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CHE Quality Assurance Forum

Workshop, Public Providers

The Role of the QA Office in Higher Education

28 August 2012

Christa North

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A (very!) brief history

• Pre-historic practices

• Accreditation by professional bodies (then and now)

• SAQA

• HEQC

• Increasing sophistication of local and international accreditation bodies (converging?)

• An understanding that a robust quality management system lies at the heart of excellent practices (and also of accreditation)

• “Evidence based” requires real and real-time INFORMATION (not only data, and with serious implications in a multilingual environment)

• All shaped by the various incarnations of the Unit and changes in reporting lines (to some extent a function of changes in leadership)

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What we (thought we) needed…

The objective of the UP Quality Management System is to establish online –

• history of performance against agreed standards• reporting to internal and external stakeholders in the agreed format • recording of actions towards

– institutionalising excellence and– corrective action where needed

with a view to …• ensuring strategic alignment• reducing risk to the University• eliminating waste • continuously improving service delivery

and, in the process, -- • conform to national and international requirements for HE quality

management systems

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The UP QMS

A Quality Management System which – • forms part of the management information system that supports strategic

planning and operational activities• provides a 24/7 readiness for Audit, accreditation visits and external

evaluation, thereby minimising the institutional effort associated with external scrutiny of the University and its programmes

• (where feasible) conforms to the internationally recognised requirements for a QMS for a higher education institution

Keywords: systemic, alignment

– Planning and reporting

– Resource allocation

– Performance management

– Management of risk and reputation

knowledge (input, process, output)

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Progress to date

• Institutional understanding (and fairly wide acceptance) of quality management and its role in UP – not only QA of T&L

• Leadership led: EQOC and others• Largely positive view of QU and the value that it can add (?)• Policy in third phase of refinement• Process for reviews developed, tested in practice and refined • System in place (for dashboard reports to SenEx members) • Information management for our area improved dramatically (but not yet

where we need to be – will it ever be?? Now for the rest of the institution!)• Quality loop closed by implementing and monitoring improvement plans

(including the information management capabilities to report to internal and external stakeholders on progress in this regard)

• Trends analysis & reporting at institutional level• linkage with institutional performance indicators in self-evaluation through

improved guidelines for self-evaluation

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What we are really doing …

See Map (sample)

Multiple tasks (both QA and QP/improvement)

Policy

Flowchart (institutional process, QA)

The intranet as quality manual… (massive inf mgmt project)

Interact with stakeholders (systemic approach)–create an understanding that QU does not own quality–provide tools –help manage knowledge (input, process, output)

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Issues to be considered

• The need to understand quality management as more than QA of T&L (in an environment where one of the main actors seems to be moving “back” in that direction)

• Creating an institutional appetite for developing systems to support strategic alignment/improved knowledge management (closer co-op between support services)

• Understanding AND CONTAINING the role of the office in a sensible manner (as well as appropriate “shape & size”)

• Recruiting and developing staff that will fit the new paradigm

• Managing expectations

Some questions…

• WHAT did we not think of…?– Where is the thinking flawed?– What other issues need to be considered?

• How should we engage? How can we …– manage expectations– create real value– create an understanding that QU does not own quality, but that we

help to provide safety (management of risk and reputation) through a robust system ?

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