The minutes of the previous meeting held on 22 November 2010 were approved. 

There were no items to report. 

Dr Aitken introduced the paper which provided the full consultation document from the QAA on the future of the Academic Infrastructure. Following a review of what QAA termed the Academic Infrastructure the consultation presented the QAA's current proposals for changes to the Academic Infrastructure. Members were reminded that the Academic Infrastructure currently comprised four elements: the Code of Practice for Higher Education; programme specifications; the national frameworks for HE qualifications in the four UK countries; and subject benchmark statements. The review had been initiated in a context of increasing public concern over standards in Higher Education, concentrated very largely in England; a drive from QAA to improve its communications with communities outside of the Higher Education sector; and the evolution of the Academic Infrastructure, including the need to adapt to changing environment with developments such as recent Equality legislation and the National Student Survey.

The proposed amendments therefore focused on threshold standards with an aim to simplify structures. The key proposal was for the Academic Infrastructure to be restructured as a single Code of Practice for standards, quality and enhancement, incorporating content drawn from the existing elements.

It was proposed that the new Code of Practice would be in two parts - Part A on Standards and Part B on Quality and enhancement - and would include new chapters on learning and teaching, student support and student representation. There would also be the option to add a Part C on Public Information at a later stage.

Members welcomed the proposal with its emphasis on simplification of structure and desired use of plain language. It was also noted that there would not be a large degree of new material, as much of the work would involve a recasting of current material. This was welcomed.

ASC was asked to consider the definitions proposed for the new Code of Practice, plus four related questions. The definitions were:

"Threshold academic standards are the level of achievement that a student has to reach to gain an academic award. For similar awards, the threshold level of achievement should be the same across the UK."

"Academic quality is a way of describing how well the learning opportunities available to students are managed to help them to achieve their award. It is about making sure that appropriate and effective teaching, support, assessment and learning opportunities are provided for them."

Question 1: Are these the appropriate definitions?

While the separation of standards and quality was understood, it was suggested that the definition for threshold academic standards could be strengthened and that the second sentence, which was an assertion should be revised into a definition. With regard to the definition of quality, there was some unease at the use of the term "management" of learning opportunities as it was felt that it potentially separated management issues as a focus of attention from the quality of learning opportunities in themselves. The sentence might be rewritten: "Academic quality is a way of describing how well learning opportunities are made available to the students to help them achieve their award." However, the clear publication of single, national definitions of standards and quality would assist the sector and hopefully help improve public understanding of the work of Universities in this regard.

Question 2: Do you agree that the components of the Academic Infrastructure should be restructured into the UK Code of Practice for standards, quality and enhancement? Will the new Code of Practice make clear the distinction between standards and quality?

Members welcomed proposed restructuring of the Academic Infrastructure and the attempt to draw a distinction between standards and quality.

Question 3: The two areas highlighted for future work are the status of credit frameworks and provision of information at programme level. Do you agree that these should be priorities for future work? Do you agree that in due course the Code of Practice should include a Part C on Information?

It was noted that current developments relating to the proposed Key Information Set were being taken forward in England and Northern Ireland. Members considered that it was also important for the Scottish sector to ensure that appropriate information was made available to prospective students, parents, and employers. ASC considered that the future work on the status of credit frameworks was likely to be focused on England and Northern Ireland as the Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework was well embedded and was also aligned to the European Qualifications Framework.

Question 4: Will the UK Code of Practice make clear how UK higher education providers set and maintain threshold academic standards and assure and enhance academic quality? Is the name 'UK Code of Practice for standards, quality and enhancement in higher education' appropriate?

The proposed title was considered appropriate. Members did not consider it easy to judge the extent to which the single Code would make clear how standards where set and maintained, and how there was assurance and enhancement of academic quality. It was felt much of this would depend on how clearly the information was expressed and how accessible it was to various audiences. QAA's acknowledgement that there was further work to do beyond recasting the Academic Infrastructure was also welcomed. There was need to promote public understanding of the range of work undertaken by the sector to protect standards and enhance quality.

The discussion at ASC would inform the University's response to the consultation which was due to be submitted by 1 March 2011.

Action: Senate Office

ASC was invited to consider four proposals on assessment issues which had been referred to EdPSC from the SLP Project Board. EdPSC had noted that the proposals were interlinked and each had the potential to affect the implementation of others.

ASC considered the implications of the proposals and agreed the following.

Proposal 1: The Code of Assessment should allow continued marking components of assessment in percentages, where appropriate, but all aggregation must be performed after conversion to the 22 point scale.

ASC approved this proposal. It was confirmed that further to comments made at the last meeting of Senate, only a single instance of conversion to the 22 point aggregation scale would occur and there would not be any process requiring conversion back to percentage marks. It was agreed that the illustrated examples of percentage marking in the Guide to the Code of Assessment should be revised.

Action: ARSC

Proposal 2: Contributions of reassessment components should be exactly the same as weightings of the original assessment components.

ASC approved the proposal but agreed that a clear definition of assessment components - and sub-components - was required. It was also confirmed that while reassessment did not need to take exactly the same format as the original assessment, it did need to be assessed against the same intended learning outcomes, as well as retaining the original weighting. Current practice was known to include cases where reassessment of several course assessments was covered by a single reassessment (e.g. a viva). It would therefore be necessary to amend the Code of Assessment to make it explicit that discrete components of assessment required to retain their original weighting and therefore could not be combined into a single reassessment.

Action: ARSC

Proposal 3: Consider a means of ensuring that section 16.9 of the Code of Assessment is applied consistently throughout the University. The default position should be that all components of reassessment are available and a University approval process should be developed for approving "opt outs" for provision of component reassessments.

ASC noted that revision regulation 16.9 had already been agreed (for implementation in 2011-12) which strengthened the principle that reassessment opportunities should normally be provided. The regulation would make clear that no reassessment opportunity would be exceptional and would also require approval from the Head of School.

ASC therefore approved proposal 3 and agreed that the Programme and Course Approval Working Group should work with the PIP team to develop an opt-out process in the course approval system.

Action: PCAWG

Attention was drawn to existing courses that did not provide reassessment opportunities. There was no central record of these, and it was agreed that a one-off exercise was required to identify all such courses and confirm approval that their opt-out status should continue. ASC acknowledged that this exercise could require significant resource at a time when Schools were already having to dedicate significant time to other SLP development work. It was therefore proposed that this matter should be deferred until next session.

Proposal 4: Where a student performed poorly in coursework and no opportunity existed for reassessment of that coursework, how should their final result for that course be calculated? The two possibilities suggested were:

1. The original coursework grade to stand and the candidate would have to do better in other components to compensate, or
2. The original coursework grade to be ignored and the other components to be given proportionately higher weightings.

ASC agreed that option 1 was consistent with the principles of the Code of Assessment and that option 2 was unfair to other students in that their grades had been calculated taking into account performance in the coursework which could not be replicated.

ASC therefore approved option 1, noting that where reassessment of coursework was not going to be available this should be brought to students' attention at the outset with clear advice on the consequences of poor performance in that component.

ASC also noted EdPSC's view that ignoring some components of assessment was not good practice; for example, in assessment schemes which only used the best two out of three essay grades to calculate the overall course result. EdPSC had requested that a statement be added to the Code of Assessment to make this clear.

Action: ARSC

Professor Guthrie introduced the above report.

Achieving consistency in Good Cause decisions

ASC was reminded that EdPSC had requested that consideration be given to possible measures for promoting consistency in decisions taken in relation to claims of good cause and requests for waiving of penalties for coursework submitted up to three days late.

In discussing this, the Sub-Committee had noted that it was difficult to ensure consistency of decision making and that on the whole the experience and good judgement of staff should be trusted. ASC agreed the three-day limit for extensions permitted by course conveners ensured that the scope for variation in decisions being taken by a large number of staff was kept to a minimum. Members also considered it appropriate that some decisions should be taken at this level, where the decision-maker knew the course and the students. ASC was advised that the Sub-Committee held the impression that the number of extensions being sought for more than three days was low.

Reference was made to the information in the Guide to the Code of Assessment and it was noted that this explicitly acknowledged the risk of being overly prescriptive. The distinction between cases that might be considered to merit a three-day extension but would not constitute good cause was noted (e.g. a specialist IT lab having been out of action for some days leading up to a submission deadline might be accepted to merit a three-day extension but would not be accepted as good cause.)

ASC agreed that the Guide to the Code of Assessment would benefit from more detailed guidance on the relationship between extensions of up to three days and good cause cases. ARSC would therefore be invited to review this aspect of the Guide.

Action: ARSC

ASC endorsed the current position that requests for extensions of more than three days should be handled differently from requests for shorter extensions. The regulations currently identified the Head of School as the appropriate person to take good cause decisions but the view of the Sub Committee was that, particularly in large Schools, this was not practicable, and the appropriate person might be the Head of Subject. It was however acknowledged that at sub-Honours level this increased the possibility of students needing to make cases to more than one individual.

ASC agreed that Heads of School should have the option to delegate decisions in relation to claims of good cause to Heads of Subject¹.

Eligibility for reassessment in all components

ARSC had been asked to consider whether students undertaking reassessment components should be credited with the best result from their first or second attempt, even in cases where the first attempt had reached the threshold standard (D for undergraduate and C for taught postgraduate). This question had been raised following the agreement to revise reassessment regulations to allow students the opportunity to be reassessed in any or all course components when they failed to attain the overall course threshold at first attempt.

The current position was that students were credited with whichever result was better - the first or second attempt. The Sub Committee's view was that this approach should be maintained as any alternative, such as only crediting the second attempt in cases where the threshold grade had already been achieved, could have a significant adverse effect for some students, which could not be justified. It was also considered that the number of students who would elect to be re-assessed in components in which they had already achieved the relevant threshold would be small.

ASC therefore agreed that following introduction of rules permitting reassessment in any or all components of a course where the overall course threshold was not achieved, the position should remain that for each component of assessment the student should benefit from the better of the two results achieved. This should be incorporated into the current revision of the Code of Assessment in terms of reassessment opportunities.

The Committee also agreed that once the new rules had been established there should be a review of how they were being used in practice.

Action: ARSC

ASC also noted that the following items were under consideration by ARSC and would be reported on at the next meeting.  

• Duration of Examinations
• Review of Masters regulations

Dr Whittaker introduced the above report.

External input to programme development and scrutiny

The Working Group had been charged with considering the matter raised in the ELIR report concerning external input to programme approval. The report had noted that there were inconsistencies in the use of external advice when approving programmes, and had directed the University to Section 7 of the QAA Code of Practice which advised institutions to make use of external contributions as appropriate. It highlighted the potential for compromising external impartiality when external contributions came predominantly from an existing external examiner.

The Working Group also took into account the views of the College Deans of Learning & Teaching who had provided comment on this issue in November 2010. The Deans had noted that replacing external examiners with other external consultants would place a significant burden on those specialists, as well as resulting in significant logistical problems which were likely to be detrimental to flexibility in the programme approval process. The Deans had considered that the current system was adequate, though noted that more work might be done in terms of demonstrating how proposers responded to the comments given by external consultants.

The Working Group considered in detail the predominant use of external examiners in the consultation process for programme approval and returned to discussion in 2007 which had been initiated by the publication of the revised edition of the Section 7 of the QAA Code of Practice. Members concluded that external examiners were considered to be sufficiently impartial for the following reasons:

• Their terms of office are short in order that their independence and objectivity do not become over-compromised by over-familiarity
• They are deemed competent to help determine degree examination outcomes, and to assist in maintaining standards across the higher education sector as a whole, it therefore follows that they would be competent to advise on the content and structure of new programmes
• The knowledge of teaching strengths and weaknesses acquired as an external examiner would tend to increase the usefulness and validity of their comments on new proposals.  

In light of this, the Working Group agreed to recommend to ASC that current practice should remain unchanged, and that action should focus on ensuring that the current procedures were fully adhered to by Schools and Colleges. To that end, the Working Group had undertaken to expand current guidance on the consultation process and to develop the consultation pro forma to ensure more detail on consultations was provided to allow the College Boards of Studies and PAGs to monitor the process.

ASC confirmed the Working Group's conclusions regarding the impartiality of external examiners, and agreed that alongside the above actions:

• current practice relating to external involvement in approval should remain unchanged, with external examiners² providing advice through consultation prior to the submission of proposals to the College, rather than as formal members of approval panels;
• external consultants should not be included on Programme Approval Groups, as the purpose of these is not to review the academic content of proposals.  

Review of Approval Documentation

It was noted that the Working Group had agreed a number of changes to the course specification document, which had arisen as a result of interface issues that had been identified between PIP and the Campus Solutions system.

ASC also noted that arising from a query from a Fast-Track PAG, the Working Group had considered the usefulness of Section A5 of the Programme Proposal Support Document. This contained a check box for proposers to confirm there had been "consideration of equal opportunity and employability together with matters relevant to disability and ethnic issues". The Working Group had agreed to seek advice from the Learning & Teaching Centre on how to amend the form to separate out equal opportunities and employability issues, and provide guidance to proposers to ensure the relevant issues were being fully addressed.

The Committee received the above report from the University of Glasgow and the Scottish Agricultural College Liaison Committee meeting of 22 November 2010.

ASC noted the report and gave approval to:

• The Remit and Membership of the Liaison Committee for 2010-11;
• The statement of Intent for BSc/BSc (Hons) Garden Design;
• The statement of Intent for PGCert/PGDip/MSc programmes in Rural Business Management.

ASC received the above report which detailed the joint degrees which were in operation during 2010-11, and progress with collecting reports on the annual monitoring of this provision in 2010-11.

Members were reminded that ASC has previously agreed that all annual reports received should be submitted to ASC, and that for the degrees where Glasgow was the lead institution (5), each report should be considered in detail by two nominated ASC reviewers, similar to the model used for considering DPTLA/PSR reports. The proposed ASC reviewers were detailed in appendix 1 of the report.

ASC was also reminded of the agreed process for reporting. Annual Monitoring Reports would be presented to the Joint Programme Boards. Thereafter, a report from the Joint Board, including matters drawn from the Annual Monitoring Reports and other important aspects (such as major changes to the programme, operational issues and review of programmes) would be submitted to the Academic Standards Committee annually in November.

It was noted that reports had not been available in November and the majority remained outstanding. It was agreed that for postgraduate provision, submission in January of the following year would be a more appropriate timescale, and that the Senate Office should continue to chase outstanding reports from 2010-11.

The following reports were considered for programmes where Glasgow was the administering institution:

EngD System Level Integration

This report was considered to be useful, although it was agreed that the personal student data which had been redacted in the report should not have been included when it was submitted to the Senate Office.

MSc in Structural Engineering and Mechanics

This report was not considered to be adequate as it was in the form of a brief minute and did not appear to provide sufficient information on annual monitoring.

It was agreed that clearer guidance on the information to be provided in the annual monitoring reports from the Joint Boards should be developed.

Action: Senate Office

The report on the MLitt in Hermeneutics, which was currently administered by the University of Stirling, was noted. The comments under the section on Assessment were noted with concern as it appeared that misleading information had been given regarding Glasgow's grading scheme. This had been identified as a numerical scheme, rather than the alphanumeric scheme that operated under Schedules A and B of the Code of Assessment. This would be drawn to the attention of the College of Arts.

Action: Senate Office

The dates and compositions of the forthcoming Semester 2 PAGs were noted. 

The next meeting of the Academic Standards Committee will be held on Wednesday 20 April 2011 at 9.30 a.m. in the Senate Room.  

¹ Assessment Officers could also be used as delegates in cases where the Assessment Officer covered the whole School or Subject Area.

² Note: external examiners are not used as external specialists in the University's Subject Review process.