Your Progress
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We utilise the quality cycle to audit our systems to check if they are working and fit for purpose. This is not just about looking for problems but to improve or at least maintain standards if everything is working well. The activities will involve gathering feedback from a number of stakeholders such as learners and employers and then using this information to modify services. For example, if we receive feedback that learners prefer more classroom time compared to online study, we will address this and issue by facilitating more contact time within the classroom. We do not treat quality assurances activities as tokenism. We instead use the data available to ensure we are progressive, learner-centred and flexible. We also use the power of self-reflection as part of the quality cycle.
Your work will be internally quality assured at least three times. The first time (interim) is usually a few weeks after enrolment and the second will take place at any time as part of continuous formative quality assurance. The final time will be summative at the end of your course when you submit your portfolio of evidence. Your work will also need to be externally quality assured by a representative of the awarding body. This normally takes place within a few weeks after your work has been signed off by our internal quality assurer. Where direct claim status is in place your certificate will be claimed within a few days. Your portfolio of evidence will be retained until the awarding body has had the opportunity to audit and confirm the decision to certify was sound. Please bear in mind that as part of quality assurance both the internal and external quality assurer reserve the right to contact you. This is mainly to find out about your experience and to verify some of the evidence in place.
Quality Assurance involves activities intended to test and make sure that an assessment outcome is fair, current, sufficient, authentic and reliable. The checks will also probe if the learning outcomes and assessment criteria have been fully met. Forms of Quality Assurance include:
- sampling a representative sample of assignments
- including for example of borderlines, firsts and fails, or where there is a significant difference between the marks of different markers that cannot be resolved without the opinion of another marker, and
- a review of marks, where there is a significant difference between several assessment marks, within or between parts of a programme, which indicate the marks may need to be reconsidered.
