UKCLE guide to subject review

This guide, published in 2001, was intended to assist departments/schools of law preparing for subject review, a system of quality assurance which has now been replaced. However, the guide remains a useful tool for law schools examining their quality assurance processes. The full guide (available at the bottom of the page) may also be downloaded as a PDF file.

The guide is intended to be a rough and ready tool for departments and law schools preparing for subject review. It draws on the experience of assessment visits under the previous methodology and the many comments and observations made by those who have been participants in the process and should be read in conjunction with the QAA
handbook for subject review (from which it quotes extensively).

It is important to note the somewhat prospective nature of some sections of this guide. As yet we do not know for certain how the new subject review method will work in practice, and therefore some of the advice which follows is based solely on the official QAA line on the operation of subject review. Nevertheless, many of the lessons learned from previous reviews will be equally applicable under the new method and these form an important part of the guide.

Moreover, the former Secretary of State, David Blunkett, announced on 21 March 2001 proposals for a substantial reduction in direct inspections. Under these proposals departments/schools which had scored 21 or more points out of 24 (provided that no grade was a 1 or a 2) or had achieved an ‘excellent’ rating, would be exempt from a subject review visit under the new QAA method. There would however be subject review visits to a sample of these departments/schools (possibly at a level as high as 25%).

There remains considerable uncertainty about the introduction of the new method, and there are ongoing discussions involving the funding councils, Universities UK, the Standing Committee of Principals (SCOP) and the Department for Education and Skills together with the QAA (which has mounted a robust defence of the integrity of its planned methodology).

Whatever the final arrangements are for the new system, it is likely that, at the very least, all departments/schools will be required to produce a self-evaluation document and to comply with the many new components of the framework which are described in the following sections of the guide.

If a system of sampling is introduced, then those who will not have a visit will find that the first half of this guide, which covers the other key features of the method and the preparation of the self-evaluation, is the only part that need concern them. Departments/schools that are to be visited will need to address many more issues in preparing for review, and should find something useful in every section.

(Note that although the QAA has tended to describe the new method as ‘academic review’ rather than subject review, the new term has yet to be widely adopted and therefore ‘subject review’ is used to refer to this process throughout this guide.)

About the authors

Paul Greatrix is Senior Assistant Registrar, with responsibility for quality issues (including assisting departments preparing for subject review), at the University of Warwick. Previously he has worked at the University of East Anglia, where he also worked on quality, and Staffordshire University.

Tracey Varnava is the Centre Manager of the UK Centre for Legal Education. Previously she was employed as the Co-ordinator of the National Centre for Legal Education at the University of Warwick, and as a lecturer in law at the University of Leicester.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010