Outcomes of the Faculty of Business and Law Masters review

The Faculty of Business and Law (FBL) Masters programme of the OU Business School has recently had its Periodic Quality Review (PQR) and we’d like to share the positive outcomes of this with you.

The PQR is one of the university’s monitoring and review activities that provides each area with the opportunity to holistically review the quality and standards of the last six years, ensuring both quality assurance and enhancement of the student journey.

During the PQR, the panel reviewed a host of evidence and heard feedback from students, associate lecturers, external advisers and other colleagues to reach a positive judgement on the academic quality and standards of the FBL Masters provision.

We would like to thank again the group of students who met with the review panel to express their views and share their experiences of studying FBL Masters modules and qualifications.

The panel made 7 commendations and 8 recommendations, some of which are summarised here:

The panel commended:

• The work of the apprenticeships team including practice tutors in supporting apprentices to complete and succeed.
• The flexibility and agility of the programme in moving to online delivery as a result of Covid and keeping the mode of delivery under review to respond to student needs.
• The way the programme has obtained student feedback via a variety of means e.g. real time feedback and acted upon it.

The panel recommended:

• The capture of learning from the undergraduate modules around student support and improving student success, with a view to implementing this where appropriate within the postgraduate programmes.
• Ensuring that any University student induction addresses postgraduate needs as well as undergraduate needs.
• Ensuring that there is sufficient guidance given to Associate Lecturers on providing feedback on EMAs.

The FBL Masters team are now in the process of preparing an action plan to respond to these recommendations.

If you would like to know more about the findings of the review, please contact the Academic Quality Standards Team on aqs-mailbox@open.ac.uk