Page 18 - OPEN CAMPUS QUALITY CIRCLE NEWSLETTER

The UWI Quality Circle
The UWI Quality Policy in Action: Planning and Implementing
A Mechanism to Enhance Student Membership in Quality Assurance Review Teams (SMQART)
Dr. Anna Perkins
Senior Programme Officer and Head of the QAU Mona Campus
Recruitment
Orientation
Training
Apprentice- ship
Deployment
Evaluation
Updating Deployment
In furthering its contribution to achieving The University’s Triple A Strategy, the Office of the Board for Undergraduate Studies (OBUS), of which the QAU is an important part, framed a Strategic Initiative to improve the quality of teaching and learning. This “Students as Partners in Learning” Initiative is designed to promote active student involvement in all aspects of teaching and learning. To this end, and in line with best practice, the QAU has begun the process of selecting, training, deploying and evaluating postgraduate student members (SM) of quality assurance review teams (QART) or SMQARTs. QualifiedandtrainedSMQARTswillbefullmembers of review teams; they will, like other members, sign confidentiality agreements, but will not serve as a member of a team on their campus or in their discipline.
The appointment of students to QARTs is important for several reasons, including:
1) Students are the main stakeholders in the learning process at The UWI and need to be actively engaged as partners in learning.
2) Students have a distinct role in improving the learning process and the student learning experience.
3) The engagement in such an evaluative process will serve to enhance our graduates’ employability, transferable skills and attributes towards becoming Distinctive UWI Graduates of the 21st Century.
4) The student reviewers will further help to develop the ethos of quality, in particular the value added by the QAR.
5) Such student engagement is an international best practice.
The first group of SMQARTs completed their Orientation and Training Workshop on March 3 and March 5, 2020. They were on course to complete their training via an apprenticeship in which they would observe a Review Team at work on their campus, after which they would have been deployed to a Team in Semester II. The COVID crisis has intervened and reviews for the remainder of the Semester have been postponed. The QAU is developing an authentic simulation to meet the requirements for training, to be implemented over the summer. SMQARTs are eager to participate in the process.
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