Faculty level

The faculties play an important role in the study-related quality assurance work. The faculties are responsible for the programmes of study and ensure that they function in the correct manner.

The faculties follow up measures from the previous year’s quality assurance report for the entire university. It is also the faculties’ responsibility to make sure that various evaluation results are followed up locally. Having cross-campus faculties ensures that quality assurance work is conducted according to the same systematic approach across all campuses.

Measures will sometimes have to be taken on specific programmes of study. At other times, measures must be taken across all of the programmes of study, and sometimes across departments, so that the measures affect the entire faculty. Faculty management has an important role to play in determining the level at which the measures should be taken.

The faculties also play an important role in the reporting chain. The programme of study coordinator’s report is submitted to the faculty management. The faculty management then writes its faculty report that is submitted to the institutional management.

Faculty report 

A separate template has been created for the faculty report. The template can be downloaded below. The template divides each area of quality into five parts:

  • Indicators that show the status of certain selected areas (see below for a more detailed explanation of the various indicators)
  • Reflection that assesses the previous year’s measures
  • Situation description that describes the current year’s challenges
  • Requirements provide an opportunity to highlight what the faculty is unable to solve alone
  • Action plan that shows the measures the faculty is taking to meet the challenges. These measures are evaluated in the following year’s reflection part.

The faculties are not required to use the template document, but the reporting must be structured in the same way.

Relevant strategic documents 

The quality assurance work must be based on Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences’ strategy. 

Focus areas from the quality assurance report 

The Rector’s quality assurance report points to measures the institution must focus on in the coming year in order to develop educational quality. We call these focus areas. The focus areas and measures change. In order to support work on the focus areas, we have developed a document that shows who is primarily responsible for the various measures. This document also states which measures the faculties are specifically responsible for. 

Specific challenges

The faculty report template has a space for specific challenges at the very end. These challenges will vary from year to year.

Specific challenge for 2021 

It is natural that the ongoing corona pandemic is a specific challenge for the 2020/2021 academic year. The 2020 quality assurance report had ‘Measures as a result of the corona pandemic’ as a separate focus area. The faculties have a special responsibility for several of these measures. The status is described under ‘Reflection’ in connection with the relevant area of quality.

In addition to this, it is natural to highlight experiences, new measures and any requirements as a result of the corona pandemic in the faculty report. This is done in connection with the situation description, requirements and action plan under the individual areas of quality.

Indicators 

The faculty report highlights a number of selected indicators in the various areas of quality. A document has been developed that explains where one can retrieve the various indicators:

The faculties may comment on the indicators under the situation description if they are part of the faculty’s actual challenges. 

Templates 

It is not compulsory to use the templates, as long as the structure and intention of the templates are followed.