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Quality and Institutional Insights Office

quality promotion unit - Quality Enhancement Scheme 2003-2004

quality promotion unit

quality enhancement scheme 2003-2004

Applications for funding under the above scheme are now being sought. The deadline for application is 5.00 pm on Friday, 19 December 2003.

INTRODUCTION

The Quality Enhancement Scheme is a fund operated by the Quality Promotion Unit which is supported from funding received from the HEA under the Quality Assurance Programme (funded under the National Development Plan 2000-2006). The fund is administered by the Director of Quality Promotion in conjunction with the Quality Promotion Committee.

The statutory obligations of the university on Quality Assurance are set out in Section 35 of the Universities Act (1997), which requires the university "to establish procedures for quality aimed at improving the quality of education and related services provided by the university".

The Quality Promotion Unit aims to inculcate a culture of continuous quality improvement in all the activities of the university.

The scheme is specifically being established to fund "small scale" projects designed to support Quality Enhancement. In this context, the maximum award will be €5,000 per project. Total project costs may, of course, be in excess of this if additional funding is available from elsewhere. The projects should be capable of being completed within a calendar year.

Projects whereby the benefits can be demonstrated to be transferable to other areas of the university are particularly welcome.

Proposals from University Administrative and Support Units or any other providers of service in the University are particularly welcome.

If you are interested in applying for funding under the above scheme, please read the application information below, complete the application form and return it to the Quality Promotion Unit.

If you are unsure about the eligibility or scope of a proposed project, feel free to contact the Quality Promotion Unit by email or telephone [ext. 5393 (Director) or ext. 8411 (Office)].

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

The deadline for application is 5.00 pm on Friday, 19 December 2003.

The outcome of applications under this scheme will be notified, via email, as soon as possible after the scheduled meeting of the Quality Promotion Committee in January 2004.

Awards under this call must be fully taken up in the year 2003-2004. This means that all expenditure must be undertaken before the end of December 2004.

ELIGIBILE APPLICANTS

This scheme is meant to complement rather than duplicate existing funding programmes such as those operated by the Office of the Dean of Teaching & Learning or the Office of the Vice President for Research.

It is primarily intended to support existing funding for Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement disbursed by the Quality Promotion Unit (currently this comes from two sources: (1) the University Budget and (2) the HEA Quality Assurance Programme

All categories of staff in the university are eligible to submit applications, i.e., full-time, part-time, permanent, contract, academic, administrative or technical; in the case of contract staff you should consult with the Head of your School or Unit before submitting the application.


EXAMPLE ACTIVITIES

Applicants should keep in mind that this is a Quality Enhancement scheme rather than an innovation scheme.

Eligible example activities would include:

  • A submission for accreditation of a recognised national or international Quality standard to a service
  • The piloting of a recognised Quality tool
  • The development of a Standard Operating Procedure designed to improve the quality of a particular service
  • Enhancing administrative procedures in Schools or Units

It may be helpful to prospective applicants to view the proposals that were funded under the Quality Enhancement Scheme in 2003.

You should also feel free to consult with the Quality Promotion Unit while preparing your application.

All applications will be considered on their own merits. The Selection panel will be asked to disallow applications that, in their opinion:

  • would be more suitable for application to the small scale project scheme of the Teaching and Learning Fund or
  • would be more suitable for application to one of the award schemes operated by the Research Advisory Panel or
  • are deemed to be mainstream activities that should more properly be funded from the core budget of the School or Unit.

APPLICATION PROCESS/FORM

You can submit an application by downloading the application form

Please remit applications by email only to the Quality Promotion Unit

Applications to this scheme will be evaluated by a subgroup appointed by the Quality Promotion Committee. Additional information in support of an application may be requested by this subgroup, if that is considered appropriate.

It is a condition of awards under this scheme that successful applicants must engage actively and effectively in disseminating the outcomes from the award to the wider University community. In particular, the original information in the completed application form will be made available via the QPO website immediately after an award is made, and you will subsequently be required to provide the QPO with a report on the outcome of the activities supported under the award which will similarly be disseminated via the QPO website.

It is also the intention to run a series of seminars given by the successful proposals at the end of the projects.

EVALUATION PROCESS

Subsequent to a decision at the meeting of the Quality Promotion Committee Committe (QPC) of 3 November 2003, a subcommittee of the QPC (the QES Evaluation Panel) was established to make recommendations on the funding of the Quality Enhancement Scheme.

The membership of the panel, for the year 2003/2004, is as follows:

Padraig Walsh Director of Quality Promotion (Chair)
Ms. Miriam Corcoran Library
Mr. Martin Leavy Human Resources Office
Dr. Jean-Paul Mosnier School of Physical Sciences
Ms. Maeve Long Office for Innovation & Business Relations
Dr. Anne Sinnott DCUBS
Prof. Alan Smeaton School of Computing
Ms. Sheelagh Wickham School of Nursing

Initial Review

All applications under this call will be circulated to the members of the Evaluation Panel. Following email consulation, applications will be deemed to have been validly submitted or not, according to the declared procedures, and an initial scoring procedure will be used, as detailed below.

Scoring

Each member of the panel will independently score each application, according to the following guidelines and criteria.

Scores will be awarded on an overall basis for each appliation, on a scale of 0-5, where 0 signifies "definitely don't support" and 5 signifies "definitely support".

Preference will be given to projects where the proposers can demonstrate that the project could usefully be applied to other areas of the university.

Proposal from Administrative or Support Units (who may have difficulty in obtaining funding from other sources such as Teaching & Learning or Research funds) are particularly welcome.

Outcome of Applications

The outcome of applications under this scheme will be notified, via email, as soon as possible after the scheduled meeting of the Quality Promotion Committee in Janurary 2004. All applicants will be notified of their aggregate score and rank. Written feedback will be given to all applicants on request.

Awards under this call must be fully taken up in the year 2004. This means that all expenditure must be undertaken before the end of December 2004.

Please e-mail comments to: quality@dcu.ie