Quality Assurance

At Notre Dame we are committed to delivering high quality learning experiences and educational outcomes, ensuring our students are equipped with the knowledge and values the modern world demands. Institutional quality assurance processes provide a framework of systems and practices that support continuous measurable review and improvement and ensure alignment with the University’s strategic objectives.

The quality assurance processes are informed by insights gained from internal and external data on student enrolment, progression and experience and are coordinated collaboratively with key stakeholders in the Faculties and Schools.

Feedback opportunities

• Annual program monitoring

  The Curriculum & Quality office reports annually on program quality for all active programs by identifying trends in performance indicators across four key areas:

  • Program demand
  • Student retention and success
  • Student experience
  • Graduate outcomes

  Schools carefully analyse these reports to prepare documented responses that include insight into emerging trends within the data and which:

  • Guide, monitor and evaluate program improvement strategies and changes
  • Identify possible future risks to program and course quality with mitigation strategies
  • Realign resources with strategic priorities

  Annual reporting of School responses by Curriculum & Quality to executive leadership and to Academic Council ensures appropriate governance oversight of program quality. Improvement strategies and changes are monitored throughout the year through the Program Action Planning process to ensure tasks and related projects remain on track for completion within their designated timeframes. Annual program monitoring data provides academic leadership clear insight into priority issues and identified concerns for strategic planning and is also used to inform other program review processes, including the Comprehensive Program Review.

• Comprehensive program review

  The Comprehensive Program Review (CPR) is a key component of the University’s integrated program and course approval and improvement cycles and an essential feature of its quality assurance processes. The systematic and evidence-based review of the University’s academic programs using qualitative, quantitative, external referencing and benchmarking ensures that programs are rigorously assessed for relevance and viability to support program reaccreditation by the University for an ensuing five-to-seven-year period.

  The CPR is an opportunity for Faculties and Schools to periodically assure their programs through reflection, self-assessment, external benchmarking, industry collaboration, and peer review to demonstrate:

  • Quality (curriculum and teaching methods and disciplinary standards)
  • Performance (student progression, success, and satisfaction, and graduate outcomes)
  • Viability (student enrolment, resourcing and sustainability)
  • Compliance with external regulations and professional accreditation requirements
  • Alignment with the University’s strategic priorities
  • Compliance with the requirements of the Higher Education Standards Framework (HESF), Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF)

  Curriculum & Quality maintain the University’s review schedule, coordinate CPR commencement with relevant stakeholders, and monitor CPR progress. Programs are organised into groups or clusters by discipline, and monitoring of the review cycles ensures that each program group complies with the requirement to commence a CPR within five years of completion of the previous review. Standard timeframes for completion of a CPR is twelve months from the start date set for a program or grouping.

• Student course experience survey

  The Student Course Experience Survey (SCES) is a regular process that gathers feedback directly from students about their experience in courses across the University. Feedback from the SCES is provided to academic staff in accordance with the University's privacy policy for the purpose of continuously improving program and course quality and enhancing student experience.

  The SCES is comprised of two questionnaires: the Student Experience of Course (SEC) and the Student Experience of Teaching (SET). The SEC is focused on overall student experience in a course pertaining to resources, assessments and feedback; the SET is focused on in-class teaching interactions and engagement.

  The SCES is administered each Semester, including Summer and Winter terms – students complete one SEC for every course offered in that period and typically, students complete one SET for every staff member teaching on an offered course.

  Process Overview

  The Student Course Experience Survey is centrally coordinated and managed by Curriculum & Quality.

  • Surveys are typically open from Week 6 to Week 13 in Semesters 1 and 2, and from Week 1 to Week 4 in the Winter and Summer Terms
  • Course and staff details are gathered and confirmed with Schools during survey preparation
  • Curriculum & Quality creates the relevant survey events for each course via a centrally managed survey platform
  • Once surveys are open course coordinators and teaching staff are given the option to administer the survey in or outside of class using provided QR codes and hyperlinks
  • After surveys close, results data is processed and generated into PDF reports which are then distributed
  • To protect privacy and comply with the University’s code of conduct, actions are taken to ensure survey results are anonymised, which includes redaction of identified comments
  • Established mechanisms support the closing of the feedback loop by enabling academics to readily communicate results and consequential improvements to students

Our staff

Contact us

For more information, please contact any of our above staff members.