Course quality advisory groups

Governance

Annex A of the Award Course Improvement and Accreditation Procedures outline the terms of reference (ToR), membership composition and reporting responsibilities for the CQAGs.

The establishment, coordination and facilitation of the CQAGs are the responsibility of colleges. They are chaired by Teaching Program Directors (or their nominees) and are overseen by Dean(s) Education. The colleges also offer operational support to each CQAG. 

Establishing CQAGs

1. Align CQAGs with the existing ICA review groups or divide them into smaller groups if needed. Seek guidance from Curriculum Services Team if unsure about the current ICA review groups. *
2. Assign a distinct name to each group. *
3. Establish the membership based on the CQAG Composition and ToR. *
4. Obtain Dean (Education) approval for proposed external members. Once approved, Dean (Education) extends a formal invitation to join CQAG.
5. The Chair of each group initiates annual meeting planning.

* Ignore Steps 1 – 3 for existing CQAGs:
Start the annual process by confirming the course list for the CQAG group and ensure any newly introduced courses are included in an appropriate group. Reach out to existing members to confirm their continued membership and invite additional members to fill any gap.

Roles and Responsibilities

* Seek operational support from the College if needed.

Considerations for Selecting Student Representatives and External Members

Each CQAG should have a minimum of two student representatives who meet the following criteria:

• They must be currently enrolled in courses overseen by the CQAG and making satisfactory progress
• Representation should include at least one UG student and at least one PG student if the CQAG oversees courses at both UG and PG levels
• If applicable, there should be representation from both domestic and international students
• Ideally, they should have completed at least 36 units of study (for UG student) or 18 units of study (for PG student)
• Appoint more student representatives in larger CQAG groups to ensure a diverse range of opinions across different courses can be sought

When appointing external members, it is important to consider expertise and independence of the potential candidates. See “Factors relating to expertise” and “Factors relating to independence” sections in this TEQSA guidance.

What Should be Included in the CQAG Papers?

Meeting Processes

1. CQAGs must convene at least once per year. It is worth noting that the colleges are more likely to implement the recommended curriculum improvements in the following year if the meetings are held earlier in the current year.
2. Each Chair to send a communication to members to schedule meetings. For the first meeting, this communication will include the CQAG Composition and Terms of Reference outlined in Annex A of the Award Course Improvement and Accreditation Procedures.
3. Papers to be circulated one month before each scheduled meeting.
4. Allow flexibility for student representatives and external members regarding attendance and submission. Offer an online attendance option for those unable to attend in person. If an apology is necessary, allow for written responses to the Chair one week before the meeting.
5. The meeting can be split into two parts to optimise the use of student participants and external members’ time and expertise:

i.     All participants attend the first part, where discussions focus on the industry currency of the curriculum and student feedback.

ii.     Student representatives and external members are not required for the second part. Academic staff continue the discussion, focusing on performance indicators and the Topics Coordinator’s Structured Summary Reports.

Interpreting the Data

The Flinders Intelligence Portal – FLIP – is available from your OKTA dashboard. 

Course-level measures:

• SATAC Applications: preferences, offers, and ATAR. This reflects the demand and marketability of the course.
• Load, Enrolment and Success: EFTSL, headcount, and success rate. The success rate is the percentage of load passed out of the total load passed, failed or withdrawn after Census. This points to overall enrolment trends and success in maintaining student numbers.
• Attrition: Domestic and international, commencing and continuing. Attrition here means students who were enrolled in a given year and were expected to re-enrol (in the same or a different course) but did not do so. This reflects our ability to retain students and support them to completion.   
• Student Experience Survey: Data from the Australian Government funded Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) Student Experience Survey which focuses aspects of the student experience.
• Completions: Student completions, graduate Employment rates and years taken to complete. This is an important indicator of the success of the course and progress of students.
• Student Demographics: Citizenship, gender, indigenous, remoteness, disability and postcode SES. Not necessarily a measure of success, demographics nevertheless can help inform adjustments.

Also available within this dashboard are the topics within the course, and current topic data:

• Enrolments and load
• Pass rates
• Withdrawals
• Overall satisfaction as a percentage from the Student Evaluations of Teaching survey

Together with the course data, the topic data helps “tell the story” of the course: are there topics that struggle to attract load, could a low overall satisfaction score be an indicator of something, could low topic pass rates suggest a challenging assessment profile or need for more scaffolding? 

Recommendations, Implementation and Reporting

1. Concisely document observations and recommendations resulting from meetings using the Brief Summary Report template within one month after the meeting. Follow the S.M.A.R.T. Framework to create recommendations that are practical and feasible:
   
   Specific: Clear and focused on one objective.
   Measurable: Criteria to track progress and success.
   Achievable: Realistic given available resources.
   Relevant: Aligned with course goals and improvement.
   Time-bound: Clear timeline for completion.
   
   
2. Submit the Brief Summary Report to the Executive Officer for the CEC to include in the papers of the next CEC meeting.
3. The CEC will discuss and note the Brief Summary Report, endorse any recommendations and may make additional recommendations (to be recorded on the Brief Summary Report).
4. Forward a copy of the final Brief Summary Report to the Curriculum Services Team for central repository storage.
5. Academic staff may initiate curriculum improvements based on recommendations from the Brief Summary Report.
6. Record the implementation progress of recommendations from previous meetings in all future Brief Summary Reports until completion.
7. Curriculum Services Team to include curriculum development work and improvements resulting from CQAG recommendations in the next relevant Internal Course Accreditation submission as per the Award Course Improvement and Accreditation Procedures.

Annual Review and Reporting Cycle

See annual process workflow diagram. 

Resources

• CQAG Communication 1 – Extending an invitation to proposed external members to join CQAG template
• CQAG Communication 2 – Inviting confirmed CQAG members to a meeting template
• CQAG Topic Coordinator’s Structured Summary Report template
• CQAG Agenda template
• CQAG Brief Summary Report template