Course quality

Develop and revise course plans

All course plans and programme descriptions must be in accordance with  templates adopted by the Western Norway University of Applied Science (HVL) and approved by the Dean. The Programme Committee approves changes to the PhD programme within the framework of accreditation.

When revising courses and study programmes, students, employees and representatives from the field of practice/labour market must be involved. The study programme coordinator is responsible for participation, which is generally through the Study Programme Council or the Study Programme Committee.

Prepare and implement educational instruction and assessments

• The course coordinator is responsible for:
  • Ensuring that instruction and assessments are carried out in accordance with the course plan.
  • Control and operation of rooms on the learning platforms. The name of the course coordinator should be stated here.
  • Preparing examiner guidance and making this available.
  • For supervised practical training courses: Implement assessments and practical training follow-up
• Programme coordinators for bachelor’s and master’s programmes must establish a long-term plan to ensure that courses in the study programme will engage external examiners at least every third year.

When external examiners are engaged in accordance with a long-term plan, the external examiner shall write an examiner report based on an established template

Improve and develop based on experiences, dialogue and results

• No later than midway through a course, the course coordinator must either conduct a reference group meeting with a minimum of two elected students who represent the class, or they must organise a meeting with the entire class (with or without the course coordinator). Minutes must be taken from the meeting. Templates have been prepared for such meetings suited for the topic to be discussed. These can be found in the quality assurance manual.
• The study programme coordinator shall establish a long-term plan for anonymous surveys at the course level to ensure that these are conducted at least every third year after the course is completed. The course coordinator shall ensure that planned course evaluations are conducted within a week after the final class session. Common templates have been prepared for the anonymous course evaluations.
• Study programme coordinators and course coordinators may choose to add other forms of dialogue and feedback with students, course lecturers and/or the labour market/practical training sites

For each individual course, the course coordinator and study programme coordinator will have access to data on activities and results. This will provide the basis for a concluding evaluation of the course, in combination with student dialogue, field of practice, course lecturers and possible external examiners during the implementation of the course.

Depending on the type of programme and course, the programme coordinator shall determine whether to carry out a concluding dialogue meeting at the programme level, or whether the course coordinator shall write a final report on the course. It is possible to choose both, if so desired:

• If a study programme coordinator decides to conduct a dialogue meeting, they will call for a dialogue meeting at the study programme level (possibly at other levels if appropriate),
• where the course coordinator (and potentially other course lecturers) can discuss the implementation and results of the course, and determine whether changes should be made to the course plan or study programme plan, or if other measures should be initiated. Minutes must be taken from the meeting.
• If a final report for the course is chosen, the course coordinator should use a template for this. The report will be then sent to the study programme coordinator.

PhD programmes

The PhD academic administrator and the  programme committee shall ensure the development and revision of courses at the PhD level and ensure involvement with feedback and suggestions for improvements from both PhD candidates and course coordinators. The PhD academic administrator is responsible for ensuring that this is implemented regularly based on the structure of the programme and how often the course is offered.

This can be done through dialogue-based course evaluations where the course coordinator has meetings with all the candidates or selected representatives for each course. Feedback must be documented by writing a summary from these meetings. For courses where appropriate, anonymous course evaluations can also be conducted through HVL’s system for this. The course coordinator will convey the summary and results of the evaluations to the academic administrator, who will pass this on to the programme committee.

Feedback on results and measures

The course coordinator is responsible for ensuring that all documentation, reports and meeting minutes related to the course for that academic year is made available to students, PhD candidates and other staff members on learning platforms or other communication channels