1. KEY FEATURES

1.1 Appropriate teaching and learning methods for the needs of students which enable achievement of aims and objectives of programmes and units (both subject specific and generic).

1.2 Assessment methods which are integrated with teaching and learning methods to enable achievement of stated learning outcomes for students.

1.3 Opportunity for and assessment of:

1.4 Use of a variety of teaching, learning and assessment methods, with encouragement for innovation, which are flexible
. enough to reflect some variation in student ability.

1.5 Clearly expressed assessment procedures which allow students, staff and external examiners to know how each unit or part of a unit contributes to the overall assessment in a year, and/or to the programme as a whole. Where the assessment of a programme relates to an undergraduate degree, the procedure for classification of the degree should be clearly stated.

The following three sections, on Staff, Students and Assessment, offer guidelines which support the University's strategy and the Key Features above.

2. STAFF

The list of elements of teaching excellence below highlights those areas where staff can demonstrate their commitment to provision of a high quality teaching and learning experience for students. It is recognised that such commitment should be reflected in staff review/appraisal and promotions procedures.

Elements of teaching excellence include:-

The following are guidelines for good practice:

2.1 Selection

2.1.1 DEMONSTRATION OF TEACHING ABILITY

Shortlisted candidates for permanent teaching appointments including professorships should be required to give a presentation on their specialist subject, to demonstrate they have appropriate skills for the appointment for which they are being considered. Evidence of teaching skills should also be sought from referees. In addition to academic staff, such presentations may be attended by non-academic members of the relevant appointments committee and by student representatives from the department's staff/student consultative committee.

Each faculty should be responsible for devising criteria for the successful delivery of the above presentation. These will include such items as demonstration of knowledge of specialism and good communication skills. Where the candidate is being considered for teaching in a particular area, for instance, primarily laboratory based teaching, faculties and departments will wish to devise appropriate criteria to measure this. The attached checklist may also be adapted to assist in evaluation of presentations.

All part-time and temporary lecturers being considered for employment should be subject to the same procedure as candidates for permanent full-time appointments, including consultation of referees.

2.1.2 WEIGHTING OF TEACHING AND RESEARCH PERFORMANCE

Candidates for permanent appointments should be evaluated both on their teaching skills and on their research performance. The relative strengths of each candidate should be addressed against the needs of the post.

2.2 Performance

2.2.1 PEER REVIEW

Regular peer review should be encouraged and monitored by heads of department. At least one member of staff in each department should be nominated as adviser on teaching and provided with training. Such advisers should encourage their departments to introduce arrangements for mutual peer observation between pairs or groups of staff. Both parties in these observations are involved in a learning process which should be considered part of the department's staff development procedures. This mutual observation process may need to be distinguished from any assessment of teaching ability linked to the successful completion of the probationary period described above. It should be made clear to new staff that teaching ability is a criterion for successful completion of the probationary period. Individual staff should be made aware of procedures in operation and be given the opportunity to dissent from judgements that have been made. Results of all teaching assessments must be fed back to individuals as soon as possible. If thought to be appropriate by all concerned, video recordings of lectures may be made to assist in the review of teaching performance and communication skills. As in the selection presentations described above, criteria for assessment are required. They should be flexible enough to take into account the varying skills and methods of presentation for different levels and types of students. The checklist from the CVCP Green Paper No. 1: Teaching Standards and Excellence in Higher Education, may be used as a guide. Departments may wish to modify the list as appropriate

2.2.2 INNOVATION

Innovation in teaching, both in content of courses and units and in teaching methods, should be considered as a major contribution to teaching and learning quality. Innovative practices might well include the promotion of active and student-centred learning, focusing attention on group work where appropriate, incorporating communications skills modules into the curriculum and using technological developments to enhance teaching methods.

2.3 Training and Development

Training and development are essential in the development of teaching excellence for all staff regardless of seniority. Teaching ability is reviewed as part of the academic staff annual review procedure. The primary objective of the review procedure is to encourage development of individuals and to identify areas where training can improve performance. Adequate resources in terms of both funding and staff time should be made available to enable staff development to occur (including attendance at training courses). The University must determine the priority of this funding in relation to other competing demands for shared resources.

The following should be adopted as good practice:-

2.4 Promotion

In line with the University's promotion criteria, staff may be promoted on the basis of their performance in teaching and/or research. Excellence in teaching may be measured by heads of department as a result of student feedback and reports from teaching advisers and external examiners. Rewards for good teaching form an important part of the quality assurance process.

An individual's ability in and commitment to teaching may also be reflected in his or her external contacts. Any, or a combination of the activities included in the University's guidelines on promotion may indicate that an individual's interest and ability are valued externally, and offer opportunities for new ideas and feedback on teaching methods.

3. STUDENTS

The links between the quality of teaching and student learning should be assessed and reinforced at both departmental and faculty level.

Learning quality also requires commitment and personal input from students and important features of the learning process are the development of students' own critical abilities, their capacity for independent work and the acquisition of 'lifelong' learning abilities. Students should be encouraged to learn from one another and a balanced amount of independent study should be provided for. In particular, mature students can often draw on their experience and external contacts to make a valuable contribution to the learning process. Punctual completion of work and satisfactory attendance are also elements of learning quality for which each student is personally responsible.

Where appropriate, departments should make explicit the links between research, industrial or social applications with the teaching and learning underlying their courses. The learning process should take account of the variety of publications and audio-visual materials available to students, in addition to lectures, seminars, small group work, examples classes and laboratory and field work. Innovation can be used to good effect in promoting active learning, group work and communication skills. In some areas, lecture note style textbooks or interactive videos can be used and developed where they can appropriately replace traditional teaching methods.

The following sections highlight specific resources and skills which contribute to the student learning experience.

3.1 Students' Union

Some of the Students' Union societies are attached to academic departments and can add to the student learning process. Societies' approaches to topics offer different methods of study to those in regular classes which are likely to be based on active learning. In such an environment, students are encouraged to discuss aspects of the topic in detail and to learn from one another. The organisation of all Students' Union activity by students offers opportunities for development of management skills and organisational ability which are applicable both to their academic study and to their future life. The Students' Union has a number of representatives at Senate: the President, Vice-President (Welfare) and faculty representatives can voice students' opinion on academic policy at meetings of Senate. In addition, students are widely represented on University committees and the Union's academic staff, in particular the Vice-President (Welfare) and the Academic Affairs Officer have responsibility for communicating with departmental representatives and providing advice for all students on academic matters.

3.2 Students with Disabilities

Arrangements have been made to facilitate learning for students with disabilities. Academic staff who teach classes involving students with disabilities are provided with advice and training on how to use equipment installed to assist with the teaching of such students. Departments offering places to students with disabilities should ensure that such students are given adequate support to help them obtain maximum benefit from their course of study. Section D (11) gives further information on the specific support provided by the Centre for Deaf Studies and the Access for Deaf Students Initiative.

It is University policy that students with medically diagnosed dyslexia should normally be allowed up to 15 minutes extra per hour in University examinations, the extra time to be at the beginning or end of the examination. The department or faculty is responsible for determining the medical facts of individual cases before making a decision on the extra time to be allocated, and whether it is to be at the beginning or end of the examination. The Examinations Officer should be notified accordingly. If students with dyslexia request use of a word processor during examinations, it is the responsibility of the relevant department to arrange and provide the necessary facilities, following approval of the arrangements by the appropriate faculty board.

Specific difficulties in relation to teaching of students with disabilities, including dyslexia, should be referred to the University's Disabilities Co-ordinator or the Disabilities Unit in the Department for Continuing Education.

3.3 Overseas Students

The Overseas Students Advisory Service arranges an extensive introductory programme for overseas students at the beginning of each academic session. In addition, departments are required to nominate a member of staff to have special responsibility for the academic progress of overseas students and to attend relevant training courses as appropriate. Support for overseas students is described in more detail in Section D - Student Support and Guidance (section 4).

3.4 Introductory Week

The University has established an introductory week, to familiarise students with as many aspects of University life as possible before the beginning of the academic session. It is envisaged that elements of the programme for overseas students (described above) will be extended to incorporate all first year students, so achieving greater integration of home and international students in the first few days of term. The introductory programme also includes some activities designed specifically for postgraduate students, who also participate in the more general activities such as the introduction to the Library and Computing Services.

3.5 Transferable Skills

Transferable skills describe a range of skills which are seen by graduate employers to be important in a wide variety of jobs. They are skills students learn in an academic environment and which they can transfer to other situations. They can be acquired whatever the degree subject, and do not necessarily involve major changes in course content, but may involve some changes in teaching methods. Students already acquire many of these transferable skills in existing courses. However, one of the most useful changes which can be made in courses is to indicate to students that the acquisition of transferable skills is an explicit and important element of the course.

The Careers Advisory Service is able to give advice on transferable skills.

4. ASSESSMENT

The Key Features box at the beginning of this Section indicates the broad requirements for assessment.

Teaching, learning and assessment activities must be integrated in order for students' learning outcomes to be successful. Departments should consider whether existing programmes and units fulfil this need and Faculty Quality Assurance Teams should monitor the extent to which integration is achieved.

The University's guidelines for new programme proposals ask for an indication of programme aims, learning outcomes and how achievement of these aims and outcomes is to be measured. They also require a statement of the criteria and modes of assessment for determining, at each level:

These criteria apply to both programmes and individual units.

Some questions which can usefully be asked, in relation to evaluating assessment strategies are:

4.1 External Examiners and Feedback

The involvement of external examiners is essential as part of the process of quality control and maintaining standards. The role of external examiners should, wherever possible, be enhanced to include that of external adviser. This may mean not only involvement in assessment processes such as the moderation of individual unit marks and in attendance at Boards of Examiners' meetings, but also contributing to setting the syllabus for a programme and giving advice on the delivery of the curriculum. In setting assessment objectives and learning outcomes, it is important to seek external input, and external examiners can often usefully provide feedback and new suggestions.

In addition, employers of graduates can be consulted to discover whether graduates are achieving learning outcomes and have acquired skills sought by employers (see section on transferable skills, above). Another source of helpful feedback is that of recently graduated alumni of the University. Departments may wish to consult recent graduates, using a questionnaire to provide feedback on courses and whether alumni feel suitably qualified for the employment they have chosen. The Careers Advisory Service may be able to assist in surveys of employer and graduate attitudes.

4.2 External Examiners' Reports

As stated in the Code of Practice for External Examiners which forms part of the Reynolds Report external examiners make a written report to the Vice-Chancellor at the end of their 3-year term. The 3-year review which is required of External Examiners for the Vice-Chancellor should draw attention to any significant changes in standards over the 3-year period.

Following Boards of Examiners' meetings, external examiners present a report annually to the head of department, a record of which should be kept. Such reports should be reviewed at the next departmental meeting, and any necessary action taken. Departments should report action to faculty quality assurance teams. Decisions not to act upon recommendations made by external examiners should also be documented and reported.

Payment of fees to external examiners will be conditional upon the receipt of written reports, within a specified period of time.

4.3 Reviews

The internal quality assurance and review procedures described in Section F - Quality Assurance and Enhancement, will include monitoring assessment practices and their impact on student learning experiences and outcomes. This, together with the monitoring of assessment criteria at the new programme proposal stage, should ensure that assessment strategies are achieved.

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