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The QQI Review of Reviews 2014

The QQI Review of Reviews 2014. Peter Williams Chair of the Review Team. Our task. To analyse the strengths, weaknesses, impacts and other features of the HE institutional review (IR) processes used by the three ‘legacy organisations’ (IUQB, HETAC and NQAI)

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The QQI Review of Reviews 2014

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  1. The QQIReview of Reviews 2014 Peter Williams Chair of the Review Team

  2. Our task • To analyse the strengths, weaknesses, impacts and other features of the HE institutional review (IR) processes used by the three ‘legacy organisations’ (IUQB, HETAC and NQAI) • To offer views on possible future approaches to institutional reviews

  3. The Review Team Peter Williams Judith Eaton Pedro Teixeira We looked in from the outside and what did we find?

  4. What we did • Read the documentation: • Legislation • Organisations’ rules and guidance • IR reports • Talked to 66 key players • Former members of the legacy organisations • Institutional participants in IR • Members of other relevant organisations • Gave a questionnaire to participants in previous IRs

  5. What we heard • A recognition that IRs had had an important impact on the way Irish HEIs viewed and managed questions of quality and standards • A (grudging?) acceptance that they had led to improvements: ‘challenging but rewarding’ • Some criticisms of the ways the IRs were designed and managed • Some suggestions for improvement

  6. Participants’ views: the positives • Greater institutional self-knowledge • Stimulus for greater internal institutional collegiality • Usefulness of the reports and their recommendations • Collaboration between the agencies and the institutions in developing the processes • Involvement of students and representatives of industry

  7. Participants’ views: the negatives • ‘Review fatigue’ (particularly HETAC institutions) • Overlaps of demands of agencies and HEA (especially for data) • Too much emphasis on compliance and conformity • Limited interest in enhancement and improvement • Too much emphasis on QA processes rather than their outcomes or effectiveness • Limited follow-up or feedback on the IR processes • Ineffective dissemination of the reports beyond the HE sector • Limited overviews or ‘meta-analysis’ • Limited return to institutions for the considerable effort involved • Some concerns about the quality of the reviewing panels

  8. Lessons to be learnt • Need for the purposes and intended benefits of IR to be clear and processes to be developed that are fit for those purposes and benefits • Lighten the touch so far as is compatible with the required outcomes of IR • Recognise the increasing maturity and capacity of the HEIs for self-regulation • Develop a communications strategy that provides useful, accessible, information for diverse audiences

  9. The future • The National Strategy • Clusters • The role of QQI • QA Guidelines • The disappearance (or not) of ‘sectoral silos’? • Institutional review

  10. what’s it all going to be about? Questions for QQI • What’s IR intended to achieve and why? • What are the specific desired outcomes? • What must be included in IR to ensure compliance with the legislation? • What audiences are the reports intended to reach? • What resources are available for IR inside and outside the HEIs? • What will a successful IR process look like?

  11. What does the Review Team think IR should be for? • the sustenance and enhancement of successful student learning as the central and compelling purpose of higher education (i.e. to help students to do the best they can in their studies) • the sustenance and enhancement of effective institutional performance (i.e. to help institutions set and meet their academic objectives by using, as adeptly as possible, the full range of their professional resources) • the generation of public confidence in Irish higher education and in the quality and effectiveness of its provision (i.e. to generate useful and reliable public information, especially about what students learn and can do, for the various stakeholders interested in higher education)

  12. The Review Team has suggested • Some desirable characteristics of a future IR • Some features to avoid • Four possible options for future reviews • Accountability model • Extended accountability model • Enhancement model • Comprehensive model • Three alternative organisational structures • Whole sector (‘one size fits all’) • Whole sector (core plus sub-sector elements) • Sub-sector (Distinct processes – no shared elements)

  13. Some General Points • QQI is to be congratulated on commissioning the Review of Reviews • The legacy processes provide very useful information and lessons, but the new process must be designed to meet its own needs, not those of the past • The new process should be designed to benefit everyone engaged with higher education • The new process should demand no more of institutions than is needed to fulfil its agreed intentions

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