Postgraduate Programme Review
An introduction to the School's Postgraduate Programme Review process (2019/20)
SoI Postgraduate Programme Review 2019/20
The Postgraduate Programme Review (PPR) falls within the University’s established arrangements for quality assurance and enhancement of the student experience. The PPR provides a formal opportunity for key members of academic and administrative staff involved in the delivery of Postgraduate Research (PGR) education, to reflect on and critically evaluate the School’s PGR provision and the processes relating to its management and delivery.
The benefit of undertaking an internal review is that it provides an opportunity to:
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the School’s provision and the extent to which the needs of the PGR students (and their supervisors) are met;
- Reflect on areas of success, and specifically the contribution of the School’s PGR provision to the overall quality culture of the University; and
- Identify areas for enhancement, ideally with suggestions for how these might be implemented
The SoI participated in the PPR (2019/20) in March 2020, and as part of this processed submitted a written reflective report which was reviewed by an independent review panel. The PPR reflective report drew on a range of data and information sources, including:
- School Quality Assurance Reports;
- Programme specific documentation;
- Information and feedback taken from PGR Annual Reviews;
- Statistical information about the School’s current student PGR population and programmes;
- The School’s Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) results; and
- The previous 2014 SoI PPR report and recommendations.
Input into the report was received from PGR students, gathered via the following feedback routes:
- PGR Town Hall meeting (6 Dec 2018)
- Staff survey feedback meeting with PGRs and Head of School (22 Jan 2019).
- Student Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) (11th June 2019)
- Student Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) (5th Nov 2019)
- Student Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) (26th Nov 2019)
The overall intention of the review process was to be a positive and constructive activity, which provided support the School in the enhancement and development of the provision and services provided to PGR students.
Review Schedule
| Review Activity | Date / deadline |
|---|---|
| Early preparations and writing of reflective report | 20 December 2019 |
| Submission of final reflective report | 20 January 2020 |
| Meeting of the external review panel | Thur 12 and Fri 13 March 2020 |
| Submission of report containing commendations of good practive and recommendations for enhancement | Wed 22 April 2020 |
| 14 week response from School | 01 Sept 2020 (defered due to COVID disruption) |
| 1 year response from School | 20 March 2021 |
| Annual report on progress with addressing recommendations | Via the School's annual programme QA monitoring report |
Student and Staff Participation in the Review
Thank you to all the PGR students and staff who gave up their time and participated in the review meetings. Your contribution was invaluable and appreciated.
PPR Reflective Report
A copy of the Reflective Report is available on request from the Graduate School Manager. If you would like to request this please contact igs@inf.ed.ac.uk with a subject heading - PPR Reflective Report.
Review Team Final Report
The final report from the review team has now been published to the Univerity's Quality Assurance webpage https://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/iprinformaticspgrfinalreport.pdf
The panel made a number of commmendations and recommendations, which are detailed in the report.
The Graduate School management team prepared an implementation action plan and progress was reported via the one year update in May 2021. Reports are available via the Internal Review webpages: 2019-20 | The University of Edinburgh