City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 Quality Assurance

This paper considers quality assurance issues relating to the ‘City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3’. The programme uses two professionals (staff, termed Production Advisors).

The essay addresses the following two main topics:

• Describing and analysing the potential for quality failures
• Explaining and justifying the quality assurance system devised

Quality assurance, within the constraints of education, implies that a form of checking and moderation takes place. The majority of educational circles globally are subject to independent bodies scrutinising the cattle market of courses. Fred Lockwood quotes “All UK higher education institutions are now required to have their teaching evaluated independently – initially by the Higher Education Funding Council and now by the Quality Assurance Agency. Similar procedures are being applied in other parts of the world, as demands for accountability become more widespread”. (Lockwood, 2001)

Appendix 1 contains a detailed set of questions that would be considered good practise for educationalists to adhere to when considering quality issues, though written more specifically for outcomes based education and in a face-to-face mode (f2f). Missing in appendix 1, that would be pertinent to Open and Distance Learning (ODL), are such issues as enrolment and administrative tasks, which for a an online course, such as the City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3, are highly relevant.

Experience of running f2f programmes suggests that implementation to prevent quality failure is a highly desirable channel to explore. Apart from the obvious necessity of such programmes being subject to QAA scrutiny, quality implementation is very good practise and a progressive task. In the f2f mode, the term inspection, in reference with QAA, can muster general feelings of extra workload, and in most cases this is the case. However, regardless of the inevitable workload quality consideration places on academic staff, it does enhance, weather overtly or covertly, the quality of a programme and thus the successfulness of the programme.

The City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 enrolment system, includes access to a Programme Specification which is accessible to all potential learners, after an initially enquiry is made through their e-mail.

The programme specification takes the form of:

1. Qualification - City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3
2. Programme title
3. Programme code
4. Programme type – single module
5. Main purpose and distinctive features of the programme
6. What a learner should know and be able to do on completion of the programme
7. Qualities, skills and capabilities profile – intellectual, practical, personal and social
8. Main subjects, levels, credits and qualifications – singular module in this case
9. Assessment – criteria, methods, weightings
10. Indicators of quality and standards – entry requirements, external referents
11. Course fees and methods of payment
12. Duration of course

Applications are received and processed through e-mail whereby an automated message is returned to the applicant containing hyper-links to the Programme Specification and details of what to do next, including the payment of the course fees by online credit card processing. Intake is purposefully kept low and to a finite number of ten initially, to evaluate the workload requirements of staff. City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 is a rolling course, of set duration, that is to say, learners can enrol as and when they desire, with the exception of a British summer break for quality benchmarking.

A suitable member of the course staff becomes assigned to new applicants in the ratio of 1:5 and termed a ‘Production Advisor’. This title is to reflect that the course aims to support the learner in her quest for improved performance on the City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 through participation in the course.

The Production Advisor communicates through the many mediums available to her such as synchronous chat, a-synchronous message boards, e-mail, video conferencing and telephone if necessary. Naturally, group participation is actively encouraged and the Production Advisor aims to motivate participants to draw on each other’s experience thus fulfilling, mentoring and tutoring roles. The Production Advisors conduct the formal assessment of skills.

The two parties involved on agreed timescales produce course materials (this is constantly updated with each cohort). Redundancy is evident in that should one of the parties fall unexpectedly unavailable then the remaining party will be able to cope with the system. This also applies for course delivery. Should both parties become unavailable then the course can be put on hold and either re-scheduled or monies returned to learners.

Computer software is utilised to simplify the tracking of course planning and development along with student tracking.

The course is tailored for learners worldwide and planning maps are provided detailing significant dates that avoid public holidays. These dates are entered into computer software for tracking. It is suitable to mention here that all computer systems in use are regularly backed-up in case of any system failure and loss of data, which would, of course, pose great difficulties.

Learners need specific software and hardware to be able participate effectively on the course. Much of the software used for communication is free and available on the www. The software used to practice City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 does have a cost to the learner and this is made explicit to the learner before acceptance of a place on the course along with recommended hardware specifications. Software manufacturers provide discounted products to the learners by the way of industrial partnerships

City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 does not use any other published works. Where hypertext links are used, permissions are sought.

The type of content that is opened up for “dialogue” (Moody, 1996), reflects the nature of the industry presently active. The two members of staff involved are active practitioners within the industry of City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3. As City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 is an organic course the content is ever changing to reflect the needs of the group at any given time.

Full screening of text is made by both Production Advisors to ensure typographical errors are eliminated. These are easily remedied; all texts used are Hyper Text Mark-Up Language (HTML), and being online, they are suitable for quick adjustments, which would not be the case for more permanent media such as compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM).

The Production Advisors clearly state that all opinions are subjective and encourage learners to adopt their own views. Indeed the City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 by default cannot be anything but a subjective artistic journey. To impress traditional ideas onto new learners without stating such is fraud.

The Production Advisors point the learners in directions for discovery, bringing forward recommended literature or techniques to experiment with and reflect on. Web sites, message boards, chat rooms and listening examples are all part of the learner exposure.

This is very important. The image that City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 conveys is one of self-discovery. The honing of production skills to satisfy the artist inside.

The course is live and dynamic in that no mass produced materials are used and all content is specific to the individual learners. The participants themselves by producing artwork will eliminate passé techniques.

The programme specification contains information for applicants to consider before enrolment in terms of background level, IT literacy and suitability to the programme. A questionnaire forms part of the enrolment process so as to inform the potential learner of their suitability. City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 is not able to provide provision for learners own IT inadequacies or hardware unsuitability. The Production Advisors will make a decision on the applicant’s suitability and if necessary, refer them to an alternative programme or recommend some background study for further application at a later date.

These are clearly stated in the programme specification.

The course is autonomous. The workload is entirely individualised as is content. There are two live workshops a week for the 15 weeks. These are referred to as mandatory workshops in which participants will be expected to take part. In addition, it is expected learners need to apply around 15 hours a week of their own time

The level is dependant on the individual ability of the learner and no global level established. This flexibility and opening of courses will become more widespread as technological cultures become more sophisticated, and subjects demand choice. Such flexibility is a hard nut to crack in traditional educational establishments and also in large f2f organisations, who rely on industrialised packages. City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 aims to helm clear of these waters and attempt to provide tailored education for the individual. Giving the learner what she wants is good business.

The learning situation and activities are not packaged. Therefore, as mentioned previously learners engage in activities tailored to suit their needs. The course is to be perceived as a support mechanism for learners’ wishing to share and draw on like-minded people with experience of production.

Media choice has been documented previously and to reiterate here, the course actively encourages the exploitation of emerging technologies for the purpose of art creation. The communicative software used is immediate and also has great deal of novelty value. City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 is designed for learners who are excited by such an environment.

Aside from the benefiting the learners, a quality assurance system can also yield benefits for additional stakeholders, Lockwood states:

• learner’s sponsors – the people who fund their studies
• learner’s families – friends families who form a judgement about your institution based on how your learner reports his or her experience
• potential learners who have yet to realise what you can offer them
• learners with other institutions who have a less favourable image of yours
• people on the outside with whom you collaborate, e.g. external suppliers, part-time tutors, printers, network services, etc
• organisations with an interest in your teaching, e.g. bodies who have asked for or paid for a certain course to be offered or who expect to influence what form it takes
• other people whose decisions influence what your institution can do (e.g. government)

(Lockwood, 2001)

Without consideration of these external factors any ODL course would have potential problems. Cultural considerations, which most of the above list could be housed in, are highly important. Of course a paradox exists in that many of the cultures above will have a different set of views of what they wish to view in the system, getting a balance, an equilibrium, is essential.

Internal factors are not so much an issue for City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3, as the “Lone Ranger and Tonto” approach is used. (Rowntree, 2001)

The quality assurance system for City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 is a “bottom up” system as stated by David McConnel in (Lockwood, 2001). That it to say, the philosophy stems from the culture of the course. The dynamic nature of the programme makes an explicit need for its own set of policies and though a desire exists to validate the programme for inclusion within a modular degree programme, the emphasis will always be on a ”bottom-up” mentality to ensure the programme has the learners at the centre of consideration rather than any external institutional one.

The quality policy or rather mission statement for City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3 is:

To promote self-discovery and self-confidence in the exploration of City & Guilds 1820 Sound Engineering Part 3.

This mission statement will set the scene for synthesising the main learning objectives and learner goals for the programme as well as quality procedures for enrolment etc. The diagram below sets out the enrolment procedure.

Learner becomes active in programme

The feedback loop in the system is a mechanism for ensuring potential learners are suitable for the programme. Rejections are made according to the Production Advisors discretion based on hardware/software and background experience.

Without review how can the programme continually improve for the sake of all its stakeholders, and primarily the learners?

Review should been seen as imperative to quality enhancement. All learners are asked to take part in a course review to establish such issues as:

• expectation of course met
• learner impressions
• quality of assignments
• quality of input

The interpretation of collected data, is carried out by the Production Advisors. Cautionary measures are needed as experience suggests that all too often, large amounts of time are invested in collection, and the process of change and modification can be over looked. As Rowntree states:

“The communication of evaluation is often skimped. Plenty of time and money may be put into collecting data, leaving too little for the vital tasks of discussing the implications of the results and following up by helping people to do something about those implications……” (Rowntree, 2001)

Programmed time slots exist for data examination once the course is active, to ensure that quality does indeed improve rather than merely data for the task collected.

This paper has tried to address a plethora of issues, that could be termed a ‘minefield’, certainly iterative. Without a doubt, all issues are equally as important, and this paper aside, it is certainly in the interest of AudioCourses Online Recording School to aim high for quality achievement. With that said, the future will be one of planning, testing and evaluation for all of the course components, however industrialised they may need to become or not. Quality assurance has to be on the agenda for course developers of ODL.

Christopher Hambly MA ODE

Director

http://www.audiocourses.com

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Appendix 1.

Evaluation of the intended learning outcomes in relation to external reference points and the broad aims of the provision

1. What are the intended learning outcomes for a programme?
2. How do they relate to external reference points including relevant subject benchmark?
3. How do they relate to the overall aims of the provision as stated by the subject provider?
4. Are they appropriate to the aims?

The means by which the subject provider designs curricular which permit the achievement of the intended outcomes

5. How does the provider ensure that curriculum content enable students to achieve the intended learning outcomes?
6. How does the provider ensure that the design and organisation of the curriculum is effective in promoting student learning and achievement of the intended learning outcomes?

The means by which the intended outcomes are communicated to students, staff and external examiners

7. How are the intended outcomes of a Programme, and its constituent parts communicated to staff, students and external examiners?
8. Do the students know what is expected of them?

Evaluation of the means by which the subject provider creates the conditions for achievement of the internal learning outcomes

9. Do the design and content curricula encourage achievement of the intended learning outcomes in terms of knowledge and understanding, cognitive skills, subject specific skills (including practical/professional skills), transferable skills, progression to employment and/or further study, and personal development?
10. Is there evidence that curricula content and design is informed by recent developments in techniques of teaching and learning, by current research and scholarship, and by any changes in relevant occupational or professional requirements?

Evaluation of the assessment process and the standards demonstrated through it

11. Does the assessment process enable learners to demonstrate achievement of the intended outcomes?
12. Are there criteria that enable internal and external examiners to distinguish between different categories of achievement?
13. Can there be full confidence in the security and integrity of assessment procedures?
14. Does the assessment strategy have an adequate formative function in developing student abilities?
15. What evidence is there that the standards achieved by learners meet the minimum expectations for the award, as measured against relevant subject benchmarks and the qualifications framework?

Evaluation of the institution’s approaches to reviewing and improving the standard achieved

16. How does the subject provider review and seek to enhance standards?

Evaluation of the quality of learning opportunities offered by the subject provider: the teaching delivered by staff and how it leads to learning by students

17. How effective is teaching in relation to curriculum content and programme aims?
18. How effectively do staff draw upon their research, scholarship or professional activity to inform their teaching?
19. How good are the materials provided to support learning?
20. Is there effective engagement with and participation by students?
21. Is the quality of teaching maintained and enhanced through effective staff development, peer review of teaching, integration of part-time and visiting staff, effective team teaching induction and mentoring of new staff?
22. How effectively is learning facilitated in terms of student workloads?

Student progression and academic support

23. Is there an appropriate overall strategy for academic support, including written guidance, which is consistent with the student profile and he overall aims of the provision?
24. Are there effective arrangements for admission and induction which are generally understood by staff and applicants?
25. How effectively is learning facilitated by academic guidance, feedback and supervision arrangements?
26. Are the arrangements for academic tutorial support clear and generally understood by staff and students?

Learning resources and their deployment

27. Is the collective expertise of the academic staff suitable and available for effective delivery of the curricula, for the overall teaching and assessment strategy and for the achievement of the intended learning outcomes?
28. Are appropriate staff development opportunities available?
29. Is appropriate technical and administrative support available?
30. Is there an overall strategy for the development of learning resources?
31. How effectively is learning facilitated in terms of the provision of resources?
32. Are the subject book and periodical stocks appropriate and accessible?
33. Is suitable equipment and appropriate IT facilities available to learners?