QAA Audit 2010 - Student Written Submission

QAA Institutional Audit 2010Imperial College LondonStudent Written Submission

imperialcollegeunion.org

Student Written Submission 2009


Executive Summary

The Student Written Submission from Imperial College Union covers the four areas recommended by the Quality Assurance Agency. Our views are summarised below:

National Student Survey top three

Accuracy of published information Are students aware of expectations?Published information is generally both accurate and extensive.

The timing of publication of tuition fees for the upcoming session and the availability of information relating to additional course costs are a cause of concern.

The award of honours classifications continues to vary between departments, causing concern that the expectations on students are not consistent across departments for the same classification of degree.

Continuous assessment and feedback, the methods by which students are most able to determine if they have met expectations, are the biggest problem areas for the College. Coursework feedback is frequently slow and lacking in detail.

The learning experience The student voiceExcellent facilities are provided for students, with library and ICT services deserving a special mention.

Evidence suggests problems with the Personal Tutor system; however, the College has responded with a number of new appointments and a survey to collect reliable data on the issues.

Support services covering counselling, disability and independent advice have a relatively small provision compared to Imperial’s benchmark institutions, however this has been recognised by the College.

Imperial College Union provides a student voice on most committees at department, faculty and College level. In the limited situations where this is not the case, students are invited to give regular presentations on the issues.

The Faculty Teaching Committee in Engineering does not have a student representative, despite student representation on the equivalent committees in Natural Sciences and Medicine.

Students are surveyed extensively on a variety of issues, attempting to elicit the views of as many students as possible.

The National Student Survey 2009 reveals overall satisfaction of 85%, average for the sector. Results from individual questions provide an excellent demonstration of students’ views of the institution:

1. The library resources are good enough for my needs (94%) 2. I have been able to access general IT resources when I needed to (92%) 3. The course is intellectually stimulating (87%)

National Student Survey bottom three

1. I have received detailed comments on my work (42%) 2. Feedback on my work has been prompt (45%) 3. Feedback on my work has helped me clarify things I did not understand (46%)

Imperial also includes an optional question bank on “Workload”, which contains an additional question which would fall into the bottom three. Only 44% of respondents agree that ”The volume of work on my course means I can always complete it to my satisfaction.”

Imperial College London provides intellectually stimulating courses and superb learning resources. Students must work very hard and are concerned about pastoral care and feedback on assessed work.

Student Written Submission 2009imperialcollegeunion.org

Introduction

1. Students of Imperial College London are automatically members of Imperial College Union, a students’ union with the following aims and objects1:

The aims and objects of the Union shall be: • To advance the education of its members and

promote, without prejudice, their welfare at all times.

• To promote and encourage the interest by students in matters outside the College curriculum, especially cultural, social and sporting interests.

• To represent the needs and interests of its members to Imperial College and external bodies.

• To provide or ensure a range of facilities which advance the interests of the students of Imperial College.

Imperial College Union

2. In our submission we have sought to address the four key areas suggested by the Quality Assurance Agency:

• The accuracy of the information published by the institution

• Whether students know what is expected of them in order to be successful in their studies

• The student experience at the institution, including access to learning resources and support facilities

• The scope and effectiveness of the student voice

3. The executive summary provides a brief overview of our views on these four areas, which we expand upon in the following sections.

4. We also include, as a separate item, our commentary on a recent Quality Assurance issue in the Division of Biochemistry. This highlights problems with three of the four areas for discussion: expectations, student experience and the student voice.

5. Preliminary drafts of this submission were made publically available on the website of Imperial College Union, where students were invited to comment from 15th October 2009 to 16th November 2009.

6. This submission has been passed by the democratically elected Council of Imperial College Union and is thus presented as representative of the experiences and opinions of students at Imperial.

Our submission

7. Data have been drawn from a number of principal sources:

a. The National Student Survey 2009 – The most recent national survey of final year undergraduates.

b. Student Online Evaluation (SOLE), Spring 2009 and Autumn 2008 –The most recent comprehensive results from a termly survey, run by the institution, which asks students for the feedback on specific aspects of each module within their course.

c. Pastoral Online Evaluation (POLE), Autumn 2008 – An autumn term survey, run by the institution, which asks first year undergraduates for their first impressions of pastoral care at the College.

d. Assessment and Feedback Survey 2007 – A qualitative survey run by Imperial College Union during 2007 on assessment and feedback.

Data sources



Accuracy of published information

8. Information provided in the College’s prospectus is, for the most part, comprehensive and has not attracted criticism from the student body. The Autumn 2008 POLE survey2, which asks first year students for their initial impressions of the College, reveals that fewer than 10% were dissatisfied with the pre-arrival information supplied to them.

9. The main cause for concern raised by students has been the timing of publication of tuition fees for the upcoming session and the availability of information relating to additional course costs.

10. At 2009 entry, new undergraduate Home students pay £3,225 tuition fees per year, and new Overseas undergraduates pay between £18,000 and £37,300 per year depending on the course taken.

Introduction

11. The College makes its tuition fee schedule available online, but not in sufficient time for new applicants to know exactly how much they would be paying when they arrive. At the time of writing, mid-November 2009, the 2009/2010 fees schedule is the most recent available3. Revised schedules will be approved at the start of 2010 for the session starting 2010/2011, for which students are already able to apply. This information is then published online in spring.

12. The lack of up-to-date fees information poses a problem for overseas students, who must apply without knowledge of the final costs of their course. Previous course fees may be used as a guide, but historical data show that increases can be high. For example, undergraduate Mathematics increased by £1,700pa between 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 entry, the biggest percentage rise for five years3.

Tuition fee schedule publication

13. Tuition fees are not the only costs associated with courses. Additional charges apply to many students, where payment is a necessary condition for the award of a degree.

14. The two principal extra costs are for equipment purchasing, such as personal protective equipment (PPE), and compulsory fieldwork. Unlike costs such as stationery, travel to College and textbooks, these are fixed costs for each student and they cannot be mitigated (as, for instance, borrowing textbooks from the library removes the cost of buying them).

15. The Additional Course Costs appendix4 contains a list of additional course costs identified by Departmental Representatives.

16. The 2010 entry undergraduate prospectus acknowledges that additional expenses for fieldwork “vary considerably”, before stating that students “should expect to contribute approximately £200-£400 in a year“5. Although some specific additional costs are included in the prospectus, they appear within the detailed description of each year of the course (see excerpts from prospectus in Appendix 26,7), making a comparison between courses difficult.

17. Where students are demonstrably unable to pay these costs, the College Hardship Fund and the publically-funded Access to Learning Fund are available to provide financial support. In the 2008-09 session the Access to Learning Fund helped 144 UK students with a total subsidy of £166,867. The College Hardship Fund, with contributions from private donors, was able to support 177 students with a total subsidy of £68,907. The prospectus includes an extensive list of student support options, for which the College is to be commended.

18. We advocate including in the prospectus a clear and accurate statement of the expected additional costs within the summary of each course, covering both fieldwork and equipment.

Additional course costs


Are students aware of expectations?

19. Until autumn 2008 the Pastoral Online Evaluation asked students if they agreed to the statement “I understand what I need to do in order to study effectively at Imperial”.

20. The results show that consistently in the 2006 and 2007 exercises the majority of students either agreed or strongly agreed that they understood what they need to do in order to effectively study at Imperial (53% and 11% respectively in 2008)8. However, the question also attracts a large number of neutral responses. As POLE is only conducted with first year students it may be insufficient to answer this question, especially with first year weighting being significantly less than subsequent years for many courses.

Introduction

21. Assessment feedback is an essential mechanism for students to monitor their progress against College’s expectations. However, it is an area in which Imperial continually underperforms in comparison to the rest of the sector on the National Student Survey. Students are particularly dissatisfied with the promptness of feedback, amount of detail in comments, and the effectiveness of feedback in clarifying issues that have not been understood9.

22. Late return of work continues to be an issue discussed at Staff-Student Committees10, ICU academic committees11, raised by student representatives at College education and quality assurance committees12,13and criticised in external reviews26.

23. Following the poor performance in the National Student Survey, the Quality Assurance Advisory Committee created a working party to consider a policy on assessment feedback in 200714. The ICU Deputy President (Education and Welfare) attended and the party reported to Senate in 2008.

24. The report of the working party was reluctant to prescribe a College-wide policy on assessment feedback, choosing instead to recommend ‘principles’15. Student representatives were not satisfied that the report would be sufficient to affect positive change in departments, and emphasis was given to the continuing problems with assessment feedback in the annual presentation to the Strategic Education Committee16.

25. Concerns have been raised over the use of postgraduate students for marking assessed coursework. This is evidenced through minutes of Staff-Student Committeesc and in the 2008 Assessment Feedback Report5 presented by ICU as part of the Imperial College Working Group on Assessment Feedback.

Assessment feedback



26. The 2005 QAA Institutional Audit report referred to variations in the award of honours degree classifications between departments:

a. The monitoring of the distribution of honours degree classifications by the Senate identified variations between certain discipline areas, particularly in relation to the award of First class honours. This led to departments being reminded to use the full range of marks in their assessments to ensure that the issue was addressed. The SED referred to ‘encouraging trends to award more first class degrees’ in the particular departments involved.

27. We are concerned that the expectations academics have of students may be different across departments, leading to a discrepancy in honours classifications. The Departments of Mathematics and Materials consistently award fewer first class and upper second class degrees than other departments. A small shortfall in the Department of Materials can be explained by its unusually low entry requirements (at 2005 entry Materials required BCC/BBB at A level), but Mathematics remains a concern (requiring AAB at A-level in 2005). The figure below shows the percentage of first and ‘good’ (first or upper second) honours degrees awarded across departments in 2008 and 2009:

Consistency of undergraduate degree classification

28. While we appreciate the rigour of the College’s standards, we feel that this highlights a weakness in review of teaching and assessment, and greatly disadvantages our graduates, who are entering a job market that is increasingly preoccupied with degree classification and less influenced by the quality of the awarding institution than ever before17.


Are students aware of expectations? continued...

29. While many would consider the workload Imperial imposes on its students to be a good thing, it does raise two important issues: is the workload manageable, and is it necessary.

30. In the 2009 National Student Survey, only 53% of students agreed that “The course did not apply unnecessary pressure on me as a student.” One of the lowest scores was the percentage agreeing to “The volume of work on my course means I can always complete it to my satisfaction,” at only 44%. Additionally only 49% of students believed that they were given enough time to understand the things they had to learn.

31. Concurrent coursework deadlines continue be a source of concern18. The Departments of Computing and Earth Science and Engineering should be commended for their online systems (CATE and ESESIS respectively). They help to avoid clashing coursework deadlines, while allowing students to effectively manage their workload with deadlines for each piece of assessed work clearly illustrated from the start of the academic year. Automatic reminders of coursework hand-ins are also appreciated, as is the ease of uploading coursework electronically. We are supportive of the Student Administration Systems Improvement project which is working towards this goal across the College.

32. We consider as good practice a flowchart19 produced by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, designed to assess the individual merit of every piece of assessed work. By following the flowchart, those setting coursework can decide if it is absolutely necessary and ensure that it provides adequate learning objectives. This was part of a concerted effort by the department to reduce the coursework burden on students as reported to the Engineering Studies Committee in 200820.

Workload and deadlines

33. The ICU Student Adviser has reported21 that the high incidence of plagiarism cases at Imperial is a result of poor academic practice and a lack of understanding of referencing technique among students. It was suggested that departments place more emphasis on good referencing technique before setting assessed work.

34. In 2008 the Quality Assurance Advisory Committee established a working party to review the College’s policy on plagiarism offences, among other issues22.

35. The report of the working party23 was presented to the Quality and Academic Review Committee and Senate, recommending positive policy changes relating to the handling of plagiarism offences post-detection, but making no recommendations concerning the prevention of plagiarism.

36. ICU consider procedures for handling instances of plagiarism in a research degree to be highly appropriate, and to a certain extent could be implemented for instances of plagiarism in taught courses:

If plagiarism is identified during the research programme well before thesis submission then correction, modification and re-education would be seen as part of the learning process imparted by the supervisor to the student with the former having to reinforce their role of guiding students to avoid plagiarism and reference their work properly.24

37. ICU believes that more effective education on referencing technique, and making students aware of the implications of plagiarism, would be of great benefit in reducing the incidence of plagiarism at Imperial.

Plagiarism


The learning experience

38. Imperial offers excellent facilities to its students, both for learning and recreation. A substantial investment programme has seen the construction of a new sports centre and two accommodation blocks, the refurbishment of academic buildings and expansion of the central library. The investment in these facilities is appreciated by students, which the 2009 National Student Survey has shown.

39. Imperial’s excellent central library contributed to a 94% satisfaction rate for library facilities in the same survey, placing Imperial third in the country. Recent funding restrictions and strategic decisions have caused the closure of departmental libraries; however, the central library is now open 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. The library closes on a Friday evening for cleaning. The campus libraries also provide excellent provision for students on outlying campuses.

40. The widespread provision of computer rooms, combined with a four year rolling-replacement programme for PCs, is also reflected in the survey with a 92% satisfaction rate for access to IT facilities. The ICT service desk also provides excellent support for students, including email, network and file-sharing services.

Facilities

41. All undergraduate Imperial College students are assigned a member of academic staff from their department as a personal tutor. Normally they will stay associated with the same tutor throughout their degree, although undergraduate students in the Faculty of Medicine are assigned a separate clinical tutor in their clinical years.

42. The personal tutor is expected to be a first point of contact for pastoral needs and advice, reference writing, and, where the tutor is appropriately qualified, academic support.

43. Quantitative results from POLE over several years indicate a reasonable level of satisfaction with the personal tutor system; however, text comments in both the National Student Survey 2009 and POLE, along with a review of Biochemistry in 2008, indicate problems in specific areas. It should be noted POLE only surveys first-year students, in their first term.

44. A summary report on POLE, presented to the Quality and Academic Review Committee in March 2008, noted that comments revealed a “lack of engagement by personal tutors”25. A review of Biochemistry26 presented to the same meeting of QARC also noted that:

a. “There appear to be no formal meetings between personal tutors and their tutees in years 2 and 3. This might be considered to be a potential weakness and consideration might be given to timetabled tutorials in these years to ensure contact between tutor and tutees”

45. A student presentation to the Strategic Education Committee Away Day in early 2009 brought further attention to the issue, and since then two significant developments have been made:

a. Senior academic staff, led by the Dean of Students and a new Dean of Learning and Teaching, have formed a Working Party to establish a new “roles and responsibilities” document for all personal tutors, and discuss other ways of improving personal tutoring across College.

b. The Student Administration Systems Improvement project (SASI), which has already delivered a number of improvements, will focus on an electronic system for monitoring academic attainment. When complete, students and their personal tutors will be able to view marks for assessed work online. We hope that this project will be successful in improving the quality and timeliness of feedback to students,

Personal tutoring



while providing personal tutors with instant access to information about their tutees’ performance, so they can take pro-active steps to assist those who are struggling. It should be noted that this project will proceed along the lines of the Department of Computing’s CATE system, commended by the QAA report following the previous audit in 2005.

46. A number of other initiatives have also been introduced to improve the quality and consistency of personal tutoring:

a. In December 2009 the Tutorial Online Evaluation (TOLE) survey will be introduced, allowing students to evaluate the performance of their personal tutor. We are supportive of this survey, but the College must ensure that appropriate follow-up actions are taken with individuals, as poor performance has a knock-on effect on the overall quality of personal tutoring within their department as other personal tutors take on the workload.

b. The introduction of the Rector’s Awards for Excellence in Pastoral Care sends a clear signal that this area is an important aspect of College life and we would welcome further measures to encourage nominations from the student body.

c. The Certificate of Advanced Study in Learning and Teaching (CASLAT) programme for new lecturers includes a one-day session on Personal Tutoring, although this does not cover existing staff. Pastoral care has also become a more prominent part of the promotion and appraisial process for academic staff.

47. The Department of Computing operates a system which we consider to be good practice, as it limits the negative effects of an under-performing personal tutor, or personality clash between tutor and tutee. A dual-tutoring system is used in the first year, with a group of six students having a personal programming tutor (PPT) and personal maths tutor (PMT). The group is split in two, with three students having the PPT as a personal tutor, and three the PMT. A student is able to switch personal tutors should a student have a problem with the one they have been assigned. The system ensures that the new tutor is already familiar with the student and some aspects of their academic progress.

48. Student interaction with administrative services has noticeably improved since the previous audit, due to:

a. The creation of the ‘Student Hub’, a ‘one-stop shop’ for all administrative and advisory matters for students. A centralised reception desk provides the interface to Registry, the Accommodation Centre, Finance and pastoral support services. These services were previously accessed via a number of different offices spread over several floors.

b. A steady migration to online administration systems. In particular, the application and arrivals process has greatly improved, eliminating long queues on the first day of the year as thousands of new students attempt to register and get ID cards. Students can register via the website and their ID cards are waiting when they arrive. A collective strategy was put together to streamline the information going out to new students, culminating in the launch of a ‘New Students’ website in 2009 which has had excellent feedback.

49. Aside from administrative services, a number of support services are available, including:

a. The International Office b. The Disability Advisory Service c. The Student Counselling Service d. The Imperial College Union Advice Centre

50. The Support Services Appendix compares staffing numbers of these areas to other Russell Group institutions, where data has been obtainable.

51. The International Office provides a comprehensive advice service to international students and has proved invaluable following the recent changes in immigration policy. Although average compared to the whole of the Russell Group, the ratio of International Office staff to enrolled students is considerably higher than at King’s College London, UCL, LSE, Cambridge and Oxford. These institutions are also highlighted in the Support Services Appendix.

52. At the time this information was collected, the ratios of staff to enrolled students in other support services (Disabilities, Counselling and Union Advisers) were poor compared to both the Russell Group average and to those institutions highlighted previously. The College has recognised its under provision in this area; we welcome the increase in counselling provision in November 2009 and a review of disability advice provision to take place in 2010.

Support services


53. Students are represented on the majority of quality assurance and enhancement committees, with progress having been made in this area since the previous audit.

54. A recent review of the committee structure has seen a number of them merged, removed or reduced in size. This review was conducted by the Quality Assurance Advisory Committee, which had a student representative as a member in the form of the Deputy President (Education and Welfare). Our level of representation within each committee is proportionally the same or better, and we hope that the smaller committees will be more effective than the previous arrangements.

55. We continue to have seats on the main quality assurance committees: Studies Committees in each Faculty, Postgraduate Quality Committees in both graduate schools, the Quality Assurance Advisory Committee and Senate. The President also remains on the College’s governing body, the Council.

56. We have achieved a form of representation on the Strategic Education Committee (SEC), giving a 15 minute presentation once per academic year and participating in the committee’s annual away day. We are also invited to give presentations or advise on specific topics at other times, should the need arise. Although students have no vote, this has proven to be an effective method of representation, greatly assisting the campaigns for a new ‘merit’ classification for postgraduate Masters degrees, student status for PhD students in their writing-up period and an increase in the minimum PhD stipend to include London weighting.

57. Students are also invited to sit on several working parties set up to achieve specific goals in improving academic quality. The Deputy President (Education) is generally nominated to attend, unless an alternative representative would be more appropriate.

Central committees

58. The following are examples of working parties where there has been student representation: Postgraduate Qualification Framework Creation, Humanities Review, Biochemistry Teaching Review, Mitigating Circumstances Review, E-Learning Review and Student Academic Experience Working Party. We welcome the opportunities to participate in specific areas of quality enhancement. As before, while the Deputy President (Education) is usually invited to attend, it has been the case where other student representatives who were more appropriate fed into the working parties instead or in addition: for example, the Graduate Students’ Association Chair for issues relating to postgraduates.

59. Two of the College’s weakest areas were addressed in student presentations to the SEC during 2008 and 2009. These presentations, on the topics of assessment and feedback and the personal tutoring system, have had a positive response, with the most significant results being the formation of the Student Academic Experience Working Party (SAEWP), and recruitment of a new Dean of Learning and Teaching whose specific remit is to improve the academic support role of the Personal Tutor.

The student voice



60. Student representation is inconsistent at Faculty level. Of particular concern is the lack of a student representative on the Faculty Teaching Committee (FTC) in the Faculty of Engineering. The Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Faculty of Medicine both have student representation on their FTC.

61. Students, as learners, have a role to play in quality enhancement. We have highlighted points we believe to be quality enhancement or assurance functions in the FTC terms of reference:

• To develop and maintain the Faculty’s Teaching Strategy

• To promote inter-Departmental and inter-Faculty teaching activities where these can improve the quality or enhance the efficiency of teaching within the Faculty

• To identify (both from within the Faculty and elsewhere), and promulgate within the Faculty, examples of best practice in teaching

• To monitor and develop Faculty-wide mechanisms to enhance student recruitment and selection

• To develop strategies for the marketing of the teaching capabilities of the Faculty to potential students and others

• To consider the implications for teaching within the Faculty of external developments likely to impact upon Engineering education

• To advise on, and monitor the quality of, support for the Faculty’s teaching activities

62. Given these quality enhancement and assurance functions, we believe that student representatives should be present on all Faculty Teaching Committees.

Faculty representation

63. At departmental level, feedback from the representation network is disseminated in Staff-Student Committees. They usually occur once per term, but the frequency and format varies across departments. The typical constituency of a Staff-Student Committee would resemble:

a. In the case of undergraduate representatives: the Departmental Representative, the Year Representatives, the department’s Senior Tutor and Director of Undergraduate Studies.

b. In the case of taught postgraduate representatives: the Course Representative, the department’s Senior Tutor and Director of Postgraduate Studies.

c. In the case of research postgraduate representatives: the Departmental Representative for research students and a number of staff, typically including the Postgraduate Tutor and Director of Postgraduate Studies.

d. and a small selection of other academic and administrative staff from the department.

64. As a Union, we currently have a poor grasp of the format of departmental meetings involving postgraduate representatives.

Departmental representation


The student voice continued...

65. Student representatives have reported varied results from departmental representation.

66. A number of Departmental Representatives have expressed concern that the issues being raised in Staff-Student Committees now are the same as those raised in many previous years28. They feel that the meetings are ineffective, through a combination of their infrequency (once a term), especially considering the volume of issues to deal with, and a lack of follow-up actions. Issues that are discussed regularly include:

a. Timely return of coursework marks, b. Quantity and effectiveness of feedback on

returned work, c. Concerns over maths lectures being

coordinated by the Maths Department rather than in house, especially in engineering departments,

d. A lack of small group work, e. The need for additional and remedial maths

tutorials, f. The relative expertise of PhD students as

demonstrators and markers.

67. In many cases, however, these meetings are effective and are the primary point of feedback from students to staff. In Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the February 2009 minutes show that the SSC has brought about improvements in the timeliness of assessment feedback, and in Earth Science and Engineering, guidelines were produced to prevent the movement of coursework deadlines, at the request of students through SSCs.

68. The Department of Earth Science and Engineering actively seeks student involvement in end-of-year reviews and when interviewing for academic members of staff. At the end of each year an MSci Project round-up meeting is held in order that MSci students can give feedback to academic staff on their experience of the MSci project. A student panel is convened when interviewing applicants for academic staff positions, comprising at least the Departmental Representative and Year Representatives. The panel has a discussion with each applicant for approximately 30 minutes, asking questions concerning issues such as teaching styles and student engagement.

Effectiveness of departmental representation

69. Quality assurance committees in College are keen to improve the effectiveness of Staff-Student Committees. A comprehensive document of Staff-Student Committee good practice guidelines for departments was created in July 2005 and is available online29. ICU is currently improving the training and resources available to academic representatives by providing them with a printed handbook30 and formal training sessions.

70. ICU would like to commend and reiterate support for these good practice guidelines. Where they are followed we find evidence of good practice, for example the publication of Staff-Student Committee Minutes on the departmental websites of Electrical and Electronic Engineering undergraduates and Mechanical Engineering postgraduates. It is also appreciated that the Department of Chemical Engineering list their Undergraduate Staff-Student Committee Members on the ‘People’ page of the departmental website.

71. All departments should be encouraged to follow these guidelines in a similar fashion to make Staff-Student Committees open and accountable to the entire student cohort.

72. The Quality Assurance Advisory Committee has requested an annual report on the outcome of Staff Student Committee meetings31. The ICU Deputy President (Education) has trained the 2009-10 representatives to report all communication with staff, particularly that which occurs within Staff-Student Committees, to a central email address for compilation for this purpose32. It is also hoped that this will provide enough evidence on the performance of departmental representative teams for ICU to identify both best practice and weak areas for appropriate action.



73. A large and growing number of surveys are conducted by the College, to directly gather student opinion.

74. The termly undergraduate teaching survey, Student Online Evaluation (SOLE), has been running since 2003 and gathers student opinions of the modules and lecturers on their course. Monetary prizes are offered to department-associated social societies to encourage students to take part. Quantitative results of the survey are published on the SOLE website33 and are available to be viewed by all members of the College, while free-text comments are available to Directors of Undergraduates Studies (DUGS) and sent to the relevant lecturers. The DUGS are able to remove specific free-text comments before they are seen by lecturers, should they contain inappropriate or offensive material. For research postgraduates, the College developed the Research Online Evaluation (ROLE) survey, which was suspended in 2008. Since then the national Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) has been used, which gives the College the ability to benchmark themselves against other institutions. PRES now runs every two years, so ROLE will be returning in Spring 2010 to fill the gap. Both surveys ask students for their views on the research experience.

75. Until Autumn 2009, there was no College-wide evaluation of postgraduate taught courses. In September 2009 the Surveys Review Working Party (SRWP) recommended that a Master’s Online Evaluation (MOLE) survey be introduced in the autumn34.

76. The Tutorial Online Evaluation (TOLE) survey will also be introduced in Autumn 2009, collecting feedback on the Personal Tutor system. As described in the previous section, we welcome this new addition to the College’s family of surveys.

77. Since autumn 2007, the Pastoral Online Evaluation (POLE) survey has asked new first year students for their experience of arrival at the College and their first impressions of pastoral care. In 2009 the survey was run at the start of November, but was previously run alongside SOLE at the end of term.

78. The Faculty of Medicine and the Departments of Physics, Computing and Earth Science and Engineering are to be commended for their high student satisfaction scores.

Student surveys

79. The College’s approach to External Examiner’s reports is for the most part appropriate. The reports are received by the appropriate Studies or Postgraduate Quality Committees, which the Deputy President (Education) attends as a student representative.

External examiners’ reports

80. The subvention given to us by Imperial College is vital to our activities, funding our core representative functions and a portion of our clubs and societies activities. This subvention is under threat due to reductions in HEFCE funding, which led to a 5% cut for the 2009-2010 academic year. Although this cut was absorbed by staff reductions, we have little scope for reducing our staff size further without an impact on our core functions. We are particularly concerned about the vulnerability of continued staff support for our representation network and providing input to College committees and working parties.

81. In future we will need to seek additional external income streams; however, the co-operation of the College will be required to avoid internal competition abstracting revenue from Imperial College Union.

Funding


Biochemistry Teaching Review

82. The Biochemistry Teaching Review is an example of a collective failure by both student representatives and College to identify a developing issue and take corrective action in a timely manner.

83. In March 2009 over one hundred 2nd year undergraduate Biochemistry students addressed a letter to the Rector, criticising aspects of the Biochemistry course. Their concerns fell into two categories: not knowing what was expected of them due to a lack of continuous assessment, and lack of frequency and poor support in tutorials and laboratory sessions35.

84. The issues raised by the students were as follows: a. Biochemistry often had 60 to 120 students

in tutorials, compared with 8 in Chemistry. It was noted in the March 2008 Staff-Student Committee meeting that tutorials had scored poorly in a student-run survey in the Royal College of Science Union36.

b. Demonstrators in laboratory sessions were not suitably proficient with the laboratory equipment.

c. The course was deficient in continuous assessment, with a lack of tutorial sheets and coursework. With so few progress checks, students had little idea of how they were doing until an exam. It had been noted as far back as November 200737 that first year students wanted more tutorial support for their physics modules, an issue which resurfaced in December 200838. There had still been no action by March 200939. Model answers had also been requested in June 200840.

d. When coursework was set, it took a long time to be returned. Again, minutes from the Biochemistry SSC reveal that slow coursework returns were discussed in March 200836, June 200840 and December 200838.

85. The adjacent figure shows the performance of the Division of Biochemistry in the SOLE survey between 2007 and 2009, for the statement “I receive sufficient feedback and guidance”.



86. It is clear from this figure that the Division of Biochemistry was consistently below both the College and Department of Life Sciences averages in this area (by over 10% in some cases), yet this was not picked up and acted upon.

87. Over the last two years, neither student representation nor internal College academic review procedures effected much change in teaching quality in the Division, despite concerns being reported regularly to the Staff-Student Committee and an obvious deficiency in the SOLE results.

88. In March 2008 the Quality and Academic Review Committee, at the time the most senior central quality assurance committee in College, received40 the report42 from a review of undergraduate teaching in Biochemistry performed by four academics external to College. This report expressed concern at a number of areas which were later to resurface in the students’ letter to the Rector:

a. The size of tutorial groups. b. That a large amount of teaching was focussed

more on recall than on gaining understand (the students criticised rote learning).

c. The quality and frequency of feedback on coursework.

89. Following the submission of the letter noted at the start of this section, the Quality Assurance Advisory Committee immediately set up a working group to perform an emergency review of undergraduate teaching in the Division, with the aim of effecting a drastic short-term improvement in quality, particularly in the second year, before the beginning of the 2009-10 session. This review was carried out and QAAC seeks to perform a longer-term, more comprehensive, review of teaching in the Division in order to make recommendations for the 2010-11 session.


Acknowledgements

Submission leader: Jonathan Silver, Deputy President (Education), Imperial College Union

Contributors: Ashley Brown, President, Imperial College Union

Daniel Hill, Deputy President (Finance and Services), Imperial College Union

Hannah Theodorou, Deputy President (Education and Welfare) 2008-9, Imperial College Union

Kirsty Patterson, Deputy President (Education and Welfare) 2007-08, Imperial College Union

John James, Deputy President (Welfare), Imperial College Union

Ali Mozaffari, Chair, Graduate Students’ Association, Imperial College Union

Nigel Cooke, Student Adviser, Imperial College Union

Layout by Alex McKee, Communications and Sponsorship Coordinator Photography, Tom Roberts & F J Naylor



Department/Division Necessary provision Typical cost

Department of Aeronautics Boiler suit £10.50 Division of Biochemistry Lab coat £5 Department of Bioengineering Boiler suit £17 Division of Biology Lab coat £15 Division of Biomedical Sciences Lab coat £20 Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology

None

Department of Chemistry None Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Year 1 Surveying field trip

Year 2 Geology field trip £250 £200

Year 3 Constructionarium £300 (students responsible for finding sponsorship)

Total £750 Department of Computing None Department of Earth Science and Engineering Equipment for field trips: Appropriate clothing £200 Hand lens £20 Compass clinometers £30 10 notebooks £80 Hammer £15 GPS receiver £100 One-off field trips as part of

various modules over entire course

£700

Mapping project £1,800 (inc £300 subsidy) Total £2,645 Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering None Department of Mathematics None Department of Mechanical Engineering None Department of Materials None School of Medicine – Year 1 Lab coat £15 Travel to see patients on the

“Patient-Centred Communication” course

£60

School of Medicine – Year 2 Zones 1-4 travelcard for firms 1 month @£97/month: £97 School of Medicine – Year 3 Stethoscope £55 White coat £10 Oxford Handbook to Medicine £20 Patella hammer

Zones 1-4 travelcard for firms £4 8 months @ £97/month: £776

School of Medicine – Year 5 Zones 1-4 travelcard for firms 10 months @ £97/month: £970 GP placement outside London

(can be as far as Skye) up to £500

School of Medicine – Year 6 Zones 1-4 travelcard for firms 6 months @ £97/month: £582 GP placement outside London

(can be as far as Dundee) up to £500

Paediatric placement outside London

up to £500

School of Medicine - Overall Total up to £4,089 Department of Physics None

Appendix 1 - Additional Course Costs Table


Appendix 2 - Examples of Additional Costs in the Prospectus



student view


Are you setting this CW mainly for student

learning?

No Yes

Is this item of CW mainly to test the students?

What is the point of this

coursework?

No

Yes

Is this by way of interim

assessment?

No

Are you testing skills as well as

knowledge?

No

Why not just test the

knowledge in the exam?

Could this be wholly done by an in-class quiz or

presentation or submission of tutorial sheets, with appropriate feedback?

Yes

Yes

Makeappropriate

split of CW & exam marks

(exam can be open book)

No

Could CW be set to be handed in at the

end of in-class session?

Yes

Do it in class!! Assessment

(by peers?) to focus on

substantive elements, not presentation.

Verbal feedback

could suffice

No

Are written communication skills an

important part of the learning?

Yes

Provide detailed

feedback on presentation

No

Specify that students should not spend time on fancy reports! Avoid repetitive tasks. Provide detailed feedback on

the elements this coursework is intending to help the students learn.

Have the marking criteria been made transparent to

the students?

Yes

Are you setting this CW mainly for student

learning?

No Yes

Is this item of CW mainly to test the students?

What is the point of this

coursework?

No

Yes

Is this by way of interim

assessment?

No

Are you testing skills as well as

knowledge?

No

Why not just test the

knowledge in the exam?

Could this be wholly done by an in-class quiz or

presentation or submission of tutorial sheets, with appropriate feedback?

Yes

Yes

Makeappropriate

split of CW & exam marks

(exam can be open book)

No

Could CW be set to be handed in at the

end of in-class session?

Yes

Do it in class!! Assessment

(by peers?) to focus on

substantive elements, not presentation.

Verbal feedback

could suffice

No

Are written communication skills an

important part of the learning?

Yes

Provide detailed

feedback on presentation

No

Specify that students should not spend time on fancy reports! Avoid repetitive tasks. Provide detailed feedback on

the elements this coursework is intending to help the students learn.

Have the marking criteria been made transparent to

the students?

Yes

Appendix 3 - Civil Engineering Coursework Flowchart



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Appendix 4 - Support Staff in the Russell Group


1 Imperial College Union Constitution (excerpt), version approved by Union Council 16-1-092 Pastoral Online Evaluation 2008 report as presented to QARC (Paper QARC/2007/23, 11th March 2008)3 2009/2010 fees schedule, available at https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/ad/workspaces/registry/Student%20Financial%20Support/

Tuition%20Fees%202009-2010.pdf4 Table of Additional Course Costs (Appendix 1)5 Imperial College London 2010 Entry Undergraduate Prospectus, page 316 Imperial College London 2010 Entry Undergraduate Prospectus: Civil Engineering (Appendix 2)7 Imperial College London 2010 Entry Undergraduate Prospectus: ESE (Appendix 2)8 Pastoral Online Evaluation 2008 report as presented to QARC (Paper QARC/2007/23, 11th March 2008)9 “Question items with lowest % agree”, National Student Survey 2009 overview page10 Electrical and Electronic Engineering Undergraduate Staff-Student Committee Minutes 11 ICU Representation and Welfare Board, Minute 9, 18th October 2007, available from http://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/data/files/

representation-and-welfare-board-minutes-18-10-07-449.pdf12 Presentation to the Strategic Education Committee 2008, Minute 1, 27th May 2008, available from https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/

ad/workspaces/registry/Procedures%20and%20Regulations/Committees/Strategic%20Education/Minutes%20270508.pdf13 ICU Report to the Working Group on Assessment Feedback, 200814 Quality Assurance Advisory Committee, Minute 134.s, 17th May 2007, available from https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/ad/workspaces/

registry/Procedures%20and%20Regulations/Committees/Quality%20Assurance%20Advisory/Minutes%20170507.pdf15 QARC Working Party Report on Assessment Feedback, point 1.116 ICU annual presentation to the Strategic Education Committee, slides 3-10, available from http://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/data/files/

presentation-to-sec-brief-overview-2375.pdf17 Importance rank of ‘good degree classification’ versus ‘qualification from an institution with a good reputation’: CIHE Graduate Employability

publication, Table 2, page 8, available from http://www.cihe-uk.com/docs/PUBS/0802Grademployability.pdf18 Electrical and Electronic Engineering Undergraduate Staff-Student Committee Minutes19 Flow diagram for setting coursework in Civil Engineering (Appendix 3)20 Reported to Engineering Studies Committee: see Minute 11.4, 5th March 2008, available from https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/ad/

workspaces/registry/Procedures%20and%20Regulations/Committees/Engineering%20Studies/Minutes%20050308.pdf21 ICU Academic Affairs/Welfare Committee, Minute 7 (e) (ii), 3rd November 2006, available from http://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/data/files/

paper13-393-3235-727.pdf22 Quality Assurance Advisory Committee, Minute 145 (2), 27th June 2008, available from https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/ad/

workspaces/registry/Procedures%20and%20Regulations/Committees/Quality%20Assurance%20Advisory/Minutes%20270608.pdf23 Report by the Quality Assurance Review Working Party, as reported to Senate (Paper Senate/2008/83, 17th June 2009)24 Quality Assurance Advisory Committee, Minute 2.2.3, 22nd June 2009, available from https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/ad/

workspaces/registry/Procedures%20and%20Regulations/Committees/Quality%20Assurance%20Advisory/Minutes%20220609.pdf25 Pastoral Online Evaluation 2008 report 17 (b) (ii) (as presented to the Quality and Academic Review Committee - Paper QARC/2007/23, 11th

March 2008) 26 Quality and Academic Review Committee, 11th March 2008 (paper QARC/2007/18)27 Support Staff in the Russell Group (Appendix 4)28 Electrical and Electronic Engineering Undergraduate Staff-Student Committee Minutes29 Staff-Student Committee Good Practice Guidelines, available at https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/ad/workspaces/registry/

Procedures%20and%20Regulations/Quality%20Assurance/Staff-Student%20Committees%20Good%20Practice%20Guidelines.pdf30 Imperial College Union Undergraduate Academic Representation Handbook 2009/10, available from https://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/

data/files/final-undergraduate-academic-representation-handbook-2009-2010-645.pdf31 Quality Assurance Advisory Committee Minute 4.2.3, 18th August 2009, available from https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/ad/

workspaces/registry/Procedures%20and%20Regulations/Committees/Quality%20Assurance%20Advisory/Minutes%20180809.pdf32 Imperial College Union Undergraduate Academic Representation Handbook 2009/10, page 1233 SOLE website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/newsole (accessible to all members of College)34 Report from the Surveys Review Working Party as presented to the Quality Assurance Advisory Committee (paper QAAC/2008/63, 14th

September 2009)35 Review of Biochemistry, Appendix 2 (as presented to the Quality Assurance Advisory Committee, paper QAAC/2008/72, 14th September

2009)36 Division of Biochemistry Staff-Student Committee Minutes, 12th March 200837 Division of Biochemistry Staff-Student Committee Minutes, 28th November 200738 Division of Biochemistry Staff-Student Committee Minutes, 17th December 200839 Division of Biochemistry Staff-Student Committee Minutes, 18th March 200940 Division of Biochemistry Staff-Student Committee Minutes, 11th June 200841 Quality and Academic Review Committee, Minute 38, 11th March 2008, available from https://www8.imperial.ac.uk/content/dav/ad/

workspaces/registry/Procedures%20and%20Regulations/Committees/Quality%20and%20Academic%20Review/Minutes%20110308.pdf42 Review of Biochemistry degrees by external assessor as presented to the Quality and Academic Review Committee, paper QARC/2007/18,

11th March 2008

References

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QAA Audit 2010 - Student Written Submission

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