Students' Views on Programmes of Study
8.1 Departments/Schools should determine what means of student representation are appropriate and realistic for students on programmes within their remit and should provide all students with accurate information about these arrangements.
8.2 The normal arrangement should be for the Programme Director to offer at least one Student-Staff Exchange Committee (SSEC) meeting to cover each degree programme and/or subject area each term at times convenient to full-time and part-time students. Interdisciplinary Programme Directors should arrange appropriate student-staff exchange meetings. Membership of each Committee should include academic and administrative staff who contribute to the programme(s)/subject area(s) and student representatives covering all the programme(s)/subject area(s) concerned. Where it is not possible to organise a Student-Staff Exchange Committee and where there is a rationale for not doing so, alternative mechanisms may be offered for eliciting student feedback.
8.3 Each Department/School should nominate MPhil/PhD representatives to a relevant Student-Staff Exchange Committee.
8.4 Exchange Committee meetings are valuable fora for discussing matters of concern to students and students' views on programmes of study as well as communicating staff and curriculum developments. Matters raised in exchange meetings requiring further consideration can be discussed at Department and School TQEC meetings with feedback to the Exchange Committee itself and notification, if appropriate, through the normal channels of communication.
8.5 Student participation in exchange meetings may be encouraged by arranging for student members to propose items requiring discussion and to take notes of the proceedings and produce minutes of the meetings.
8.6 Departments/Schools should advise their students of the support provided by the Students’ Union for student representatives on the Student-Staff Exchange Committees, details of which can be found at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/su/classrep/.
8.7 Departments/Schools and programme directors normally seek to cultivate good relations with mature students through an informal non-hierarchical atmosphere and regular social contact. In consequence many issues may be dealt with in a manner which does not require the generation of formal documentation.
8.8 Students should also be encouraged to express their views on programmes of study on other occasions where suitable opportunities arise, for example informally, on field courses, at study weekends or by e-mail. Students should be encouraged to complete online end of year, course-unit and Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) evaluation questionnaires which can be useful when students may find it difficult to attend exchange meetings (see 3.6 above and the Quality Enhancement and Validation Office web site for further details at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/qev/feedback). Whenever time permits, teaching staff should consider adopting the practice of some programmes of offering a seminar at the end of a module in order to provide a forum for an exchange of views.
8.9 Departments/Schools should survey students who fail to graduate or withdraw from their studies as part of the system of evaluation questionnaires since it is recognised that the views of such students could potentially be helpful for retention work in possibly highlighting trends/themes emerging from this. A link to the on-line student withdrawal survey and a downloadable paper version can be found on the Quality Enhancement and Validation website. All Programme Directors and Department/School Administrators should direct withdrawn students to the survey.
8.10 Departments/Schools and interdisciplinary programme directors should be prepared to consider amendments to programmes and modules and innovations in teaching and learning and examination requirements in the light of student comment. However, care should be taken to ensure that requests for change are truly representative of student opinion, that the integrity of both the individual component and of the degree programme would be maintained and resource implications fully explored. Proposals should be evaluated by the Departmental meeting in the first instance with regard inter alia to likely future student needs and, if supported, subsequently considered by Sub-Boards of Examiners with particular regard to the views of External Examiners and then considered for approval by the School TQEC. Any amendments or innovations thus approved would then be reported by the School TQEC to the College Programmes Committee.