(......Continued)

In addition to Advisory Professors, we appoint visiting scholars to provide leadership for staff and programme development. This year, Mark Almond, a visiting scholar from the United Kingdom, planted the seeds for a new interest in drama in English language teaching. The culmination of his stay was the production of Harold Pinter's 1959 drama A Night Out. The performance, by 20 undergraduate theatrical first-timers, was highly commended and Department of English staff continue to develop this area.

Analysing feedback for quality improvement
In the reporting year considerable effort has been invested in developing tools for reviewing our effectiveness. The gathering of evaluation data from students, graduates and employers and the appraisal of staff performance has become more focusedand systematic.

Standardised procedures are now in place for the collection of student feedback on teaching and learning quality and effectiveness. Apart from questionnaire surveys on current students, we undertake formative evaluation conducted via focus groups, staff-student consultative meetings and in personal tutorials.

A Coordinating Group on Institutional Research on Graduates has been set up in response to the recommendations of the TLQPR report. This group undertakes regular exit surveys, graduate surveys and employer surveys to help us improve our programmes. Survey results in 2002-03 indicated a high degree of satisfaction from our graduates in terms of their professional preparation and similarly positive results from their employers.

In line with our growing maturity, we have thoroughly overhauled our performance review mechanism and developed a new Academic Staff Performance Appraisal Scheme. The newscheme will be an integral part of the Institute's appointmentrelated decision-making processes. All regular academic staff will be subject to performance appraisal under the new scheme which will generally operate on a three-year cycle.

Providing quality at all levels
Quality assurance is paramount in maintaining and improving our teaching standards, so we have created a robust framework for ensuring that we fulfil our teaching and learning responsibilities with the utmost regard for quality.

Our efforts were recognised when, in the reporting year, our quality assurance framework received commendation from experts in this area. The Panel of the TLQPR expressed confidence in the quality of our programmes and in the processes by which those programmes are monitored, reviewed and improved. Significantly, the Panel reported to the University Grants Committee that the Institute was ready to take the next step in its development - a review of the institution to determine whether it is ready to move to self-accrediting status.