Preface
Quality Assurance of Overseas Collaborative Provision
The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) was established in 1997 to contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the quality and standards of all UK higher educational provision, wherever and however this is offered to students. To this end, QAA undertakes regular academic quality audits of individual institutions to review the operation and effectiveness of arrangements for assuring quality and standards.
Quality audits also cover the arrangements which institutions use to assure the quality and standards of their awards and programmes offered in collaboration with other partners, both within and outside the UK. As part of this process, QAA has extended its audit procedures enabling audit teams to visit overseas partners of UK institutions so that the same enquiries can be made of arrangements for safeguarding UK awards and programmes offered to students outside the UK as are made of UK-based provision. This initiative has been designed to help provide enhanced confidence in the work of UK universities and colleges operating overseas.
QAA's enquiries have been assisted by the publication in December 1996 of the former Higher Education Quality Council's revised Code of Practice for Overseas Collaborative Provision in Higher Education. This offers guidance on good practice and a framework within which institutions can review and consider their current and future activities. The Code of Practice has been widely welcomed and has been used as a common point of reference for the programme of overseas visits. Shortly after this overseas audit visit, QAA published a Code of Practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education: Collaborative provision. This document will form the basis of overseas auditing activities undertaken with effect from Summer 2000.
The UK universities and colleges, with the agreement of their overseas partners, were voluntary participants in the programme of overseas visits. Their collaborative links cover between them a range of programmes and subjects, levels of award and different forms of institutional partnership.
This report is one of a number of reports published from the summer 1999 overseas audit programme to Ireland.
Foreword
1 This is a report of an academic audit carried out by the Quality
Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) of the quality assurance arrangements
for a collaborative partnership between Southampton Institute (the Institute)
and Griffith College Dublin (the College) to deliver a programme of studies,
through a franchise arrangement, leading to the award of the BA (Hons)
Business and Law (BABL) of The Nottingham Trent University (TNTU).
2 The Institute was asked to provide a Commentary on its arrangements which would describe the collaborative link, making reference to the extent to which it was considered to be representative of its procedures and practice in all its overseas collaborative activity, or was specific to its collaborative activities in Ireland. The Institute was also asked to provide a view of the effectiveness of the means by which it assured itself of the quality of the learning opportunities and student support offered through this overseas link and to offer its view of the effectiveness of the means by which it assures itself of the standards of awards gained through this overseas link.
3 At the end of its Commentary, the Institute was asked to list the sources and nature of the evidence on which it relied to assure itself that the quality of the collaborative educational provision leading to its awards (or awards for which it had responsibilities) was meeting its requirements and expectations, and that the standard of the relevant awards were being safeguarded. The Institute was asked to make this evidence available to the QAA audit team on the occasion of its visit.
4 The full membership of the Ireland audit team was: Dr F R Burnet; Professor R A Pearce, Mr J C P Raban and Dr D Timms, auditors, and Mr G Clark, audit secretary. Additional audit secretary support was provided by Ms T Hazard, QAA. The audit was co-ordinated for QAA by Dr D W Cairns. The members of the team who visited the Institute on 27-28 April 1999 were Dr F R Burnet and Dr D W Cairns, auditors, and Ms T Hazard, audit secretary. In the course of the visit team members consulted materials made available for the purpose in a base room. They also held discussions with 14 members of the Institute, some on more than one occasion; these included: the Principal; senior members of the Institute's academic management; members of the team delivering the BABL 'parent' programme in Southampton; and members of the Institute with responsibilities for supporting the operation and quality assurance of the franchise.
5 Members of the audit team visited the Institute's partner, Griffith College Dublin on 19 May. On this occasion, the members of the team were Dr F R Burnet and Mr J C P Raban, auditors; and Mr G Clark, audit secretary. Dr D W Cairns accompanied the team for QAA. In the course of its visit the team met: the Principal of the College; members of the College delivering and supporting the Institute's programme franchised from the Institute; and students from all years of the programme. In all, the team met some 16 members of the College, some on more than one occasion.
6 QAA is grateful to the staff of the Institute and to staff and students at the College for their assistance and co-operation with the audit team. The team is particularly grateful to the Ireland-based external examiner for the programme, who travelled to Dublin.
The institutional context for collaborative provision
7 Southampton Institute prepares students for awards of The Nottingham
Trent University. Under the terms of an annually-reviewed Institutional
Agreement with TNTU, the Institute is authorised to award taught and research
degrees, subject to conditions, and to validate new programmes of study
to be offered by itself. The current arrangement does not, however, allow
the Institute to validate programmes leading to TNTU awards at other institutions,
whether these are in the UK or overseas, and restricts the capacity of
the Institute to franchise programmes of study leading to TNTU awards without
reference to the latter (see below, paragraph 17). The Institute and TNTU
are at present jointly reviewing the terms of their current Institutional
Agreement in the light of the development of QAA continuation audit and
the new QAA Code of Practice for the assurance of academic quality and
standards in higher education: Collaborative provision.
8 Since 1998, TNTU itself has validated an LLB (Hons) in Irish Law at Griffith College. This partnership, which is intended to be wholly separate and distinct from the Institute's franchised programme, is the subject of a QAA overseas collaborative provision audit in its own right, conducted in the same overall programme of QAA audit visits to Ireland, and is the subject of a separate overseas audit report.
9 In 1995-96 the Institute was the subject of two academic audit reports by the former Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC). The first of these, published in May 1996, related to the Institute's educational provision as a whole; the second, published in December 1996, related to an overseas academic partnership with an institution in Murcia, Spain. The first report, while noting the potential rigour of the Institute's complex quality assurance arrangements, found that 'the Institute's practice in overseas activity [did] not always work within the spirit of what was initially intended and what might be accepted as entirely safe and good practice'. This first report recommended to the Institute that it needed to take urgent action in order to safeguard the standard of TNTU's awards by 'ensuring that the quality assurance arrangements for overseas and other collaborative provision are within the control of the Academic Board and within the spirit of what the Institute acknowledges to be good practice'. The report on the Institute's overseas partnership in Spain noted that the approval procedures adopted by the Institute appeared to have left some of the principal participants in that process unclear of some of its outcomes.
10 The Institute formally welcomed both HEQC reports and in its subsequent follow-up response to HEQC, a year later, described the actions that it had taken in response, in association with its awarding body TNTU. At the time of the present audit the Institute had reviewed its overall academic strategy, as a result of which it had decided to divest itself of those of its overseas collaborative arrangements incapable of meeting strict financial and academic quality assurance criteria. Of the Institute's two remaining overseas collaborative arrangements one, in Alicante, Spain, is due to come to an end in July 2000 and the other, the subject of the present audit, will be maintained for as long as it meets the Institute's financial and quality assurance criteria. The Institute intends to establish no further overseas collaborative links: its partnership with the College therefore constitutes the entirety of its continuing overseas collaborative provision. The current version of the Institutional Agreement between the Institute and TNTU proscribes sub-franchising and new overseas collaborative activity. It is the Institute's intention that, henceforth, it will focus its partnership activities on its collaborations with local further education colleges.
11 As previous HEQC academic audit reports noted, the Institute regulates, maintains and enhances the quality of its educational provision with reference to the provisions of its Quality in Courses Manual (QICM), now in its fifth edition. QICM defines two forms of franchise agreement: 'franchise by sub-contract' and 'franchise by licence'. In each case the prospective partner institution is required to 'provide evidence of its financial security and demonstrate how the programme to be franchised would form part of the [partner] institution's corporate plan'. The franchise arrangement is normally to be approved only for an initial period of two years, but the franchise may be extended by a further three years following a formal review of progress with a satisfactory outcome. The Institute's partnership with the College is classed by the Institute as a franchise by licence. In such an arrangement, 'an institution operates the Institute's programme...and pays the Institute an agreed licence fee' for each student. Under a franchise by licence, students 'enrol with the [partner] institution'.
12 The current edition of the QICM (as with its 1995 predecessor) provides detailed guidance for the initiation of a franchise. In both editions there is a requirement that the institution seeking to enter into partnership with the Institute should provide the Institute with a 'fact file' containing information on its financial security and probity; a brief description of its constitution, status, organisation and structure; the numbers of its staff and its management arrangements; the general level of its learning resources; its present student body and the rationale for wishing to operate the Institute's programme. Additionally, the current version of the QICM states that, when considering the validation of an overseas franchise, 'the Institute takes especial regard of the national and local context within which the prospective partner is working'.
The partnership between Southampton Institute
and Griffith College, Dublin
The origins and purposes of the link
13 The College is a private institution established in 1974 which offers programmes in business, management, finance, media, computing, interior design and law. In 1999 approximately 2,500 students were pursuing their studies at the College, mainly at undergraduate level. The College's programmes are validated by Ireland's National Council for Educational Awards (NCEA), a statutory authority established in 1979 to validate courses and award qualifications to those who successfully complete degree and other courses in institutions outside the university sector. A number of the College's programmes of study are accredited by professional bodies. The College formerly had partnership arrangements with the University of Ulster. These ceased development in 1996, when the three awards concerned 'migrated' from the University of Ulster to NCEA validation. The College currently operates a validation arrangement with TNTU, leading to the latter's award of an LLB (Hons) in Irish Law (see above, paragraph 8, and below, paragraph 52).
14 The College is owned by a private limited company 'Bellerophon Limited', registered in Ireland. It is managed by a Board of Directors, headed by a Chairman who is also the College's Principal and is sometimes referred to as its President. Academic matters within the College are handled by a 'Faculty Board' which meets weekly. This Board is attended by deans of faculties and course directors and has a wide remit but no formal terms of reference. Individual programmes of study each have a 'course committee' the membership of which includes student representatives.
15 Papers provided by the Institute indicated that the franchise arrangement
between the Institute and the College had developed from initial exchanges
between the then Head of the Institute, and the President of the College,
prior to a formal arrangement being established in 1995-96. At the time,
the relevant version of the QICM did not require the prospective partner
to provide information which would allow the Institute to establish its
financial and organisational stability; such a requirement was added in
subsequent versions.
Initial validation and institutional approval procedures
16 One of the NCEA-validated programmes of study at the College is a three-year National Diploma in Legal Studies, and the College's initial approach to the Institute in 1995 was for the purpose of providing its students with access to a 'top-up' programme of studies, which would lead from this Diploma to an honours level degree award of TNTU. This top-up programme was validated by the Institute in September 1995 in order to be franchised to the College in October 1995. Subsequently, collaboration has been based on the franchise to the College of all levels of the BABL programme delivered at Southampton.
17 At the beginning of September 1995, the Institute conducted an internal validation event at which the one-year top-up programme of studies (including a 'bridging programme' for the College's Diploma students) was considered. The validation panel which considered this proposal included external peers and a senior member of the then Department of Law of TNTU. The reports of the validation event in Southampton indicate that the proposal was thoroughly scrutinised. Members of the panel expressed reservations concerning the appropriateness of the particular units from the Institute's BABL that had been selected for franchise to the College. The panel agreed to recommend to the Academic Board of the Institute that the programme should be approved, however, subject to two conditions, and that a review of the operation of the franchise programme should take place half way through its first year of operation. Under the powers conferred on it by the Institutional Agreement with TNTU, the Academic Board of the Institute was able to approve this validation without further reference to the University.
18 At the end of September 1995 members of the Institute conducted an extended visit to the College to ensure that the resources, 'both human and physical', were suitable, and that 'the quality assurance arrangements [were] equivalent to those of the Institute'. The Institute's papers record that its panel visited the College library and was shown the College's information technology provision, and that its members conducted discussions with members of the College. The panel subsequently agreed to recommend to the Institute's Academic Board 'that it should enter into a franchise arrangement with the College, for the third level top-up course leading to the award of BA (Hons) Business and Law'.
19 The partnership between the Institute and the College was developed
from first contact, to the first intake of students to a final year honours
programme, in seven months. In the light of comments recorded following
subsequent visits, it is possible that, at this stage, the pace of development
may not have assisted the Institute to reach an informed understanding
of the culture, structure, and mode of operation of its new partner.
The Agreement for the Collaborative Provision of Academic Courses between the Institute and the College
20 The Commentary stated that, after the franchise validation in 1995, a formal Memorandum of Co-operation was signed by both the Institute and the College, but this document was not provided for the audit team. The first formal Agreement for the Collaborative Provision of Academic Courses (ACPAC) between the Institute and the College seen by the team was dated 12 September 1996. It appeared to have been adapted from a standard document and set out directions for the conduct of relations between the parties. It specified their responsibilities for the quality assurance of the franchised provision and for termination of relations should circumstances warrant it. The 1996 ACPAC did not, however, mention that the award to which the provision led was the award of TNTU, nor did it acknowledge any responsibility to that body, a feature which it shares with the current ACPAC, which was signed in March 1999. This 1999 ACPAC enlarged the scope of the 1996 ACPAC to cover the Institute's decision in 1998 to extend the franchise to cover all three years of study of the BABL, in addition to the one-year top-up programme franchised in 1995-96.
21 Both the 1996 and 1999 ACPACs have expressed the Institute's expectation that 'Course Teams within the College should meet from time to time, and at least once per semester, to review teaching and learning outcomes'. The ACPACs also stated the Institute's expectation that such 'meetings should be permitted and [that] such a formal record will stimulate inputs into the Annual Course Review document from the perspective of the College'. The records of franchise validations conducted by the Institute in 1996 and 1998, and of the TNTU review visit conducted in 1996, have each remarked on the absence of formal records of the outcomes of meetings of the BABL Course Team in the College. This matter is discussed further elsewhere in this report (see below, paragraphs 30, 31, 43, 44, and 69).
22 The ACPACs between the Institute and the College required the partners to set up a Management Committee, which was to 'review administration and management issues from time to time arising in respect of each Course' and which should 'deliver its reports and any recommendations concerning such issues to the Academic Board via the relevant Course Committee...'. This Management Committee does not appear to have met, or if it has, it appears to have produced no formal records. In line with the requirements of the formal ACPAC it might be advisable to convene regular meetings of this Management Committee.
23 Both the 1996 and 1999 ACPACs have placed responsibility for agreeing to the admission of students (and for ensuring their subsequent academic wellbeing) with the Institute and have required external examiners for franchised courses to attend the 'Parent Examination Board' at Southampton Institute. Both ACPACs have located operational responsibility for assuring quality 'in relation to each [franchised] Course delivered at the College...with the relevant Course Co-ordinators and the relevant Course Committee'. Arrangements for the admission of students and for the appointment and briefing of external examiners are discussed in paragraphs 60 and 67, respectively, below.
24 The 1996 and 1999 ACPACs have provided for the Institute to design and make available each year materials needed to support the operation of the franchise in Dublin, including a definitive course document, setting out 'the academic qualifications, required content, delivery structure, regulatory framework and assessments schedule for the Course'; a student Handbook; details of teaching programmes, continuous student assessments and examination papers; dates and operational arrangements for student assessments and examinations; a calendar of examinations boards, course committee and management committee meetings associated with the operation of the course; and a copy of the completed annual course report for the previous session. The evidence available to the audit team indicates that these documents have been regularly and punctually provided in accordance with the terms of the ACPACs.
25 The ACPACs have required the College to inform the Institute of 'the identity of its Course Co-ordinator (sometimes also referred to as the 'Course Leader') not later than 30 working days before the beginning of the relevant Course Year' and of 'all other Course Co-ordinators...not later than 10 working days before the beginning of the relevant Course Year. Both the Franchise Co-ordinator and the Head of Academic Operations (HAO) of the Law Faculty for the Institute, and the Course Leader for the College, confirmed that staffing changes since the commencement of the franchise had been minimal, and that consultations on appointments had taken place when appropriate. It appeared to the audit team, however, that should it have ever proved necessary for the Institute to invoke the formal terms of the ACPAC, the short period of notice prescribed would have hampered its ability to intervene effectively.
26 The ACPACs also cover the preservation of intellectual property rights over materials generated by the Institute together with approval of all marketing and promotion material relating to the BABL generated by the College. In addition, the ACPACs provide for the management of the franchise via a Management Committee comprising members of staff of the Institute and of the College (see above, paragraph 22), to review administration and management matters at least once each semester; and the appointment, by each of the partners, of a Course Co-ordinator to enhance communication and liaison between the parent Course Committee at the Institute and the Course Team operating in the College.
27 Following its visits to the Institute and to the College, its review of the ACPACs, and its discussions with members of staff of the Institute and the College, the audit team concluded that, notwithstanding the omission of any reference to the awarding body, in general the terms of the formal ACPACs reached between the Institute and the College preserved for the Institute the capacity to intervene to safeguard the quality of the educational provision leading to the award of the BA (Hons) Business and Law, should that prove necessary.
Development of the franchise: validations and reviews
28 Since 1995 the franchise of the top-up programme and the BABL have been subject to three reviews, two of which, in 1996 and 1998, have been conducted by the Institute for the purpose of confirming and extending the initial agreement with the College. The third review visit was conducted in 1996 by TNTU, in order to assure itself, as the awarding body, that the Institute was conducting the franchise in accordance with the Institute's formal Institutional Agreement with the University.
29 In May 1996 a panel of members of the Institute, together with an external peer and a member of TNTU, undertook a visit to the College to review 'the operation of the one-year top-up degree, and to consider the validation of the franchise of the Institute's existing three-year BA (Hons) Business and Law programme'. In the Institute's usage, such an event is referred to as a 'franchise validation'. The College invited the panel to approve a new unit in 'Irish Constitutional Law', which the panel judged was outside its remit, and which it referred to the Law Faculty Board of the Institute. This was subsequently validated by the Institute as a minor modification to the BABL.
30 Notwithstanding some reservations, the validation panel approved the franchise of the top-up programme for a further two years, and the franchise of the BABL for two intakes, subject to conditions and recommendations. The panel also recommended a revisit in May 1998 'to review progress prior to the third level of this course being delivered'. The conditions applied by the panel related to: the completion by 1 October 1996 of a 'strategic plan for the provision of learning resources, over the next three years, to support the BA (Hons) Business and Law degree'; to be backed by the provision to the Dean of the Law Faculty of annual statements for the next two years of the additional learning resources to be provided; and finally, the development of a 'strategic plan for staff development'. The record of this visit and its outcome indicates that this second franchise validation panel considered that 'a more formal, structured approach would be necessary' in the College's course management arrangements.
31 In April 1998 the Institute undertook a further franchise validation visit to the College to review 'whether the College should be permitted to offer Level Three of the BABL from September 1998 and 'whether approval should be granted for the College to continue to offer Levels One and Two from that date'. As with the 1995 and 1996 panels, the 1998 panel included an external peer representative and a member of what had, by then, become the Law School of TNTU. The panel was requested to approve a change in the name of the award from BA (Hons) Business and Law, to BA (Hons) Law with Business, a request which it considered should be deferred in the light of developments within the parent programme, and to 'consider the appropriateness of "minor modifications" to Level One'. The panel attached no conditions to its approval, but recommended to the College and to the Law Faculty of the Institute that 'the course committee at the College should discuss formally such issues as external examiner reports, annual course monitoring reports and subsequent action plans, and that the minutes should record these deliberations'.
32 Reviewing the outcomes of the formal events through which the Institute had sought to initiate, test and measure the progress of its franchise in Dublin, the audit team found that while the visits of successive panels had been carefully conducted and the reports of their findings equally carefully written up, and while panel members had taken care to remind the College of the formal obligations, the Institute had not always been successful in its attempts to encourage its partner to give full effect to its expectations.
33 The review conducted by TNTU in June 1996 took the form of a visit to the College by the University as its awarding body, as one of a series of such visits 'to each overseas centre to assess current arrangements in place and to identify any gaps or weaknesses' following the publication of the May 1996 HEQC Report (see above, paragraph 9). The visit was undertaken by the University's Deputy Vice-Chancellor, its Academic Planning and Development Co-ordinator and an Associate Dean, together with the then Head of the Institute's Academic Quality Service, as an observer.
34 The University's report of the review visit considered that the validation process that had been followed by the Institute had been 'rigorous and thorough', that validation conditions had been 'effectively tracked and fulfilled, but queried the need for some of the recommendations made by the Institute's most recent franchise validation panel. The University's report stated that the 'purpose and process of annual monitoring through a Course report and course committee was well understood by Griffith College since [its] quality assurance procedures had developed in line with UK practice through a number of academic collaborations', and that the University's Academic Board should 'congratulate both Southampton Institute and Griffith College on the development of a successful and robust collaborative partnership which exhibits good practice in many aspects'.
35 On several occasions during the development of the franchise, the College has explored the possibility of increasing the Irish content of some of the BABL units with members of the Institute, who have preferred to maintain the close identity of the Southampton-based and Dublin-based programmes. At the time of the present audit, some units allowed reference to Irish case studies and examples, by agreement between the Southampton unit leader with their College-based counterpart. The audit team understood that one unit, 'Irish Constitutional Law' had been validated to be offered in Dublin. It was represented to the team that this course, which was a compulsory part of the BABL curriculum offered at the College, was also available as an option to Southampton-based BABL students. As noted above (paragraph 29), this course was specifically validated for the BABL franchise in Dublin as a minor modification. Arrangements for securing its academic standards, through the appointment of an 'Ireland-based external examiner' are discussed elsewhere in this report (see below, paragraph 66 et seq).
Quality assurance of academic provision
36 The Institute's Academic Board is formally responsible 'for academic
standards and the validation and review of programmes of study' and for
'ensuring that the requirements of other validating, accrediting and awarding
bodies are satisfied where a programme of study leading to the award of
an external body is offered within the Institute'. The QICM also states,
however, that 'Quality Assurance within Southampton Institute is the responsibility
of each School/Faculty', a position consistent with that of the Commentary,
which states that 'the prime responsibility for the quality of the programme
delivered at the College rests within the Law Faculty' which has 'ultimate
responsibility for the content and operation of the units, and of the assessment
process'. It appeared to the audit team that it would be helpful for the
next edition of the QICM to resolve any apparent contradictions in these
statements.
37 According to the Commentary, the chief means the Institute has
adopted to assure the quality of the learning opportunities available to
students at the College include providing students at the College studying
for the BABL with the same academic programme and assessment regime as
their peers in Southampton on the BABL, and arranging for the performance
of students in Dublin and Southampton to be considered by the same Board
of Examiners. The Commentary also notes that the Institute's Academic
Development Committee (which is a committee of the Academic Board) has
a role to play in the quality assurance of its franchised provision in
that it receives reports from the External Provisions Group (EPG) which
'co-ordinates the administration of franchises and ensures uniformity of
treatment and dissemination of information and good practice'. The Head
of Academic Operations (HAO) is a member of the EPG which, according to
the Commentary, provides a central point from which to receive information
on policy within the Institute on the progress of each franchise (whether
by licence or sub-contract) and to share information on good practice.
Through his membership of this Group the HAO has been able to report on
the development of the College franchise and learn of cognate developments.
Programme monitoring and review
38 The BABL is a joint programme in business studies and law, each of which is the responsibility of a separate faculty of the Institute. It is the Institute's practice to assign administrative and management responsibility for such cross-faculty programmes to one faculty, in this case the Law Faculty. This arrangement has the merit of clear lines of responsibility and communication, and the closeness of contacts between the unit leaders in the Institute and their colleagues in the College appear to have ensured that communications have been, on the whole, rapid and effective. Discussions with members of the Institute and members of the College suggested to the team that the interests of both subject areas had been properly safeguarded and advanced.
39 From the beginning of the franchise, the Institute's designated Franchise Co-ordinator (FC), a member of the Law Faculty teaching staff, and the Law Faculty HAO, have paid frequent visits to the College in the course of which they have held regular meetings with the Dublin-based Course Leader and College staff and students. The ACPAC between the Institute and the College also binds the latter to accept 'short notice' visits from members of the Institute. The audit team saw the records of one such visit by the Dean of the Law Faculty which provided the Institute with evidence that all was well within the franchise. Meetings between the FC and the HAO and the Leader of the Course Team in Dublin, and senior members of the College have provided formal opportunities to assess the progress of the College in meeting the requirements of the Institute. The outcomes of these meetings have been recorded for the benefit of the Institute in notes made by the FC and HAO which, the team was informed, provide the basis for briefings for the Southampton-based BABL Course Committee.
40 At an operational level, the quality assurance of the BABL franchise depends upon its effective day-to-day management by members of the Law Faculty and, most directly, upon the contribution of the FC, who is a member of the Course Committee for the BABL programme. The BABL Course Committee in Southampton reports on the operation of the BABL programme (including the franchise with the College) to the Law Faculty Board through the Law Faculty HAO, who is in turn responsible to the Dean of the Law Faculty. Since the commencement of the franchise of the one-year top-up programme in 1995, the FC and the HAO have worked closely with the Franchise Co-ordinator/Course Leader appointed by the College and other members of the College, to ensure that requests for information and clarification of Institute policy, and advice on the academic management of the franchise in Dublin have been promptly answered.
41 The work of both franchise partners is supported by administrative staff. The audit team met members of the administrative staff supporting the programme in Southampton and Dublin. In each case they appeared to possess a clear understanding of the procedures to be followed throughout the annual cycles of admissions, assessment and reporting. The correspondence between both partners and the frequent visits of the FC and the HAO to the College testify to their energetic and conscientious efforts, and those of the Franchise Co-ordinator/Course Leader in Dublin, to ensure the effective operation of the franchise. It has no doubt been helpful that throughout this period these key posts have been occupied by the same individuals.
42 At the time of the audit, the quality assurance of the BABL provision offered through the franchise, and the academic standard of the resulting award, owed more to the procedures of the Law Faculty than Institute-wide arrangements, such as the EPG. While the Commentary described the operational arrangements underpinning the franchise in some detail, it did not adequately convey the degree to which the security of the arrangements the Institute had made for the franchise depended upon the integrity and energy of individual staff in the Law Faculty, including unit leaders and tutors, but particularly the FC and HAO (see above, paragraphs 39-40). Notwithstanding the duration of the Institute's relations with the College, the close attention of the FC and the HAO to the wellbeing of the franchise, and their frequent visits to the College, have enabled the Institute to be confident in its ability to assure the quality of the academic provision leading to the University's award.
The 'Course Committee' in Dublin
43 Since the second Franchise Validation event in 1996, members of visiting panels (whether from SIHE or TNTU) have consistently emphasised the need for the staff delivering the BABL franchise in Dublin to keep more formal records of their meetings as a Course Committee and, in particular, to record the outcomes of discussions of external examiners' comments and student feedback analyses. All such visiting panels have accepted that discussions of such matters to do with the BABL franchise have taken place in the College, but have sought a greater degree of formality in the recording of their proceedings. The College has recognised that it will need to adopt more formal ways of working.
44 The Institute's papers and discussions with members of the Institute and the College indicated that there have been regular meetings of the College-based BABL Course Committee. Such meetings have frequently been attended by the Principal of the College and, invariably, by student representatives from each year of the franchised programme, formally elected for the purpose. The minutes of meetings of the Dublin-based Course Committee indicate the degree of importance the College attaches to student views of the teaching and learning process. While the Course Committee appears to have operated as a form of staff/student liaison committee (and, therefore, in a manner unlike that of the parent BABL Course Committee in Southampton), matters of course management and student discipline have been discussed and decided on in frequent informal meetings between staff and senior managers and in the College's 'Academic Council'. The Academic Council is essentially a special session of the College's Faculty Board (see above, paragraph 14) but the importance of the Academic Council and of informal meetings in the management of the franchise in Dublin by the College was not mentioned in the Institute's Commentary.
45 Meetings of the BABL Course Committee in Dublin precede those of the parent BABL Course Committee in Southampton. Minutes of the Dublin-based Committee are posted or sent in facsimile by the Dublin-based Course Leader to the FC to inform the meetings in Southampton. Minutes of the Southampton-based main BABL Course Committee note receipt of minutes from the College-based Course Committee and discuss matters of interest or concern when appropriate, using a system of action points. The correspondence files of the FC, and subsequent minutes of the main BABL Course Committee, show that such action points are promptly communicated to Dublin, that action taken in Dublin is monitored and where appropriate followed up by the FC, and that action taken is regularly reported to the next meeting of the Southampton-based Course Committee from whence this may be reported to the Law Faculty Board (see below, paragraphs 46-48).
Formal systems for monitoring and review
46 The Institute's systems and arrangements for the annual monitoring and review of programmes of study leading to named awards remain similar, in most respects, to those described in the May 1996 HEQC Report. As with other programmes of study within the Institute, the Chair of the parent Course Committee for the BABL takes the lead in producing an annual course report (ACR). The ACR contains a qualitative commentary on the programme of study for the previous session which takes note of external examiners' reports; the views of students and employers; course committee minutes throughout the session under scrutiny (including the minutes of meetings of the course team in Dublin), together with cohort statistics and other indicators. In accordance with the requirements of the QICM, ACRs are subsequently scrutinised by a small panel appointed by the Law Faculty Board, which receives the advice of the panel on its findings through the HAO. As with other Faculty Boards, the Law Faculty Board sends a report on the programmes of study for which it is responsible to the Academic Standards Committee, and the latter reports, in turn, to the Academic Board. Copies of the completed ACR are sent by the Institute to the BABL Course Leader in Dublin.
47 The 1998-99 session is the first in which all three Years of the programme have been in operation in Dublin; the Institute has therefore decided that it would be opportune for the Course Leader in Dublin to prepare an ACR for each Year of the College-based franchise. At the time of the audit the Southampton-based FC had provided samples of ACRs to the Dublin-based Course Leader and was preparing to support and advise her colleague in Dublin in completing her first ACR. The audit team was told that the College-based Course Leader intended to undertake this task with the assistance of her colleagues on the Course Team and elsewhere in the College.
48 The audit team followed the progress of each of the ACRs available for the BABL within the Law Faculty. The ACRs appeared to convey developments for the year under scrutiny with accuracy, including developments in Dublin, and to have been fairly and critically evaluated by those charged by the Law Faculty with their scrutiny. Equally, the Law Faculty HAO appeared to the team have taken appropriate steps to satisfy himself that the content of each ACR was a fair summary of the progress of the BABL in the year in question. The team is confident that, together, the ACR and the reports of the HAO to the Law Faculty Board provide the latter with sufficient information to track developments in the franchise accurately. The team is not sure, however, that the summary information that reaches the Academic Board would, on its own, enable Board members to understand how the franchise was developing.
Feedback and communications arrangements
49 The membership of the BABL Course Committees in Southampton and Dublin include student representatives for each Year cohort. The minutes of the Dublin-based Course Committee do not expressly refer to contributions made by such student representatives but those who met the audit team in Dublin confirmed that they were invited to attend, that they received copies of the minutes of such meetings, and that their views were sought and attended to.
50 The Commentary states that the Institute circulates an annual questionnaire soliciting feedback information to all its students, including those in Dublin, the summary and analysis of which informs the ACR. In Dublin, in keeping with its ethos of customer service, the College constantly seeks feedback on the performance of individual tutors and lecturers from its students. Evaluations of each lecturer's performance are completed during each unit by students, using College-designed standard questionnaires. The outcomes of such feedback exercises are reported by the College-based Course Leader at meetings of the Dublin-based BABL Course Committee, which is attended by student representatives.
51 In the course of their visits to the College, the FC and the HAO gather feedback information direct from students through scheduled meetings, attended by the students and the Southampton staff, unaccompanied by their Dublin-based colleagues. Students who described the scope of such meetings to the audit team considered that they offered a valuable opportunity, should they wish to use it, to convey information to the Institute and were confident that the Institute was maintaining close watch on their progress through its visiting staff.
The learning environment: the Library, Information
Technology, pastoral support and staffing
52 In each franchise validation report since 1995, members of the
visiting panels have emphasised the need for the College to enhance the
learning environment provided for students following the BABL, for example,
by introducing strategic planning processes for its Library provision and
for the development of its staff. In 1997 the College Librarian visited
the Institute to discuss the formulation of a strategic plan for the Library
but, at the time of the audit, the College remained of the view that it
would continue to rely on the pragmatic arrangements with which it was
familiar, which have enabled it to switch funding to support particular
programmes on the basis of need and priority. At the time of the audit,
the Institute had expressed some concern to the College, lest the 1998
validation of an LLB (Hons) by TNTU bring about a deterioration of the
learning environment for BABL students.
53 In addition to textbooks, journals and CD-ROM materials, BABL students at the College reported that they had ready access to PCs and printers for preparing assignments and relatively free access to the INTERNET. Students at the College are also provided with what are referred to by the Institute as 'learning packs' for all their units with the exception, the team was told, of 'Irish Constitutional Law'.
54 The frequency and energy with which the College seeks information from
students, following the BABL on the performance of their tutors is remarked
on elsewhere in this report. Where the role of informed consumers might
prove more difficult for students to perform, however, is in judging the
appropriateness of other elements of the learning opportunities made available
by the College. Here, the Institute's commendable arrangements for its
FC and HAO to visit and review work in the College, and to survey facilities
such as the library, provides a valuable additional source of information
on which to draw when seeking to impress on its partner the importance
of safeguarding this aspect of the quality of the students' learning opportunities.
Academic counselling and pastoral care
55 Academic counselling for students on the BABL in Dublin is provided by tutors (both full-time and part-time) but chiefly by the Course Leader. The College's arrangements for pastoral counselling have been identified to the Institute as being located off-campus in order to ensure confidentiality for those using them. Students were confident that a counsellor was available on the site, however, but stated their preference would be to refer any personal or academic concerns they might have to the Course Leader in the College.
The appointment induction and development of full- and part-time teaching staff
56 The Institute's formal ACPACs with the College require a senior member of the Institute and the College Co-ordinator (the Course Leader) to act jointly to approve the involvement of members of the College in the delivery and assessment of the BABL and for the Institute to be given substantial notice of any proposed changes to staffing arrangements affecting the BABL. The course team delivering the BABL within the College consists of a small nucleus of full-time staff, retained on annual contracts, and a substantial number of part-time hourly-paid staff, the majority of whom have worked for the College for some years. The appointment of full-time staff is comparatively rare; the audit team was told that it was usual for recruitment in such instances to be made from experienced part-time staff, well known to the College. It is the College's practice to dispense with the services of part-time and full-time staff who do not command student approval as shown by the evaluation process referred to earlier (see above, paragraph 50).
57 Following the May 1996 franchise validation, the Institute panel, which included a representative of TNTU, made it a condition of approval that 'a strategic plan for staff development must be produced' by 1 October 1996. At the time of the present audit, the College's staff development plan was described to the audit team by its senior staff as informal and demand-led. The production of a formal staff development plan, embracing full-time and part-time staff, was a recommendation of the Institute's 1998 Validation Franchise Panel. At the time of the audit the Institute appeared to have been unable to secure the College's implementation of this recommendation.
58 The Institute has provided a number of staff development opportunities for staff in Dublin, including the support for the Librarian identified above and several practical sessions to introduce staff at the College to the assessment techniques used by the Institute within the BABL. Additionally the Institute has offered administrative staff at the College access to short courses in registry techniques which it has not been practicable for the Dublin-based staff at the College to attend. The Institute has also conducted a training session for teaching staff at the College, to familiarise them with the marking techniques used by the BABL course team in Southampton.
The academic standards of credits and awards
59 The Commentary does not directly identify the chief means
relied on by the Institute to safeguard the academic standard of the award
to which the BABL leads, but it does note that identical student assessment
and external examination arrangements are employed for students following
the BABL at the Institute and through the franchise with the College.
60 The admission of students onto the BABL in Dublin is conducted by the Course Leader in the College acting, for the purpose of the formal ACPAC, as the designated Admissions Tutor. Students are accepted onto the programme in Dublin who can demonstrate performance at a satisfactory level in the Irish State Leaving Certificate examinations, who have successfully completed the NCEA Diploma in Legal Studies at the College or, with some provisos in respect of the standard to be achieved, students who have successfully completed a Diploma at other third-level institutions, elsewhere in Ireland. Students from this latter route may be admitted to Level 2 of the BABL under the Institute's 'accreditation of prior learning' (APL) arrangements, on production of satisfactory documentary evidence, and subject to the Institute's express approval.
61 From the outset, the College has been required by successive formal ACPACs to provide information to the Institute on the educational attainments of applicants who have been accepted onto the BABL in Dublin. The ACPAC specifies that this information be provided not less than 30 days before the commencement of the first semester; in practice, the period of notice given to the Institute has sometimes been less, particularly in the case of admission through the Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL). Nonetheless, the admissions process operated in respect of the BABL in Dublin meets the requirements of the formal ACPACs between the Institute and the College and provides the former with effective means through which to monitor the quality of the students admitted to the programme in Dublin.
62 The external examiners for the BABL programme overall have remarked
on the poor subsequent assessment performance of students admitted with
advanced standing under accreditation of prior learning to the BABL, both
at the Institute and in Dublin. In response to such comments, and its own
analyses of cohort statistics, the Institute has introduced a 'bridging
course', offered before the beginning of the session, to provide students
entering the BABL after Year 1 with a concentrated academic induction to
the programme. The College in Dublin has run such a bridging course for
the first time this session.
63 Students following the BABL in Dublin undertake assignments and examinations which are almost identical to those taken by their peers at the Institute, the limited exceptions to the general rule being the 'Irish Constitutional Law' unit, referred to in paragraph 29, above, and some minor agreed variations in course work assignments to allow, for example, for Ireland's membership of the Single Currency within the EU. In the view of the audit team, such minor variations from arrangements in Southampton do not call into question the equivalence of the student experience of assessments and examinations at the Institute and the College.
64 Unit leaders in Southampton are responsible for setting assignments and examination papers to be taken by students across the programme, and for providing them, at the commencement of each semester, to their counterparts delivering the units in Dublin. Mark schemes are provided with assignments to assist all staff to maintain the consistency with which students are treated and, in some cases, unit leaders in Southampton also provide model answers. All coursework completed by students at the College, which contributes marks to progression or classification decisions, is marked by a member of the College and second marked by a member of the unit team in Southampton. Samples of the coursework completed by students in Dublin are provided for the scrutiny of the Ireland-based external examiner for the BABL (see below, paragraph 67). Examination scripts are marked by a member of the College and second marked by a member of the Institute; samples of all scripts completed by students in Southampton and Dublin are subject to moderation by the three-strong external examining team for the BABL. Members of the Course Teams in the College and the Institute confirmed that these arrangements generally worked satisfactorily and that where minor difficulties had been encountered they had been successfully resolved through the intervention of the FC and the Course Leader/Course Co-ordinator in Dublin.
65 From time to time, the external examiners for the BABL have commented on variations in approach to the marking of assignments and examination scripts. As the Commentary notes, such variations have been addressed by the FC and HAO conducting assessment and marking exercises in Dublin. Members of the College had welcomed these exercises and had found them useful.
66 The external examining team for the BABL programme as a whole includes two UK-based external examiners and an Ireland-based external examiner, referred to in the Institute's papers as the 'Irish External Examiner', the latter appointed for the purpose of assuring the Institute that the academic standard of students' attainments in the unit in 'Irish Constitutional Law' is consistent with the standard of other units and to scrutinise the whole range of assessed work of BABL students at the College.
67 The audit team discussed the appointment and the range of work expected of the current Irish external examiner with him. He had been appointed at the commencement of the franchise, and his description of his appointment confirmed the impression created by the Institute's records of the care taken to establish his suitability. The Irish external examiner confirmed for the team that in the course of his duties he had seen all the examination scripts of students at the College and a broad sample of their coursework assignments. He did not, however, customarily see scripts for students following the BABL in Southampton, although samples of scripts and coursework assignments completed by students in Southampton had initially been provided to assist him to judge the academic standards he was required to apply. The Irish external examiner had valued the experience of participating in the examining process for the BABL, through which he had experienced UK assessment practices, including double-marking of scripts and assignments.
68 The terms of reference of the Irish external examiner had not restricted his responsibilities solely to BABL students at the College, although this restriction had applied in practice. He had attended examination boards for the BABL (conducted solely at Southampton) and commented on the performance of College-based BABL students. When the Institute has needed expert advice on matters such as levels of attainment within the Irish secondary and third-level educational systems, for the purposes of accrediting prior learning, it has consulted the Irish external examiner, a sensible use of his expertise.
69 The reports of the external examiners for the BABL, including the report of the Irish external examiner, are sent to the Course Leader at the College and are attached to the ACR which is produced early in the following session. Although members of the College have assured successive Franchise Validation panels that the Course Team at the College has discussed the reports of the external examiners, the absence of written records to support this assertion has led panels to reiterate the necessity for such discussions to take place and to be minuted.
70 Having reviewed the arrangements in place for the assessment and classification of BABL students at the College and the Institute, the audit team is confident that the procedures followed by the Institute and the College are satisfactory for the purpose of ensuring that the levels of attainment of students in Southampton and Dublin are equivalent, and that the measures that the Institute has taken are capable of safeguarding the standard of the University's award.
Conclusions
71 In 1995 Southampton Institute entered into the first of a consecutive
series of formal ACPACs with Griffith College for the purpose of
offering a franchise of the Institute's BA (Hons) Business and Law (BABL)
in Dublin, leading to the award of The Nottingham Trent University. Since
that point, the continuing expansion of the College testifies to its vitality
while the stability of the full-time and part-time Course Team in Dublin,
and of the key figures in Southampton and Dublin leading and supporting
them, has provided a sound basis for an effective partnership.
72 The framework within which the Institute has sought to assure itself that the quality of the educational provision of students following the BABL in Dublin remains equivalent to that of students in Southampton is set out in the Institute's Quality in Courses Manual. The same document also provides detailed guidance on how the academic standard of the award of The Nottingham Trent University is to be safeguarded. The Quality in Courses Manual assigns operational responsibility for the discharge of these responsibilities to the Institute's Law Faculty. On the basis of the Institute's records and discussions with staff in Southampton and Dublin the members of the BABL Course Team in Southampton, individually, and collectively, through the Law Faculty Board, have satisfied the Institute's requirements.
73 Throughout the development of the franchise, the Institute has sought to safeguard and improve the learning opportunities offered to BABL students at the College. The College has responded to requests for assurances on such matters, but the evidence that it has taken the practical measures required by the Institute, particularly in relation to planning staff development and library resources, is inconclusive. At the time of the audit, matters identified for action in franchise validations, conducted and reported on in 1996 and 1998, appeared not to have been fully resolved. The Institute's difficulties in conveying to its partner the need to adopt a more formal approach to planning the learning environment for the BABL is unfortunate, and the need to address this matter has been made more pressing by the recent validation by The Nottingham Trent University, the Institute's own awarding body, of an LLB in Irish Law at Griffith College. At the time of the audit, the attempts by the Institute to secure reassurances from the College that it would safeguard the learning environment of BABL students had not been successful. This is a situation which the Institute and the College should attempt to resolve as a matter of urgency, in the interests of all the students at the College registered for TNTU awards.
74 The Institute expressed its confidence that its arrangements were assuring the quality of the educational provision for students studying through the franchise of the BABL at the College and that, similarly, its arrangements had safeguarded the standard of the University's BA (Hons) Business and Law award attained by students in Dublin, and maintained it at a level identical to that attained by students in Southampton. In relation to the educational provision which comprises the franchised BABL programme the Institute's confidence is broadly justified, although less so in relation to library and staff development in the College. The care taken by the Institute to select, appoint, and brief a team of experienced external examiners for the BABL, the conscientiousness and professionalism of the teaching teams and the internal and external examiners associated with the programme, justifies the Institute's confidence that it is safeguarding the standard of the University's award.
Annex
1 The Institute welcomes the QAA's invitation to provide a statement
for incorporation as an Appendix to the report. It also welcomes the audit
team's confidence that the Institute is successfully safeguarding the standard
of The Nottingham Trent University's (TNTU) award. It is against this background
that the comments below are made.
2 The changes proposed are intended to:
i reinforce existing good practice identified by the audit team;
ii respond to specific proposals contained within the audit team's report.
Library resources
3 The Institute will monitor closely the continuing progress in relation to library resources available to students on the Institute's BABL course, in particular in the light of possible demands on those resources from TNTU's recently introduced LLB (Hons) degree.
Strategic staff development plan
4 The Institute will also continue to monitor and support the formation by the College of a strategic staff development plan. This will emphasise the importance and desirability of continually seeking to enhance the quality of educational provision for students; of improving the expertise of staff; and of enhancing their longer-term career aspirations. The plan will build on and extend the College's own staff appraisal arrangements referred to in paragraph 49 of the report.
5 The comments of the audit team are a welcome reinforcement of the stance already taken by the Institute, and of the commitment undertaken by the College, in respect of both these matters.
The awarding body
6 The Schedule attached to the Agreement between the Institute and the College will be amended to clarify the role of TNTU as the awarding body. This will reinforce the existing requirement, compliance with which is monitored by the Institute, for College publicity describing this programme to include reference to relationship between the Institute and TNTU.
7 The application of this principle will also apply to all future franchise agreements between the Institute and other institutions.
External examiners' reports
8 The minutes of meetings of the Dublin-based Course Team will, in future, be required to record discussion of, and action arising from, the reports of the external examiners for the course.
Management Committee meetings
9 The regular meetings involving the Institute's Franchise Co-ordinator, the Head of Academic Operations in the Law Faculty and the Dublin-based Course Leader referred to in paragraph 38 of the report will, in future, be recorded formally as meetings of the Management Committee in fulfilment of the requirements of the Agreement between the Institute and the College.
10 The next such meeting, in September/October 1999, will be described in this way, and will include on its agenda the matters referred to in paragraphs 3, 4 and 8 above.
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