Starting & Closing the unit QA loop I: the importance of Unit (Course) Reports

The semester is over! Exams are on their way! Marking will be over soon! Is this the end? Well, there is still one thing left to do: the Unit (Course) Report!! 

Some colleagues underestimate the importance of the Unit Report. They believe that it is yet another bureaucratic document for the Department's audit trail and the external examiner to see. However, as it is pointed out at another post in this blog, the unit report is the start and the end of the so called unit Quality Assurance loop.  Last year we, in the LTQA unit, did an exercise and had a look at all recent unit reports by all colleagues of all Departments. It came to our attention that many unit reports state nothing useful to the Unit leaders themselves, to the HoD, to the Exam Board, to the external examiner etc. 

The unit report is a document of major importance within the Quality Assurance cycle and it is considered as a best practice by many Higher Education institutions. The course report is meant:

• to be self-reflective, touching all issues in Teaching, Learning and Assessment with respect to the unit; 
• to state what went well, what did not go as planned, what the unit leaders think that they can improve next year; and
• to list the Unit leader's recommendations to the Exam Board etc. 

The aim is to have the unit reports as the starting point to plan and develop the new Unit delivery next year either by the same unit leader or by another. It is therefore important to compose an honest, self-critical, self-promotional, good practices unit report.

Some colleagues are afraid that they will get too much expose to the external examiner. Yet, I believe that there is always a way to be self-critical but also incorporate all those actions required to improve Unit deficiencies. This is mostly appreciated upon the completion of a semester.

And a last note! Autumn semester Unit reports should be prepared now; not prior to the Examination Board in July. It is now that all impressions and ideas are fresh. By completing  it in April or May, you will only confirm that you regard it only as part of a bureaucratic process.

Petros Kefalas

IFDLT

Note: There are two types of reports, two sides of the same coin; we would like to think of them as equivalent. A Unit Report Proforma (free text) and a Unit Report Proforma (check list). Your Department decided which one to use.