Transcript QUALITY REVIEW REVIEWED – APPRAISAL OF THE QA/QI …

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QUALITY REVIEW REVIEWED –
APPRAISAL OF THE QA/QI PROTOCOLS
DEVELOPED AND IMPLEMENTED IN UL
Patrick Cashell & Adrian Thomas,
University of Limerick,
Ireland
• The number of universities increased from three to
nine and the Government established a network of 14
Institutes of Technology distributed across the
country.
• Total student numbers in the HE Sector increased
700% in that period with the total number engaged in
full-time HE studies across all of Ireland’s institutions
now numbering some 140,000.
• UL originally established as the “National Institute for
Higher Education (NIHE)” was the first of the new
institutions to be established as a University by the Irish
Parliament (1989).
• Innovative and applied approach to undergraduate and
postgraduate teaching and learning, and introduction of
such unprecedented features as cooperative education,
modular programmes and autonomous learning
methodologies.
• Rapidly changing Higher Education sector in Ireland
inevitably resulted in the adoption of contemporary
approaches to Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement.
• The lateness of the development and implementation of
QA/QI systems in Ireland’s universities and Institutes of
Technology afforded Ireland’s HE institutions a timely
opportunity to evaluate and adapt to Ireland’s own
unique requirements, a “best fit” in terms of a QA/QI
process.
• Ireland’s universities, under the aegis of the Higher
Education Authority (HEA). Put in place the Irish
Universities Quality Board (IUQB).
• The universities, working with the IUQB, developed and
fine-tuned a sectoral set of guidelines and procedures
for QA/QI across all the universities, thereby leading to a
homogenous, although autonomous implementation of
quality across the university sector.
• The guidelines provided for substantial harmonisation in the
procedures in use in each university, and made allowance for sufficient
variation and autonomy between the individual institutions’ own
requirements and approaches.
• UL set about the project of quality-reviewing all of its 25+ academic
departments in the period 1998-2006.
• UL utilised a uniquely Limerick-based approach and methodology.
• UL had a team of standing Chairpersons on each of its Quality Review
Panels; strong emphasis was also placed on the “peer” role of both
academics and industrialists/professionals who were members of these
panels.
• All the Quality Review Panels, across the diversity of departments in
the University, followed a consistent template, schedule and reporting
process, in carrying out their reviews.
• With the quality reviews in the University’s academic
departments well-established and with the first cycle
completed, and the methodology fine-tuned,
attention was turned by UL’s Quality Support Unit to
the many academic support departments.
• Decided that the support departments should
develop, and implement, a quality management
system (QMS), based on the ISO9000:2000 model.
• Information Technology (ITD) and Cooperative
Education and Careers Division (CECD) completed this
phase of UL’s quality review strategy.
• Library and Student Academic Administration developed
their own basic QMS using ideas drawn from ISO9000
and other sources.
• The university decided to set up a task force to develop
a bespoke QMS based on the most appropriate elements
of ISO9000, Baldridge and EFQM and in 2006 this was
published as the UL Quality Management System.
• It was agreed to make a quality review of all support
departments during 2006 and 2007 and this had the
effect of galvanising all units into activity.
• The Departments:
 Buildings & Estates,
 Human Resources,
 Student Affairs Division,
 Campus Life Services,
 University Arena and Sports,
 Finance Division and
 Research.
• In addition to the self-evident added-value of these
departmental quality reviews being completed, and the
reports published, a significantly valuable spin-off of the
process has been the now holistic and indeed
enthusiastic manner in which the Campus Community
has embraced the university’s quality agenda.
• During the period 1997 to 2004 all of Ireland’s
universities undertook regular reviews of their teaching
and support departments.
• The universities jointly agreed to devolve this authority
to the IUQB and in 2004 the HEA and IUQB contracted
the European University Association (EUA) to review the
whole Irish university sector.
• Three EUA review panels visited each individual
university campus on two occasions, during 2004.
• The EUA teams completed their mission and reported in
detail on each university’s quality strategies and
procedures, as well as presenting a holistic “sectoral
report”.
• This EUA report “validated much of the work
underway in the [universities] sector, for Quality
Assurance, and provides accountability in respect of
this work.” It goes on to articulate: “The validation of
these systems is…a major endorsement of the
universities”.
• The Minister for Education & Science, in launching the
Report commented that: “The systematic organisation
and promotion of Quality Assurance at the initiative of
the Universities themselves here is unparalleled in any
other country in Europe or the US or Canada”.
• To promote awareness and enhance buy-in to the
quality culture across the University, the Quality Support
Unit has established the QIFAC Awards scheme, with a
budget of €150,000 for funding QI projects.
• The HEA also funds a number of sectoral projects,
through the IUQB, which facilitate UL and its fellow
universities in engaging in cross-sectoral studies on a
common Quality theme.
• Five significant features of the UL Quality ‘brand’ which
characterise the institution’s approach:
 The bespoke QMS model deployed and adapted in the support
departments;
 The open, honest and friendly tone of the engagement between
the PRG and University staff, both before and during the review
meetings;
 The requirement for departments to respond to the quality review
by putting forward a detailed QI Action Plan for approval by the
university Executive;
 Wide distribution and discussion of the quality review report,
through Deans’ Council, Executive Committee and Governing
Authority. Reports are published in full on the University’s
website;
 Involvement of stakeholders, and thereby elucidation of their
views during the support departments’ quality reviews.