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About the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education\n\nThe Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) was established in 1997 to provide independent assessment of how higher education institutions in the UK maintain their academic standards and quality.\n\nThe primary responsibility for academic standards and quality rests with individual institutions. QAA reviews and reports on how well they meet those recommendations, and encourages continuous improvement in the management of the quality of higher education. We do this by:\n\n * conducting external reviews of universities and colleges\n * publishing reports on the confidence that can be placed in an institution's ability to maintain standards and quality\n * offering expert guidance on maintaining and improving the quality of higher education\n * advising the government on applications for degree awarding powers and university title.

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) - What is it?\n\nIntroduction\n\nIn this section, we offer both a brief definition of SoTL (SoTL in brief), as well as a much more detailed and scholarly discussion of the history and different conceptions of SoTL (starting with Conceptions of Scholarship and SoTL, and progressing through the subsequent sections).\n\nThe aims of this section are:\n\n * to inform the reader of the different conceptions of scholarship in general and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in particular, and to highlight any interesting points and controversies;\n * to encourage the readers' own consideration of what scholarship, and in particular SoTL, might be; and,\n * to provide a working definition for the purposes of this web resource. \n\nThus, this section includes a brief review of the work of leading academics regarding scholarship and SoTL, as well as links to relevant articles etc., to allow readers to become familiar with several different currently-merited conceptions, and so provoke thought on the matter. The sections titled In Depth are optional extras for those who are interested in more of the intricacies in the debate about SoTL.\n\nNote - although SoTL is our preferred term here, some authors have referred to is simply as the scholarship of teaching (hence, SoT), thus when considering a particular author's work, we shall refer to the concept with the same terminology as used by each author.

Educational Research and Evaluation at Alverno College In 1976, the college formally established an office of educational research and evaluation that would investigate a series of questions at the behest of the faculty, with special attention to linking the outcomes of college to the curriculum,establishing the validity of assessment techniques and the assessment process, and demonstrating the link between college-learned abilities and alumnae performance in the world of work, personal life, service, and citizenship. Our initial concerns were for assessment activities that operated at the level of individual students and were integral to their learning. (For additional information, go to Student Assessment-as-Learning.) Alongside this use, assessment can also be an instructor's tool for improving learning or a policy tool for planning and improvement. We have gradually developed a program of assessments that operates at the levels of individual student, program, curriculum, and institution. In this context, educational research and evaluation are part of a dynamic learning system based on the educational principles and values underlying Alverno's mission and supported by structures that ensure coherence and continuing improvement. One such structure is the Research and Evaluation Council, made up of senior faculty, staff, and administrators. However, responsibility for review of program, curriculum, and institution-wide effectiveness lies with departments faculty and staff across this institution.

Digital Research Tools (DiRT)\n\n \n\nThis wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively. Whether you need software to help you manage citations, author a multimedia work, or analyze texts, Digital Research Tools will help you find what you're looking for. We provide a directory of tools organized by research activity, as well as reviews of select tools in which we not only describe the tool's features, but also explore how it might be employed most effectively by researchers.\n\n

Building Learning Power In 1999 I wrote a book called Wise Up: Learning to Live the Learning Life (published by Bloomsbury / Network Press), in which I reviewed the growing evidence for the idea that people could be helped to become more effective learners. In 2001 I was approached by Bristol-based educational publisher TLO Ltd to write a book for teachers that drew out the practical implications, and in 2002 Building Learning Power: Helping Young People Become Better Learners, was published. In the box below are some of the enthusiastic reactions to that book.

Subject benchmark statement Art and design QAA 238 03/08 PDF version Contents * Preface * Joint foreword * Introduction * Defining principles * Nature and extent of art and design * Subject knowledge and understanding, attributes and skills: typical standard of achievement * Teaching, learning and assessment * Benchmark standards: threshold level of achievement * Appendix A: Consultation groups * Appendix B: Membership of the review group for the subject benchmark statement for art and design * Appendix C: Membership of the original benchmarking group for art and design Preface Subject benchmark statements provide a means for the academic community to describe the nature and characteristics of programmes in a specific subject or subject area. They also represent general expectations about standards for the award of qualifications at a given level in terms of the attributes and capabilities that those possessing qualifications should have demonstrated.