Overview

This policy is related to Management of Quality Assurance and Improvement in which internal and external verification processes of student achievement will be implemented by the departments or Colleges.

Purpose

In order to assess the quality in teaching and learning, the Quality Assurance Center at PSU shall implement the process of independent verification of standards of student achievement within the institution or through external reviewers periodically for at least 50% of the courses offered by them.

Scope

This policy applies to all academic programs and departments at PSU.

Definitions (Optional)

• Internal Verification of Student Achievement - Proportion of programs in which there was independent verification within the institution of standards of student achievement during the year ( NCAAA)
• External Verification of Student Achievement - Proportion of departments verifying achievement standards through external processes during the past three years.

Policy

Internal Verification of Student Achievement

This verification process will be implemented once a year.

0. The department will select in the beginning of the academic year 50% of the courses offered by the department for the internal verification. (Note: Initially the verification can be started with the core courses only and then later on, will be extended to college level and elective courses).
1. The department will nominate the faculty members as the reviewers for the courses selected in step 1.
2. The reviewers will be either the instructors from the relevant course group or instructors teaching the same course within or across the campuses depending on the programs offered at PSU.
3. The course instructors for the selected courses can photocopy a few samples of the student answers of major, final exam, assignments or projects before marking them and hand them over to the reviewer along with the answer key.
4. The internal reviewer will do the blind second marking of the selected sample and submits the grades and a report to the department.
5. The QA Committee at the department level will compare the grading of the instructor and the internal reviewer and prepare a report with recommendations (if any) on the verification of the student achievement within the college or institution.
6. The QA Committee at the College level will compute the data for the EECHES KPI: Proportion of programs in which there was independent verification within the institution of standards of student achievement during the year.
7. The KPI data will be submitted to Centre of Statistical Unit for compiling, analysis and recording purposes.
8. The QAC at the institutional level will compile the reports from all the colleges and prepare an executive summary report to the higher management.

External Verification of Student Achievement

This verification process can be implemented every three academic years.

1. The Colleges are required to select the list of the potential local universities for external verification of Student Achievement. The universities involved in the process of external benchmarking would be preferable.
2. QAC will initiate the process with the selected universities to have an agreement for reviewing periodically the samples of student assessment, assignments or project work after every three years.
3. The International Affairs Office will finalize the agreement with the university (ies).
4. The universities are required to send the names of the reviewers to PSU to see any conflict of interest.
5. QAC will prepare an annual calendar for external verification of the student achievement.
6. The department can select 50% of the courses offered by the department for the external verification. (Note: Initially the verification can be started with the core courses only and then later on, can extended to college level and elective courses)
7. The course instructors for the selected courses can photocopy a few samples of the student answers of either major, final exam, assignments or projects before marking them and handing them over to the reviewer along with the answer key.
8. The external reviewers will do the blind second marking of the selected samples and submit the grades and a report to the Colleges.
9. The QA Committee at the department level will compare the grading of the instructor and the external reviewer and prepare a report with recommendations (if any) on the verification of the student achievement within the college or institution.
10. The QA Committee at the College level will compute the data for the EECHES KPI: Proportion of departments verifying achievement standards through external processes during the past three years.
11. The QA Committee at the College level will submit a report to the College Dean with recommendations (if any) on the verification of the student achievement by the external reviewer.
12. The KPI data will be submitted to Centre of Statistical Unit for compiling, analysis and recording purposes.
13. The QAC at the institutional level will compile the reports from all the colleges and prepare an executive summary report to the higher management which include the extent to which program achieved the following accreditation based key performance indicators for the Management of Quality Assurance.