This is the eighth post in the ‘Spotlight on ELIR’ series, which will chart the Enhancement-led Institutional Review (ELIR) now rescheduled to take place in February and March 2021. In this post, Professor Tina Harrison outlines arrangements for the new dates and introduces Vesna Curlic, a PhD Intern who is supporting our preparations for ELIR…
Where are we now?
Due to the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak, the Quality Assurance Agency Scotland (QAAS) made changes to their schedule of ELIRs, and asked that our review be postponed. QAAS have now confirmed new dates for our visits:
- Planning visit: Wednesday 3 February 2021
- Review visit: Monday 22 to Friday 26 March 2021
Given the current circumstances, the format of the visits is still to be confirmed. It is excellent news that we have been able to keep all but one member of our original review team.
We have notified colleagues, whom the review team wished to meet during the planning visit and also those identified as being in roles or involved in key activities whom we believe that the review team may wish to meet during the main review visit, to advise of the new dates and have asked them to confirm their availability.
What happens next?
We will continue to update the Reflective Analysis (RA), with the aim of getting it approved by the relevant committees in September. The deadline for submission for the RA and the supporting Advanced Information Set (AIS) will be early December, so we will provide the review team an update paper on any developments between submission and the review date.
I am delighted to announce that Vesna Curlic, a current PhD student in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, has been appointed to the ELIR team as Student Learning Experience Review Intern and is developing ideas and plans for how to engage students in the ELIR. Vesna is also helping with the production of the RA and AIS. Vesna comments: “I am really looking forward to helping students have a voice in their institution and their experience!”
The rescheduled ELIR has knock-on effects for our Internal Periodic Review (IPR) schedule for Semester 2 2020/21. We are currently planning for how we will manage our IPR schedule around the new ELIR dates. This will likely involve postponing some reviews since we also have postponed reviews from 2019/20 as a result of Covid-19 to accommodate. Our IPRs form part of the external Quality Enhancement Framework, so any changes to the schedule that result in a review falling outside of its six-year cycle require approval by the Scottish Funding Council.
FURTHER INFORMATION
CONTACT
If you have any comments, queries or ideas about the review, we would love to hear from you: ELIRsupport@ed.ac.uk.
Tina is Assistant Principal Academic Standards and Quality Assurance and Professor of Financial Services Marketing and Consumption. Tina joined the University in 1993 and continues to maintain an active academic role in the Business School. She has had overall responsibility for the University’s quality assurance framework as Assistant Principal since 2009. She plays a key role in the Scottish HE quality landscape as a member of QAA Scotland’s Advisory Board, chair of the sparqs University Advisory Group, and member of the Quality Arrangements for Scottish Higher Education (QASHE) group.
