Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University aims at achieving leadership and excellence through developing and enhancing the university's academic programs. The university also focuses on developing teaching competencies that facilitate effective teaching of theory, application, and skills. Also, the university strives to meet the needs and aspirations of the society. In order to achieve this, the university has established an integrated system of educational activities based on clear standards which can be measured and monitored. This system seeks to achieve external accreditation through developing a strong internal quality assurance system for all university programs and colleges.
The university also believes that the follow-up on daily academic activities, such as teaching and learning in the classroom, improvement in the assessment and evaluation process, supporting students, and developing the skills of faculty members would contribute to the continuous development of academic programs and support the university’s endeavors to obtain external academic accreditations.
Therefore, the Directorate of Academic Initiatives serving as the core unit of the Vice Presidency office for Academic Affairs launched the QASD program in 2015. The aim was to establish internal quality processes and evaluate the efficiency of those processes on achieving the desired goals through monitoring the ongoing teaching practices, assessment policies, student support, academic and professional development for faculty members. QASD program is based on five basic domains for activating the internal quality system in academic affairs:
- Learning Outcomes
- Teaching and Learning
- Assessment
- Student Support
- Faculty Development
Under the supervision and support of His Excellency, the President of the University, with the cooperation of His Excellency the Dean of the Preparatory Year and Supporting Studies, and the faculty members of, the Vice President Office for Academic Affairs, the Academic Initiatives Directorate initiated a pilot project in the Preparatory Year Program (PYP) (in academic year 2016/2017 until today) by implementing the mechanisms, procedures, and operations in the QASD.
After the success of the pilot project at PYP, which helped in improving teaching and learning processes at the Deanship of the Preparatory Year, the Academic Initiatives Directorate began to gradually apply QASD in various academic programs at the university to raise the internal quality of the programs and improve the quality of education.
QASD Procedures
- Incorporation
Self-evaluation: Evaluation of the existing processes related to the quality of the learning outcomes, teaching and assessment methods, lesson planning, student support and faculty development activities. - Planning
Designing a map and assuring the alignment between outcomes of the programs, courses, and sessions, developing lesson plans, creating exams blueprints, assessment matrices, designing effective learning activities, academic advising, and faculty development plans. - Execution
Aligning and integrating the PLOs and CLOs into the lesson plans and teaching and learning activities. During this phase, the QASD team needs to ensure activating the assessment tools, student support services, and the implementation of faculty development programs. - Monitoring and Control
In this phase, QASD ensures that there is alignment between the outcomes with teaching/learning activities, assessment activities, peer evaluation of teaching activities, and self-evaluation of the communities of practice members. QASD also ensures collecting the data of students’ feedback about achieving the intended outcomes, quality of the exams and results analysis, quality of student support activities, and quality of professional development programs for faculty members. - Closure and Reporting
In the final phase, reports are issued regarding the outcome’s quality, alignment, and accomplishment, teaching activities, peer evaluation, evaluation authenticity, comprehensiveness of student support services, and the effectiveness of faculty development programs.
