Questions and answers

How is QAA innovating in helping institutions evidence the quality of their provision?

We operate in a dynamic environment where policy has evolved quickly and where technological advances in artificial intelligence, ed tech, and online and blended learning offer new opportunities while also posing complex new challenges.

QAA will support institutions to demonstrate high-quality provision effectively and impactfully, both to external stakeholders and internally. This includes:

• Helping universities and colleges adapt pedagogical and assessment practices in response to new developments.
• Developing self-evaluation frameworks and indicators that demonstrate areas of strength and identify indicators of challenge before they manifest in public data.
• Implementing evidence-based decision making, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data.
• Ensuring providers can recognise and articulate the quality of their teaching, learning and assessment and demonstrate its benefit to students and learners.

How does QAA help institutions’ reputation in the UK and internationally?

• Representing the UK sector internationally in a unique capacity, often advising at a system level. This work is complementary to the work of organisations we partner with, such as the British Council, and to the international activities of other UK higher education sector bodies. It both reflects the UK sector’s reputation and helps promote it further.
  
• Offering membership services that enable understanding of quality and standards across the UK and internationally. This facilitates partnerships, recognition and the mobility of students and learners, graduates and staff.
• Building communities of practice in assurance and enhancement among our members in the UK and internationally. This strengthens the reputation of the sector and helps advance multilateral and bilateral developments in quality and standards.
  

How will QAA achieve value for its members?

We design our services and activities to deliver maximum value. We will offer:

• Assessment services that support compliance with regulatory requirements or international standards, and, for some, avoid cost through regulatory penalties.
• Information and guidance that addresses live issues in a practical way, reducing potentially duplicative effort.
• Support for our members to develop relevant and efficient quality processes that release capacity.
• Specific support through review and consultancy mechanisms for targeted enhancement of quality arrangements to maximize value from institutional effort.
• Enhanced efficiency for members as we convene sector expertise to address current issues.
• Effective mechanisms to self-evaluate through data, management information and qualitative measures, to support strategic planning.

QAA will focus on developing our people and culture, and we are committed to working in a way that promotes sustainability as an increasingly important focus. We operate as efficiently as possible, and as a charity we reinvest our earnings into work to benefit the sector, students and learners.

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