Introduction
1 This is a report of an audit carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency for
Higher Education (QAA) of the quality assurance arrangements for a partnership
between the University of Leicester and Stafford Associates, located in Dubai,
in respect of an MBA degree programme. This programme is not unique to the partnership
and is offered by distance learning in many centres internationally (see paragraph
12 below).
2 This audit forms part of a series of audits which involved visits to UK Universities and their partners in the Gulf States in the period September to November 1997.
3 The general quality assurance arrangements of the University were the subject of an academic quality audit in May 1993 leading to a report published by the Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) in October 1993.
4 The QAA is grateful to the University and Stafford Associates for their assistance and co-operation with the audit team.
The audit process
5 The audit team was supplied by the University with briefing materials describing
both the MBA programme and its context within the broader framework of the University's
academic provision. These papers were supported by a selection of other University
minutes, documents and publications. Following its reading and discussion of
this material, the team requested a small amount of supplementary information
to assist it in its consideration of certain quality assurance procedures.
6 Members of the audit team visited the University for a clarificatory meeting on 3 September 1997 and met a number of staff including the Registrar, the Academic Registrar, the Head of the International Office, staff of the Higher Degrees Office, and the Director and other staff of the Management Centre in which the MBA programme is located. A second visit was made to the University on 28 October 1997 when the team was represented by the QAA Assistant Director who met the Academic Registrar and the Director of the Management Centre.
7 The audit team visited Stafford Associates in Dubai on 8 October 1997 and held discussions with members of the Stafford Associates management team, a group of locally-based students at various stages in the MBA programme, and two recently appointed full-time tutors.
8 The audit team comprised Professor J Cowan, Dr P A J Easy and Professor J Rear, auditors, and Dr K Clarke, audit secretary. Dr D Law, QAA Assistant Director, accompanied the team and co-ordinated the audit.
The background to the partnership
9 In the overview document which it provided for the purposes of the audit,
the University describes its experience of most types of collaborative
provision as 'slight': other than a small number of foundation courses
and first-year programmes placed with local colleges of further education,
only one MA programme and one Diploma are franchised to other institutions.
However, the University has invested in the development of postgraduate
distance learning programmes both in the UK and overseas. In 1996-97, there
were over 3,600 registrations for such programmes, of which almost 2,500
were students overseas.
10 The major providers of postgraduate distance learning programmes within
the University are its 'entrepreneurial centres' which began to be developed
in the late 1980s. Entrepreneurial centres are defined as such particularly
by their provision of taught postgraduate degrees by distance learning,
as well as by special budgetary arrangements which encourage them to be
self-financing. The audit team was greatly assisted in its understanding
of the role and nature of entrepreneurial centres by the review and report
in 1995-96 of an internal working group on them. The team found that the
review, which included a focus on quality assurance mechanisms, had been
systematic and thorough. It has evidently provided the University with
a continuing agenda of issues related to its entrepreneurial centres in
general and distance learning provision in particular.
11 Entrepreneurial centres are located within existing departments in order to
provide access to the University's committee and other formal structures and,
in theory, the director of an entrepreneurial centre is accountable to the head
of the host department. In practice, however, such centres appear to enjoy a
large degree of independence. This is the case for the Management Centre, the
provider of the MBA offered in partnership with Stafford Associates which is
the subject of this audit. The Centre is located within the Department of Economics
but the audit team heard from Centre staff that it exercised 'considerable independence'.
In confirmation of this, the team noted that the Centre had its own Board of
Studies reporting directly to the Board of the Faculty of the Social Sciences
with responsibilities for student progress, the academic regulation of its courses
and the initial identification and nomination of external examiners. Whilst it
is normal for the appropriate dean to chair such a Board of Studies, and for
the head of the host department to be amongst its members, this arrangement demonstrates
that key quality assurance and academic processes are conducted separately from
those of the department, and it appeared to the team that the respective individual
executive responsibilities for quality assurance carried by the Dean, the Head
of Department, and the Head of the Centre were not clearly articulated.
12 The Management Centre also offers a range of other certificate, diploma and master's awards, many of which are available through distance learning. In 1996-97, the Centre accounted for over 1,000 of the University's distance learning students, the majority of whom are registered for the MBA. At Stafford Associates, the MBA was first offered in October 1995 and now has some 60 registered students with four intakes in each year. The MBA has the same structure and syllabus whether taken full-time on campus or by distance learning through an overseas centre. The programme involves a number of compulsory and optional units followed by a dissertation. By exercising certain choices amongst the options, a student is able to receive a more specific award title, for example, MBA (Marketing) or MBA (Finance).
13 Stafford Associates, a private company based in Dubai, began business in 1993. It is currently engaged in a variety of educational activities and has links with a number of academic institutions, including other UK universities. In the creation of the partnership, the original approach was made by Stafford Associates to the Management Centre, after which the Centre employed a third-party market development consultancy to undertake screening and checks as to the suitability of a link. During this process, information was gathered from a number of sources including the British Council and academic institutions which had worked with Stafford Associates. The positive recommendation emerging from this scrutiny led to a link being formed and the signing of an initial Memorandum of Agreement. The arrangements used by the Management Centre to scrutinise Stafford Associates as a potential partner appeared to the audit team to be thorough and to provide a sound basis for judgement. The University has no overall written guidelines on the approval of agents and is likely to adopt the process used by the Management Centre as good practice, a position which the team would endorse.
14 The initial Memorandum of Agreement between the University and Stafford Associates was signed in January 1996. The audit team was told that the Memorandum was essentially a temporary document, designed to allow some evaluation of the performance of Stafford Associates as an agent, before a fuller and more formal long-term contract was agreed. In broad terms, it described the University as retaining all academic control of the MBA programme and Stafford Associates as acting as an agent rather than as an academic partner. The Memorandum also covered the provision by distance learning of the Certificate in Management and the Diploma in Management. These are awards which are distinct from the MBA and are essentially post-experience rather than postgraduate programmes.
15 During the course of the audit, and some twenty-two months after the original Memorandum, full and formal contracts between the University and Stafford Associates were signed. In discussing these contracts with members of the University, the audit team noted that, in addition to a new agreement for Stafford Associates to continue in an agent's role, a second contract had been drawn up describing 'support services', including the academic provision of seminars, tutorials and supervision sessions for dissertations, for which Stafford Associates takes responsibility.
16 In its scrutiny of the partnership, the audit team considered the nature
of the relationship between the University and Stafford Associates both
preceding and following the signing of the formal contracts. It appeared
to the team that some provisions of the contract were essentially a formalisation
of certain activities undertaken by Stafford Associates which had, in fact,
been known by the Management Centre to have been present from the initiation
of the link. The provision of a systematic programme of classes by Stafford
Associates, albeit optional, had not been referred to in the original Memorandum
of Agreement but was to be part of the full contract. The team concluded
that provision of tuition by Stafford Associates had been in practise a
significant feature of the link from its beginnings.
17 Some further aspects of this situation are discussed later in this report
(see paragraphs 43 to 48 below). However, in the opinion of the audit team, the
academic provision described in the 'support services' contract creates a need
for the University and the Management Centre to pay particular attention to additional
quality assurance procedures which should properly have been implemented at an
earlier stage. As an example, the new contract formalises the use of staff who
are engaged in delivering the University's awards but who are employed by Stafford
Associates. Except in the broadest of terms, the contract does not cover respective
responsibilities in the appointment, training and staff development of such tutors
nor their teaching, assessment and possible quality assurance roles.
18 Whilst acknowledging the reasons for the Management Centre's use of a 'probationary' period between the initial Memorandum of Agreement and the full contract, it appeared to the audit team that there had been considerable potential for confusion in the minds of students regarding the status of the academic provision made by Stafford Associates in the period before the signing of the full contract. The team would advise that the University, in considering its own role in the formation of partnerships and the drawing up of contractual documents, ensures that, in future, such issues are considered, clarified and agreed at the outset between itself and its partners.
Initial validation and approval processes
19 The MBA programme was first approved in 1989 by employing the procedures
which are described in paragraphs 22 to 26 of the University's 1993 HEQC
audit report (see paragraph 3, above). Any substantial additions or modifications
to the programme require a further process of approval; however, in the
case of the addition of another outlet or centre, as with the decision
to begin collaborative delivery with Stafford Associates in 1995, the initial
approval is extended automatically leaving only the process described in
paragraph 13 above for the identification and approval of an agent.
20 In order to describe and exemplify its current arrangements, which are more developed than those which applied when the MBA was approved in 1989, the University included, with its briefing documentation, the pro forma currently used to submit proposals to the University's Board of Graduate Studies. It also opted to provide a recent example of the approval of another taught postgraduate degree by distance learning from the Management Centre. The proposal submitted to illustrate current procedures had been the subject of scrutiny by a small, non-specialist and internal panel established by the Board of Graduate Studies. A very brief report recommending approval, subject to 'the completion and submission of module forms and the compilation of satisfactory course regulations', was sent to the Board of Graduate Studies which accepted this recommendation and passed it to Senate for final approval.
21 In discussing the example presented by the University, the team enquired about the apparent lack of any role for external peers in the approval process, an issue which had been raised in the 1993 audit report as potentially creating 'an undesirable level of insularity in relation to the consideration of new courses at the University'. The team was informed by University staff that external advice would have been taken at an earlier developmental stage, prior to consideration by the panel which reported to the Board of Graduate Studies. Whilst the pro forma now used by the Board of Graduate Studies to assist in the approval of new distance learning courses does require evidence of 'external opinion', the team noted that its provision was restricted to 'the desirability of introducing the new course' rather than inviting comment on academic content or structure.
22 The audit team recognises that there is likely to be some variation, case by case, in the University's validation process. However, from the evidence of the report submitted by the Board of Graduate Studies' panel, validation of new distance-learning programmes appears to be relatively perfunctory and this caused the team to wonder whether the initial validation of the MBA offered through Stafford Associates had been rigorous. The team was given to understand that the University is currently discussing its procedures for the approval of new courses. The University may wish to consider the advisability of strengthening its provision for review by external peers.
Arrangements for programme monitoring and review
23 The primary quality assurance mechanism in the University is the departmental
review, a system introduced in 1995-96. These reviews are conducted by
the Academic Review Committee on a five-year cycle and are intended to
cover all aspects of a department's teaching and research. Advance documentation
is considered by a panel which includes an assessor external to the University.
Following scrutiny of documentation, a one-day visit is made to the department
under review. The report is presented to the relevant faculty board and
to the Academic Review Committee, with a summary of conclusions being submitted
to Senate. A further system of course review, undertaken on a three-yearly
basis and including annual checklists, has been agreed for introduction
in 1997-98.
24 The Management Centre was subject to the departmental review process described above in February 1997. At the time of the audit in October 1997, the report of the review had reached a final draft stage but had not been considered at faculty or University level. The audit team was supplied with copies of the initial and the final draft of the report and noted its coverage, the detail of its enquiries, and the range of its conclusions and recommendations. Although the report had not been considered by the Academic Review Committee at the time of the audit, the final draft had been approved by the review panel and by the Management Centre which is required to submit a written response to its findings. The team has, therefore, used the report as part of its evidence in the conduct of this audit.
25 The audit team could not easily assess the effectiveness of the arrangements used by the Management Centre and the University for cyclical programme monitoring and review. The Centre places importance on its fortnightly staff meetings as a forum for review, and notes of such meetings seen by the team did confirm that review and enhancement of aspects of the Centre's programmes were a regular feature. However, other than the contribution made by the reports of external examiners, there would appear, as yet, to be little else in the University's current systems which encourages the documenting of arrangements for regular monitoring and review. The team welcomes the University's intention to introduce more formal programme-level monitoring in the near future, and recognises that this may well stimulate departments and centres to undertake more systematic monitoring. In addition, the team would also recommend that the reports of departmental reviews are processed with more dispatch than has been the case for the review of the Management Centre which, on the evidence of the final report, was a well-conducted and valuable exercise. Whilst the team understands that staffing problems had delayed the report, the value of such exercises is greatly reduced if a significant period of time is allowed to elapse between the conduct of the review and the report of its outcomes, thus also delaying any action which may be required.
Arrangements for the assessment of students
26 The MBA programme is assessed by coursework and examination in roughly
equal proportions. Coursework assignments are submitted by students to
Stafford Associates and sent in batches to the Management Centre for marking.
Comment sheets and grades are returned within six to eight weeks and students
seen by the audit team confirmed that this timescale was generally achieved.
Examinations are held on three occasions in the year in Dubai using the
premises of Stafford Associates. It is the policy of the Management Centre
to require independent invigilators. However, in this case, Stafford Associates
arranges invigilation which is normally conducted by one of their own tutors,
albeit not employed in any other connection with the MBA. The team would
advise the Management Centre to consider whether such an arrangement meets
its criterion of independence.
27 Students are informed of regulations and procedures regarding assessment through an MBA Programme Handbook which sets out clearly the grading structure, general assessment criteria, advice on the presentation of assignments and the regulations governing late submission of work.
28 The majority of the assessment of students is undertaken by the academic staff of the Management Centre, although research assistants within the Centre are used to grade one of the papers. The report of the working group on entrepreneurial centres had discussed the issue of the 'careful training' of such staff, and the University's expectation, as explained to the audit team, is that these staff should be trained and should not be sole markers. Staff of the Management Centre claimed that research assistants were given training for this role although this did not appear to take the form of a systematic staff development programme.
29 The MBA Handbook contains summary information on plagiarism, an issue which was also raised in 1995 by the working group on entrepreneurial centres, which recommended that centres should work together to produce a core set of guidelines for students and procedures for staff concerning this matter. Whilst the University's central regulations have been reviewed and strengthened in respect of the use of unfair means in assessment, the audit team was told that the centres had yet to agree a shared policy on plagiarism and thus continued to use their own individual guidelines. The team noted that the MBA Handbook contained an accurate summary of the University's Postgraduate Regulations. The team learned that the Management Centre had adopted formal examinations for approximately half of its assessment partly as a mechanism to prevent plagiarism and other similar malpractice, although it noted that there was no apparent mechanism to enable systematic scrutiny of possible discrepancies between coursework and examination grades.
30 The MBA programme has three external examiners who cover the work of all students, several hundreds at any given time, irrespective of their location or mode of study. The examiners are entitled to view all student work but normally confine themselves to standard sampling procedures which include all failures and all grades which might contribute to a distinction for the final award. In discussion with the audit team, staff of the University commented that the external examiners' reports were rather briefer than might be its norm, (some as little as ten lines of general comment). Given the different modes of learning, the diverse geographical locations, and the numbers of students involved in the total MBA programme, the University may wish to consider the advisability of increasing the group of external examiners, perhaps to allow more specific assignment of duties in respect of, for example, cohorts of students or geographical locations. This might assist the production of more detailed and evaluative reports.
31 External examiners for the MBA programme are appointed using the University's standard procedures. Proposals are made by a department, although in this case by the Management Centre rather than the Department of Economics, and are considered by the Board of the Faculty of the Social Sciences before being passed to Senate for final approval. The audit team heard that all nominations were also subject to checks within the Academic Registry before their scrutiny by the Faculty Board to ensure that there are no breaches of the University's Code of Practice on External Examining at First Degree and Taught Master's Level.
32 The audit team noted that the working group on entrepreneurial centres had raised the issue of compliance with University processes in respect of the appointment of external examiners and the receipt and treatment of their reports. The Code of Practice referred to in the previous paragraph makes it clear that external examiners should not be appointed for a period of more than three consecutive years, although they may 'exceptionally be appointed for a fourth and final year'. The team was concerned to find that one external examiner for the MBA programme had served for a period of five years from 1991 to 1996. It was explained that an exceptional case had been made in this instance to provide continuity and expertise during a period of expansion of the MBA. However, the same person has since been appointed as external examiner from 1997 to another Master's programme in the Management Centre which shares modules with the MBA. Having been appointed for a further standard three-year term of office, this examiner will serve for a total of at least eight years in the Centre.
33 The audit team also noted that, in another case, an external examiner for the MBA was recommended for appointment by the Faculty Board on 26 November 1996, but had made his first report to the University earlier in that same month.
34 In summary, these occurrences did not appear to the audit team to be in the spirit of the University's Code of Practice. The team would thus share the concerns of the working group on entrepreneurial centres as regards the need to respect standard practice in external examining procedures. The fact that non-standard procedures appear to have passed through the Board of the Faculty of the Social Sciences without comment (or, at least, without any comment which is recorded in the formal minutes of the Board), indicates that some further review of institutional processes in this area is necessary.
Commentary on the student experience
35 Initial information about the MBA programme, and advice to potential
students, is supplied locally by Stafford Associates who then forward applications
to the Management Centre for approval. Students seen by the audit team
were appreciative of the clear and impartial advice offered by staff of
Stafford Associates who, as part of any initial and informal interview,
had been careful to ensure that students understood the nature of the MBA
and the various options open to them. The team confirmed that the Management
Centre exercised its right to make all decisions on the admission of students
and was prepared to reject applicants if it felt that the MBA was not appropriate
for them. The team commends the care and thoroughness with which this process
is being operated by both Stafford Associates and the University.
36 Following acceptance, overseas distance learning students are inducted by the issue of a pack of information which covers guidelines on learning techniques and some introductory material for the opening units. They also receive the MBA Handbook which offers information on the University and the Management Centre. Additional information is offered by the University's standard Postgraduate Regulations and, more recently, by a newly published version of this document entitled Regulations for Distance Learning Students.
37 Whilst all students seen by the audit team had been issued with the MBA Handbook, it is not apparently the practice to supply individual copies of the Postgraduate Regulations. In some areas, such as the regulations governing student appeals, the Handbook contains only summary information. Whilst the team was informed that a copy of the Postgraduate Regulations was held by Stafford Associates, students seen by the team did not appear to be familiar with its existence. It would be advisable for the University to ensure that this important source of detailed information is made more readily available to students.
38 The Management Centre uses a range of questionnaires to permit students to evaluate their programmes of study. Such questionnaires exist for both the assessment of academic and administrative support. A further questionnaire is presented to its partner agents in order to elicit their views on the totality of the operation. It is the usual practice for responses to this form of evaluation to be analysed externally with a report being presented to the Management Centre on the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the programme. The audit team was also told that it is standard practice for a local student committee to be established at overseas centres.
39 In fact, at the time of the audit, a student committee had yet to be established. The audit team was also given to understand, that because of the early stage of development of the collaboration, no systematic evaluation had been undertaken in respect of the MBA offered through the agency of Stafford Associates. Furthermore, the team was surprised to learn that, in the two years of operation so far, only those students who had attended a supporting summer school in Leicester had had the opportunity to complete evaluation questionnaires. In addition, Stafford Associates did not appear to have been required by the University to participate in the agents' questionnaire. The University may wish to consider the advisability of ensuring that procedures which are standard elsewhere should be introduced to the partnership with Stafford Associates.
40 Students met by the audit team indicated that their oral feedback was welcomed by staff of Stafford Associates and was transmitted informally to the Management Centre. Further opportunities for such feedback were offered by the visits of staff from the Centre to Dubai. However, the informal nature of these processes made it difficult for the team to track the ways by which the results of feedback from Stafford Associates had been assimilated by the relevant University staff and the extent to which action was taken in response.
41 The audit team did have the opportunity to scrutinise large amounts of evaluation data gathered across other centres offering the MBA programme and a selection of the more qualitative responses made by students. The range and nature of this material is considerable and provides ample comment to assist the Management Centre in the evaluation of its MBA programme. In this context, the team would advise that the University requires Stafford Associates, and the students registered through them, to be quickly assimilated into this process in order that they may contribute to the quality assurance and enhancement of the MBA.
42 In more general terms, it was clear to the audit team that students
were appreciative of the experience provided for them at Stafford Associates
and for the various levels of support which they received: good working
relationships between the Management Centre and Stafford Associates, particularly
in respect of the administration and general operation of the MBA, had
contributed to this.
Staffing and staff development
43 The MBA is designed to be taken as a self-sufficient distance learning
programme without the necessity for local tutor support. Students are encouraged
to contact staff at the Management Centre for academic support or to clarify
any other issues regarding course materials, assessment or administrative
matters. The Management Centre is anxious to preserve the free-standing
nature of distance learning programmes such as the MBA in order to promote
equity for all students. However, where sufficient students from a single
location are registered, the University does not oppose the establishment
of study groups or other informal support mechanisms.
44 In the case of Stafford Associates, it was evident to the audit team that students were receiving more comprehensive support services than would be the suggested norm. Students following the MBA programme in Dubai are given the option of registering for either a pure distance learning programme or for a programme which includes systematic and structured teaching and learning supplied by staff of Stafford Associates. It is the expressed belief of the Management Centre that such classes were a private arrangement initiated at the request of early cohorts of students and, as such, it did not consider them as forming part of its provision. On the evidence of discussions with staff of Stafford Associates and students at all stages of the MBA, it would appear that structured classes taught by Stafford Associates, amounting approximately to the equivalent of the teaching of a full-time version of the MBA, had been in place from the initiation of the link and had formed part of Stafford Associates' understanding of its role.
45 The audit team was left in no doubt by students it met that the existence of structured learning support had been a major, and in some cases decisive, factor in their choice of this MBA. In addition, the support classes had been used as part of the promotion of the MBA in at least one newspaper advertisement in Dubai which, in the team's view, implied that the classes had been approved by the University and were, as such, its responsibility.
46 The original Memorandum of Agreement between the University and Stafford Associates made no provision for this feature of the MBA in Dubai although, from the beginning, the Management Centre has reviewed employment applications and offered advice on the appointment of tutors by Stafford Associates. Whilst this situation has now been formalised by the recently signed full contracts, at an earlier stage it would have been difficult to discern where respective responsibilities were lodged. Although the Management Centre had taken a clear view that local provision was not its responsibility and the formal agreement had no reference to the provision of tuition, the audit team wondered whether the University had been fully aware of the possible implications, for example in such matters as student grievances or appeals, of the de facto change of programme mode from distance learning to face-to-face tuition, particularly since local tutors had, if only informally, been approved by the University.
47 The audit team noted that the entrepreneurial centres' forum (a group established following a recommendation arising from the working group on entrepreneurial centres) had received a paper from the Academic Registrar in March 1997 which set out with clarity the implications of the use of local or associate tutors. The team would advise that the details of that paper are now fully considered in order that the expectations of University and its requirements of an overseas partner are made clear in any situation in which substantial local support is offered in advance of the signing of a formal contract.
48 In discussion with the Management Centre, the audit team learned of the intention to make more frequent and regular visits to Dubai in support of its students registered there. At the time of the audit, the team heard that Stafford Associates had not been clearly informed as to whether these visits would represent a general enhancement of the partnership or whether they would specifically supplement the academic support currently received by students. It will be important that the nature and function of these visits is clarified particularly in respect of their relationship to the teaching currently provided by Stafford Associates.
Publicity and promotional materials
49 In matters of publicity and the promotion of the MBA, the contract in
force requires Stafford Associates to submit all examples of advertising
and promotional material to the University for prior approval. The audit
team heard that whilst publicity might be generated by either the Management
Centre or Stafford Associates, final responsibility within the University
rested with the Management Centre. The team learned that, in practice,
not all such publicity was submitted to the University for prior scrutiny,
especially in cases where standard advertisements were being used, but
that any significant changes to the content of previous advertisements
would be offered for approval.
50 The Management Centre itself produces a range of promotional materials and brochures for the academic programmes which it offers. Stafford Associates plays a more active role in the composition and placing of advertisements for the MBA in the Gulf region and the Middle East in general. The audit team found no cause for any concern in the accuracy of such advertisements or the manner in which they presented the relationship between the University and Stafford Associates. Nevertheless, the University may wish to consider the advisability of reviewing its current arrangements for the advance scrutiny of publicity material, in accordance with its contractual agreement with Stafford Associates.
Conclusion and points for further consideration
51 The MBA offered by the University's Management Centre is a large
and complex operation in terms of student numbers, modes of delivery and
geographical locations. It can range, for example, from a cohort of students
registered for full-time study in Leicester, through structured and supported
learning based on distance learning materials, to individual students studying
by a purely distance learning mode overseas. Given the various modules
of programme delivery, the quality assurance procedures might be expected
both to reflect differences between student groups and situations, and
to express the University's commitment to the attainment of common standards
wherever and however the programme is delivered.
52 The University appears to have achieved these requirements in the quality assurance of its educational partnership with Stafford Associates. In a number of respects, however, this partnership has been based more on an ethos of mutual trust than on a formal contractual basis. The audit team was informed that the University had approved Stafford Associates because the personnel of the company were experienced in distance learning and academic management. Whilst acknowledging that the Management Centre exercised commendable care in the selection of Stafford Associates as a partner, mutual trust must be accompanied by a formal contractual governance of academic partnerships. This has now been fully recognised by the new agreements covering support services and recruitment agency functions (see paragraphs 15 and 17, above) which build on the original Memorandum of Understanding (see paragraph 14, above).
53 As part of its responsibility for the standards of its awards, the University may also wish to review issues raised in the two University reviews to which reference has been made in this report (see paragraphs 10 and 24, above), together with the paper on local tutors considered in March 1997 (see paragraph 47, above). In particular, the audit team would advise that further scrutiny of the appointment and use of external examiners, and the arrangements in all overseas centres for the formal review and monitoring of programmes such as the MBA, would be appropriate.
54 There is evidence from students that the particular arrangements for the provision of the MBA through Stafford Associates has resulted in an experience which meets their particular needs and situation.
Annex
Commentary on the audit report supplied by the
University of Leicester
The University would like to draw attention to the following matters
which are relevant to the QAA's audit of its distance-learning programmes
offered in collaboration with Stafford Associates.
1. The University has developed a code of practice in relation to its distance-learning activities, drawing on the HEQC's Code of Practice for Overseas Collaborative Provision but also containing other material relevant to this institution's particular approach to this mode of delivery. The code is still in draft form pending the University's formal consideration of the QAA's audit report, but it will be available for submission as part of its formal response to that report.
2. The report makes reference to contractual arrangements underpinning the provision of academic and pastoral support to students, and the University would like to record that it has changed its approach to this matter in the period since the audit took place. The University will now contract directly with suitably qualified 'associate teachers' to provide services, and this arrangement will be underpinned by:
- an enabling Ordinance, allowing for and governing the University's relationship
with external institutions and individuals
- appointments procedures which include scrutiny of CVs, references, etc.,
- formal job descriptions
- contracts with the University
- centrally-held records of associate teachers
- the provisions of the code of practice referred to above, which includes
a number of other quality control mechanisms
The University regards it as highly undesirable to contract for academic services with agencies in circumstances where there can be no guarantee as to the quality of the individuals who may be employed by the agencies to carry out those services.
3. The issue of the possible tension between the operation of the entrepreneurial centres and the traditional University managerial hierarchy of department/head of department/dean is included in the remit of a working group established by the Vice-Chancellor as part of a wide-ranging strategic review.
Top