Teaching Quality Assessment
In the United Kingdom there is a long tradition of guarding the quality of university education by the strict regulation of degree awarding powers by the Crown, and the evaluation of institutions' procedures and degree courses by various bodies. In recent years, an national agency, called the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, has organised these processes on behalf of the universities and colleges and the university funding councils of the United Kingdom.
HEFCs Teaching Quality Assessment: Excellent
In 1994, the funding councils began a huge eight-year programme to evaluate carefully the quality of undergraduate degree programmes in every subject in every university. Computer Science was one of the first subjects tackled. As a result of this Teaching Quality Assessment exercise, the teaching at each institution was awarded a ranking of: Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory or Excellent. The assessment considered in great detail all aspects of teaching, including:
- depth and appropriateness of curricula;
- quality of material and presentation;
- facilities available to students in both the Department and the institution as a whole;
- quality of the teaching environment;
- academic and pastoral support for students; and
- approachability and accessibility of staff.
The Department of Computer Science at Swansea was one of only thirteen UK computer science departments awarded the rare and prized grade of Excellent: the others are Cambridge; Edinburgh; Exeter; Glasgow; Imperial College; Kent; Manchester; Oxford; Southampton; Teeside; Warwick; and York. This official distinction drew public attention to the ambition and quality of the education available to students at Swansea.
The visiting Higher Education Funding Council team of five assessors were particularly impressed that "active research activities are reflected in the curriculum and project work"; that "good industrial support provides undergraduates with industrial experience, prizes and sponsorship, with graduates finding employment"; and that "an explicit and coherent approach to the curriculum provides students with substantial foundation in computer science".
Careful evaluations of this kind have been discontinued. It was found that UK higher education was very strong. The massive eight-year cycle 1994-2002 was not repeated but replaced by QAA evaluations that focussed on the procedures of institutions, rather than the teaching of individual subjects.
Times Higher Education Supplement: One of UK's Top Departments
Swansea is rated as one of the top ten universities for Computer Science in the UK by the Times. Please see the Times Higher Education Supplement (latest table from May 2002).
League Tables
The data for newspaper league tables now reflect a range of statistical information published by Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).
Top UK Computer Science Departments: Funding Council Evaluation
| Department | Research Assessment Exercise |
Teaching Quality Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Edinburgh | 5* | Excellent |
| Cambridge | 5* | Excellent |
| Imperial | 5* | Excellent |
| Manchester | 5* | Excellent |
| Southampton | 5* | Excellent |
| York | 5* | Excellent |
| Oxford | 5 | Excellent |
| Glasgow | 5 | Excellent |
| Swansea | 5 | Excellent |
| Warwick | 5 | Excellent |
These are all the Departments in the UK that were awarded the top grades in both the latest research and teaching quality assessments by the UK Higher Education Funding Councils.
The results of the next Research Assessment Exercise will be published in December 2008.