Quality assurance and quality development (QA&D)

Cycle 1 concerns the possibility for students to be able to make comments regarding quality issues to the course management during an ongoing course. It may seem obvious, but there is a point in agreeing at the beginning of each course on how student views can best be communicated. In undergraduate courses with many students per course, some kind of ”working model” is also needed for continuous  dialogue to be carried out. For courses with large numbers of students, it is reasonable that some student representatives discuss continuously with the course management

The above refers to issues where there is a general opinion among the students on a course on various issues that can be considered to concern quality issues. However, it is not a question of individual students always being able to contact teachers/course managers separately during ongoing courses for separate questions or comments, without there being specific routines.

In accordance with the Higher Education Ordinance, Chapter 1, §14 applies:

The University shall give students who participate in or have completed a course an opportunity to express their experiences and views on the course through a course evaluation organised by the University. The University shall compile the course evaluations and inform about the results and any decisions regarding measures arising from the course evaluations. The results shall be made available to the students.

The views on a course that students express constitute a course outcome. This course outcome is then expected to be supplemented with comments from teachers, supervisors, course management and possibly director of studies or equivalent. This document summarizing the outcome of a completed course constitutes a course evaluation. At LUSEM, “course cards” (see below) constitute the format used for course evaluation.

The course evaluation can thus be seen as a summary of the accumulated experience generated by each course. In order to get both the processes around course evaluations and course evaluations to work continuously, commitment is required both from teachers, administrators and of course from students. In general, students who are given opportunities to give views on the structure and content during the course in accordance with cycle 1 above, become more motivated to engage in their education.

Upon completion of the course, a course card (previously referred to as a scorecard) shall be drawn up. The course card is a summary of the experiences, reflections and possible improvement measures, development ideas that can be found in the compilation of the students' perception of the course (which is shown by the completed course evaluation), the experiences of teachers, supervisors and course management and the perception of the course. The course card ought to include information on:

• key comments made by the students,
• key views expressed by teachers (especially important for courses taught by many teachers and/or team of teachers),
• description of any changes that have been implemented continuously during each course,
• proposals for changes to future courses where relevant,
• any other comments that may help to improve the quality of the course.

How well students can be considered to have achieved the learning outcomes of a course/module is reported separately in the School’s system for “assurance of learning” (AoL) which is also related to the AACSB accreditation and is not commented further in this document.

The course card is filled in accordance with the current template, and relevant parts shall be published appropriately preferably in the learning platform used (at present Canvas).

At each start of the course, the responsible teacher, preferably in collaboration with Lundaekonomerna, is expected to present the evaluation of the previous course round and explain what possible changes have been made and/or explain why certain changes will not be implemented.

Programme evaluation is carried out annually via standardised questionnaires in the form of course experience questionnaires (CEQ). These questionnaires are sent out to students at the end of the academic year (May) and constitute very good information about how students perceive their education. Since the majority of LUSEM’s MSc-programmes run over one year, an annual CEQ-approach works well. The programmes at the undergraduate level, which run over three years, are more difficult to capture via CEQ and for these programmes the “programme councils” where programme managers, teachers, director of studies and student representatives are included are important complements to the CEQ evaluations.

On the basis of the programme evaluation, each programme manager draws up a programme card each year (formerly known as the programme scorecard). The programme cards provide an opportunity to annually keep track of comments, changes, etc. implemented in each programme. In the programme cards, course directors also present ideas for development. The programme cards document development in the programmes over time, and the programme cards thus provide an important source of organisational memory at the programme level.

The programme cards are compiled by the Vice Dean of Education at the faculty. The Faculty Board conducts an annual review of all programmes and possible revisions to the programme at its meeting in September/October each year.

In addition to the continuous work carried out by programme directors to relate to changes in the external environment in connection with each programme, an annual external analysis is also carried out at the programme level called ”business intelligence scan” (BISC). The BISC report shall include a comparison at the programme level between existing programme and corresponding programmes globally. Usually, but not exclusively, a BISC consists of comparisons with programs in Europe, North America and Asia.

The BISC analyses are compiled by the Vice Dean of Education at the School. The Faculty Board conducts an annual review of all programmes and possible revisions to the programme at its meeting in September/October each year.