Review team expresses confidence in Queen Margaret University’s quality arrangements

A review by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), has expressed confidence in Queen Margaret University’s progress in continuing to monitor, review and enhance its higher education provision to enable effective arrangements to be in place for managing academic standards and the quality of the student experience.

The review was carried out by a team of three independent reviewers who were appointed by QAA. It took place in November 2022. The review team recognised the University’s achievements in student engagement and enhancement-focused annual monitoring.

The team identified the following good practice:

• The University has continued to cultivate a student-centred approach to strategy development and implementation, as particularly developed by its Student Engagement Strategy.
• The University has developed a strong and active collaborative partnership with students, achieved through the implementation of the Student Partnership Agreement which is co-created and actions prioritised collaboratively.
• The design and implementation of the University’s Annual Programme Monitoring (APM) process provides a strong data-informed and explicit enhancement-focused approach to encourage reflection, enhancement and evaluation by programme teams and to enable sharing of good practice.

Irene Hynd, University Secretary, Queen Margaret University said: 'We are delighted with the outcome of the review, and the confidence placed on our arrangements for managing academic standards and the quality of our student experience. We are particularly delighted with the emphasis in the report on our strong partnership with students, reported as providing a dynamic and embedded student-centred framework for transforming the student experience.

'We accept fully the recommendations for action identified by the reviewers as contributing further to our enhancement activities. On behalf of the University, I thank the QAA review team for its professionalism in conducting the review and for the manner in which it engaged with staff and students.'

QAA’s report also asked the University to:

• draw upon existing good practice at programme level to develop an institutional approach which sets out the expectations for students across all modes and locations of study regarding the quality and timeliness of feedback they receive on assessments
• develop a systematic institutional-approach to reviewing its approach to student-facing professional services and consider how to enable a more explicit enhancement focus that facilitates consideration of institutional priorities
• and seek to understand barriers to and implement mechanisms which will increase student engagement with internal surveys, drawing on existing good practice at programme and module level.