I’ve been at Newcastle for just short of five years now. And we’re now on the third different national framework for assessing the quality of learning and teaching in English higher education since I came (back) to the University. Not a particularly cheerful thought – I guess that (unfortunately) it’s that kind of world nowadays …
Until recently the only TLA (Three Letter Acronym) we really needed to know much about in terms of the external regulation of our learning and teaching was QAA. Things aren’t that straightforward now, and there’s a plethora of new TLAs that form part of the new regulatory framework in England – e.g. OfS (Office for Students), CMA (Competition and Markets Authority), APP (Access and Participation Plan) and of course TEF.
For those colleagues who feel they would like or need to get a sense of how these external regulatory requirements operate, and link with each other, LTDS has published a series of short (i.e. two page) briefing notes. You can find these on our website at https://www.ncl.ac.uk/ltds/governance/monitoring/review/.
As in the past no-one is expecting large numbers of colleagues to develop an intimate familiarity with these external requirements. We’ll continue our approach of, wherever possible, embedding in our own University policies and processes those actions needed to meet external regulatory requirements, so that colleagues can be confident that if they follow Newcastle processes that national external regulatory requirements are being met. The briefing notes are for those colleagues who would like to know a little more about the wider context, and how we’ve approached this as a University.