Summary of Quality Assurance Procedures Related to Higher Education
External Quality Assurance: The Ministry of Education
All Universities in China are subject to robust and rigorous quality assurance process which include both internal and external processes and peer review. This section outlines the policies and procedures of the MOE to ensure universities quality and standards.
In 1990, National Education Committee (with this title from 1985 to 1998, and later renamed as the Ministry of Education of PRC) issued the Interim Regulations on Higher Education Assessment of General Institutions (https://baike.so.com/doc/2655706-2804333.html), which was the first regulations on higher education assessment in China and made clear provisions of the nature, purpose, task, guidelines, basic forms, etc.
The Higher Education Assessment Center (http://www.heec.edu.cn/) of Ministry of Education was formally established in August 2004, which means that the higher education assessment of China began to develop systematically with scientific and professional standards and that China had begun to build its own quality assurance system of higher education. As a national professional institution for quality assurance of higher education, the Higher Education Assessment Center carries out different types of assessments on colleges and universities of different levels across the country, with the aim to build a high-level quality assurance system of higher education of China and to contribute to the development of the quality of higher education of China.
In October 2013, the Ministry of Education issued the Opinions from Ministry of Education on Higher Education Assessments of General Undergraduate Institutions (http://www.heec.edu.cn/pgcenter/yxpg/pgjj/index.html), which identified the national guidelines as taking self-assessments of undergraduate institutions as the basis, and national assessments, professional validations and assessments, international assessments and normal monitoring of basic teaching state data as the main contents.
The higher education assessments of general undergraduate institutions conducted by Ministry of Education are divided into 3 categories:
Validation:
The results of Higher Education Validation of Undergraduate Institutions are divided as “passed”, “suspended” and “failed”. Those get a “passed” will go through the Higher Education Review of Undergraduate Institutions. There will be a rectification period of 2 years for those get a “suspended” and 3 years for those get a “failed”. During the rectification period, restrictive measures will be taken and the institutions will be limited or reduced in the number of enrollments, suspended in the application of new majors, etc. Those pass the re-validation after rectification period will go through the Higher Education Review of Undergraduate Institutions, while those still fail to pass will be punished according to relevant laws.
Evaluation:
The results of Evaluation are shown as different grades after accurate calculation, and are divided into categories of degree major. In each degree major, the top 75% of the candidate institutions will be divided into 9 levels after evaluation: top 2% (or top 2) are defined as A+, 2%-7% (not including 2%, the same applies to the following) are defined as A, 7%-15% are defined as A-, 15%-25% are defined as B+, 25%-35% are defined as B, 35%-45% are defined as B-, 45%-55% are defined as C+, 55%-65% are defined as C, 65%-75% are defined as C-.
Review:
Reviews are carried out basically to check whether the institution has achieved the goal sets by itself and there are no national unified standards for Review. In a Review, the Panel carries out on-campus inspection and the conclusion drawn by the Panel comes as a Review Report instead of grades by calculation. The whole process of a Review comes as “self-assessment by the institution—on-campus inspection by the Panel—review and release of the results—rectification by the institution”.
As regulated by Ministry of Education, institutions that get “passed” in Evaluations or newly-established institutions that get “passed” in Validations will need to go through Reviews 5 years after they get the “passed”. Ministry of Education will assess the orientation and objectives, faculties, teaching resources, education procedures, student development and quality assurance of the institutions.
For more information about the higher education assessments of general undergraduate institutions conducted by Ministry of Education, please refer to Implementation Scheme for Higher Education Assessments of General Undergraduate Institutions (2021-2025) (http://www.heec.edu.cn/pgcenter/gzdt61/625044/index.html) issued by Ministry of Education.
As a private full-time undergraduate university, JXUT needs to accept the relevant assessments of Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China.
In 2015, JXUT accepted the qualification assessment of the MOE of China. It focuses on evaluating newly-built undergraduate colleges and universities which never been assessed before, including private ordinary universities formally approved by the government. The MOE of China coordinates the qualification assessment work, formulates its overall planning, and establishes Higher Education Expert Committee of the MOE of China for Undergraduate Teaching Evaluation (hereinafter referred to as Expert Committee). The Expert Committee is mainly responsible for
· guiding and supervising the qualification evaluation work,
· reviewing the evaluation report submitted by the review panel,
· making evaluation conclusions, and accepting disputes, arbitration and other matters.
Higher Education Evaluation Center of MOE of China (hereinafter referred to as Evaluation Center) organize the implementation of qualification assessment, including:
· organizing assessment training,
· building review panel,
· collecting and analyzing data of basic teaching condition, and
· organizing the review panel to visit the University etc.
It also submits relevant materials for university inspection and evaluation from the review panel to the Expert Committee. The main procedures of qualification assessment include: university self-assessment, the review panel assessment after entering the University, conclusion review and publication, etc. Finally, JXUT passed the qualification assessment of the MOE of China.
In 2018, JXUT accepted the audit evaluation of the MOE of China, namely audit and evaluation of undergraduate teaching work in ordinary colleges and universities. The core of examination and evaluation is to evaluate the realization of the goal and effect of college students education. Focus on the adaptability of the University’s orientation and college students education objectives to the needs of national and regional economic and social development, the guarantee of teachers and teaching resources, the effectiveness of teaching and quality assurance system, and the satisfaction of students and social employers. Audit and evaluation procedures include the University’s self-assessment, expert visits to universities, review and release of evaluation conclusions, etc. Finally, JXUT passed the examination and evaluation of the MOE of China.
Internal Quality Assurance
The internal QA processes at JXUT are rigorous and robust, meeting and often exceeding the requirements laid down by the MOE. A "five-dimensional" teaching quality assurance system with five separate systems has been established, including
1. decision-making and command system,
2. teaching operation management system,
3. teaching quality standard system,
4. teaching monitoring and evaluation system, and
5. information feedback and correction system.
And it clearly specifies responsibilities, standards and processes of the quality assurance for all university departments and personnel. In this system, the core position of quality monitoring and evaluation is highlighted and the teaching quality monitoring and evaluation system is built (as shown in the following figure).
JXUT has set up a supervision team, including the University, secondary schools (departments) and teaching and research offices. The members of the supervision team include the University’s leaders, general governors of teaching supervisors, teaching supervisors, deans (directors) of teaching units, deputy deans, directors of teaching and research offices, etc. At the same time, 120 undergraduates were selected as teaching information officers for supervision. Teaching information officers are selected students from various secondary schools or departments. They are hired by Teaching Supervision Office. Teaching information officers are free to enter any class where a teacher is delivering class and record the delivery-related information. Once they find the teacher’s behavior going against the code of conduct for teachers, they will report it directly to the Teaching Supervision Office.
Teaching Material Review Conducted by Teaching Supervision Office
At the beginning of each semester, the Teaching Supervision Office organizes the University-level supervisors to conduct overall review on the academic materials and outcomes of all the secondary schools. The review covers the exam papers, students’ assignments and homework, record brochures of general performance (including the specific scores and records of students’ attendance, performance in class, assignments, mid-term exam, etc., please refer to 5.14 Measures for Evaluation and Recording of Score of General Performance at JXUT for more details), record brochures of teaching evaluation by peers, students’ transcripts, students’ final exam score analysis forms, course final exam schemes, course assessment standards, etc. of the last semester. The review will also cover the preparation of the teaching materials, such as teaching plans, lecture notes, course PPT and other teaching and learning resources, for the incoming semester. The Teaching Supervision Office summarizes the issues found in the above reviews and reports to corresponding secondary schools. The schools will rectify the issues according to the feedback and the Teaching Supervision Office will review their rectifications in middle-term of the semester to check whether the rectifications are in place, so as to ensure that the standard of internal quality assurance is met.
Classroom Observations and Peer-to-peer Evaluations
JXUT has continuously strengthened the team building of teaching management personnel, teaching quality monitoring personnel and student teaching information staff, in order to ensure teaching quality. Every semester, the secondary colleges arrange teachers to attend classes with each other in order to help them communicate and learn from each other. Especially for new teachers, it is conductive to their development as soon as possible, promoting the transformation from traditional teaching to applied teaching and improving teachers’ teaching ability and students’ learning effect. In the mid-term teaching inspection, the Teaching Supervision Office will check the condition of teaching attending class, especially new teachers' attendance plan, and give reasonable guidance and suggestions for the problems found.
In order to keep a good grasp of students' comprehensive satisfaction, find out problems in time, and constantly improve the setting of teaching conditions, teaching process management, service management and campus culture construction, the Teaching Supervisor Office conducts a survey of student satisfaction in conjunction with the secondary colleges at the end of each school year so as to comprehensively improve the teaching quality.
Student Feedback and Student Evaluation
Students' satisfaction survey respondent is mainly undergraduates, and it is conducted anonymously in the form of online questionnaire. The survey lasted for nearly one month. The questionnaire sets up 46 questions from 6 aspects, mainly single-choice questions, namely, teacher’s teaching, major and curriculum setting, management and service, teaching conditions, teaching style, and campus culture. And there are two open-ended questions at the same time. And considering the rationality of each item's distribution of the form, a survey of students' overall satisfaction with JXUT is set up separately. There are four results: very satisfied, satisfied, dissatisfied and very dissatisfied. Finally, the survey results will form an annual analysis report on students' satisfaction, to provide reference for teaching management departments.
For example, in the Comprehensive Student Satisfaction Survey 2019, students' overall satisfaction with programmes portfolio and curriculum settings was 92.15%, but students' satisfaction with the quantity of online courses and online learning resources was only 85.89% and students suggested to increase online course resources. With further analysis, the University understood that the key feedback was about online “Elite Course” resource. The University started to build online teaching and learning resources from 2015 with a focus on “Elite Course”. From 2015 till 2019 and before the feedback, the University uploaded eleven “Elite Course” on average per annum. While until the feedback, the University found that it did not meet students’ expectations for online teaching and learning resource. To resolve this issue, the University began to reinforce the online “Elite Course” production since 2020. Over the first 6 months of 2020, about 23 new online “Elite Courses” have been published on the Superstar (Chaoxing) network teaching platform. In addition, due to COVID-19 impact, along with aforesaid activities, there were another about 1280 courses put online. Although these are for remote teaching purpose under such unique circumstances, in conjunction with the online “Elite Course” resource, the University also evolved the teaching process, so that diversified teaching methods were heavily introduced, particularly the University introduced online courses as public elective courses for students which reinforced the demand of students regarding enhanced online learning and teaching resources. But the online “Elite Course” will continue to be a focus when creating online teaching and learning resource.
Student Forum
In order to cooperate with the mid-term teaching inspection of each semester and further improve the teaching quality and university-running ability, the Teaching Supervision Office will organize the student forum. Students' representatives can express personal opinions and put forward suggestions for improvement in view of the problems and confusions in teaching management, teaching condition, theoretical and practical teaching, teaching materials, student management, learning environment, library management, teachers' morality and ethics etc. General supervisor, supervisors, and directors of the Teaching Supervision Office, the director of Academic Affairs Office, and the leaders of relevant teaching departments took the students' opinions and answered their questions patiently and meticulously. And written materials are submitted to relevant leaders and departments for verification and resolution by the Teaching Supervision Office.
As a theoretical example, if students think that practical courses have relatively less proportion in the major courses and want the proportion to be enlarged and the appeal is reasonable, Teaching Supervision Office will inform relevant teaching dean of secondary schools and some adjustment will be made in curriculum setting plan by relevant schools.
As a practical example, in the student forum held in the first semester of 2020-2021 academic year, a student from the School of Information Engineering reported that a teacher only used slides and just read it slide by slide in teaching, with monotonous teaching methods and no interaction between the teacher and students in class, resulting in poor learning outcomes. The student suggested that the teacher should enrich teaching methods and lighten up the atmosphere of the course. After meeting, the Teaching Supervision Office recorded all the meeting minutes and outcomes from students and distributed the relevant Secondary School with the Teaching Supervision Office advises and action recommendations. Corresponding Secondary School analyzed and developed action plans to the Teaching Supervision Office for record and tracking purpose. Then the leadership team of the School also hosted the meeting to cascade down the advises and action plans to accountable teachers, including improvement approaches of teaching methods. In the meantime, supervisor also talked with the particular teacher who was named on the student forum regarding the students' voice, and took actions such as attending some of the teacher's lectures to understand the improvement opportunities existing in the teaching, and gave some specific suggestions.
All above feedback/voice and actions were recorded, and the Teaching Supervision Office would ask for further comments regarding last or previous feedback from students to monitor the improvement progress and results. One month later, the supervisor went to the teacher's class, and found that the teacher had adopted interactive teaching, situational teaching, group task teaching and many other teaching methods in the class. Teacher’s teaching level had been significantly improved, the atmosphere of the course had become more active and students’ satisfaction with the teacher’s teaching style had also greatly improved.
Course Evaluations
JXUT adheres to the strategy of "invigorating the University by improving students" and focuses on building a team of teachers with excellent quality and high student satisfaction, which provides sufficient guarantee for running good undergraduate education and developing applied students. JXUT conducts online teaching evaluation work for students at the end of each semester as scheduled. Through the analysis of teaching evaluation data, the University can learn about the students' participation rate and the excellent rate of teachers' teaching style evaluation, and have an accurate prediction and in-depth understanding of the overall situation of the University’s teaching quality. And some existing teaching problems will be urged to the solved time.
Once the teaching process of the courses are over, the students in the class will evaluate all the courses they have been enrolled of the semester in the educational administration system before the final exam. Students' Online Teaching Evaluation Index System in JXUT is seen in 7.4 and the teaching evaluation by students online is conducted to evaluate the teachers’ teaching attitudes and abilities.
For example, in the teaching evaluation of the first semester of 2019-2020 academic year, the teachers of the School of Art and Design scored an average of 85.2 out of 100 points, ranking last among all schools in the University. Students reported that the professional courses of the school were delivered ignoring layer upon layer progressive principle and the quality of teaching failed to meet their expectation. According to the evaluation report data, the Supervision Office reported the situation to the Academic Affairs Office. The Deputy Director of the Academic Affairs Office conducted investigation and discussion with the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning of the School and required that the school should put emphasis on the evaluation score by the students and take measures to further improve the management of teachers and abilities of teaching. The Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning of the School organized and held a special session included all the teachers of the school, in which the Associate Dean conveyed to the teachers regarding the evaluation report outcomes and the rectify opinions/recommendations given by the Academic Affairs Office. In the session, the attendees analyzed the potential issues in their teaching according to the students’ feedback, and found out several improvement areas for example, improper arrangement on course delivery schedule in syllabus and lack of using methods such like “five-whys” in teaching to inspire students for attaining the relevant knowledge or skills. The Associate Dean required the teachers to revise their course delivery schedule in syllabus, enrich their teaching methods and improve their teaching quality, and asked the teachers to report on the other findings that might exist in their teaching activities thus to identify the issues that didn’t meet the teaching and learning quality assurance requirements. Afterwards, the Associate Dean kept inviting the University-level supervisors to attend classes of the teachers of the School from time to time. The supervisors assessed the teachers’ teaching to help them strengthen their teaching abilities. In the teaching evaluation of the second semester of 2019-2020 academic year, the average score of teachers in the School of Art and Design increased from 85.2 to 91.2, with an increase of 6 points and a rise of 5 places in the ranking.
Student Representation and Engagement
The University always works to strengthen teaching quality assurance and information feedback, unceasingly plays the role of bridge between students, teachers and teaching management departments, and put great importance on continually improving the University’s teaching quality assurance system, in order to improve teachers' teaching ability and the University’s teaching quality. The Teaching Supervision Office sets up a team of Student feedback staff, mainly engaged in the collection and feedback of the first-line information in teaching and evaluate teachers' teaching work. In order to provide valuable opinions and suggestions for the University to improve teaching work and ensure teaching quality, the Teaching Supervision Office is responsible for organizing and implementing the work of student feedback staff.
In JXUT, there will be a “President Reception Day” every semester. On this day, JXUT will collect and respond to students’ suggestions and questions, and adjustments to academy and academic related matters will be made. (For more details, please refer to 5.2 Academic Appeals and Complaints. Page 3.)
For example, on June 18, 2021, the University collected students' feedback on the 17th President Reception Day. Several students of Business English major of the School of Foreign Languages reported that the course of Comprehensive Business English as a professional core course of their major was delivered in a way that accommodated too many students (133 students in total). They proposed that it’s not suitable for language courses to accommodate so many students, which would affect their learning effect, and that they hoped that the course would be rearranged and delivered with a smaller number of students in one class. Afterwards the School applied to rearrange the course according to the students’ intention. The Academic Affairs Office discussed with the teachers and the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning of the School of Foreign Languages, investigated the course contents and objectives of Comprehensive Business English and analyzed the previous teaching and learning status of the course, and agreed that the students' demands are reasonable. In the first semester of 2021-2022 academic year, the course was rearranged and delivered with a smaller number (less than 70) of students in one class.
The normal monitoring system of undergraduate teaching work (also called higher education quality assurance system) has been established in JXUT, which is developed and maintained by Guangzhou Smart Software Co., Ltd. according to the requirements of university teaching monitoring work, matching with the basic teaching status database of the MOE of China. The system can normally monitor teaching quality in an all-round, multi-dimensional and scientific way, provide data reference for university decision-making, continuously promote the development of university connotation, and improve the quality of personnel training. At the same time, JXUT invests special funds every year to ensure the smooth operation of the system, promote the normalization of teaching quality monitoring and realize the informationization of teaching quality management.
Since the construction and trial operation of the normal monitoring system for undergraduate teaching work, the undergraduate teaching quality data for five academic years has been collected, and the system version has been upgraded several times according to the different reporting requirements of each academic year, and the investigation items are set reasonably. JXUT has compiled reports such as Analysis Report of Undergraduate Teaching Status Data and Report of Undergraduate Teaching Quality, which timely monitors the allocation of teaching conditions, the development of teaching work and the dynamic process of teaching quality. And it has become an important basis for JXUT to summarize and adjust teaching policies and measures. All the university-running indicators have reached or exceeded the national standards.
New Teachers Training
In order to make the new teachers understand the teaching management system of JXUT and standardize the teaching behavior, master the standard format and writing requirements of basic teaching files, demonstrate teaching skills that students like and accept, adopt various teaching methods that meet the training requirements of applied students to train qualified students, the Teaching Supervision Office and the Academic Affairs Office organize the training of teachers' teaching skills to train new teachers and teachers who are not teaching posts for the first time at the beginning of each semester. The main content of training is to let them learn the rules and regulations of JXUT teaching management, and then the writing standards and requirements of teaching archives, how to prepare lessons, how to teach lessons and other aspects of training.
Student Feedback Mechanism
The building of student feedback mechanism is to improve JXUT teaching quality assurance system, strengthen monitoring, fully grasp the teaching situation and teaching quality of teachers, and at the same time, deeply learn students' learning environment and learning effectiveness, with the teaching evaluation mode of students' extensive participation in teaching and giving full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of students' democratic participation in teaching management.
Student feedback staff (mentioned above in Student Representation and Engagement, P6) provide information for JXUT teaching work, which is mainly engaged in the collection and feedback of front-line information in teaching and evaluating teachers' teaching work, and provides valuable opinions and suggestions for JXUT to improve teaching work and ensure teaching quality. The Teaching Supervision Office is responsible for organizing and implementing the work of student feedback staff.
The duties of the student feedback staff are as follows:
1. Give opinions and suggestions on the teaching attitude, teaching quality and teaching level of the teachers; reflect the opinions and suggestions of various links in the teaching process, such as lesson preparation, classroom teaching, textbook selection, practical teaching (experiment, internship, graduation thesis, social practice), homework correction, extracurricular tutoring, curriculum design, examination, etc.
2. Put forward opinions and suggestions on the teaching plan, teaching content, teaching methods and teaching means, teaching management and teaching conditions (such as classrooms, laboratories, practice base construction, etc.), teachers, teaching evaluation and other teaching and teaching management work of the University or secondary colleges.
3. Reflect the problems of teaching conditions, learning environment and testing situation in teaching activities, As well as the opinions and suggestions of students and parents on running JXUT.
4. Participate in the meetings and related activities organized by the Teaching Supervision Office, and assist it in the evaluation of teachers' teaching quality and ethics.
Student feedback staff focus on collecting and feeding back teaching information through random class attendance and random surveys. It is required that not less than 4 classes every two weeks will be fed back to the Teaching Supervision Office in the Classroom Teaching Quality Evaluation Form of JXUT.
According to the evaluation scores of teachers' teaching quality and relevant regulations, the evaluation results are divided into five grades: excellent (above 90 points), good (80-89), qualified (75-79), basically qualified (70-74) and unqualified (below 69 points). According to the "Classroom Teaching Quality Evaluation Form of JXUT", the evaluation criteria are divided in detail, in order to ensure the standardization and consistency of the collected and feedback information.
A summary of feedback of teaching information is written by student feedback staff every month, and a report on classroom teaching quality also is submitted at the end of each semester. It provides reference basis for the University leaders' teaching decision-making, and provides an effective way for all relevant teaching management departments to understand the teaching situation.
The feedback information and evaluation results of the student feedback staff will serve as an important basis for the evaluation and appointment of teachers, the selection of senior teachers, the payment of teaching allowances and the selection of other advanced teaching. For teachers whose evaluation results are not good, JXUT adopts a teaching quality warning system. Teachers who are rated below the excellent level will not be able to teach undergraduate courses, and at the same time reduce the amount of course scheduling; teachers who fail to evaluate their grades will stop attending classes for at least one semester, and can continue to start classes only after they have passed the trial lectures organized by JXUT. Every time the student feedback staff feeds back teaching information and evaluation results, it will be fed back to the teacher in time.
Evaluation Form of Teaching Quality in JXUT is recorded in 7.3 Evaluation Form of Teaching Quality in JXUT.
The Teaching Supervision Office timely collects the feedback and evaluation results of the student feedback staff through regular monthly forum on teachers’ teaching quality. Dynamic teaching management and supervision are carried out on the whole teaching process in a timely manner.
Abilities of student feedback staff are improved constantly from the following two aspects: First, giving enough instruction to them to develop a feedback team with strong working ability through regular training and good experience sharing. Second, strengthening the ideological and all-round development education of student feedback staff, we should build a team of high-quality student feedback staff who can adhere to principles, stick to the bottom line, behave well and dare to take responsibility.
To continuously strengthen the management of student feedback staff, the specific work should be done in two aspects: First, the information staff management system will be further improved. The revision of the information officer management system has been completed and released to the public (https://ddb.jxut.edu.cn/info/1105/1702.htm); The second is to stimulate student feedback staff’s enthusiasm. The number of student feedback staff will be doubled.
Teaching feedback should be increased in quantity and improved in quality, and the quality of teaching feedback will be improved in the following two aspects: firstly, the quality requirements and evaluation standards of teaching feedback will be refined. The quality of feedback data will be strictly controlled for each informant, and the feedback will be delivered after the “monthly forum"; secondly, the teaching feedback data notification system will be implemented. All feedback on teaching information will be informed to relevant departments as soon as possible, pay close attention to the "review" of teaching problems, supervise the rectification of problems, and follow up and review the rectification situation until the problems are solved.
