Pharmacy Education and Accreditation Reviews (PEARs) project:final report

Report commissioned by the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland.

Economic impact study of business link local service:final report

Final report evaluating the impact of Business Link local services on those businesses that received assistance in the 6 month period April to September 2003 and its impact over the subsequent period to May/June 2005"--BERR website (Reports & Publications).

What purpose does the MPharm research project serve?

In 2004, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) funded research on teaching, learning and assessment within the UK undergraduate pharmacy degree (MPharm), including the compulsory final year project. Documentary analysis showed that all schools met the project requirement, although there were wide variations in the relative contribution of the project to the final year mark and the degree classification. Interviews with staff revealed that organisation of research projects was complex and time consuming and exacerbated by increasing student numbers and the impact of research ethics. 61% of students, surveyed via a self-completion questionnaire (response rate 50.6%) perceived the research project to be very or fairly important. Whilst 47% considered that they had enough choice of topic and 37% said that their training in research methods provided a good foundation for their project, this suggests scope for improvement. In the UK, there are legislative changes impending which may provide an opportunity to review the future purpose and feasibility of a "significant" final year project within the MPharm.

Developing a robust self evaluation framework for active learning:the first stage of an ERASMUS+ project (QAEMarketPlace4HEI)

In ensuring the quality of learning and teaching in Higher Education, self-evaluation is an important component of the process. An example would be the approach taken within the CDIO community whereby self-evaluation against the CDIO standards is part of the quality assurance process. Eight European universities (Reykjavik University, Iceland; Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland; Aarhus University, Denmark; Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Finland; Ume? University, Sweden; Telecom Bretagne, France; Aston University, United Kingdom; Queens University Belfast, United Kingdom) are engaged in an EU funded Erasmus + project that is exploring the quality assurance process associated with active learning. The development of a new self-evaluation framework that feeds into a ?Marketplace? where participating institutions can be paired up and then engage in peer evaluations and sharing around each institutions approach to and implementation of active learning. All of the partner institutions are engaged in the application of CDIO within their engineering programmes and this has provided a common starting point for the partnership to form and the project to be developed. Although the initial focus will be CDIO, the longer term aim is that the approach could be of value beyond CDIO and within other disciplines. The focus of this paper is the process by which the self-evaluation framework is being developed and the form of the draft framework. In today?s Higher Education environment, the need to comply with Quality Assurance standards is an ever present feature of programme development and review. When engaging in a project that spans several countries, the wealth of applicable standards and guidelines is significant. In working towards the development of a robust Self Evaluation Framework for this project, the project team decided to take a wide view of the available resources to ensure a full consideration of different requirements and practices. The approach to developing the framework considered: a) institutional standards and processes b) national standards and processes e.g. QAA in the UK c) documents relating to regional / global accreditation schemes e.g. ABET d) requirements / guidelines relating to particular learning and teaching frameworks e.g. CDIO. The resulting draft self-evaluation framework is to be implemented within the project team to start with to support the initial ?Marketplace? pairing process. Following this initial work, changes will be considered before a final version is made available as part of the project outputs. Particular consideration has been paid to the extent of the framework, as a key objective of the project is to ensure that the approach to quality assurance has impact but is not overly demanding in terms of time or paperwork. In other words that it is focused on action and value added to staff, students and the programmes being considered.