Welcome to the website for the Teaching Quality Assurance and Review Office (TQARO) at the London School of Economics.

TQARO is part of the Academic Registrar's Division and is located on the sixth floor of Tower 2.

Quality Assurance as an activity seeks to answer some very fundamental questions, such as how the School can be sure of (a) the standards of the degrees and other qualifications it awards and (b) the quality of the teaching and student support on its courses and programmes. There is therefore a very direct link to improving the student experience: the processes of assurance and review enable the School to have a clearer idea of its strengths and weaknesses so that it can celebrate the former and address the latter.

Mission, values, aims and objectives

Mission: To ensure that all stakeholders can have full confidence in the School's academic standards and quality assurance mechanisms.

Values: To work to those values outlined in the Central Administration Three-Year Plan: subsidiarity, transparency, innovation and participation. 

Aim 1: To practice a professional, accurate and authoritative approach to quality assurance.

Objectives supporting Aim 1:

1

To advise the School on matters arising from the current national quality assurance agenda, and to improve the information provided on the TQARO website.

2

To improve our collective knowledge of national quality assurance related policies. 

3

To run the School’s programme of internal reviews to a high standard, to update the procedures for those reviews annually and to successfully dissociate the reviews from the APRC process.

4

To ensure compliance with HEFCE Teaching Quality Information as presented on the Unistats website, to consider HEFCE internally published information requirements and to advise the School on any implications or actions that should be taken.  

5

To manage the annual course monitoring requirements for the School and to revise the process at the end of the second year of operation.

Aim 2: To support School efforts in understanding and improving the student experience.

Objectives supporting Aim 2:

1

To improve the accuracy and accessibility of published information in the School’s Calendar for the benefit of its students.

2

To improve the liaison with departments responsible for the information in the Calendar, for the benefit of the School’s students.

3

To improve understanding across the School’s teachers to ensure students have the opportunity to complete the survey and understand how to do it.

4

To contribute to School discussions on student satisfaction surveys and the coordinating of them.

Aim 3: To manage the School's mid-cycle follow-up exercise.

Objectives supporting Aim 3:

1

To coordinate the successful implementation of QAA Audit recommendations.

2

To revise the School QA Strategy document.

Aim 4: To provide a professional service to those committees for which we are responsible.

Objectives supporting Aim 4:

1

To ensure the effective servicing of the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Committee and its sub-committees: Graduate Studies Sub-committee and Undergraduate Studies Sub-committee.

2

To initiate and contribute to policy discussions arising from these bodies.

3

To produce high quality committee papers on QA activity to inform School discussions

Aim 5: To promote the role of TQARO across the School, especially to students.

Objectives supporting Aim 5:

1

To ensure a more student focussed perspective on the services provided by TQARO.

2

To consider the identity of the Office and promote its work more effectively across the School.

3

To review the main areas of activity run by the Office, with a view to streamlining them where possible.

4

To consider the place of business continuity and succession planning within the workload of TQARO.

5

To ensure that more members of TQARO are capable of understanding committee service work.

6

To foster an environment in which staff are valued and have the opportunity to develop new skills and knowledge relevant to the success of our mission.

7

To ensure that staff regularly meet with line managers to agree personal objectives and to communicate effectively as an office thus ensuring awareness of all major activities and initiatives.

8

To integrate new members of staff into the Office successfully.

9

To manage and allocate resources intelligently in accordance with Divisional and School requirements.