Learning and Teaching Committee

Subject: Revalidation of programmes at Loughborough College

Origin: PVC(T), AD(T) SSH, PDQ Team Manager

The initial period of validation by the University of the following Foundation degree programmes at Loughborough College is due to expire on 31 July this year:

• FDSc Sports Science (SS)
• FDSc Sports Science with Sports Management (SSwSM).

University validation procedures require that before an agreement is renewed, a review should be undertaken, covering the same institutional and programme-specific issues as an initial validation event, and by a panel with the same constitution as for an initial validation. The procedures also allow for these requirements to be reduced in the light of any recent periodic programme review (PPR), the requirements for which overlap substantially with those specified for a revalidation.

Arrangements were put in hand at the start of this session for a PPR of the College programmes in the Sport, Exercise and Fitness area, with the exception of the FD in Exercise and Health which had its first intake only this session. The PPR encompassed the two FDs in SS and SSwSM, plus the one-year BSc Honours ‘top-up’ in Applied Sports Science and associated bridging arrangements which are currently validated until 2007.

The report of the PPR appears elsewhere on this LTC agenda. Several issues were identified for attention by the College, but overall the quality and standards of the programmes were found to be satisfactory and several features were considered examples of innovation and good practice.

The College has submitted an initial response to the PPR Report, which is also included with the agenda papers for this meeting.

The PPR Report and the College response have been discussed between the PVC(T), the AD(T) of SSH and the PDQ Team Manager as ex officio validation panel members, who wish to recommend to LTC and Senate that the validation of the two FDs in SS and SSwSM be extended for a further period to 31 July 2011 and that the validation of the BSc Honours programme in Applied Sports Science also be extended at this point to the same date.

This recommendation is made on the understanding that the actions being taken by the College to address the issues identified in the PPR Report will be further monitored through the APR process.

The College has also been alerted to the fact that the University Validation Working Group has requested a review of several specific QA procedures in the context of validated provision, namely impaired performance claims, late submission of coursework, academic misconduct, student appeals against assessment board decisions, and student complaints. The review may result in changes at the operational level in the validation arrangements between the two institutions.

The Committee is asked to note that the University has engaged with Loughborough College in a validation event in the area of Sport, Exercise and Fitness every year since 2001 including the current session, with the exception only of 2005, as new programmes have been brought on stream. In view of the level of commonality between the programmes concerned, the programme-specific issues that would be covered at revalidation have been subject to detailed scrutiny by the University on a regular basis over and above the normal procedures of annual and periodic programme review.

The Committee is also reminded that the QAA Reviewers in their review of the FD in SSwSM last session expressed ‘confidence in the standards and achievements of students and in the quality of learning opportunities’.