The accountability called for in this recommendation of the TLQPR Report spans a number of areas related to teaching and learning quality assurance, from curriculum design and management, to performance of individual teachers. The management structure, with its delegations of authority down to Departmental level, can be a source of strength in providing this accountability if properly designed and used for that purpose. The Department and program level is where the academic expertise resides and where the best information is available about the appropriateness of the curriculum, the quality of teachers’ performance, and student learning outcomes.

As pointed out in the TLQPR Report, simple reliance on this delegation to ensure results is not in itself sufficient. There must be mechanisms to review the way that Departments, programs, and individual teachers exercise their responsibilities. Since the publication of the TLQPR Report, HKUST has been working to improve, design, and implement mechanisms that can provide the desired accountability.

1. Assessment of Teaching Performance. The basic structure has long been in place to provide accountability for the performance of the teaching staff. The main task has been to reorient the processes to ensure proper attention to teaching issues, and to make better use of some of the means used to evaluate teaching.

Chief among these processes is the system for academic review. At HKUST, each member of academic staff undergoes such review at the end of each probationary contract period (normally three years), and when being considered for substantiation or promotion. In addition, even after substantiation, academic staff members are subject to a "floating salary bar" whereby a review is conducted every third year prior to determining whether or not to grant the annual salary increment.

The objectives of academic review are to assess performance in teaching, research, and service. Since it provides for review at several levels, involving at least the Department and the School, the process can serve as a mechanism to ensure that Departments are accountable for their judgements. In practice, it has not been at all uncommon for higher levels of the review to take exception to departmental recommendations or to question how departmental reviewers reached their conclusions.

During the past year, significantly greater emphasis has been placed on teaching performance in academic review. The staff members who are subject to review are well aware of this, and there is evidence, cited in the Interim Report, that teaching performance was a significant factor in the outcomes of academic review in the past year.

Guidelines on the information to be supplied for academic review are contained in the Academic Personnel Policy and Procedure Manual. These guidelines have been modified to incorporate suggestions of the University Appointments and Substantiation Committee as recently as 1 September 1997. The portions of the guidelines relevant to teaching are included in Annex G. In the past year, the committees involved in the review process have been insistent that both the candidates for review and their Departments adhere to these guidelines.

As the TLQPR Report acknowledges, HKUST has had in place for a number of years a comprehensive system of student questionnaires for evaluating teaching, at least for classes taught in the lecture format. As is true of most such systems, it has both formative and summative uses. The student evaluation results have, since their introduction, been used as pertinent input to academic reviews. In the past year, these results have been used in new ways that should strengthen their contribution to the improvement of teaching and learning. First of all, the summary results (overall ratings of course and instructor) are now available to the entire campus community on the campus network. The availability of these results makes instructors more accountable, through peer pressure and the impact on student choices, for their performance. Since Department and School averages are also published, these organizational units are held to public account for their collective efforts, as well.

A more formal use of the student evaluation results to monitor Department accountability for teaching performance was introduced in the past year. It involves the identification, by the Academic Affairs office, of a group of instructors with particularly poor records of performance in the previous year. Department Heads were provided with a list of any faculty members in their own Departments who have been so identified, and asked to take appropriate corrective actions to help these instructors improve. In subsequent years, Department Heads will have to provide, for any instructor who turns up on the list as a "repeat offender," details on what actions, if any, were taken, and a statement of planned future actions to address the problems.

2. Curriculum Design. This is an area of the teaching/learning domain that most often provides opportunities for review when Departments propose new program initiatives or major program changes. In past years, Departments made proposals that were considered and acted upon the relevant committee of the Senate at a single meeting, often under the pressure of deadlines that had to be met in order to implement the proposed program.

In November 1997, a new Undergraduate Program and Course Administration manual was distributed. One of its most significant changes was the introduction of a two-stage review process for major program initiatives. In the initial stage, the Department provides an outline of its proposals to the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies for review. This is not a decision-making review; rather, the members of the Committee are able to raise questions and identify issues that must be addressed in the final proposal. The second stage involves a review of the formal proposal, which must contain a section responding to the issues raised by the Committee during the initial review.

While this process is too new for there to be conclusive evidence of its effectiveness, the experience to date has been encouraging. Committee debate on several initial proposals since adoption of the policy has focussed on curriculum design issues similar to those contained in the TLQPR framework. None of the proposals has yet reached the final stage, but one has been effectively "downsized" from a new program proposal to the creation of a new option within an existing degree program in response to suggestions from the Committee.

As a result of its experience with the new procedure, the Committee on Undergraduate Studies has decided to invite a Department representative to be present at all future meetings considering a major program initiative from the Department. In the past, given the traditional deference given to departmental judgements, it had been felt sufficient to have the School representative on the Committee represent the Department. Under the new system, the Department will be more directly accountable for its recommendations to the Committee and the Senate.

3. Curriculum Management. An issue related to, but distinct from, the design of the curriculum is its implementation. In the credit-based system employed at HKUST, it is important to manage the components of the curriculum so that they work together to meet learning objectives and individual student program needs. Several areas of curriculum management have been consistently identified by student groups as problem areas.

In response to both student concerns and the recommendations of the Senate Task Forces established to respond to the TLQPR report, the Senate adopted a new policy on Curriculum Management at its meeting in February 1998. This policy (appended as Annex B) identifies a number of key areas of responsibility.

The policy requires that Departments report, to the newly established Senate Committee on Teaching and Learning Quality, on the mechanisms it has established to meet these responsibilities.