Learning
and Teaching Committee
Subject:
Origin: Robert Bowyer
Actions taken by Senate July 2007
Senate at its meeting on 4
July 2007 received the report on issues arising from the BUE institutional
validation that Learning and Teaching Committee had itself received at its June
meeting, with LTC’s comments.
Senate also received
summaries of the reports of the two subject validation panels, with LTC’s
comments.
In addition, Senate received
LTC’s recommendations to extend the standard monitoring and review
arrangements in the case of the collaboration with BUE.
The relevant Senate minute reads
as follows:
The
institutional and subject validation visits had been successful, and much good
practice had been identified. However, inevitably, given the stage of BUE's
development, there remained many areas for further work and development. Key
issues included BUE's response to the subject panels' recommendations relating
to assessment standards and marking criteria.
Senate
AGREED that a final decision to approve the validation of degree programmes at
BUE should be deferred until the BUE Validation Sub-Committee had considered in
September 2007, key aspects of the further material requested from BUE by the
end of August, by which time reports would also be available from the planned
scrutiny of student work from Semester 2 by subject specialists. Senate
delegated authority to the Sub-Committee to approve the validation on its
behalf in September if it judged the documentation received to be satisfactory.
On the assumption that the BUE Validation
Sub-Committee would approve the validation in September 2007, Senate APPROVED
recommendations from Learning and Teaching Committee in relation to monitoring and review arrangements.
Subsequent actions taken by the BUE
Validation Sub-Committee
The BUE Validation
Sub-Committee met on 5 September 2007.
It received an update on BUE staffing.
It received a report from the AD(T)(BUE) on the reports from subject
specialist advisers (SSAs) on the standard of student work and the standards of
marking, as demonstrated by samples of semester 2 student work received from
BUE in July. It received a statement
from BUE on progress with development of its library facilities and staffing,
and a statement on progress with staff development.
In the light of its
discussions on the further material provided by BUE, the Sub-Committee resolved
that the validation of BUE degree programmes be approved.
The Sub-Committee agreed that
developments in respect of library provision and staff development could now be
followed up through the monitoring and review procedures approved by Senate at
its July meeting. Matters identified in
relation to the student work provided by BUE would be followed up by the AD(T)(BUE)
in the first instance and subsequently through the general monitoring and
review procedures.
It was noted that in
approving the validation, the University was committing itself to 7 cohorts of
BUE students, starting with the first intake who commenced the preparatory year
in September 2005 and degree studies in 2006.
There would be a re-validation by LU in spring 2010.
The Sub-Committee met again
on 12 September to receive initial comments from the SSAs on updated programme
and module documentation for 2007/08, as well as a large amount of material
supplied by BUE following up essential actions identified in the institutional
and subject validation reports. The
Registry is developing means of charting progress on individual items to support
the monitoring and review processes. Decisions
have to be taken on what issues should be covered in the first annual
institutional and programme reviews.