Areas for Improvement

The following paragraphs describe areas identified by the Panel as needing improvement. Because we do not wish to engage in micromanagement, the question of what kinds of improvements is left to the University.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology operates in a context of considerable autonomy and delegated responsibility. The central administration and most faculties delegate the main responsibility for quality and standards to departments and to individual teaching staff. However, there appears to be little systematic monitoring of teaching and learning quality other than through the teaching evaluation questionnaires and a reliance on the professionalism of the individual teachers. The TLQPR Panel does not take issue with the principle of delegation. However, we feel that HKUST has not established the processes necessary for ensuring the delegations occur in a context of accountability.

The Panel believes that teaching and research priorities need to be reevaluated, so that staff can spend more time on the enhancement of teaching and learning quality. Additional time spent on these tasks would enable staff to respond better to demand, to obtain more systematic feedback from employers and students, to improve the curriculum, to engage in discussions about pedagogy and to improve the delivered quality of teaching.

Notwithstanding the above, the Panel noted through the reports of its subgroups that certain organizational units within HKUST are making exemplary progress on teaching and learning quality. (The reports on these units, written by members not connected with HKUST, are readily identified in Annex C.) The University would do well to use these units as models for extending teaching and learning quality process improvement.

The Panel was impressed with the University's very capable, enthusiastic, and energetic staff. They are doing many good things in the area of teaching and learning, and many of them care about their students. Yet we were surprised not to see more systematic teaching and learning quality processes, especially given the relatively large amounts of discretionary time enjoyed by HKUST staff. This cannot be explained away by the proposition that quality is the responsibility of individual staff members. More likely it stems from the University's and the staff's aspirations to produce world-class research.

The paucity of systematic quality processes produces considerable variance in approaches to curricular and pedagogical design, and implementation-quality assurance across HKUST's schools and departments. While diversity can represent a source of strength, we sensed the variance to be due less to conscious decision than to a lack of systematic attention to these issues. For example, greater use of simple approaches like internal benchmarking-efforts to identify and learn from best practices within the institution-could produce quick dividends. Other approaches, discussed below, include systematic efforts to ascertain and consider the views of students and of stakeholders outside the institution.

Greater emphasis needs to be placed on curricular design. The present curriculum is driven disproportionately by faculty interests. Some areas based on the U.S. model need adaptation to the Hong Kong environment. Other areas, for example the Humanities and Social Sciences, need greater focus and coordination to produce a more coherent product. More effective curricular design and review processes need to be established at the departmental and school level, and more effective oversight is needed at the University level. More attention should be given to class size profiles, and we are pleased that the University is addressing this issue.

Variations in performance among postgraduate students acting as teaching assistants (TAs) should be reduced. HKUST places heavy reliance on TAs for leading tutorials, supervising laboratory work, and student evaluation (grading). While the quality provided by some TAs is exemplary, others appear to be inadequately trained-some even appear to lack adequate language skills. We heard that TAs are "encouraged" to make use of the Educational Technology Centre. One school has made such training mandatory and its extension to other schools is being pursued, but we believe the degree of impetus should be strengthened and diligence in followup improved.

Additional channels for student feedback should be opened and the results acted upon systematically. HKUST's mandatory course evaluation system and provision of student places on committees are worthwhile, but in the Panel's view not sufficient to provide the needed level of information. For example, focus-group interviews with students or student-staff consultative committees can provide information not available by questionnaire or through the formal University decision-making structure. Also, the course evaluation system could be improved by providing feedback to students about how the results are used, and where possible examples of where their inputs made a difference.

Additional channels for obtaining feedback from alumni, employers, and other external stakeholders also should be opened or improved. The Panel's impression is that most departments do not collect such information systematically. In cases where the information is collected, the processes for feeding it into curricular and pedagogical design may need to be improved.

The University should become more self-conscious and systematic about its teaching and learning quality improvement processes. Many staff think about quality but, though well intentioned, the thinking tends to be fragmented. Individuals find it difficult to gain traction with their colleagues on educational quality improvement issues, even when the existence of problems is generally recognised. The importance of quality assurance and improvement processes needs to be made clear to schools and departments, and incentives adjusted where necessary to maintain the staff to focus on these issues along with their research.

The University should create an effective teaching and learning quality assurance system. While educational quality can be delivered only by academic staff, it is the institution's responsibility to assure itself that the staff are fully discharging their responsibilities. The Panel found HKUST's internal quality assurance systems to be deficient. The responsibility for quality has been delegated from University to school to department to individual member of staff, but mostly without sufficient quality assurance processes and improvement objectives and followup. The calibre of academic staff and the enthusiasm associated with startup provide support for the University's assertion that the educational experience of the students and graduates has been sustained to this point. However, the University should make the creation of an effective teaching and learning quality assurance system one of its main priorities and performance against this priority should be a key results area for leaders at every level.