston Conference Centre on 27/ 28 September. The theme is “Accountability and Trust: from enforcement to empowerment?” Key speakers will be Professor Roger Brown, VC of Southampton Solent University and former Chief Executive of HEQC, who will look to the future; and Boris Johnson, MP, Shadow Spokesperson for Higher and Further Education who will provide some insight into developing opposition HE policy in an after-dinner address. Full details of the programme and booking forms (one representative per institution) will be available shortly after Easter. We expect the inclusive residential cost to be about £200.
For those of you would want to plan well in advance, please note that the 2008 Annual Conference will also be at the Aston Conference Centre on 25/26 September 2008.
We have arranged, in association with the Norwich School of Art and Design, a symposium at Norwich on 14 June 2007 on “Understanding and Managing Student Expectations”. This is already very well subscribed - there are a few places left so please contact:
Emma Gibbs at NSAD
Tel: 01603 757239
Email: e.gibbs@nsad.ac.uk
JISC mail
The Executive Committee would like to establish a JISCMail facility for members. The facility will provide:
- means of advising of news and forthcoming events (a series of these is being arranged, as well as our second annual conference);
- on-line discussion facilities - discussion could take form of exchanging thoughts and suggestions on hot topics, the formulation of responses to consultation exercises, requests for advice and responses to them, etc; and
- a repository for proceedings, etc, from events (including material from the 2006 Conference); QSN responses to consultation papers; information on good practice, etc.
To enable us to set up the JISC facility, I would be very grateful if you could kindly confirm that you are willing for us to add your email address to the JISC list to enable. To do this, please simply reply to Jack Aitken, the Membership Secretary at j.aitken@admin.gla.ac.uk.
QSN subscription
The broad purposes of QSN, summarised above, were endorsed at the Nottingham Conference in 2006, where it was agreed that QSN would be a “membership” organisation advancing the interests of members and their institutions in their quality management endeavours. The events arranged by QSN would be on a cost recovery basis, but it was agreed that QSN would need to be sufficiently viable financially by keeping a small reserve to underwrite deposits for Annual Conferences, subsidiary specialist events, offering occasional fees to key speakers etc. The AGM at Nottingham agreed in principle to a modest membership fee to keep QSN afloat. The Executive decided to defer the introduction of the fee until
the membership communication system had been established and details of QSN activities were available. The Executive has decided that annual institutional subscriptions will run from 1 August-31 July, payable in advance. The subscription has been set at £150 per Institution for 2007/08 from 1 August 2007. I should be grateful if you could kindly arrange payment via the attached proforma. The Executive has agreed that, for the time being, the QSN account will continue to be held at the University of Northampton.
Executive committee
The Nottingham AGM endorsed the proposal that the QSN Executive should comprise up to 15 members with at least 2 members from UK Institutions outwith England. Members are elected by the AGM for 3 years, and may stand again after a period of 12 months. The Executive has agreed a phased standing down of existing members in the first three years of operation, but allowing standing down members in 2007 and 2008 who will not have served the full 3 years an opportunity to stand for re-election immediately for a full 3 year term if they so wish. The AGM confirmed the then QSN Steering Committee’s nominations of Chair and Vice-Chairs, and delegated to the new Executive responsibility for determining officer roles and who should fill them. Brief CVs of the current Executive members are attached.
I very much hope you will continue to participate in QSN events, and contribute opinions, suggestions and offers of help via the JISC Mail. I am grateful for your support of QSN and look forward to hearing from you shortly and hopefully to seeing you at QSN events.
With every good wish.
Peter Bush, Chair, QSN
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