Much of the work on the Themes has been undertaken by a range of interested and experienced individuals within the Scottish higher education sector. The work involved has varied from undertaking and publishing the outcomes of literature reviews, surveys and workshops, to more substantial programmes of research and development work.
We would like to ensure that as many people as possible are aware of future opportunities to undertake such work.
Students: get involved!
Improving the experience of students in higher education is at the heart of the quality enhancement framework.
Students play a very important role in the management of quality in higher education in Scotland. Students have their own development service, sparqs (student participation in quality scotland), students are also full members of Enhancement led institutional review (ELIR) teams and are increasingly being involved in internal subject review.
Why should student reps get involved in quality enhancement?
It can be difficult to try and convince your student council about the relevance of the QAA to the everyday academic lives of students. All the jargon and technical language can bore students to tears and that’s the last thing you want to do when they're holding you to account. So, here are some reasons why working with QAA Scotland is relevant to every single Scottish student - and why you ought to be involved:
- students are in higher education to progress academically. Students exist because of their academic work (they wouldn’t be students without it). Working to improve the learning experience is key to student representation
- working with QAA you can represent your students nationally and contribute towards debates that set the agenda for Scottish HE
- you find out what other Scottish students think about particular issues and you can use that to inform debate within council and your institution
- you meet other student reps at events and share ideas about how you implement change in HE
- talk to influential academic and HE staff at events and pick up interesting information and ideas
- you become more informed about issues and have a better chance of improving the learning experience of students at your institution
- expenses for participating are paid by QAA Scotland
- you become aware of opportunities to get students involved that you didn't know about previously (e.g. sparqs for training your reps, representing students on national committees), and gain a greater understanding of how academic life functions nationally, and how policy is developed and disseminated.
By working with QAA Scotland, amongst others, you become more effective at representing students and hopefully this helps towards improving the student experience. Every single student can benefit from having better organised courses, more interesting learning materials, access to more resources and improved assessment methods.
If you would like to get involved in the Enhancement Themes work, please contact us.