Outcomes from institutional audit
Initial overview

Summary

Institutional audit was introduced in England in 2002-03 for a transitional period of three years, during which all higher education institutions in England are to host an institutional audit. In 2002-03 and 2004-05, 70 institutions participated in audits. Of these:

30 were universities before 1992
nine were constituent institutions of the University of London
14 were designated universities by virtue of the Further and Higher Education Act (1992)
four had powers to award taught degrees
13 were higher education institutions without their own degree awarding powers.

Of the 70 institutions hosting audits in this period, 15 can be considered to have specialist missions. Of these there are:

seven institutions specialising in art and design
four conservatoires
one institution specialising in drama education
two institutions focusing on agricultural and land-based activities and
one stand-alone business school.

Overwhelmingly, the 70 published audit reports have expressed broad confidence in the soundness of institutions' current and likely future management of the quality of their programmes and the academic standards of their awards.

The reports of the 70 audits demonstrate that most institutions have established sound arrangements in:

academic guidance support and supervision for students
personal support and guidance for students, and
staff support and development.

A substantial number of institutions can demonstrate strengths in the way they have designed their frameworks for managing quality and academic standards. There are, however, suggestions for further work in this area in a majority of reports. Similarly, with respect to assessment matters, while the majority of reports indicate features of good practice, there are a large number of recommendations in this area.

Other areas where the reports suggest development in institutions' arrangements include:

internal approval of new programmes, and the monitoring and review of programmes (with annual monitoring being a particular focus)
the use of external reference points, and
the way institutions work with their external examiners and use their reports.

Preface

An objective of institutional audit is 'to contribute, in conjunction with other mechanisms, to the promotion and enhancement of high-quality in teaching and learning'. One of the ways in which this can be accomplished is through identifying features of good practice across the reports and areas where reports have commonly offered recommendations for improvement.

In due course, QAA intends to produce an extended reflection on institutional audit in the Learning from audit series, but since the final institutional audit reports in the present audit cycle will not be published until Spring 2006, Learning from institutional audit is unlikely to be published before late 2006. To give institutions and other stakeholders more timely information, QAA has therefore decided to produce a series of short working papers, describing features of good practice and summarising recommendations from the audit reports, to be published under the generic title Outcomes from institutional audit (hereafter, Outcomes...).

A feature of good practice in institutional audit is considered to be a process, a practice, or a way of handling matters which, in the context of the particular institution, is improving, or leading to the improvement of, the management of quality and/or academic standards, and learning and teaching. Outcomes... papers are intended to provide readers with pointers to where features of good practice relating to particular topics can be located in the published audit reports. Each Outcomes... paper therefore identifies the features of good practice in individual reports associated with the particular topic. A note on the topics identified for the first series of Outcomes... papers, to be published throughout 2005, can be found at Appendix 3. It should be emphasised that features of good practice should be considered in their proper institutional context, and that each is perhaps best viewed as a stimulus to reflection and further development rather than as a model for emulation.

The first series of Outcomes... papers is based on the 70 institutional audit reports published by the end of November 2004. The second series will draw on institutional audit reports published following the 2004-05 audits, and it is likely that there will be some overlap in topics between the first and second series. Papers in each series are perhaps best seen as 'work in progress'. Although QAA retains copyright in the contents of the Outcomes... papers they can be freely downloaded from QAA's website and cited, with acknowledgement.

Introduction

1 This overview paper describes the overall characteristics of the institutions which were the subject of the 70 reports of the institutional audits carried out by QAA in 2002-03 and 2003-04. It also comments on the overall pattern of references to features of good practice and recommendations in the reports. A note on the methodology followed in producing the Outcomes... papers can be found in Appendix 4.

The institutions and the institutional audit reports

2 The 70 institutional audit reports published by 5 November 2004 are listed in Appendix 1. Of these, 24 relate to the 2002-03 session and 46 to the 2003-04 session. The broad characteristics of the institutions which were the focus of these reports are as follows.

Table 1: Types of institution

Year of audit	Pre-1992	University of London	Post-1992	University college	HE college	Total
2002-03	3	7	2	3	9	24
2003-04	27	2	12	1	4	46
Total	30	9	14	4	13	70

3 The institutions audited in this period included 24 which, by reference to their mission, could be described as 'specialist': these are listed in Appendix 2. They included five conservatoire-type institutions, seven institutions focusing on art and design and a stand-alone business school.

Table 2: Specialist institutions

Year of audit	Art and design	Conservatoire	Drama	Agricultural	Business school
2002-03	4	4	1	0	1
2003-04	3	0	0	2	0

The overall patterns of features of good practice and recommendations

4 In the 70 institutional audit reports from 2002-04 there are clear indications of strengths in the following areas.

Table 3: Features of good practice

Heading in Section 2 of the Main Report	Number of reports/ paragraph references
Academic guidance, support and supervision	50/110
Staff support and development	44/90
Personal support and guidance	39/70
Institutions' frameworks for managing quality and standards	31/61
[Discipline audit trails	31/74*]

*See below, page 11.

Recommendations

5 An analysis of the recommendations in each of the 70 published reports and their location in the Main Report shows clusters in the following areas.

Table 4

Heading in Section 2 of the Main Report	Number of reports/ paragraph references
Internal approval, monitoring and review	58/142
Institutions' frameworks for managing quality and standards	43/113
External reference points	39/77
External examiners and their reports	54/36
Academic guidance support and supervision	29/44
[Discipline audit trails	38/125*]