Section A - Criteria for Academic Planning

Academic Policy Committee considers proposals for academic developments and student numbers in the light of the following criteria:

1.      Community Needs — As expressed by government through the University Grants Committee, by employers, professional associations, and through the University's own contacts with the wider community.

2.      University’s Strategic Considerations — As set out in academic development proposals and in the University's strategic plans.

3.      Student Demand — The demand by new applicants as measured by the band-adjusted applicant-to-place ratio, the quality of applicants and intakes, and internal demand for courses, where students are able to exercise choice.

4.      Academic Merit — Consistency with the professional and research priorities of staff and contribution to the University's ability to enter emerging academic areas.

5.      Quality of Outcomes — Ability of units to facilitate sound learning outcomes and to encourage the whole person development of students.

6.      Adjustment Problems — Contribution to maintaining minimum effective size and full use of the existing staff establishment.

Section B - Departmental Activities to Assure and Improve the Quality of Education

1.      Departments are asked to assure and improve the quality of education across the following areas of responsibility:

(a)     Design and implementation of the academic curriculum for discipline areas and professional specialisms under the management of the department, including the approach to teaching and learning, the assessment of students, and maintenance of academic standards.

(b)     Design and implementation of an out-of-class educational experience for the department's students, including: orientation; mentoring; developmental and skill-building activities; and placement.

2.      Departments are asked to establish for these areas of responsibility a mechanism for maintaining and assuring quality that has the following features:

(a)     Forums for academic staff to engage in discussion about the design and implementation of educational programmes in the department, encouraging a sense of collective responsibility for quality, innovation and out-of-the-box thinking, and the use of the department’s own professional resources to support the development of staff in their teaching role.

(b)     Peer review of the design and implementation of academic programmes by academics and practitioners, to assist in the calibration of students' grades and academic standards against international norms, the transmission of good practice, and benchmarking.

(c)     Consultation with stakeholders, including other academic units, students, employers, alumni and professional bodies.

(d)     Assessment of learning outcomes as a means to evaluate and improve the department's performance.

(e)     An orientation to improvement by the development of concrete action plans, with a well-identified assignment of responsibility and timelines, and a commitment to the evaluation of the impact of actions taken.

(f)      Encouraging research and publications on teaching and learning.

3.      Departments should report annually to their faculty board/equivalent body on the courses and programmes under their responsibility, and on their implementation of systems to assure and improve quality and academic standards.

Section C - Code of Good Practice for Part-time Teaching

To ensure that the quality of instruction delivered by part-time staff is comparable to that of full-time staff in the University, Senate has adopted the following Code of Good Practice for Part-time Teaching to provide a standard for reference, and a basis for action to enhance the performance and quality of part-time teaching:

1.      The recruitment standards in terms of qualifications and experience required for a part-time teaching position should as far as possible be identical to that required for a full-time position.

2.      The employment of part-time teachers should be confirmed as soon as possible after a decision to hire a person has been made to enable that person to use University facilities, e.g. Library and Computing Services Centre, for the preparation of materials before starting teaching. Furthermore, honoraria payable for part-time teaching must be handled expeditiously.

3.      A senior staff member should be appointed by each department to oversee all part-time teaching matters and to ensure that part-time teaching is of a high quality.  Formal recognition for this job should be reflected in the workload of the staff member.

4.      Handbooks or other material containing practical information at both University and departmental levels should be made available by departments to part-time teachers.

5.      Briefing(s) should be conducted for part-time teachers about their role and duties, course aims and learning outcomes, assessment policy and guidelines, teaching evaluation, background of students, etc.

6.      Part-time teachers should be invited as far as possible to curriculum development activities, Programme Committee meetings, and in social departmental/University functions, etc. to enhance their sense of commitment to part-time teaching.

7.      Part-time teachers should be invited to participate in staff development workshops organised in the University, whenever necessary.  These workshops should be held at a convenient time for part-time teachers who should be paid an additional honorarium for their attendance.

8.      Adequate space (working space and lockers) and other facilities including clerical support, stationery, photocopy service, etc. should be provided for part-time teachers.

9.      Teaching evaluation should be conducted for part-time teachers in accordance with Senate policy, as for full-time teachers, through student evaluation of teaching, peer review or other means. Departmental reports to the faculty board should contain a section reporting specifically on part-time teaching and on any deviations from this Code of Good Practice.

Section D - Guidelines for the Evaluation of Teaching

General

1.      Teaching evaluation schemes should include student feedback as a substantial, primary element in the process.

2.      An individual's teaching should be judged in context – the type and purpose of the teaching, the background of the students, the resources available, the nature of the courses, etc.

3.      Teaching evaluation data should cover a representative sample of an individual's teaching activities, for example to include a variety of student groups and types of activity – lecture, tutorial, project supervision, etc.

4.      Evaluation schemes should clearly separate questions relating to an individual's performance from questions relating to the contributions of others involved in the course. For example, the teacher to be evaluated might not be responsible for the syllabus, the assessment design, etc.

Evaluation Instruments

5.      Evaluation instruments should be based on recognised good practice, teaching-learning theory and accepted research findings.

6.      Evaluation by students for the purpose of judging and assessing teaching must include a customised version of the Teaching Feedback Questionnaire.

7.      Evaluation instruments to be used with students should have accompanying Chinese translation where this will increase the validity of the data collected.

8.      Each evaluation instrument should be designed for a specific audience and should only include items for which this audience is capable of giving informed responses.

9.      Evaluation instruments should include sufficient data to allow the teaching context to be readily identified e.g. FT/PT students, core/service courses, etc.

Summative Evaluation and Personnel Decisions

10.     Where the results of teaching evaluations are to be incorporated into decision-making related to career progression, the differences between information collected from formative and summative evaluations must be taken into account, since information obtained for the sole purpose of improving teaching, and often collected before that teaching is complete, may be inappropriate to consider when making judgments.

11.     Those entrusted with using the information from teaching evaluations for decision-making related to career progression should be skilled in interpreting and drawing together the different sources of information.

Administration

12.     The administration of teaching evaluation should follow adequate, standardised procedures in order to protect the validity of the information obtained.

13.     Evaluation schemes should include clear guidelines as to who may initiate an evaluation and for what purposes.  In all cases the staff member being evaluated must be fully consulted.

14.     Evaluation schemes must include clear rules governing the confidentiality of evaluation information and reports.  This is particularly the case, where the emphasis is on development and improvement (Formative Evaluation Tools for example).

15.     Faculties must provide feedback on the outcomes of evaluations to those involved in providing evaluation data.

16.     Teaching evaluation schemes must be documented and provided to the Quality Assurance Committee for information.

17.     Provisions should exist for regular review of College/Faculty/School evaluation schemes and of the institution's evaluation procedures.

Section E - Guidelines for Student Assessment

Assessment Systems

1.      Any assessment system should be fit for its purposes and clearly aligned to intended learning outcomes.

2.      The principles and procedures of an assessment system should be stated clearly, so that the responsibilities of staff, and the rights and responsibilities of students are identified.

3.      Staff are expected to take professional responsibility to ensure that assessment tasks are both formative and summative to enhance the quality of learning, and facilitate the allocation of valid grades.

4.      Departments should make arrangements for the moderation of assessment components contributing substantially to the final grade relating to a student’s achievement in a course, to ensure that the assessment tasks are aligned to course intended learning outcomes, and to the criteria for achievement.

5.      Students have the right to know in advance the specifications of any assessment system affecting them.

6.      Assessment tasks should be coordinated to minimise workload and stress for students and staff.

7.      Assessment procedures and tasks and arrangements for student assessment should be regularly and systematically reviewed.

Assessment and Learning

8.      Assessment should be based on the ability of the student to meet the declared intended learning outcomes of the course.

9.      The objectives and details of assessment requirements should be given to students at the beginning of the course.

10.     The time allotted to complete assessment tasks should ensure that the workload is manageable.

11.     During a course students should have opportunities to improve their performance through work that provides for practice, and through prompt and adequate feedback.

12.     Assessments takes various forms such as practical exercises and tests, projects or assignments, problems, essays or oral presentations.  The form(s) of assessment chosen should give a valid measure of how well the student has achieved the intended learning outcomes being assessed.  Where an examination is held, it should assess the intended learning outcomes of the course.

13.     Where the final grade is derived from several components, the components should be weighted according to the importance of the learning outcomes being assessed.

14.     When sets of marks from assessment components are being combined, care should be taken to ensure that the final grade is in accordance with the weighting intended.

Section F - Guidelines for Assigning Course Grades

Grading represents an effort to blend an academic judgment about  the level of student achievement relative to the learning outcomes of the course and the relevant external academic standard.  It is based on previously agreed grading criteria.

Section G - Guidelines for External Academic Advisors

These guidelines are drawn from the University's experience with the External Examiner system.  Departments that wish to benchmark the academic standard of their courses and programmes and student work by employing External Academic Advisors may find them of value.

1.      Departments should ensure that their External Advisors have the essential experience relating to the assessment of candidates for similar awards in other universities of international standing, and that they have the qualifications necessary to lend credibility to the advice they offer to the department.

Role of External Academic Advisors

2.      While the principal role of External Academic Advisors is to assist the University to maintain the international standard of its awards, departments are encouraged to seek their advice on broader academic issues.

3.      External Advisors may be asked to advise on assessment tasks and strategics related to a course, moderate examination papers, scripts and other written work of students, and tender advice before decisions are made by an Assessment Panel.  This is particularly the case where hands-on involvement as members of an assessment team is a requirement imposed by professional bodies.  However, External Advisors are normally invited to comment on assessment decisions after Assessment Panels have completed their work, on the understanding that the decisions of properly constituted Assessment Panels are final.

Work of External Academic Advisors

4.      Departments should establish a plan of work for the Advisors to cover: the courses to be reviewed over their period of appointment; arrangements for the review of the relevant materials, teaching and learning activities, and assessment tasks, and the timing and objectives of visits to the University.

5.      External Advisors should sample an appropriate range of students' work which may include examination scripts for any course under review, selected from the range of student grades. Where coursework is a major component of assessment, a similar sample of coursework should be reviewed by prior co-ordination between the Advisor and the Department.

6.      For any courses selected for review, the External Academic Advisors should consider whether:

(a)     Assessment arrangements validly address intended learning outcomes and allow for a reasonable judgment to be made about the performance of students;

(b)     Students are required to achieve an appropriate academic level in the assessed coursework and examinations for the course;

(c)     Assessed work requires students to marshal the range of information and its application, and display the technical and other skills identified as learning outcomes for a course;

(d)     Assessed work relates to the course outcomes; and

(e)     Student work has been carefully and competently graded.

7.      In their calibration of student work, Advisors are asked to pay special attention to the boundary between pass and fail grades, and to the calibration of the distinction between grades at the upper end, B and A, and the lower end, F and D.  If the University is able to set these basic boundaries in line with external standards, it can rely on internal moderation to maintain finer grades.

8.      While the programme approval process and mechanisms for programme review ensure that the syllabus of any course is pitched at the right academic level, where External Advisors feel that this is not the case, they are encouraged to include this finding in their reports.

Briefing of External Academic Advisors

9.      External Academic Advisors should be adequately briefed.  Department concerned should make available:

(a)     Senate policy and guidelines relating to the assessment of students;

(b)     The Academic Regulations;

(c)     A full description of the curriculum, including an explanation of the assessment strategies being followed; and

(d)     Reports of previous External Academic Advisors, with any response to these reports.

Report

10.     The report of the Advisors should have two sections. Section 1 provides a signed assurance that the academic standard of assessment in the area of the Advisor's responsibility is being maintained.  This assurance may be unqualified, or qualified.  When a qualified assurance is provided, Advisors are asked to note these qualifications.  Section 2 is a free format report.  The basis for this section is a checklist of issues.  This checklist is provided to the Advisors when they are appointed.

11.     Departments should arrange for the reports of Advisors to be forwarded to the relevant Dean, at the end of each academic year.

12.     Reports from the Advisors are essential inputs for staff seeking to maintain the quality and level of assessment of courses.  Reports should therefore be made widely available to staff, and action should be taken as appropriate on the advice of the Advisors to bring the academic standard of awards into line with international standards.

Section H - Decisions on Academic Awards

1.      Examination Boards are required to classify awards with regard to, but not necessarily in conformity with students' CGPA.

2.      It is the responsibility of the Examination Board to ensure that academic awards reflect students’ achievement of the intended learning outcomes. If however, an Examination Board finds any anomaly or inconsistency in the award classification decisions, it should make an appropriate recommendation for consideration by the relevant Committee and Faculty Board.

3.      Decisions on classification of awards should comply with the relevant Academic Regulation (AR 12.11). Award classifications are as follows: