The University of Wolverhampton and the Hogeschool van Utrecht, the Netherlands and the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg, Germany
Overseas Partnership Audit Report
August 1997

Web site for University of Wolverhampton

Contents

• Preface
• Introduction
• The audit process
• The university and the background to the collaborative partnerships
• 1. The collaborative partnership with the Hogeschool van Utrecht
• Background to the partnership
• Initial validation and approval processes
• Arrangements for programme monitoring and review
• Arrangements for the assessment of students
• Programme operation and the student experience
• Staffing and staff development
• Publicity and promotional materials
• General conclusions on the university’s partnership with the Hogeschool van Utrecht
• 2. The collaborative partnership with the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg
• Background to the partnership
• Initial validation and approval processes
• Arrangements for programme monitoring and review
• Arrangements for the assessment of students
• Programme operation and the student experience
• Staffing and staff development
• Publicity and promotional materials
• General conclusions on the university’s partnership with The Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg
• General conclusions in relation to the quality assurance of collaborative partnerships in the university
• University of Wolverhampton - Changes which the university will consider in light of the audit

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Preface

The Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) is a body owned by the universities, colleges and other higher education institutions in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1992 to contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the quality and standards of all higher educational provision for which these institutions are responsible, wherever and however this is offered to students. To this end, HEQC has undertaken 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, HEQC 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 British universities and colleges operating outside the UK.

The audit enquiries were assisted by the publication in December 1996 of HEQC’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. While UK institutions participating in the programme have not been ‘measured’against the Code, (which is not intended to be a definitive check list), their experience of using it, and the findings from the overseas visits in general, will contribute to its revision and further development.

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, involving a mix of partners from small, privately funded organisations to large, publicly funded universities.

This report is one of a number of reports published from the summer 1997 overseas audit programme. It should be read in conjunction with HEQC’s published audit report(s) on the UK university or college concerned, details of which can be found in this report.

 

Introduction

1 This is the report of an audit, carried out by the Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC), of the quality assurance arrangements for collaborative partnerships between the University of Wolverhampton and the Hogeschool van Utrecht, the Netherlands, and between the University and the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg, Germany. The audit examined the policies and procedures used by the University to satisfy itself of the academic quality and standards of its awards being offered in the Netherlands and Germany. The collaborative programmes covered by the partnerships were as follows:

• MSc Engineering Product Design with the Hogeschool van Utrecht
• MSc/PgD Advanced Software Technology with the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg

2 The audit of the University of Wolverhampton formed part of a series of audits of overseas collaborative provision undertaken in the summer of 1997 and included visits to both the Hogeschool van Utrecht, the Netherlands, and the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg, Germany. Further information about the audits is contained on the inside front cover of this report.

3 A general description of the University of Wolverhampton’s mechanisms for the assurance of the quality of its collaborative provision activities is contained in HEQC’s quality audit report of the University’s collaborative provision activities published in February 1995. An audit of the University’s overall quality assurance systems had previously been carried out by HEQC, leading to the publication of a report in March 1994. These reports describe the University’s quality assurance systems and analyse their operation. Changes made by the University to its operational arrangements since these audit reports were published are described below (see paragraph 11).

4 HEQC is grateful to the University and to its collaborating partners, the Hogeschool van Utrecht and the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg, for their assistance and co-operation.

The audit process

5 Prior to the audit team’s visit to the Netherlands and Germany, the University submitted a range of briefing documentation outlining its aims and implementation strategies in relation to the collaborative partnerships it has established in the Netherlands and Germany. The briefing material was mainly drawn from existing papers. Following its reading of the briefing documentation, the team proposed programmes for the overseas visits, and twice requested from the University additional contextual material to help it to understand and verify the structure and processes of the University’s collaborative quality assurance arrangements. The University was unable to provide some of the additional information sought by the team, for example promotional materials and school quality committee (and predecessor faculty quality assurance committee) minutes. A preliminary visit to the University of Wolverhampton was carried out on 28 April 1997. The team visited the Hogeschool van Utrecht on 20 May 1997 and the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg on 30 May 1997. Following these visits to the partner institutions, members of the team made a second visit to the University on 10 June 1997, to clarify and confirm issues covered in this report. The team comprised Professor M W Bridger, Dr PJ A Findlay and Dr L H Roberts, auditors, Ms S Stewart, audit secretary, and Dr C J Haslam, Assistant Director, for HEQC.

6 At the University of Wolverhampton, audit team members met senior staff responsible for collaborative programmes and quality assurance, and University programme leaders. At the two partner institutions, the team met senior staff, including the Dean of Faculty and Director of Department at the Hogeschool van Utrecht and the Vice-President of the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg. The team was able to discuss the development of the programme with the Associate Award Leader at the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg through a tele-conferencing arrangement. For each partner institution, the team met academic staff teaching on the programme, and administrative staff supporting the programme. The team also met current students or graduates with study experience on both of the two programmes. This included a group of students of the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg following the MSc/PgD Advanced Software Technology programme who were studying in Wolverhampton at the time of the preliminary visit. At that time, the team also met some UK students following the Wolverhampton-based version of the programme. In preparation for the overseas collaborative audits, HEQC produced an explanatory briefing note explaining the nature of the process and associated procedures. The briefing notes were provided in Dutch and German for the partner institutions; the team found that some staff and students whom they met had not received copies from the University and were not, therefore, clear regarding the purpose of the visits.


Glossary of terms and abbreviations

7 In this report the following abbreviations have been used:

The University: University of Wolverhampton

The Hogeschool: Hogeschool van Utrecht

The Fachhochschule: Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg

UQC: University Quality Committee (until September 1996, known as the Quality Assurance Committee)

SQC: School Quality Committee (with effect from September 1996, school quality committees subsumed the activities previously undertaken by faculty quality assurance committees. Unless otherwise indicated, in this report school quality committees and faculty quality assurance committees are treated simultaneously)

SEBE: School of Engineering and the Built Environment (formerly the School of Construction, Engineering and Technology), University of Wolverhampton SCIT School of Computing and Information Technology. University of Wolverhampton

DTQM: Department for Total Quality Management (until September 1996, known as the Quality Assurance Unit)

DIT: Department of Industrial Technology, Hogeschool van Utrecht

EPD: MSc Engineering Product Design

AST: MSc in Advanced Software Technology

 

The university and the background to the collaborative partnerships

The University’s mission

8 The University has had a long commitment to international education, fostered by the work of its large modern languages department and a range of overseas student placements. The University has sought to extend opportunities for study and work abroad to all students and this has resulted in particular involvement in European academic initiatives such as ERASMUS, TEMPUS, and ECTS and in the development of joint programmes with a number of European higher education institutions. The Five Year Plan of the University, which covers the period 1994-95 to 1998-99, envisages the effective transition to SOCRATES and LEONARDO co-operation programmes, including the development of multi-functional institutional relationships, and the establishment of international research, consultancy and work-based training. This strategic commitment is clearly laid out in a European Policy Statement promulgated by the University in 1997. In pursuance of its strategic aims, the University offers joint and franchised programmes, predominantly at master’s level, in collaboration with partners in several European countries (see also the report of HEQC’s collaborative provision quality audit of the University of Wolverhampton (February 1995). paragraphs 7 to 17,52 to 59 and the Appendix).


The University’s systems and arrangements for quality assurance

9 The University seeks to assure the quality of its academic programmes through a documented hierarchy of procedures accredited to the ISO 9001 quality management standard. A large number of generic procedures have been drawn up covering a range of institutional activities including, for example, validation and review; monitoring of programmes; external examiner appointments and reports; and the mechanisms for the approval of collaborative ventures (see also the report of HEQC’s quality audit of the University of Wolverhampton (March 1994), paragraphs 13 to 25, and HEQC’s collaborative provision quality audit of the University of Wolverhampton (February 1995), paragraphs 22 to 23). The generic University-wide procedures are further developed, as necessary, through local school procedures and in detailed work instructions relating to specific activities. In its discussions with senior University staff prior to the overseas audit visits, the audit team learnt that the published generic procedures committed the University to the application of common requirements for all programmes, irrespective of the site of delivery. In this regard, the team noted that the University’s Service Charter, published in June 1996, states that it is part of the University’s policy to exercise quality assurance procedures in order to ensure the equivalence of academic standards in franchised institutions, and that regular quality audits of such collaborative programmes will be carried out to ISO 9001 quality standards. In exploring in further detail the extent to which the University’s ISO 9001 operational framework was indeed expected to apply to those University awards offered through collaborating institutions, and noting the comments made in the earlier audit report (see the report of HEQC’s collaborative provision quality audit of the University of Wolverhampton (February 1995), paragraph 22), the team learnt from University staff after the overseas visits that schools had, in fact, some flexibility in the way in which common University-wide generic procedures were interpreted at local level. Thus, for example, variations could occur in the way annual monitoring information and student opinion were collected (see below, paragraphs 34 to 36, 54, 85 to 86 and 88).

10 The detailed arrangements adopted by the University for the quality assurance of its collaborative provision activities have been described previously (see the report of HEQC’s collaborative provision quality audit of the University of Wolverhampton (February 1995), paragraphs 22 to 51). Notwithstanding the modifications outlined below (see paragraph 11), these arrangements remain substantially unchanged, the most important developments being the delegation of responsibility for monitoring to schools, and the work, continuing at the time of the audit, to develop new model memoranda of agreement. The draft model memorandum governing franchising operations made available to the audit team notes that responsibility for the oversight and maintenance of academic standards lies with the University, and that, in exercising this responsibility, the University will follow its ISO 9001 generic procedures.

11 The audit team learnt that since the previous audit visit, there had been a number of changes in the University’s organisational structures and operational arrangements, including those relating to quality assurance. These changes included:

• the discontinuation of a faculty structure and the replacement of faculty quality assurance committees by school quality committees (SQC);
• the revision of the membership and terms of reference of the Quality Assurance Committee (now re-titled the University Quality Committee, UQC). The UQC has specific responsibility for the validation of collaborative programmes;
• the re-organisation of academic administrative support into a new Registry, which includes a Collaborative Links Unit with responsibility for all administration associated with the collaborative activities of the University including, in particular, the approval and management of memoranda of co-operation with collaborative partners;
• an extension of the responsibilities of the former Quality Assurance Unit (now re-designated as the Department for Total Quality Management (DTQM)) to all validation events, renewal of approval and credit-rating. The DTQM also has responsibility for monitoring the contents of external examiners’reports and for advising and supporting the SQCs. The DTQM acts, the team was told, as a pivotal link between the UQC and the SQCs.

12 The audit team understood from officers of the University and from those abstracts of the minutes of the UQC that were made available to it, that the above changes had been, in part, prompted by consideration of the HEQC Collaborative Provision audit report. The team heard that, in particular, the revised arrangements sought to further strengthen the University’s quality assurance systems and to create a greater degree of direct local ownership at school level, monitored through the activities of SQCs. The revised monitoring arrangements, which also include a previously used internal audit mechanism overseen by the DTQM to assure compliance with the ISO 9001 framework (see also the report of HEQC’s quality audit of the University of Wolverhampton (March 1994), paragraph 21), were introduced with effect from the 1996-97 academic session. The SQCs report directly to the UQC on a regular basis and are chaired by the deans of schools, who are, in turn, directly accountable for quality matters to the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Quality Management). The University has also sought to strengthen communications concerning quality assurance-related developments by the promulgation of UQC papers on ‘Quality Issues’which are presented to the Academic Board, and through regular meetings between the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Quality Management) and the deans.

13 New policy documents have also been produced. These include a generic procedure for monitoring in SQCs (1996); a generic procedure for franchising (1995); a revised Taxonomy of Collaborative Provision which was approved by the Academic Board in May 1996 and which seeks to provide definitions of the different types of collaborative partnership pursued by the University, together with the associated approval and quality assurance requirements; a generic procedure relating to memoranda of co-operation (1995); possible model formats for memoranda of co-operation relating to different types of collaborative agreement; and a revised version of the Collaborative Links Booklet which informs University staff of the procedural requirements relating to such links.


Continuing initiatives in the University

14 The UQC has recently discussed HEQC’s Code of Practice for Overseas Collaborative Provision in Higher Education (1996), and sought to identify points of relevance to the University’s activities. These and other action points were, the audit team learnt, to be addressed in the progressive development of the quality systems for collaborative provision. Such developments would include, for example, promoting the work of the University’s recently established Collaborative Links Unit, whose remit will be to review each collaborative partnership in relation to its definition within the University’s collaborative taxonomy and to undertake the formal renewal of memoranda of co-operation. The University also outlined plans to carry forward work on developing a clearly formulated institutional policy for international education; on academic standards in the context of collaborative provision; and on the enforcement of the University’s minimum requirement for English language competence.

15 In its discussions with University staff following the overseas visits, the audit team learnt of the University’s intentions to strengthen its planning approval processes (see below, paragraphs 22 to 25 and 71 to 76); to incorporate the formal review of memoranda of co-operation within annual monitoring procedures (see below, paragraphs 30 and 81); to establish a Standing Panel with a specific remit to monitor international validation activities; and of plans to monitor its international activities against both HEQC’s Code of Practice for Overseas Collaborative Provision in Hi her Education (1996) and the Council of Validating Universities’Code of Practice (1997).

16 In the discussions between members of the audit team and officers of the University, it was evident that there was a commitment to the continuing development of the institution’s quality assurance procedures. To this end, the team noted that the UQC had recently engaged in a number of important debates and initiatives relating to collaborative provision in the international context. It was recognised by the team that elements of the two collaborative partnerships being considered in the current audit had been initiated under quality assurance arrangements which had preceded the new organisational structures and many, though not all, of the new requirements initiated since February 1995. In particular, the primary responsibility for overseeing the monitoring of programmes had been at the faculty level until their abolition in September 1996. Equally, it was evident to the team that some of the new procedures and agencies being progressively introduced by the University were at an early stage of implementation. The documentation seen by the team suggested that, as yet, they had had little direct effect on the management and monitoring of the individual collaborative arrangements which were the focus of this audit.

 

The collaborative partnership with the Hogeschool van Utrecht

Background to the partnership

17 The MSc Engineering Product Design (EPD) programme is an academic collaboration between the School of Engineering and the Built Environment (SEBE) in the University of Wolverhampton and the Department of Industrial Technology in the Hogeschool van Utrecht (DIT). The EPD programme is validated in its entirety by the University of Wolverhampton.

18 The Hogeschool van Utrecht is a large institution of higher education in the Netherlands, with some 24,000 students studying a wide range of professional, vocational and industrial subjects in six faculties. The DIT covers the disciplines of mechanical, electrical and production engineering, with over 1,500 students and 75 full- and part-time staff who work within six subject units.

19 In the Netherlands, the hogescholen provide degree courses from which students graduate with an award generally judged to be equivalent to a BSc or BA Honours award of a UK higher education institution. At the time of the audit, only technical universities in the Netherlands were permitted to offer master’s awards in Engineering. There is at present, however, an unmet demand for such awards, and the Hogeschool regarded its collaboration with the University in a master’s programme as a means of remedying the shortfall in places. A small number of pilot postgraduate master’s programmes have recently been approved at selected hogescholen by the Dutch government as part of a development which, the audit team was told by staff at the Hogeschool, might lead to all hogescholen being permitted to offer postgraduate taught programmes in the near future.

20 The collaboration between the University and the Hogeschool has its foundations in an International Co-operation Programme (ICP) under the ERASMUS initiative for higher education. The ICP was established by the Hogeschool van Utrecht and the Wolverhampton Polytechnic, as it was then titled, in 1986. In 1991, the participating institutions agreed to expand their exchange activities by developing a European-wide postgraduate study programme in Engineering Product Design. Noting the University’s observations regarding the nature of the partnership (see above, paragraph 17), the audit team learnt that the curriculum for the EPD programme had been developed jointly by the University and the Hogeschool, with the pilot institutions for the programme being Wolverhampton, Utrecht and the Industriele Hogeschool Gent, Belgium The overseas partners were selected to reflect similarities in academic mission, the surrounding industrial environment, and a commitment to professional development in industry through short courses. The partnership consortium of institutions currently delivering the EPD programme also includes the Mikkeli Institute in Finland. The team was interested to learn from Hogeschool staff that they were actively exploring the possibility of delivering modules taken directly from the programme in South Africa and Latin America in the near future. The team heard from University staff that such short courses would not attract University of Wolverhampton credit nor lead to a University award.

21 The EPD programme carries 120 Level ‘M-level’credits under the University’s Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme. The University also intends that credit accumulation under the European Credit Transfer Scheme (ECTS) should be provided. The support of the ICP has permitted a number of staff visits and exchanges between the participating institutions during the planning of the programme and in the context of its delivery. The EPD programme is intended to provide flexible postgraduate education for the engineering profession and to be specifically appropriate for Continuing Professional Development. It provides for a core framework of units to which optional choice modules may be added as the programme develops. In addition to the required study modules,. all students are required to complete a project, for which the planning and subsequent completion carry a total of 55 credits of the 120 credits awarded. At the time of the audit, the Hogeschool had enrolled over 50 students for the award since its initial approval, with an average annual intake of around 14 students.

 

Initial validation and approval processes

The validation of the programme

22 The audit team was provided with documentation relating to the validation of the programme, including proposal documentation and full reports of the validation panel’s deliberations, which incorporated clear recommendations. The validation process was carried out under the procedures current in the University in 1993 and was undertaken in three stages: the approval of the EPD award in principle; a validation event designed to enable the then School of Construction, Engineering and Technology to deliver the award; and, finally, a validation event aimed at confirming the ability of the Hogeschool van Utrecht to deliver the award. The documentation prepared as part of the approval process provided a full account of the programme and its objectives; the quality assurance and course management arrangements; the approaches to teaching and learning; resources; and student support and feedback mechanisms. The validation panel membership included three external members, of whom two were from the Netherlands, one from industry and one from a Dutch university. Five members of staff from the Hogeschool van Utrecht attended the validation event in Wolverhampton, held in March 1993, as members of the presenting course team. The team also heard that the award leader for the programme in Utrecht had previously received outline guidance on the validation process in a two-day development session held in Wolverhampton.

23 A separate submission document was drawn up by the University and the Hogeschool relating to the delivery of the programme in collaboration with the Hogeschool The audit team heard from staff in the Hogeschool that this had been the result of a development period in which the University’s modules had been discussed and their local delivery in the Dutch context carefully planned. This documentation provided a profile of the DIT, defined the local quality assurance arrangements, including details of assessment and external examiner arrangements, and provided curricula vitae for the core staff to teach on the programme, together with an overview of the resources available at the Hogeschool. Several members of the original validation panel visited the Hogeschool van Utrecht in May 1993 to carry out the final stage of the approval process, the common membership of the two panels permitting, the team noted, a logical continuation of the validation panel’s deliberations. The panel heard presentations on the delivery of the programme by Hogeschool staff, visited the teaching facilities available to the programme in the Hogeschool, and met students of the Hogeschool studying on Engineering programmes. The two reports of the validation panel outlining its consideration of the proposal of the EDT programme to be offered by the SEBE in Wolverhampton and the DIT in the Hogeschool were received and approved by the UQC in May and December 1993 respectively. Both the validation panel and the UQC noted the close working relationship established between the two departments at this early stage of the programme.

24 The reports of the validation panel included a range of recommendations relating to the delivery of the programme. Although it was evident to the audit team that some of these had been considered by the course team in SEBE, other recommendations relating to module design and delivery had not, so far as the team could ascertain, been followed up. It was not clear to the team from the briefing documentation what the University’s procedure had been for obtaining feedback on the response to recommendations at the validation stage.

25 On the basis of the documentary evidence available to the audit team, the validation process appeared to have involved a thorough discussion of the programme design, and the implications of its delivery in the Hogeschool. Staff from the Hogeschool advised that they had been involved in the process and appeared to be generally well-informed about it. The inclusion of external validation panel members from the Netherlands struck the team as being particularly appropriate. However, the team found no indication in the documentation from the validation process or in the Memorandum of Co-operation (see below, paragraphs 26 to 30) that there had been any discussion regarding the language of instruction and assessment for the programme at the Hogeschool. The University does not stipulate that the language of delivery and assessment must be English. Despite this, some of the written papers suggested that there may have been an assumption that the programme would be delivered at the Hogeschool in English. There was little evidence that the validation panel had considered the issue of teaching and assessment in Dutch and the implications of this for the University’s monitoring of academic standards (see below, paragraphs 48 to 51 and 61). In its discussions with University staff following the visit to the Hogeschool, the team learnt that, as part of the programme planning activities, some consideration had been given to the language of instruction and assessment. In view of the discussions that had taken place at this early stage of the process, the matter had not been considered further by the validation panel. In exploring this issue with the University, the team was told that the role of the external examiner was ‘fundamental’and that the UQC and its subcommittee for the approval of external examiners had ‘carefully considered the process and felt confident about the rigour and robustness of the proposed mechanism’. Given the timing of the UQC’s formal discussion of the proposed collaboration (see below, paragraph 27) and the rather brief note of that discussion, it was not clear to the team how this important matter, and the more general issues raised, had been considered by the University.


The Memorandum of Co-operation

26 During the course of the approval process described above (see paragraphs 22 to 25), the University and the Hogeschool concluded a formal agreement relating to the joint delivery of the EPD programme. The Memorandum of Co-operation, describing the programme as a ‘Joint Venture Agreement’, lays out the main responsibilities of the two institutions. The Memorandum makes it dear that final responsibility for the oversight and maintenance of standards resides with the University and the primacy of the University’s Academic Regulations. The document also describes, in outline terms, the quality assurance arrangements for the programme and the requirements relating to external examiners. Subject to the formal agreement of the University, the Memorandum permits some delegation of quality assurance arrangements to the Hogeschool. The Memorandum also outlines the financial arrangements for the programme, including the costs of quality assurance. It was binding for a minimum period of three years with effect from May 1993. The audit team observed that the Memorandum did not contain any reference to responsibilities relating to the publicity and promotion of the partnership (see below, paragraphs 59 and 127), nor to procedures for the resolution of any differences between the signatories.

27 While the Memorandum included some reference to matters discussed as part of the original validation event held in Wolverhampton in March 1993, the audit team observed that it had been signed by the heads of both collaborating institutions before the final publication and consideration of the validation panel’s report recommending approval of the programme for delivery by the Hogeschool (which was not produced until October 1993) and the subsequent formal ratification of that report by the UQC in December 1993. From the information made available to the team, it appeared that the Memorandum had been signed before the validation event which had been convened at the Hogeschool van Utrecht. There was no indication of any discussion relating to the Memorandum in the reports of the validation panel. Noting the explicit guidance provided in the University’s Generic Procedure on Memoranda of Co-operation regarding the phased process of preparing such agreements, the team explored the timing of the signing of the agreement in some detail with University staff. Though there appeared to be some uncertainty amongst the staff it met, senior staff advised the audit team that, wherever possible, it was University practice formally to sign a memorandum before a validation event. The team noted that the Memorandum signed with the Hogeschool did not incorporate a termination clause designed to enable both parties to withdraw from the EPD agreement in the event of an unsuccessful validation event.

28 Shortly before the overseas visit, a note of agreement was drawn up by members of teaching staff of the University and the Hogeschool relating to the continuation of the Memorandum of Co-operation for a period of one year, to terminate in September 1998. Given the academic ownership of the award, the audit team was surprised that this statement had been presented on Hogeschool notepaper and that it had not been signed by senior officers of the University, which the team understood was normally expected. The team noted with some concern that if this agreement of continuation were indeed necessary, then the agreement with the Hogeschool would have been operating outside of a formal contract for almost one year.

29 The audit team heard from University staff that the recently established Collaborative Links Unit was intending to review the status and content of all memoranda of co-operation, with a view to following the model formats being developed by the University (see above, paragraph 11). Although introduced in 1995, the versions of the model memoranda seen by the team appeared still to be in a draft form, and included references to organisational structures which had now been superseded.

30 The Memorandum of Co-operation had, in general, provided a useful basis of understanding for the operation of the collaborative programme with the Hogeschool. However, the audit team would wish to draw the University’s attention to following points:

• there appears to be some potential for misunderstanding as between the statement in the Memorandum that the programme is a joint venture with shared responsibilities, within which the University may delegate some of its authority, and the more recent assertion expressed to the team in its discussions with University staff that the University’s 150 9001 generic procedures should apply in those partner institutions offering the University’s academic awards, and that the Hogeschool is a ‘deliverer of modules’owned and approved by the University (see below, paragraphs 121 to 122);
• the relationship between the drawing up of the formal Memorandum and the validation process, and the timing of the two procedures relative to one another, merits very careful consideration by the University;
• the need for clarity within the Memorandum about the duration of the agreement and its discontinuation, and the inclusion of the specific matters noted in paragraphs 27 to 28 above (the team recognises it is envisaged that these will be addressed in the new model format of memoranda to be adopted by the University);
• the importance of formalising memoranda of agreement through an authoritative signature on behalf of the University.

 

Arrangements for programme monitoring and review

Course management arrangements

31 The validated course document sets out the details of a ‘tiered management structure’for the EPD programme. This structure was intended to ‘devolve responsibility for marketing, recruitment and module management to the home institution [the Hogeschool] with award level management being vested in Wolverhampton’. An Award Committee established by the SEBE has responsibility for the management of the multi-institution programme as a whole. Day-to-day management is by a member of SEBE staff appointed as the Award Leader. An Award Examination Board oversees the assessment process and recommends awards for the programme as a whole. At the second, local, tier of the management structure, each collaborative partner delivering the EPD programme is required to establish a local Course Committee with its own associate award leader. Similarly, each partner has its own Examination Committee (also known as the ‘Interim Award Board’), with an external examiner appointed specifically with responsibility for the programme delivered in the partner institution. It is intended that there should be a reporting line between the local committees established by the partner institution and the award committees at the University. From the briefing materials made available to it, the audit team was able to confirm that, during the first three years of the programme’s operation, the University had sought to take an active role in helping to establish the committee structures and in the development of the interim examination boards in the Hogeschool. In many cases, these committees at the Hogeschool had been attended and chaired by University colleagues from the SEBE.

32 Associate award leaders and local committees are, therefore, responsible for monitoring and evaluation, and for making recommendations relating to student assessment and progression. Oversight of quality assurance arrangements by the University in turn depends on the establishment of effective links between the partner institutions and those University committees and departments (such as the DTQM) with responsibility for the totality of the programme, its operation and assessment.


Arrangements for programme monitoring and review

33 University staff stressed to the audit team that, to ensure equivalence of standards achieved, mechanisms for monitoring are considered at the development and approval stages. University procedures require that formal monitoring of the programme is carried out firstly on a local devolved basis through Course Committee meetings held at the Hogeschool, and then at the ‘second tier’by the Award Committee. Drawing on these committees and other information, the Award Leader produces a formal annual report, which is then considered as part of the University’s annual monitoring processes.

34 The audit team was provided with minutes of the Hogeschool Course Committee meetings. These had been held twice each year, usually coinciding with visits to the Netherlands by University staff, who then participated in the meeting. The Committee has considered, amongst other matters, student enrolment at the Hogeschool; operation of the programme and its modules; comments on the programme received from students; the appointment of external examiners; and assessment arrangements. On several occasions the Committee has considered the standardisation of materials and module definitions across the international programme. Discussion with University staff and the Award Leader at the Hogeschool confirmed that the Course Committee acted as a useful forum for the discussion between staff of programme developments and the monitoring of module delivery. Students whom the team met were aware of the Course Committee, but expressed some uncertainty about their own involvement in its meetings.

35 As a part of its monitoring procedures, the University requires that each module in a programme secures feedback from students. The Hogeschool has implemented its own student feedback system which is questionnaire-based. Student feedback (communicated in Dutch together with a summary in English and an English translation of the original questionnaire form) is forwarded to the Award Leader at the University. Students whom the audit team met were not aware of there being any follow-up responses on the part of the University to such student feedback even though this had included some matters which, in the team’s view, clearly required attention. Students had not seen annual monitoring reports prepared in relation to the programme or any University responses contained in them regarding matters raised by the student body (see below, paragraph 54). The team concluded that responsibility for this aspect of quality assurance was substantially delegated to the Hogeschool. While noting the comments made in the University’s Service Charter (see above, paragraph 9), from its discussions the team was not clear whether the generic procedures governing the management and administration of the University’s modular evaluation process or centrally administered student questionnaires were expected to embrace students studying in partner institutions.

36 Annual reports on the EPD Programme (including the Hogeschool delivery) covering the 1994-95 and 1995-96 academic sessions indicated that English translations had been required for some monitoring documents. Student feedback and the response to it by the Hogeschool were addressed in the reports, and the operation of the Course Committee in Utrecht was also briefly reviewed. Annual reports relating to the programme are compiled by the University Award Leader and the Associate Award Leader in Utrecht. In the evaluation by the University. the team learnt with interest that the annual report was first checked by a monitor designated from the academic staff of the same school who recorded compliance with general requirements and noted any matters requiring further deliberation by the school and the University. Monitoring reports are then received by the relevant school quality committee (formerly faculty quality assurance committees. See also the report of HEQC’s collaborative provision quality audit of the University of Wolverhampton (February 1995), paragraphs 33 to 41). It seemed to the team that some rather significant matters, for instance the need to translate written materials having a direct impact upon quality and standards, did not appear to have been identified for further consideration.

37 In its briefing materials, the audit team received a copy of an Action Plan drawn up by a member of the SEBE staff in February 1996. The source and authority of this document within the University’s formal quality assurance processes was not clear to the team. The document identified thirteen points for the attention of colleagues at the University, at the Hogeschool and at the other collaborating institutions in the EPD programme. The paper highlighted a range of requirements and expectations arising from the University’s procedures and regulations in accordance with the validated scheme which, it seemed, had not been consistently observed by the various collaborating institutions. Some of these points had been apparent to the team in its examination of the documentation, for instance those relating to the inclusion of student representatives in course committees and requirements for the approval of part-time staff. The Award Leader and Subject Leader from the SEBE visited the Hogeschool in November 1996 to discuss with Utrecht staff the implementation of the Action Plan. In discussion with the team, members of the Hogeschool confirmed the receipt of the plan and that some remedial actions had been taken as a result. The team also noted that a helpful explanatory letter, addressing points in the Action Plan, had been sent by the Engineering Awards Co-ordinator in the University to the external examiner appointed for the programme being delivered at the Hogeschool (see below, paragraphs 45 to 47).

38 The Action Plan demonstrated a positive commitment to assuring the quality of provision. However, the audit team was unable to identify any evidence to suggest that the very substantial matters of concern detailed in the paper had been identified in any formal committee or monitoring report associated with the programme during the relevant year of operation. Although the team sought copies of the minutes of any SEBE SQC (or predecessor Faculty Quality Assurance Committee) and UQC (or predecessor Quality Assurance Committee) meetings held in the 1995-96 and 1996-97 academic sessions at which the collaborative programme had been discussed, in the absence of any briefing information it was unable to satisfy itself as to whether there was any awareness in the School and the University, beyond the local staff involved, of the specific and more general issues raised (see below, paragraphs 39 and 122 to 123). Some of the matters touched upon by the Action Plan appeared to be addressed for the first time within the University’s deliberative committee structures at a SQC meeting held in March 1997, of which the team received a draft abstract shortly before the overseas visit to the Hogeschool The SQC meeting had identified the need for action in relation to the strengthening of the formal monitoring processes. The team was particularly concerned that the matters identified in the Action Plan for attention had not been picked up in the regular monitoring processes of the University, and also that the ‘thirteen points’did not appear to have been communicated or discussed in any detail in either the Award Committee, the Award Examination Board, the monitoring report, or the predecessor Faculty Quality Assurance Committee. This suggested to the team that, at the University level, there was likely to have been little or no awareness of the serious matters raised by the Action Plan document.

39 In the light of this, the audit team formed the view that monitoring and evaluation of the programme was being carried out at the local level (both in the Hogeschool Course Committee and through the University Award Leader’s annual monitoring report). The team saw evidence, in the Action Plan, of a local concern for the quality and standards of the programme. However, it was much less clear to the team how awareness of the issues arising from the operation of the collaborative partnership and the continuing responsibility for the quality of the programme and its delivery were addressed at the subsequent levels for monitoring and report within the University. While the team accepted that the programme had been validated prior to the achievement of ISO 9001 status, the University did not appear to have subsequently ensured that its standard procedures relating to student feedback were being followed. Given the University’s tightly specified and structured reporting system, the team concluded that it was particularly unfortunate that the quality committees at both school and University level and the DTQM apparently had no awareness of the very substantial concerns which had been addressed in informal communications between the collaborating institutions.


Periodic review

40 At the time of the audit, there had not yet been a periodic review of the EPD programme by the University. The audit team understood that, with the agreement of the Hogeschool, a review was planned for the 1997-98 academic session.

 

Arrangements for the assessment of students

Structure and regulations for assessment

41 The assessment requirements for each module and for the project are clearly laid out in the documentation for the EPD programme, and provide a clear basis for the standardisation of assessment and assessment criteria across institutions. As explained previously (see paragraph 31), the programme operates a ‘two-tier’committee structure in relation to assessment. At the time of the audit visit, the first cohort of qualifying graduates from the Hogeschool programme had not yet completed their studies, and, therefore, information was not available relating to the operation of the over-arching Award Board in the University. However, the audit team saw minutes of the local Interim Award Board meetings held at the Hogeschool which considered module performance and student progression.

42 In its briefing papers, the University informed the audit team that the programme was taught and assessed predominantly in Dutch. During its visit to the Hogeschool, the team learnt that, in fact, only the taught modules were assessed in Dutch, while the project, which accounts for more than 50 per cent of the total assessment in the programme, was to be written and assessed in English. The team also understood that the public presentation which is a part of the assessment relating to the project would be made in English.


Examination boards

43 According to the definitive course document, the Award Examination Board is intended to meet annually in Wolverhampton, when the award leaders and external examiners from the partner institutions meet together with the University Award Leader. Interim Award Boards meet at the partner institutions, and consider student progression and make recommendations on awards for subsequent ratification by the Award Examination Board.

44 The audit team noted that members of the University had attended all meetings of the Interim Award Board held at the Hogeschool, and the UK external examiner for the programme had also joined the discussions at one such meeting. It appeared that the external examiner appointed specifically for the Hogeschool had not yet been able to attend a meeting (see below, paragraphs 45 to 51).


External examiners

45 The programme in the Hogeschool has two external examiners, one appointed for the overall programme and award as a whole by the University, and one nominated by the Hogeschool and appointed by the University. During its visit to the Hogeschool, the audit team was made aware of a second person in the Netherlands whom the Hogeschool considered to be an ‘external examiner’. University staff subsequently advised the team that this person, who had been an external representative on the validation panel convened in the Netherlands in May 1993, was, in fact, an external adviser for the programme and had no involvement with assessment activities. The University will wish to clarify with the Hogeschool the role and involvement of the external adviser in the Netherlands. The team heard from the Hogeschool and an external examiner that external examiners nominated by the Hogeschool were paid expenses by the Hogeschool.

46 The information provided to the audit team through Hogeschool committee minutes and reports indicated some variability between the examiners in terms of involvement and availability. During the visit to the Hogeschool, the team met the external examiner nominated by the Hogeschool. At the time of the audit, the external examiner had not yet been able to attend any meeting of the Interim Award Board. It was confirmed by the examiner that the terms of appointment involved the submission of a report to the University. The team was also able to confirm that the external examiner had seen the programme curriculum and had been advised of module assessments and project titles. With regard to the forthcoming assessment of the first projects to be completed by students in Utrecht, the team heard that it was intended that both of the external examiners would be present at the final project presentations (held in English), and that the Hogeschool external examiner would moderate the project assessment.

47 During the visit, it was suggested to the audit team that the framework of the UK external examiner system was, at present, unfamiliar in the Dutch higher education system and that colleagues in the Hogeschool had not fully appreciated aspects of the role, including the involvement of externals in the assessment process. These matters were still under active discussion at the time of the visit. From its discussions, it appeared to the team that there had been little briefing provided by the University to either the Dutch external examiner or to colleagues in the Hogeschool on the detailed role and responsibilities of the external examiner in relation to the Hogeschool programme. While the University offers an induction programme for new external examiners, they are not required to attend. To date, the Dutch external examiner had not exercised his option to attend the induction event although he had, the team learnt, received some informal briefing from a member of University staff. Given the University’s view that the role of the external examiner is fundamental, the team also considered that, having regard to the type of collaboration and the particular academic and cultural setting, the standard external examiners’report form currently required by the University was not necessarily well-adapted to provide sufficient information to enable the University to monitor the maintenance of standards in settings which differed in some very important aspects from those of the University itself.


Academic standards

48 The maintenance of academic standards across the EPD programme is assisted by the shared contribution to course development; by the use of common module descriptions and assessment strategies, laid down in the validation document and the Course Guide; and through the regular meetings held between programme managers and staff teaching on the programme in the different participating institutions. Hogeschool staff confirmed to the audit team that they had the opportunity to meet their University opposite numbers to discuss the delivery and assessment of individual modules, and to compare marking patterns. The team noted that students’project titles and work plans had been seen and agreed by a SEBE Project Validation Committee, which included the University’s UK external examiner, as a part of the monitoring process to help ensure comparability of standards of proposals between the University and its partner. In the first year of operation, the Committee had met in the Hogeschool as a development exercise.

49 It was less clear to the audit team, however, how the University exercised its general responsibility for academic standards through the external examiner arrangements and through any moderation of module assessments. Since the modules delivered in the Hogeschool are taught and assessed in Dutch, sampling of this important aspect of the student work is not readily accessible to those required to make the necessary comparisons that might inform views on standards from the University’s perspective, namely University staff and the UK external examiner who, the team understood, did not understand Dutch. The University Award Leader is not, therefore, able to sample assessments written in Dutch with a view to informing standards, a specific responsibility identified in the original job description for that role. As indicated above, the involvement of the Dutch external examiner in the assessment process has, thus far, been somewhat limited and there have been difficulties with availability to participate in the Hogeschool Examination Board. The team recognised the potential benefits of seeking to appoint Dutch external examiners with a specific responsibility for the Hogeschool programme. It was, nevertheless, unable to satisfy itself regarding the question of how the University establishes equivalence of standards of assessment between different students studying parallel modules in the University and the Hogeschool.

50 For the project assessment, these problems will, the audit team acknowledged, be diminished considerably by the decision to require submission and assessment in English, and by the involvement of the UK external examiner in the project presentation (see above, paragraph 42). In its discussions, the team detected differing understandings regarding the rules governing project assessment, a matter which the University will wish formally to clarify in the project module definition.

51 The audit team would encourage the University, particularly in the context of any further extension of the EPD programme, to give careful attention to issues raised by the language of instruction, and to the quality of communication and briefing information necessary to meet the considerable challenge of maintaining standards and comparability of assessment across a multi-lingual and multi-cultural programme. More specifically, the University will wish to review the ways in which colleagues in the University and the Hogeschool can share assessment information and samples of student work with a view to underpinning the desire to maintain comparable standards across the programme. The University has already given some consideration to the potential role of the Award Board in taking an overview of standards across the programme, and, in that context, the regular involvement and effective briefing of the external examiners appointed for the partner institutions will clearly be an important aspect for attention.

 

Programme operation and the student experience

Recruitment and admission

52 Responsibility for recruitment and admission to the programme lies with the Hogeschool, following the University’s admission requirements. Applicants are interviewed against the University’s entry criteria, and enrolled on behalf of the University. Enrolment forms are sent to the University and checked by the Award Leader with a view to ensuring comparable entry standards. Students whom the audit team met could recall having received confirmation of their registration onto the programme, and a copy of the University’s Academic Regulations, but no further general information relating to the University.


Programme information and communication

53 The audit team met a group of part- and full-time students at the Hogeschool. The students valued the flexibility of the programme and its relevance to their experience in the workplace. They nevertheless felt somewhat distant from the University and appeared to have received very little information about it, other than confirmation of registration. Students had been informed about the course programme through the Course Guide which had been developed in collaboration between the University and the Hogeschool, and for which there is a tailored version for each of the participating institutions. The Guide, which clearly reflects the international and collaborative character of the programme, provides an explanation of the course design and its educational objectives, course structure, course administration arrangements and the individual module descriptions, including assessment requirements. Hogeschool staff and students valued the Guide as a source of information. Students confirmed to the team that all formal material relating to the programme was in English, and that many of them had, therefore, expected the entire course to be taught and assessed in English (see above, paragraphs 25 and 42). The team was told by Hogeschool staff of plans to publish a course newsletter in Utrecht.

54 The Award Leader for the programme in the Hogeschool has close and regular contact with students, and also maintains a high level of communication with colleagues in the University. This link provides an important central point of communication in relation to the management of the programme. The audit team found that the importance of this role was understood and appreciated by students and staff of the Hogeschool alike. In general, students whom the team met found locally-based staff to be accessible and helpful. However, students were not aware of any regular student representation on the Course Committee, how any points which they might raise were communicated to the University, and how feedback upon such matters might be received from the University. Concerns had been expressed regarding the late arrival and ‘disorganised’content of some course materials; assessment mechanisms; problems with some Lecturing staff and English language difficulties (see also, paragraph 35).

55 While students clearly felt that they could seek advice from Hogeschool staff on any matter and that, in the context of a small group of students, the accessibility of the Award Leader was sufficient, the University’s desire for counselling arrangements to be established at its partner institutions had not, according to students met by the audit team, been implemented in formal terms at the Hogeschool.

56 Students on the EPD programme at the Hogeschool had been informed through the assessment regulations of their right of appeal in the context of assessment, but were not aware of the formal complaints procedure of the University (see also the report of HEQC’s quality audit of the University of Wolverhampton (March 1994), paragraph 49). They were not acquainted with the Student Charter for Higher Education and their entitlements under the Charter.

 

Staffing and staff development

Staffing

57 The University reviewed the staffing resources of the Hogeschool in support of the programme as a part of the initial validation process (see above, paragraph 23). A number of staff at the Hogeschool are employed in a part-time capacity, and, as changes in personnel have progressively taken place, the University has sought to update its information on those staff teaching on the programme. Part-time staff teaching on the programme are required to complete a Visiting Lecturer Proposal Form which seeks outline information on their qualifications and experience. These proposal forms appeared to have been processed on a periodic basis by the University, although shortly before the overseas visit the audit team noticed that some omissions had been completed to up-date the record. The team further noted that some proposal forms had important sections left blank while others appeared not to have been approved in accordance with the University’s requirements. University staff noted that the part-time staff teaching on its programme in the Netherlands were typically selected following informal contact with Hogeschool staff. University staff were not involved with interviewing such staff and could not confirm whether a formal induction programme was provided. The team was not clear as to whether the arrangements agreed with the Hogeschool were in accordance with the University’s stated generic procedures for staff appointment and induction.


Staff development

58 The staff of the Hogeschool whom the audit team met appeared to be well-informed about the course and appreciated the course management arrangements for the programme which had been introduced by the University. In particular, they valued the opportunity to evaluate and develop the programme in discussions in the Course Committee. The joint development of the programme had meant that some members of staff had occasionally been able to visit the University and had worked closely with colleagues responsible for teaching the same or related modules. At the course management level, more frequent staff exchange visits had taken place. These activities had contributed significantly to staff development, and the team heard that the Hogeschool planned to carry forward independent staff development work in relation to the programme. The team concluded that strong staff links existed between the SEBE and DIT at course management level, and that, particularly in the development stages, there had been a number of opportunities to compare approaches to teaching and assessment. Following this stage, however, it seemed that staff contact was limited to the course management context. There had not been opportunities for all staff across the programme to meet together, and little planned contact and communication was taking place in relation to, for instance, module delivery, assessment strategies and the comparability of academic standards. It was not clear to the team how far the University had been able to offer the Hogeschool staff its support in relation to other areas such as the systems for quality assurance and course administration.


Publicity and promotional materials

59 The audit team was provided by the University and the Hogeschool with a range of promotional literature produced in both English and Dutch. The team was informed by officers of the University that responsibility for ensuring the accuracy of promotional literature published by partner institutions resided at school level, and that, contrary to the earlier audit report (see also the report of HEQC’s collaborative provision quality audit of the University of Wolverhampton (February 1995), paragraphs 65 and 66), ‘historically, approval for publicity had been informal’. Following the overseas visit, the team learnt that, consistent with the University’s generic procedures, the SEBE had developed an ISO 9001 work instruction governing promotional activities undertaken by the School and its partners. The instruction requires the Dean of School to approve all publicity materials. Hogeschool staff informed the team that they were not aware of any formal framework for the approval of promotional materials and that they had considerable freedom to promote the programme without any reference to the University. The Hogeschool did note, however, that they had to observe an agreement to make clear reference to the University as the awarding body and periodically to send copies of promotional literature to the University’s Marketing and Communications Office. University staff advised that a particular level of trust was placed in the efficacy of the Hogeschool’s processes and that, as a consequence, little formal checking or translation of promotional materials took place.

60 Much of the promotional literature seen by the team particularly emphasised the joint development of the programme in a partnership relationship between the two institutions. In general, the acknowledgement of the University as the awarding body was clear, except in local newspaper advertisements. In relation to publicity, students whom the team met made the interesting point that they felt that the University had a responsibility to increase the general understanding in the Netherlands of the character and value of master’s programmes.


Award certification

61 The audit team noted that the proposed award certificate for the programme made clear reference to the Hogeschool as the place of study (see also, paragraphs 115 and 128). Award certification made no reference to the language of study (see above, paragraphs 25 and 48 to 51).

 

General conclusions on the university’s partnership with the Hogeschool van Utrecht

62 In its initial development, the collaboration between the University and the Hogeschool van Utrecht was based upon the establishment of close and effective communication links. Such links were both informal, through good staff collaboration in the design of the course, and formal through the University’s validation processes. The audit team commends the close involvement of staff from the Hogeschool in the validation process. In the programme’s operation over the last three years, the SEBE has sought to maintain a high level of communication. This has been achieved through the links developed between the University Award Leader and Hogeschool Associate Award Leader, through staff visits which have supported the Hogeschool, and, to a more limited extent, through the committees and reporting structure required by the University.

63 While the formal monitoring arrangements appear to have broadly conformed to University requirements, some very significant matters which should have been of legitimate concern for the University’s quality system were only briefly addressed and communicated by the SEBE. The transmission of information from the SEBE and the DTQM into the University’s quality system was not uniformly successful in identifying matters for attention by the University. Concerns have been expressed within the University whether ‘the quality of the programme at Utrecht was the same as that delivered [in the other partner institutions]', and this has led to a welcome draft recommendation made by the SEBE SQC in March 1997 that in future ‘the programme of ongoing monitoring should be strengthened and formalised, and issues addressed as part of the [periodic review’. This important recommendation should be implemented without delay.

64 In reviewing the operation of the EPD programme, the University will wish to give consideration to the following issues:

• reviewing the mechanisms used to secure and review student feedback (see above, paragraph 35);
• providing confirmation of the number, status and responsibilities of external examiners for the programme (see above, paragraphs 44 to 46);
• considering ways of furthering comparison of assessments across the programme (see above, paragraph 51);
• reviewing the information provided to students about the University as their awarding institution and the University’s complaints procedures (see above, paragraphs 53 and 56);
• reviewing the mechanisms for appointing part-time staff teaching on the University’s award in the Netherlands (see above, paragraph 57).

 

The collaborative partnership with the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg, Germany

Background to the partnership

65 The MSc in Advanced Software Technology (AST) is an academic collaboration between the School of Computing and Information Technology (SCIT) in the University of Wolverhampton and the Department of Business Computing, a section of the School of Business (Fachbereich Wirtschaft) in the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg, Germany.

66 The Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen Luneburg is one of ten Fachhochschulen in the state of Lower Saxony. It was founded in 1971 by the amalgamation of three existing higher education schools in Suderburg, Buxtehude and Luneburg. The Fachhochschule currently offers a range of provision in the fields of architecture, civil engineering, business, computing and social work to a total of around 3,800 students. The School of Business is one of seven departments, and offers qualifications at the German Diploma level in Business Studies and Business Computing.

67 The Fachhochschulen in Germany are higher education institutions with a strong reputation for vocational and professional education, committed by their mission to close collaboration with employers and the professions. One distinctive feature of many of the Fachhochschulen is a European element in their programmes, often including language study and the opportunity to study abroad. Fachhochschulen are not currently permitted to offer their own master’s level qualifications within the German framework of awards. However, given the perceived success of the AST programme, the audit team learnt that the Fachhochschule has recently decided to seek formal Government approval of the programme as a part of its recognised funded provision.

68 The development of the AST programme is grounded in a broad academic collaboration between the University and the Fachhochschule which has evolved from an inter-institutional ERASMUS programme dating back to 1988. Partly as a result of the AST programme, there is now a developing staff collaboration in research and research supervision. The University regards this master’s programme as ‘providing a continuing focus for inter-institutional activity in a specialist area, for an influx of good students into the University bringing a European perspective to the course, and for a growing number of research based collaborations’. A marketing campaign for the programme undertaken by the Fachhochschule (see below, paragraphs 113 to 114) has succeeded in attracting a steady flow of postgraduate students to the programme, and these now include a number of international students from non-German-speaking countries.


The course structure

69 In the context of the audit, the AST programme was variously described in documents and discussion as a ‘collaboration’, a ‘partnership’and a ‘parallel delivery’. It was also suggested that, within the framework of the partnership agreement, the role of the Fachhochschule ‘is limited to that of a deliver of modules’(see below, paragraph 75). In its discussions with University staff, the audit team heard that the AST had not yet been assigned a clear status under the taxonomy adopted by the University (see above, paragraph 13). It was clear from briefing documentation that the initial intention had been to offer a joint, full-time programme within which students at each of the partner institutions would attend courses at the other for one semester. However, for a number of reasons, including language competence, the Wolverhampton-based ‘leg’of this full-time programme has, in general, not recruited students who are able to study in Germany. By contrast, the full-time Fachhochschule-based version of the programme has proved attractive both in Germany and internationally. On the University’s side, the team understood that only some part-time students at the University had completed projects in placements with German companies, arranged by the Fachhochschule, and no students had, thus far, studied at Luneburg.

70 At the validation event held in June 1992, the AST programme was approved in a part-time ‘UK-based’version, with 14 short modules carrying five credits each plus a project element, and a full-time ‘European’version in which the initial eight modules offered to UK students in the first semester were replaced by four modules carrying ten credits, offered at the Fachhochschule. Some of these four modules were ‘broadly similar’to those offered in the University-based programme, but some were not. As noted above (see paragraph 66), the programme modules provided by the Fachhochschule have, by and large, been developed from courses taught as a part of the existing Fachhochschule Diploma programme in business computing (Wirtschaftsinformatik). These are taught and assessed in the German language. Fachhochschule students write the project component of the MSc in either English or German, with the majority choosing to do so in German.

 

Initial validation and approval processes

71 The audit team was provided with documentation relating to the validation of the programme by the University, including a proposal submission and the report of the validation panel. The validation meeting was held in June 1992 in Wolverhampton. The team noted that the validation was not simply concerned with the AST collaborative programme, but had a broader examination of the School’s postgraduate strategy. The SCIT proposed two master’s programmes in its submission, one of which was to provide a ‘conversion’role in the School’s portfolio, while the other, the AST programme, was specifically intended for computer science specialists. The validation panel included four external members. The presenting team included only one member of staff from the Fachhochschule who had been invited to participate in the validation process. In this respect, the team noted the contrast with the SEBE’s arrangements for the validation of the Hogeschool programme outlined previously (see above, paragraph 22).

72 From the briefing documentation and its discussions with staff, the audit team concluded that, while the validation panel had given appropriate consideration to the proposed programmes, it had nevertheless been expected to address a rather complex and crowded agenda. Within this, the delivery of the AST programme in a full-time version at the Fachhochschule had constituted only a part of the total considerations at the meeting. The team observed that the subsequent validation report contained very substantial conditions and recommendations, including the need for the SCIT to address a number of standard University requirements missing from the documentation. The team noted that the report mentioned in particular the ‘unease’of the panel regarding the proposed structure in which ‘any students attending the course full-time from Britain would be required to study the first semester in Germany, following modules delivered in German’. The validation panel also noted ‘that the modules offered in Semester I at Luneburg, and the equivalent studies at Wolverhampton were matched closely, but were not the same modules. The modules offered at Luneburg were developments of programmes of study from the Diplom-Wirtschaftsinformatiker, with revised assessment requirements to ensure master’s level being the most notable difference' (see above, paragraphs 66 and 70).

73 The validation panel had received a two page written report on the resources available at the Fachhochschule in relation to the programme, drawn up by an external member of the validation panel and communicated through correspondence, as the member was not able to attend the validation event. As a part of its briefing documentation, the audit team received a copy of what it understood to be the resources report, dated October 1992. This report provided the University with an overview of the Fachhochschule and its resources. As far as the team could judge following its discussions with University staff, there had been no formal visit to the Fachhochschule by the validation panel, either as a part of the validation process, or subsequently by any members of the University external to the SCIT.

74 In receiving the report of the validation panel in August 1992, the UQC noted ‘with concern the very large number of substantive conditions set which suggested some major deficiencies in the proposals’and identified the difficulties produced by the over-full agenda. The UQC gave limited approval to the proposal, subject to the fulfilment of conditions. The Committee also drew attention to the need to design validation events appropriately for the programmes being considered.

75 In considering the validation and approval process, the audit team was interested to compare the different course structures in the University and the Fachhochschule, as outlined in the briefing documentation available to it, and the consequent pattern of student study experience on this programme. The team was unable to satisfy itself as to whether the course really could be considered as a single collaborative programme (as validated) which was ‘joint’or ‘parallel’in its curriculum structure, or whether it had not, de facto, become two rather different programmes with one shared semester. It was clear to the team that students enrolling for the award at the Fachhochschule would now, in their first semester, study different modules, in a different mode of study, and in a different language from the those studying for the award at the University. Such students might also choose to complete the project in German in the final semester. This comparison raised even more problematic questions when it became clear to the team that the modules provided by the Fachhochschule were not all strictly comparable in their subject focus with those which they were intended to parallel at the University. These modules, the team considered, could give the Fachhochschule programme a business applications orientation which was not incorporated into the ‘Wolverhampton-based’version, and which might not then accurately reflect the stated objectives and final title of the award. While the team was not in a position to judge the coherence in the design of each of the two versions of the programme in their own right, the level of difference between the Wolverhampton- and Luneburg-based structures led the team to the conclusion that it might be misleading to present both streams as a single coherent programme. The team was interested to find that the staff and students at the Fachhochschule also recognised this clear differentiation between the two routes within the programme. From another perspective, University and Fachhochschule staff explained to the team that the differences of subject emphasis could also be considered a strength, since the curricula were complementary. While these issues in relation to the course design and structure were evident to the validation panel, the team was surprised to learn that the UQC had apparently not been alert to the significant points relating to the AST programme operation and comparability of delivery which were signalled in the validation panel’s report. Both of these points relate to subsequent developments which gave particular concern to the team. These concerns are explored more fully below.

76 From the evidence made available to it, the audit team concluded that the design, resources and proposed delivery of the programme at the Fachhochschule had received only limited attention during the overcrowded validation process. The validation panel did not receive all the information which would have been desirable and appropriate to its consideration of the delivery of the AST at the Fachhochschule. The involvement of the Fachhochschule in the validation was also limited, in particular since there was no formal visit to the partner institution during the approval process. The team heard from University staff that there had been no formal resources visit to the Fachhochschule by the University either during the validation process or subsequently. In the view of the team, which was mindful of the comparison with the arrangements put in place for approval at the Hogeschool van Utrecht (see above, paragraphs 22 to 25), some of the difficulties identified in this report in relation to matters of quality assurance might have been allayed had there been a more substantial level of collaborative consideration of operational requirements at the design and validation stage.


The Memorandum of Co-operation

77 At the same time as the approval process, the University and the Fachhochschule concluded a formal agreement relating to the AST programme, describing it as being operated ‘in parallel’at the Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachsen. The audit team noted that the characterisation and description of the programme structure given in the Memorandum varied slightly from the description of the structure in the validation proposal.

78 The Memorandum includes a paragraph clearly assigning responsibility for the maintenance of academic standards to the then Polytechnic, but indicating that ‘in carrying out these responsibilities [the Polytechnic will liaise with, and work through the management and control systems operational at [the Fachhochschule]’. The audit team reflected that this recognition of the Fachhochschule’s systems did not appear to be fully compatible with the position articulated by University staff regarding the implementation of the University’s own quality systems (see also, paragraphs 9 and 121 to 122). The tenet of the Memorandum also appeared to conflict with the current stated view of the University that the Fachhochschule is restricted to the role of a ‘deliverer of modules’on behalf of the University.

79 The Memorandum document also briefly addresses resources and fees; enrolment and registration; admissions; assessment; support requirements (including continuing support for students in the event that the agreement is terminated); and procedures for the resolution of disagreements. It does not include any requirements relating to the publicity and promotion of the AST programme. Though produced at broadly the same time, the team noted that the Memorandum was somewhat different in structure and content to that produced in relation to the collaboration with the Hogeschool van Utrecht (see above, paragraph 26).

80 The agreement as set out m the Memorandum was for three years initially, subject to renewal. The Memorandum, therefore, expired in June 1995. The audit team was not provided with any documentation relating to a renewal of the agreement and so was led to the conclusion that the programme had, in fact, been operating for two years outside of any formal framework of agreement. Officers of the University informed the team that the Memorandum would be redrafted as a part of the review of the programme in the 1997-98 academic session. The University will wish to consider, at the earliest opportunity, whether a continuation agreement covering the period up to the periodic review should be developed.

81 The audit team noted with interest that the validation included the requirement that the signed Memorandum of Co-operation should be received for approval by the validation panel chair by an agreed date, which suggested to the team that the completion of the Memorandum was an integral part of the formal validation and approval process (see above, paragraphs 71 to 72). However, the Memorandum had, the team observed, been signed by the heads of both institutions before the conclusion of the validation event, and before the publication of the critical validation report with its wide-ranging and onerous conditions. The team was unable to satisfy itself as to whether the Memorandum had also been signed before the University had received the formal statement on the resources available at the Fachhochschule. The team noted that the Memorandum signed with the Fachhochschule did not incorporate a termination clause designed to enable both parties to withdraw from the AST agreement in the event of an unsuccessful validation process. The team concluded that the relationship in the University’s procedures between the validation process and the negotiation and signing of the Memorandum was insufficiently clear (see also, paragraphs 30 and 126).

 

Arrangements for programme monitoring and review

Course management and communication

82 The intended course management arrangements were laid out clearly in the original course proposal documentation and the approved course regulations. These explained that the programme was to be managed through two levels of committees with a ‘main course committee’meeting in the SClT at least once per semester to review the operation of all aspects of the course, and a sub-committee meeting once per semester in Luneburg to oversee the delivery of the modules in the Fachhochschule. It was envisaged that both committees would include staff and student representatives, and the main committee would include the Associate Award Leader for the Luneburg programme. The committees were to be chaired by the then Head of School and Dean of the Fachbereich Wirtschaft respectively. Day-to-day responsibility for the course management resides with the Award Leader in the University and the Associate Award Leader in the Fachhochschule. The terms of reference of the committees and the responsibilities of the award leaders are clearly set out in the proposal document. The proposal document also defined the role of a Staff-Student Liaison Committee, which would be a meeting open to all students, convened shortly before a Course Committee meeting, and at which items that students might wish to raise through their representatives could be identified.

83 Admissions to the programme are managed by admissions tutors in the University and the Fachhochschule respectively. Admissions tutors are responsible to the respective course committees, and the admissions tutor at the Fachhochschule oversees publicity, selection, interviews and guidance to potential students, and makes recommendations on admission for formal ratification by the University.

84 In the briefing documentation made available to it and from its discussions with Fachhochschule and University staff, the audit team could find no evidence of a Course Committee having met at the Fachhochschule (or Award Subcommittee as it is also designated), as defined in the validation of the programme. Following the overseas visit, University staff reported that discussions between staff and students had taken place at the beginning of each academic session. Students whom the team met did not recognise such discussions as constituting a Course Committee meeting. Although the committee structure outlined above is broadly reproduced in the 1996 edition of the Award Guide (see below, paragraph :104) for the AST programme, it appeared to the team that, in its actual operation, there had been considerable movement away from the intentions of the original course management model. From its discussions, it seemed that the various responsibilities of committees and the different functions had been subsumed into a single line of communication, with a sharp focus on an individual responsibility for the management of the programme as a whole at the Fachhochschule. This had, in effect, led to the disappearance of any semblance of the two-stage committee arrangements. It did not appear that the University had subsequently made any attempt, through formal communications, to encourage such meetings. While the team could appreciate some of the reasons, for example course size and recruitment patterns, that might justify this substantial modification to the management of the course, it could not find any formal amendment to the original requirements in the University’s papers. The team recognised that there was a good level of communication between the two partner institutions at the informal and personal level which doubtless contributed to the success of the programme. The team nevertheless concluded that in the absence of the Course Committee, the formal monitoring requirements of the University could not be operating as intended, and it was unable to ascertain whether the revised consultative processes in operation at the Fachhochschule had, in fact, been formally approved by the University.


Monitoring and review processes

85 As noted previously (see above, paragraph 82), the formal line of reporting for the monitoring of the programme should be from the Course Sub-Committee at the Fachhochschule to the Awards Committee at the University. The Awards Committee considers the experience of all the students on the programme, and its considerations are then incorporated into the annual report on the programme, prepared by the University Award Leader. The University supplied the audit team with copies of the annual reports on the programme for 1994-95 and 1995-96. These reports, the team noted, routinely included reference to recruitment and student progression; student feedback; external examiner reports; and to the general development of the course by staff. Annual reports are reviewed by an independent member of staff in the School (see above, paragraph 36), before being submitted to the SCIT SQC, where matters are identified for the attention of the School and the University.

86 From the information available to the audit team, it appeared that the monitoring information provided to the University relating to the Fachhochschule programme was prepared exclusively by a single individual. The information received from the Fachhochschule was in the form of a brief report from the Associate Award Leader, apparently without any consistent reporting requirements, which was then incorporated into the annual report produced by the Award Leader for the programme as a whole. The team was concerned that, in the apparent absence of any Course Committee meetings held at the Fachhochschule, there was nothing to indicate that the evaluation and reporting from the partner institution had any level of collaborative production. It was evident to the team that there was a difference between the expected practices as carried out in the University part of the programme, and the pattern of monitoring and evaluation undertaken in the Fachhochschule.

87 The annual reports produced by the Award Leader seen by the audit team were in line with University requirements, and generally comprehensive, although they appeared to give greater emphasis to the Wolverhampton-based operation. The team noted the thoroughness of the monitor’s report which audits the annual report for conformity to procedures. In particular, the team observed that the monitor had identified issues relating to standards and comparability between the different parts of the programme (see below, paragraphs 99 to 102). Without copies of the minutes of any SCIT SQC (or predecessor Faculty Quality Assurance Committee) and UQC (or predecessor Quality Assurance Committee) meetings held in the 1995-96 and 1996-97 academic sessions, the team was unable to satisfy itself as to the extent of awareness in the School and the University, beyond the local staff involved, of specific and more general issues raised by the operation of the AST programme (see above, paragraph 38). A draft abstract of a SCIT SQC meeting held in April 1997 made available to the team shortly before the overseas audit visit outlined the discussion which had taken place regarding the 1995-96 annual report. The team noted that while the annual report drew particular attention to the work that had been undertaken to compare student performance on the AST programme (see below, paragraph 90), the reported discussion of the SQC appeared to make no reference to the Luneburg operation. In the post-overseas visit to the University, the team heard that the programme had, in fact, been considered by the SCIT SQC in late 1996 but, in the absence of briefing papers (see above, paragraph 5), was not clear what matters had been discussed. In relation to feedback within the quality system, the team found no written evidence that discussion of the annual reports in the University, and of the issues raised in these reports, was then communicated to the Fachhochschule. Fachhochschule staff informed the team that they were not aware of the existence of the annual report, or of any feedback to their institution resulting from such a University document.


Student feedback

88 The University’s generic procedure relating to the monitoring process for programmes includes a requirement that student feedback be taken into account. The audit team heard from staff and students at the Fachhochschule that the use of feedback questionnaires was, at present, very unusual in the German academic context. Accordingly, although it appeared that one Luneburg module had used a questionnaire to secure feedback, this had been an individual initiative developed by a member of teaching staff. For the AST programme as a whole, the team learnt that feedback was sought through the Staff-Student Liaison Committee, in which students met with staff to discuss any matters of concern before the meeting of the Course Committee (or Course Sub-committee in the case of the Fachhochschule). The team received notes of such meetings held at the Fachhochschule, although they seemed to have rather more the character of a course briefing than a student consultation. Student views on the course were then communicated in a summary form by the Associate Award Leader. Students with whom the team discussed student feedback mechanisms did not seem clear about the arrangements for communicating their views, or of their right to do so. None of the students were aware of any formal response to any views which they had expressed. The team was not clear whether the general procedures governing the management and administration of the University’s modular evaluation process or centrally administered student questionnaires were expected to embrace students studying at the Fachhochschule (see above, paragraphs 9 and 35).

89 The audit team concluded that since there was no direct communication of the students’evaluative comments on individual units offered by the Fachhochschule, it was likely that the feedback arrangements for students at the Fachhochschule were not meeting University standard requirements. The University will, therefore, wish to review the effectiveness of the arrangements for securing student feedback within the AST programme.


External examiners’reports

90 External examiners’reports, which the University regards as being fundamental to the maintenance of comparable standards, are considered as a part of the annual monitoring process. The external examiner reports made available to the audit team were not always in the standard format required by the University. Several reports were limited to the confirmation of marks, and all of those seen by the team were extremely brief. However, in two cases, the external examiners had commented on matters relating to standards. One had requested an analysis of performance differences between students at Luneburg and those at the University, and the other had suggested that while the results of the courses were ‘fully compatible with the Master of Science level’, the project element of the AST programme differed completely and should not be seen as equivalent in level to master’s theses in German institutions with the university title. The first of these points was pursued by the University Award Leader (see above, paragraph 87), but the second, a question almost certainly of very considerable significance to the University, was not, so far as the team could judge from the information made available to it, followed up through the University’s quality assurance system at either the SCIT SQC or the UQC (or their predecessor committees) or by the DTQM. Following the audit visit, it was suggested to the team by the University that, since the School was already aware of the differences and had taken steps to address them, it had not been considered necessary to raise the matter at subsequent monitoring meetings.

 

Arrangements for the assessment of students

91 In line with the University’s standard requirements, the assessment methods and weighting for each module in the programme are clearly laid out in the Subject Guide for the AST programme. The assessment framework applies to modules designed and delivered in the Fachhochschule which have been specified according to the University’s module description framework. Students also receive copies of the general assessment regulations for the course and the requirements for assessment. Students whom the audit team met were clear about the management of assessment, and were confident that they understood the University’s grade point system and marking criteria used with the programme. Teaching staff at the Fachhochschule confirmed that they were aware of the University’s grading conventions and that a ‘conversion table’had been agreed during the early development of the course to ensure the proper translation of grades and marks from the Fachhochschule system into that used by the University.

92 In considering the management of module assessment at the Fachhochschule, the audit team noted that a large number of the assessments were problem-orientated, group-based or used case studies. As a consequence, assessment activity involved, in general, presentations, group work and software design. Since these assessments are also carried out in the German language, it was dear to the team that they were, by their very nature, not easily accessible to external moderation by the University. The team heard that all written assessments are double-marked by Fachhochschule staff, and all written work produced by students is now seen by the German external examiner.


Language of instruction and assessment

93 While assessments completed at the Fachhochschule are written in German, those which are done by Fachhochschule students in the second semester while studying at the University are submitted in English. Since some of the students it met did not have qualifications in English language, and indeed some of the students’native language was neither German nor English (so that English might be their second foreign language), the audit team was unable to satisfy itself as to whether the students were adequately equipped to meet the challenge of assessments in a foreign language, a challenge not faced by their British counterparts. The team heard from Fachhochschule staff that students were examined for technical competence in the subject and would not, in their view, be penalised for poor English expression. In addition, students could ask for language difficulty to be taken into account in examinations through extra time allowance, although this was available only to individual students on request. While some students met by the team considered that language competence was not of significant import, and indeed welcomed the need for their English language abilities to be tested, others clearly had experienced notable language-related difficulties with their studies and, in particular, with the assessment requirements (see below, paragraph 106). The team was concerned that the University’s course team had not adequately considered this element of the students’learning experience and the need for appropriate support mechanisms.


External examiners

94 The intention of the University, as laid out in the course approval documentation, had been to appoint an ‘appropriate’number of external examiners for the programme as a whole; these would have a shared responsibility for all parts of the award, and be members of the main Course Examination Board. The Fachhochschule ‘internal examiners’would be members of the Examinations Sub-board, which was to meet in the Fachhochschule to assess students’performance while they were studying at the Fachhochschule. According to the Memorandum, they would also be members of the Course Examination Board. The validation panel particularly noted the need to appoint external examiners who had both the subject competence and bilingual ability in English and German. The University had, the audit team noted, given due care to the fulfilment of this requirement in its appointments.

95 The University has recognised the close link between its external examiners and the protection of academic standards in programmes such as that offered in collaboration with the Fachhochschule (see paragraphs 25 and 102). Noting this, the audit team was particularly concerned to find that the available information relating to the appointment, attendance and reporting of external examiners associated with this programme appeared to highlight a number of points of weakness. One external examiner appointment had been made retrospectively and another appointment had been subject to a substantial query in relation to the relevant subject competence of the nominee. In another case, it appeared that an external examiner had operated for a year without receiving a formal letter of appointment. Although the UK external examiner had been present, over a period of two years the German external examiner with specific responsibility for the Luneburg programme had not attended meetings of the Examination Board. The annual reports of external examiners were, in several cases, accepted by the SCIT and the DTQM in a format other than that required by the University, and those that did conform to the requirements yielded only very limited information relating to the operation of the programme, assessment processes and procedures and the comparability of academic standards. The team observed with interest that one External Award Board meeting appeared to have confirmed final degree awards for several Luneburg students despite the fact that the German external examiner’s associated commentary on student performance was dated some two months after the External Award Board meeting.

96 The audit team met a recently appointed German external examiner for the AST programme, who was a member of staff of another German Fachhochschule. The examiner confirmed that he had received a formal letter of appointment from the University, together with a general briefing document from the University on the role and responsibilities of external examiners. He had also been invited, on a voluntary basis, to attend an induction session for external examiners arranged by the University, but had considered it better to devote the limited time available to the task of examining (see above, paragraph 47). It was clear to the team that the examiner had devoted some time to becoming acquainted with both the students and the Fachhochschule-based elements of the programme, and had also given careful attention to the checking and moderation of assessments. However, it was less evident to the team whether the external examiner was in a position to address other responsibilities in relation to the programme. For example, the examiner explained to the team that he had only seen that part of the work of Luneburg students which had been completed at the Fachhochschule. He had never seen the work of any UK students, and had not yet had the opportunity to meet, or talk with, the UK-based external examiner. From the documentation available to the team, it seemed that no external examiner concerned with the assessment of the Fachhochschule students had yet attended the internal and external Award Board meetings held in Wolverhampton. There was no record of sub-board meetings having been held at the Fachhochschule, and there had been no