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Policy Status of the QAF

The QAF has been constructed to ensure the institution and its staff operate in a manner consistent with the Code of Conduct and Academic Infrastructure of the Quality Assurance Agency and the Scottish Funding Council Guidance to Higher Education Institutions on Quality. Senate approved the outline of the QAF at its meeting of 28 May 2008.

In general, the Framework applies to all taught programmes and modules, undergraduate and postgraduate, that are accredited by the University. This includes online and distance learning programmes and modules, and accredited teaching taking place as part of collaborative agreements. There are also Codes of Practice for Taught Postgraduate and Research Postgraduate degrees.

Other than documents clearly labelled 'guidenote', the papers and website information that make up the QAF as published on this QAF website constitute formal University Policy and Procedure.

The QAF 'guidenotes' are advisory in nature but it is expected that they will normally be observed and significant variance from them on the part of schools should be discussed beforehand and agreed with either the Director of Quality Assurance or Academic Secretary.

Occasionally, it may be necessary to change details of the QAF to accommodate internal and external changes, and errors of fact:

• Significant policy changes would normally be discussed at Academic Quality Sub-Committee beforehand. Where this is not possible immediately and it is judged that change needs to be made speedily, this may be done with the agreement of the Academic Secretary and/or Vice-Principal (Educational Development). Such changes would be alerted to schools' secretaries by email as soon as possible and discussed at the subsequent Academic Quality Sub-Committee.
• Where changes are regarded as trivial (e.g. clarification of wording or process, spelling error or link to URL), these may authorised by either the Academic Secretary or by the Director of Quality Assurance, as soon as they become aware of the need to make an amendment.

Certain features of the QAF, such as the ability of schools to replace a periodic programme review with an external accreditation event, require discussion and agreement between a dean and the Director of Quality Assurance or Academic Secretary.

Certain 'fast-track' schemes exist for the summer university break using vacation powers delegated to deans, college vice-principals and the Academic Secretary but should only be used with good reason. This will involve obtaining retrospective approval from the relevant school and college boards and Senate.

College and school executive members, senior academics and school secretaries are expected to alert the Director of Quality Assurance, and/or the Academic Secretary and/or the Vice-Principal (Educational Development) to any events or issues that arise with a potential impact on quality assurance as soon as possible.

Schools are requested to prioritise responses to requests from Academic Affairs and the Principal's Office for information about the operation of the QAF.