Subject Health Review
Subject Health Review (SHR) is defined as the internal and external peer review of the academic health of the total taught and research provision in a subject delivered by the University. The review forms an integral element of the University's quality assurance system and is intended to provide an opportunity to focus on, and to review, quality enhancement, teaching and learning, the wider research and scholarship in the subject area, and the interactions and interrelations between subjects, together with their future development. The student experience is at the heart of SHR.
SHR has been in place at UWS and previously University of the West of Scotland since 1999. It has been updated on a year by year basis following review of operational issues and feedback which is sought from both panel members and subject teams. The process reviews both standards and quality of provision through scrutiny of six themes within the review:
- Provision
- Teaching, Learning and Enhancement
- Student Achievement and Assessment
- Strategic Development of the Subject
- Research
- Student Support and Guidance
The panel membership usually includes two external peers representing the subject area, and the appropriate profession/industry. A student nominated by the Students' Association of the University of the West of Scotland (SAUWS), who is normally a Sabbatical Officer, is a full member of the SHR panel.
The final reports from SHR are published internally which allows transparency and assists other Schools with an understanding of the methodology and reporting arrangements as they prepare for SHR. Common themes and key outcomes are distilled by QEU for the attention of the Learning,Teaching & Assessment Board (LTAB), Senate and Court. This is also communicated to SFC and the full reports are provided on an annual basis to Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and referred to in the QAA annual discussions. The Centre for Academic and Professional Development (CAPD) use the reports and the analysis of outcomes to inform staff development planning. Student Services use these reports in order to provide appropriate advice and information to Schools on areas such as employability and student support.
During the last Enhancement-led Institutional review (ELIR ) for the University of the West of Scotland (2006) the panel confirmed the SHR process to be an effective, enhancement-led, dynamic process incorporating evaluation of the method and its outcomes.
Student Involvement In Subject Health Review
The student experience is at the heart of SHR and changes have been made to the programme for SHR events in session 2010/11 to ensure that the meetings with students take pleace before any meetings take place with the staff. Their feedback helps to set the agenda for the review.
At the start of the session in which the SHR is to take place, the School should advise all students of the review process. This is facilitated by a leaflet for students provided by QEU. The SHR should be on the agenda of Subject Development Groups (SDGs) and Staff Student Liaison Groups (SSLG) and Faculty Academic Management Group (FAMG) at appropriate points to ensure students are aware of the process, how to engage with it and the importance of their involvement. The SSLG also provides a forum for student input to the Self Evaluation Document (SED).
Students are able and encouraged to engage with SHR on several levels.
- Each SHR has a student representative in full membership of the panel. Normally, but not exclusively, this will be a Sabbatical officer of the Students' Association. The student representative will not be/have been a student from the subject are under review.
- The panel will have the opportunity to meet a spectrum of students from the subject area from all the programmes under review. The students invited to these discussions will, as far as possible, reflect the broad diversity of the student cohort.
- The subject team will gather additional and specific evidence from students in the subject area under review for the SHR panel. Students should be involved in the reflection process before the SED is written, particularly in contributing to the evaluation of teaching, learning and enhancement and student support and guidance. This may include all or some of the following:
- The report of a special meeting or minutes of specific discussions at a SDG or SSLG of the provision under review and the draft SED;
- The report of one or more focus groups convened to discuss the provision under review and the draft SED;
- A written commentary by a representative group of students on the draft SED - this can be facilitated by QEU/SAUWS
A leaflet is available for students in the subject area under review explaining the SHR process and how students can engage with it.
Support Unit Involvement with SHR
Following publication of the revised guidelines from the Funding Council the following arrangements have been put in place:
In relation to promoting and supporting effective student engagement with their learning, enhancement embraces all the structures and processes used by an institution to support effective student learning in all the contexts in which learning takes place. (ELIR Handbook 2008)
- Support services should develop evidence that can be made available to SHR panels on their contribution to the quality culture, the ways in which they engage with students to monitor and improve the quality of services and the ways in which the services promote high quality learning and continuous quality enhancement. Over time this will draw on a range of input such as the periodic review by the University of Support Areas, the output from and the use made of questionnaires and other student feedback, external reports on specialist areas etc.
- The QAA Code of Practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in HE (10 sections) touches all support services and is an important reference points for support departments when reviewing their engagement with quality and continuous improvement.
- The Subject area under review should engage with the support departments to jointly evaluate the impact of service department support to that subject’s students, the equivalence of support across campuses and the meeting of the particular needs of the students in that subject area.
- The Faculty and the Support department will then agree an action plan of enhancement for the future – this would be included in the Subject team’s Self Evaluation Document (SED) for SHR.
- Meetings are built into the SHR event (Part 2 meeting), when the panel can divide if need be, to enable a range of members to meet appropriate specialists from support areas to explore the particular themes they are pursuing from their engagement with the SED and the meetings in Part1, as well as to engage with the issues raised/action plan in the SED.
- The panel membership of each SHR has been expanded to include a Support Service Director or nominee.
Further guidance can be obtained from the Subject Health Review Handbook.