28th Oct 2020
- 28th Oct 2020
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 1 What’s In Your Institutional Degree Classification Profile These Days?
n May 2019 the UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment published a Statement of Intent proposing that every higher education provider across England produce and publish a Degree Outcomes Statement analysing their degree classification profile and articulating the results of an internal review in the context of their arrangements for teaching, learning and assessment of students, academic regulations, and academic governance.
In this webinar we will hear from QSN member institutions’ who will share how their institutions have and perhaps still are developing Statements.
Members will have an opportunity to share practice and insights and reflect on the constituent elements of the statements including Institutional degree classification profiles, assessment and marking practices, academic governance. classification algorithms, teaching practices and learning resources, identifying good practice and actions and risks and challenges
The webinar will also provide the opportunity to consider the report Principles for Effective Algorithm Design published by UUK, GuildHE and QAA on behalf of UKSCQA.
If you would like to present a 7 -minute ‘Lightning Talk’ please contact chair@qualitystrategynetwork.org.
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 1 What’s in your institutional degree classification profile these days?
25th Nov 2020
- 25th Nov 2020
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 6 What’s Your HE Sector Network ‘Connection List’ Looking Like These Days?
The cliché of “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” may well be one of the most annoyingly overused phrases you are likely to hear, but it could be more accurate than you think. This webinar will simply focus on facilitating opportunities for QSN members to establish potential institutional connections across shared areas of expertise which support our collective regulatory and quality assurance frameworks.
We have based break-out groups broadly around:
1: Assessment (Academic Integrity, Mitigation and Extenuating Circumstances)
2: Course Design and Development (Academic Approval, Validation, Revalidation and Periodic Review)
3: External Examining and Expertise (Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies)
4: Degree Apprenticeships
5: Collaborations and Partnerships
6: The monolith of Academic Principles and Regulations and Regulatory Review!
We will provide virtual break-out rooms to for you to say hello and share current challenges and innovative practice. The aim is come away from the webinar with a delegate list of names and email addresses and the rest is down to you. You will already know the benefits of establishing a network contact: getting fresh ideas, accessing new information, building confidence, gaining a different perspective and developing long lasting professional relationships.
This webinar will take place via Zoom and is free for up to 5 members of our QSN member institutions. Joining instructions will be shared prior to the event.
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 6 What’s Your HE Sector Network ‘Connection List’ Looking Like These Days?
8th Dec 2020
- 8th Dec 2020
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 2 Assuring The Quality Of Online Delivery
Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) has become particularly relevant as the sector continues to manage its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Blended learning, online delivery and alternatives to face-to-face assessment are now all part of the ‘new normal’ but what are the implications of these changes for quality assurance?
This webinar will focus on the digital learning environment and explore how institutions are adapting QA processes to ensure that quality is maintained.
If you would like to present a 7 -minute ‘Lightning Talk’ please contact chair@qualitystrategynetwork.org.
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 2 Assuring the quality of online delivery
17th Dec 2020
- 17th Dec 2020
QSN 19/20 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING (AGM) & CONSULTING ON REGULATING QUALITY AND STANDARDS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: RAISING THE BAR
Well we have finally done it and managed to close the year with the biggest of finales! Yes the QSN 19/20 AGM and an opportunity to reflect on QSN member institutional responses to the Office for Students (OfS) consultation on quality and standards in higher education: Raising the bar
We will spend the first 30 minutes on our 2019/20 AGM following our postponed QSN Annual Conference in September this year.
The remainder of the webinar will focus on the OfS consultation. The OfS is proposing to update and toughen requirements for the minimum performance expected by the OfS from any University or other higher education provider. Numerical values for baseline requirements are yet to be published but the OfS does remind us that they are ready to use all necessary enforcement powers, where necessary, to help maintain the excellent reputation of the English higher education system.
Join us to share institutional views on the new and clearer definitions of “quality” and “standards”! Whether you wish to contribute to the QSN consultation response or simply understand current thinking across QSN member institutions to inform your own institutional response, then please attend this webinar.
QSN 19/20 Annual General Meeting (AGM) & Consulting on Regulating Quality and Standards in Higher Education: Raising the Bar
28th Jan 2021
- 28th Jan 2021
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 3 The Changing Nature Of Student Feedback And Student Engagement After Covid-19
Providing swift and useful institutional insights from student feedback has always been a major challenge for quality assurance practitioners long before Covid-19 upended higher education across the four nations. The pivot to online teaching and assessment in recent months has underlined just how difficult this vital, but time-consuming, task has become.
This fifth meeting of the Module Evaluation Special Interest Group will ask the question ‘is it time to reconsider the paradigm of teacher-student feedback altogether in these strange times of enforced distance learning?’ The meeting will also provide the opportunity to consider possible future directions for the NSS in the light of the OfS review and to share practice and insights and reflect on the collective concerns of our student communities.
QSN members are encouraged to invite their SU Reps to the meeting, free of charge
If you would like to present a 7 -minute ‘Lightning Talk’ please contact chair@qualitystrategynetwork.org.
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 3 The changing nature of Student Feedback and Student Engagement after Covid-19
18th Mar 2021
- 18th Mar 2021
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 4 How Do We Judge The Quality Of Transnational Provision In A Covid Era?
Transnational education (TNE) is an important area for UK higher degree-awarding providers. 142 UK providers have students on TNE programmes and more than 650,000 students’ study for UK awards through transnational provision, including through open and distance learning. The Department for Education (DfE) estimates that UK higher education TNE contributes over £600 million in exports to the UK economy and is currently delivered in 226 locations worldwide.
But how do we judge the quality of transnational provision in a Covid era?
This webinar will focus on the innovative approaches undertaken by QSN member institutions to ensure that baseline quality requirements are being met whilst international travel restrictions are likely to remain across the sector during the rest of 2020/21.
If you would like to present a 7 -minute ‘Lightning Talk’ please contact chair@qualitystrategynetwork.org.
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 4 How do we judge the quality of transnational provision in a Covid era?
29th Apr 2021
- 29th Apr 2021
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 7 A Comprehensive Approach To Survey Administration: How Can We Improve Quality And Academic Standards Across Your Institution?
Over the past 12 months universities have ‘pivoted’ their approaches to student feedback and student engagement, with many embracing ‘Pulse’ surveys for both course evaluation surveys and wider assessment of issues around student sentiment and wellbeing alongside more traditional end-of-module surveys.
This shift has highlighted an opportunity to adopt similar practices with academics, professional and administrative staff, gathering and measuring their feedback on a range of issues in a timely manner. However, in both cases, our research and insight drawing on UK and international contexts has found variable and inconsistent practice across the sector.
So, as we strive for greater consistency, what is the most effective approach to capturing and responding to student and staff feedback in a strategic and cohesive manner? What are our objectives, what are our target outcomes, and do universities have sufficient expertise to do this on their own? In this webinar we highlight a potential way forward for the HE sector in response to these questions, the potential for our Blue and Bluepulse solutions to support the execution of a more comprehensive approach to survey administration beyond the module evaluation sphere, and introduce some practice from outside the sector on using surveys to create a feedback culture within employee performance management.
This webinar will take place via Zoom and is a free-event to all QSN members. A link will be sent out in the joining instructions.
The delegate booking system on the website is a little clunky which should hopefully be fixed soon. You have to register your name to add a delegate (which could be yourself), complete the delegate registration information and then scroll back down the page to submit your registration.
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 7 A comprehensive approach to survey administration: how can we improve quality and academic standards across your institution?
12th May 2021
- 12th May 2021
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 5 Don’t Look Back In Anger As This Is Now The ‘New Normal’!
The emergency pivot to virtual teaching and assessment by higher education providers in March 2020 was necessitated by governments across the UK bringing in lockdown restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with some institutions moving to virtual delivery ahead of formal government announcements.
This webinar will focus on the quality assurance systems and processes that are now ‘forever changed’ and the new normal. QSN members will have an opportunity to share practice and insights and reflect on how planning and delivery arrangements for 2020-21 have affected quality and standards.
If you would like to present a 7 -minute ‘Lightning Talk’ please contact chair@qualitystrategynetwork.org.
QSN 2021 Webinar Series: 5 Don’t Look Back in Anger as this is now the ‘New Normal’!
14th Sep 2021
- 15th Sep 2021
15th Annual Conference – Hot Topics Revisited: The Roaring Twenties
With regret, we are moving our QSN 15th Annual Conference from Thursday 17th/Friday 18th September 2020 to Tuesday 14th/Wednesday 15th September 2021.
We are moving our 2020/21 Symposiums from face to face to online webinars and we will publish our 2020/21 webinar dates shortly. If you would like to take part in any of our QSN activities then please email Lee Jones, QSN Chair: chair@qualitystrategynetwork.org.uk
Details TBC
The Higher Education Sector has moved online. Teaching is being undertaken remotely and face to face assessment have been replaced with alternatives. Over the next month the majority of undergraduate students will complete their assessment for the year. But the potential impact of the pandemic on student achievement is wide ranging; students may