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Teaching Collaborations - Overview

Internal Teaching Collaborations

The University's Policy on the Quality Assurance for Joint Degrees and Jointly Taught Programmes and Modules applies.

External Teaching Collaborations

The University's schools may enter into teaching collaborations with other FE and HE institutions and other partners in accord with the University's Vision and college and school learning and teaching strategies or plans.

Teaching collaborations can take a large number of forms:

• articulation arrangements: formal credit-rating and transfer agreements between two institutions, one of which agrees to recognise and grant specific credit and advanced standing to any applicant from a named programme of study pursued in the other who satisfies specified criteria
• validation: the process by which an awarding institution judges that a programme developed and taught by another institution or organisation is of an appropriate quality and standard to lead to its award
• franchising: the process by which an awarding institution agrees to authorise the provision of the whole or part of one or more of its own approved programmes, by a partner organisation
• dual and joint awards: a 'joint award' describes a collaborative arrangement under which two or more awarding institutions together provide programmes leading to a single award made jointly by both, or all, participants. A 'dual award' refers to a collaborative programme in which a candidate may obtain a qualification from one or other participating institution but not from both or all
• other types of teaching collaboration including student placements: inquiries and proposals should be referred initially to the Director of Quality Assurance.

To maintain academic quality and ensure consistency, these collaborations must follow policy, guidelines and procedures laid down at University level. These regulations adhere to Sections 2 and 10 of the QAA Code of Practice for the Assurance of Academic Quality and Standards in Higher Education.

For collaborations with other FE and HE institutions, the relevant University policy depends on whether the collaborating body is:

• a UK-based institution; or
• an international institution.

A guidenote for matters to be considered by schools when developing articulation agreements is also available.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) may be used to express an intention to co-operate with another organisation with a view to considering the potential for a future collaboration associated with academic provision (see guidance and policy documents noted above).

Articulation agreements should follow the general template available here. These are generally agreed at school level but must be 'signed off' on behalf of the institution by the Vice-Principal (Educational Development). Assistance in the development of MOUs and agreements may be obtained from the Director of Quality Assurance and/or the University Legal Counsellor. There are also specific templates and guidenotes to deal with:

• articulations with UK FE colleges and
• collaborative PhD agreements.

Student placement activity may be part of taught provision and may involve collaboration with partner organisations. Such arrangements must be correctly set up, risks must be assessed and annual monitoring carried out following the University's policy in this area.

Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) is the process by which assessed courses, part-qualifications and full qualifications obtained by individual students elsewhere are formally recognised by the University and acknowledged as being acceptable to it as a part of its own educational provision by counting that prior learning as an element of one of its own awards (see also the Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) and the University Admissions Policy).

Register of External Teaching Collaborations

A database of these collaborations is maintained by Karen Stulka, Policy, Governance and Legal Affairs to whom enquiries should be made.