Original reports

Involving students

A literature review from David Rush and Mike Hart at University of Winchester

High-engagement learning

There is much generic talk of quality business education. This paper sets out to examine a possible specific route to quality-managed delivery of business education, through high-engagement learning.

Cass interviews with key stakeholders

Nigel Courtney interviewed CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development), BQF (British Quality Foundation), AMBA (Association of MBAs), ABS (Association of Business Schools) and the Chartered Management Institute. Subjects are the current viewpoint of national bodies (including ABS, AMB, BQF, CMI, CIPD) concerned with quality management enhancement and the quality of management education; to elicit the intended future direction of policy for influencing central government, and to review the potential impact of supra-national initiatives such as the Bologna Accord.

Module evaluation and feedback

This paper explores weaknesses in the module evaluation process, addressing the question of ‘improving module evaluation and feedback to students’. Marsh’s (1987) review of the measurement and use of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness indicated that feedback should lead to an improvement in the quality of teaching. Therefore there is a need to identify best practices and find solutions for various problems with the evaluation process.

Information Architectures for Quality Management in Business Education: a UK case study

This paper describes a model for information architectures in the context of academic quality (teaching and learning) in business schools. It was developed in response to weaknesses identified in the last round of academic audit for England and Northern Ireland. The model takes a four-step approach through collaboration, design, applications and feedback in order to support both the on-going management of quality in an institution and periodic accreditation audits. A specific case study, the QuBE project, is used to illustrate how inclusion of a multiple choice menu of applications has created a generalisable model that is amenable as the basis for an ‘electronic Base Room’ or a virtual leaning environment.

Excellence in management education: innovating in response to rapid change

Attention to QME enables an institution to move from an unsatisfactory level to satisfactory – and then to maintain that improvement. However, progress from a satisfactory level to ‘extraordinary’ demands the relentless pursuit of excellence and institution-wide adoption of good practice. QuBE is therefore developing tools and information that institutions need.

QME process in UK business schools: a review

Myra Hodgkinson and Mike Kelly. The paper commences with a literature review concerned with terminology used in the context of quality and enhancement in higher education. It continues by reviewing the ways highlighted in the literature for identifying priorities in need of improvement within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), and finally, the processes adopted to embed them.

Student incorporation into the quality process

This report gauges the suitability of the EFQM Business Excellence model for the FE and HE sectors and draws on in-depth interviews at three South of England FE Colleges offering business studies courses.

Can we measure excellence in business studies education?

Concerns about quality increasingly focus upon the inculcation of a culture of excellence, a term which appears instantly intuitive but which is remarkably elusive to define and even more difficult to measure. This paper takes a radical new approach.

The development of quality management tools in business education

Consortium partners have developed various diagnostic tools to help those managing business schools to reflect upon their quality processes and hence to improve them. The development and testing of these tools fits within an action research framework. Three of the tools are described in detail showing how different approaches to experiential learning can be helpful in this area.

What the Deans said

This November 2006 analysis is based on feedback received from nine semi–structured interviews by Dr Mike Kelly, Deputy Dean of Leeds Metropolitan Business School with Deans/senior managers responsible for quality management in their respective business schools. The question set used is available from the Diagnostics section of this Toolbox.

E-learning and the development of 'voice' in business studies education

There is evidence that fee increases amongst other factors will lead to an increasingly instrumental orientation in the experience of higher education with students defining their role as ’consumers’ with expectations of customer care and an increasingly critical attitude towards the quality of tuition provided. The paper will suggest an explanation why the student voice does not achieve more prominence given the possibilities given by recent advances in ICT and detail some of the experiences of course delivery and evaluation in the authors' own institution.

Mapping innovative practice in business education

This paper describes a method used in a collaboration between eight business schools in Europe and Australia to share experiences of innovation. The purpose of the project was to investigate and publish a comparative analysis derived from partners’ practices and policies for fostering innovation in management education. To document each partner’s distinctive innovation focus, a theoretical, generic model was required at a reasonably high level. This model took as its starting point two fundamental perspectives for effective management education; first, the curriculum design process and, second, module design and delivery.

Student evaluation of modules - a student perspective

An analysis of the results of a survey of 330 students from the business schools of three UK universities on student attitudes to module evaluation is presented. The analysis suggests that student evaluation of modules is seen by students to be an important tool in improving the quality of education at university. However, the processes employed at present are generally seen to be flawed, failing to achieve this desired outcome and therefore in need of significant improvement.

A survey of quality processes within six UK business schools

This paper represents a review and analysis of the responses to an in-depth questionnaire concerned with quality processes in place within Business Schools. Quality processes are taken to represent an element of “Quality Management and Enhancement” and responses were received from six UK Business Schools.

Risk management

a guide to its relevance and application in Quality Management and Enhancement. By Clare Stoney, Leeds Metropolitan University