The Academic Quality Handbook: Enhancing Higher Education in Universities and Further Education Colleges

Universities and further education colleges are under increasing pressure to provide ’quality’ for their students. Quality assurance and development issues affect the staff, resources, administration and culture of an academic institution, yet there is often a lack of clear guidance available to those responsible for implementing best practice. This book provides practical guidelines for managing academic quality assurance and quality enhancement, outlining best practice from both the UK and the rest of the world. Each chapter addresses the key points, risks and good practice across a wide range of quality issues, drawing explicitly and in detail from the QAA guidance on the Code of Practice, Subject Benchmarks, Qualifications Framework and Institutional Audit. The material is presented in an accessible and straightforward style, incorporating useful features such as development questions for individual or team review. A maintained website accompanying this book (www.academicquality.com) contains further useful resources, with updates and supplementary material in this constantly changing area.

Professor Patrick McGhee is Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Central Lancashire and is a subject reviewer and institutional auditor for the QAA.