Monitoring and evaluation is an essential process within providers, forming a fundamental part of the academic cycle. This Theme offers advice to providers on aspects of the higher education experience that require monitoring and evaluation, enabling providers to think about how learning opportunities for students may be improved.
Expectations and Practices for Monitoring and Evaluation
Expectations
Expectations for standards
The academic standards of courses meet the requirements of the relevant national qualifications framework.
The value of qualifications awarded to students at the point of qualification and over time is in line with sector-recognised standards.
Expectations for quality
Courses are well-designed, provide a high-quality academic experience for all students and enable a student’s achievement to be reliably assessed.
From admission through to completion, all students are provided with the support that they need to succeed in and benefit from higher education.
Practices
Core practices for standards
The provider ensures that the threshold standards for its qualifications are consistent with the relevant national qualifications frameworks.
The provider ensures that students who are awarded qualifications have the opportunity to achieve standards beyond the threshold level that are reasonably comparable with those achieved in other UK providers.
Where a provider works in partnership with other organisations, it has in place effective arrangements to ensure that the standards of its awards are credible and secure irrespective of where or how courses are delivered or who delivers them.
Common practice for standards
The provider reviews its core practices for standards regularly and uses the outcomes to drive improvement and enhancement.
Core practices for quality
The provider designs and/or delivers high-quality courses.
The provider supports all students to achieve successful academic and professional outcomes.
The provider actively engages students, individually and collectively, in the quality of their educational experience.
Common practices for quality
The provider reviews its core practices for quality regularly and uses the outcomes to drive improvement and enhancement.
The provider’s approach to managing quality takes account of external expertise.
The provider engages students individually and collectively in the development, assurance and enhancement of the quality of their educational experience.
Guiding Principles
- Providers agree strategic principles for monitoring and evaluation to ensure processes are applied systematically and operated consistently.
- Providers normalise monitoring and evaluation as well as undertaking routine formal activities.
- Providers clarify aims, objectives, activities and actions, and identify the key indicators, issues, questions, targets and relevant information/data.
- Providers decide whom to involve in the different stages of monitoring and evaluation, clearly defining roles and responsibilities and communicating them to those involved.
- Providers evaluate, analyse and use the information generated from monitoring to learn and improve.
- Providers communicate outcomes from monitoring and evaluation to staff, students and external stakeholders.
- Providers take account of ethics and data protection requirements when designing and operating monitoring and evaluation systems.
- Open data and official statistics, HESA
- Developing and Supporting the Curriculum, Enhancement Themes
- Flexible Delivery, Enhancement Themes
- Higher Education Outreach to Widen Participation Toolkits for practitioners, Advance HE