The Quality Assurance Policy at PSU is a set of guidelines, principles, and processes that ensure the delivery of high-quality education and services to students and stakeholders. It serves as a framework for maintaining and enhancing the overall quality and effectiveness of a university's academic programs and administrative operations.

Prince Sultan University is committed to providing a high-quality educational experience for its students and continuously improving the quality of its academic programs and supporting services and infrastructure in alignment with PSU’s mission, vision, and strategic goals. This Quality Assurance Policy outlines PSU’s commitment to quality and the processes followed to achieve and maintain it.

The QA policy applies to all academic and administrative activities that directly or indirectly support or impact the quality of education at PSU. This policy applies to all PSU stakeholders, including students, faculty, and administrative staff.
The main aim of the Quality Assurance Policy at PSU is to enhance the effectiveness of its core activities of learning, teaching, and the supporting services to facilitate the quality education.

The quality assurance framework and processes are based on the following key principles:

• Quality Responsibility: Quality is everyone’s responsibility. PSU actively ratifies and supports the implementation of the quality policy. The use of the quality policy is embedded or demonstrated in the work of all PSU employees and students.
• Quality Commitment: Quality is recognized as the responsibility of all PSU’s primary stakeholders (employees and students). Effective leadership and executive support for quality are of high importance. PSU’s University Council approves quality management frameworks for all programs, departments, colleges, and administrative offices.
• Quality Data and Information: Processes are established and ratified at PSU to ensure the consistent collection, benchmarking, and evidence-based analysis of data and authentic information.
• Quality Staff and Resources: The teaching and non-teaching PSU employees are trained, supported, and resources appropriately provided to ensure quality services consistent with and aligned with the PSU and college strategic goals and objectives.
• Quality Practices: : PSU-approved and effective practices are identified at various levels of administration and regularly communicated to all relevant stakeholders through policies, procedures, guidelines, and PSU Forms.
• Continuous Improvement: PSU periodic plans for an internal and external review at the institutional and program level promote the continuous improvement of quality practices and processes to ensure their continuing appropriateness and suitability.

• Assessment:
: one or more processes that identify, collect, and prepare data to evaluate the attainment of program learning outcomes in accordance with established standards.
• Audit: to identify and ensure that appropriate internal quality assurance processes are in practice at PSU in alignment with the NCAAA.
• Program Review: Holistic evaluation of a program and resources used in its delivery with the intention of its continuous improvement, .
• Quality: PSU academic and administrative activities have quality if they conform to the purpose for which they were designed.
• Quality Assurance: It is the process of checking that the standards and quality of higher education provision meet agreed expectations. The two dominant purposes of QA are improvement or enhancement (internal) and accountability (external). .
• Quality Management: Ensures that the processes by which outputs and benefits are delivered meet stakeholder requirements and are fit for purpose.
• Stakeholders: The entities (government, private, individual, or group) that have an impact on the quality management system or are affected by the system.

Responsibilities include governance committees, DQAD, academic/administrative units, and all employees and students. Implementation uses the PDCA cycle:

• PSU Governance and Institutional Committees: University Council, President’s Office, Vice Presidents’ offices (VPAA, VRFRA, VP-CW), Deanships (DSA, DAR, DQAD of Quality Assurance and Development (DQAD), colleges/academic departments, administrative offices, and the Institutional Quality Committees (such as IEC, IPC, and IQC) are responsible for reviewing, supporting, endorsing, and ensuring accountability within the PSU Quality Assurance Framework.
• DQAD is responsible for managing and administering the PSU Quality Assurance Framework.
• All heads of the academic and administrative units have the responsibility to check and ensure the requirements of the Quality Framework are satisfied within their area of responsibility.
• All institutional, college, and department-level committees have the responsibility to verify and ensure the PSU Quality Assurance Framework requirements are satisfied within their area of accountability.
• All employees are responsible for ensuring that their assigned tasks follow quality principles.
Undergraduate and graduate students and other stakeholders are responsible for providing useful and timely feedback to PSU regarding the satisfaction of the program delivery, its processes, and its practices.

Prince Sultan is committed to achieving high quality in all areas of academic and administrative practices. It mandates all academic and administrative supporting services to follow the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, and Act) quality cycle to ensure quality in teaching and learning and the support infrastructure and services provided to its stakeholders.

In this phase, all the important quality elements required by the academic and administrative units at all levels are identified for planning services, such as:

Mission and Vision: Follow the timeline for the up-to-date mission and realistic vision for PSU.
Governance and accountability: A clear organizational structure, including terms of reference for each job position, to clarify roles and responsibilities within PSU for quality assurance and establish mechanisms for accountability.
Compliance and Regulations: Ensure the placement and adherence of relevant laws, regulations, and standards governing higher education, including those related to academic integrity and ethics.
Policies and Procedures: Ensure up-to-date PSU policies and procedures.
University Plans: strategic plans and annual operational plans to achieve the predefined goals and objectives that reflect the university's commitment to quality in various areas, such as teaching, research, student services, and community engagement.
Risk Management Plan
Assessment and Evaluation: Define processes for regularly assessing and evaluating academic programs and administrative functions' quality and effectiveness using data-driven approaches.
Stakeholders: Identify the role of various PSU internal and external stakeholders, including students, alumni, employers, and the community, in the quality assurance process for seeking their input and feedback to achieve PSU’s mission and vision.
Key Performance Indicators: Identification of NCAAA and PSU Key Performance Indicators to measure the effectiveness of performance at various academic and administrative levels.
Timeline: Calendars are prepared for the academic and administrative services to ensure the implementation of timely services.
Documentation Management System: Every academic and administrative supporting service unit maintains a required set of up-to-date documentation in alignment with the PSU quality framework and ETEC-NCAAA.
Resource planning: Identify all kinds of resources to implement actions to achieve strategic plan goals and objectives.
Communication: Ensure transparent communication in all quality-related processes to demonstrate PSU’s commitment to quality to internal and external stakeholders.

During the Do or implementation phase, DQAD ensures the presence of a quality culture among the faculty, students, and administrative staff to adhere to the quality assurance processes at all levels

Delivery of services: Every academic and administrative unit ensures all quality elements mentioned in the planning phase are available and communicated to the relevant stakeholders. It provides services to its various stakeholders in an effective manner, in compliance with the five-year strategic plan, annual operation plan, and approved terms of reference.
Effective communication: The academic and administrative units communicate with the respective PSU higher management for their required support to complete the required actions. The college and departmental administrative committees are regularly contacted to implement actions related to their scope of work.
Documentation: Every academic and supporting administrative unit maintains documentation in alignment with the PSU Quality Framework, ETEC-NCAAA, and international accreditation requirements. The relevant templates for planning, implementing, and reporting are shown in each chapter.

The quality of the academic and administrative core services is monitored through:

Data Collection: annual data collection about the satisfaction of services among various stakeholders.
Key Performance Indicators: measurement of the NCAAA and PSU Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) by the Center of Statistics and Information (CSI) to measure the effectiveness of performance at various academic and administrative levels. Internal and external benchmarks are identified for all KPIs.
Progress Reports: Accomplishment monitors the accomplishment of the 5-year strategic plans by the SPDC and annual operational plans by the QAC throughout the academic year. They provide support to the respective academic and administrative units based on the requirements.
Internal Assessment: regular internal program assessments
External Assessment: External assessments of the institution and academic programs are conducted through local and international accreditation review processes. DQAD and the Evaluation and Academic Accreditation Center (EAAC) monitor the accomplishment of the action plan based on the external review recommendations.
Audits: Internal and external quality audits are conducted on a regular basis for ensure the compliance of supporting services with ISO requirements.

Review (closing the loop) is an important phase in the Quality Assurance (QA) PIMRU Cycle, which demonstrates PSU’s commitment to continuous improvement by fostering a culture of self-assessment, constructive feedback, and excellence. Reviewing the academic and administrative services involves analyzing the data gathered in the monitoring phase and making fact-based decisions for continuous improvement. The periodic review is performed at regular intervals based on the quality calendar and reported in the annual reports of the academic and administrative units.

The continuous improvement action plans are prepared based on periodic reviews and implemented according to the approved timeline by the concerned academic and administrative authorities.

Any violation of not complying with the requests will result in consequences or sanctions by the respective departments as stipulated in their provisions.

https://www.psu.edu.sa/en/compliance-policies
PSU Quality Assurance Policy v1.0
PSU Quality Manual