The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) is committed to strengthening its position as the leading provider of liberalised access to higher education and lifelong learning without distinction of race, creed, gender, age or political conviction, and special learning needs as provided for in the University’s Act. No. 6 of 1983 and reaffirmed in Act. No. 19, 2018.
The university strives for its provisions to be characterised by excellence and innovation in teaching and learning, research and scholarship, community engagement, partnerships and collaboration in response to changing national and global labour market needs, and underpinned by principles of lifelong learning, flexibility and learner-centredness. This is with the view to providing learners with a high-quality learning experience that equips them with a competitive advantage and the skills to contribute to national development (Strategic plan 2018 – 2023).
From inception, and in recognition of the important role that quality plays and the attendant issues associated with quality in open and distance learning systems, the institution aimed to employ critical assessment procedures for constant evaluation and review in its first strategic document (Blueprint and Implementation Plan 2002).
Currently, Quality Assurance at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) takes the form of internal and external quality measures. Internal Quality measures compliance, monitor and evaluate the institutional activities for continuous improvement on the service delivery. The external Quality Assurance measures comprise mainly periodic accreditation exercises by the national regulatory body, the National Universities Commission (NUC). Also, the international accreditation bodies and professional bodies are equally involved in the external quality measures in some of the academic programmes.
In order to achieve the University’s strategic goals of (2002, 2018 – 2023), NOUN established a directorate of quality assurance who on behalf of the university shall adopt a systematic and comprehensive approach to assure the quality of the university systems and operations through the deployment of a robust quality assurance system that promotes a culture of quality through continuous improvement.
The Organogram of the Directorate of Quality Assurance
Units in the Directorate of Quality Assurance
Compliance Unit
Monitoring and Evaluation Unit
Support Unit
NOUN Quality Assurance Framework
To ensure continuous improvement on performance and service delivery in NOUN, the Input-Monitoring-Evaluation Framework shall be adopted. This shall be a shift from the general framework of Input-Process-Output.
Monitoring
Inputs
Activities
Outputs
Outcomes
Impact
Evaluation
INPUTS. This includes:
-
- Students
- Human resources (teaching and non-teaching staff)
- Learning infrastructure e.g. VLE
- Equipment and facilities
- Curriculum
- Course materials
- Study centres
- Funding
ACTIVITIES. This includes:
-
- Course delivery process
- Assessment
- Learner support
- Administration and management process
- Research activities
- Community service
- Collaboration and linkages
- Quality assurance
OUTPUTS. These are results of inputs, examples are:
-
- Number of graduates produced.
- Quality of graduates
OUTCOMES. This includes:
- Changes that occur over time because of outputs e.g. employers requesting graduates from NOUN. This is divided into medium terms (intermediate) and long term (ultimate) outcomes. These are readily measurable medium outcomes.
IMPACT. This includes:
- This is a long-term benefits and change on the graduants e.g. How many NOUN graduates have developed software that has a long impact on the society and the economy?
Functions of the Compliance Unit.
The Quality Assurance Compliance Officers will be checking if actions are taken as planned. Specifically, they shall carry out the following functions:
- Check compliance with external regulatory mandate:
a. Programme and courses compliance with National Universities Commission (NUC) policies, procedures, and standards.
b. Programme and courses compliance with relevant professional policies, procedures, and standards.
c. Compliance with relevant national/international policies to programmes and courses.
d. Identify areas of non-compliance and create policies to ensure compliance.
e. Set penalty for the approval of the senate for breach of compliance.
- Manage compliance of internal systems:
a. Ensures that all academic activities comply with the University policies, procedures, and processes.
b. Manage the policies and procedures of the University, ensuring that management and staff are aware of documentation and standard operating procedures.
c. Maintains regulatory documents in-house.
d. Assist to prepare for audits (Internal and External).
e. Offer suggestions for improvement to ensure quality service delivery.
- Relate with Faculties/Directorates/Units/Study Centres in the University:
a. Maintains open communication with faculties/directorates/units/study centres.
b. Provide counsel to the Deans/Heads of Department/Directors/Heads of Units on minimizing risks and improving compliance with the University policies and procedures.
c. Acting on the University best interest.
d. Remain neutral and unbiased in your practices, analysis, and judgements.
e. Communicate the happenings to the Director, Quality Assurance with detailed reports.
- Identify potential compliance risks:
a. Carryout risk assessments and internal audit programs
b. Identify areas that do not conform to the relevant national and internal laws.
c. Maintain and update internal documentation of policies, procedures, and processes.
d. Ensure that the University complies with its own standards and operations.
- Train and Educate University Staff:
a. Educate and train staff on the importance of regulatory and procedural compliance.
b. Develop training programmes on internal quality compliance for new staff.
Functions of the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit.
The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officers are to:
- Monitor feedback to regulate progress towards achieving objectives and goals.
- Monitor the progress of activities in the university to know if outputs are achieved as planned.
- monitor the changes that are required to ensure progress towards results.
- Evaluate the outcomes and present the impact the outputs have made.
- Design, implement, improve, and maintain workable framework, procedure, and processes to measure and improve the impact and quality of service delivery in NOUN.
- Conduct surveys and research towards solving, impacting, and improving on the quality of the University service delivery.
- Use data and learning analytical skills to described what happened (descriptive analytics), say why it happened (diagnostic analytics), what is going to happen (predictive analytics), and what should be done next (prescriptive analytics).
- Evaluate the:
a. Content of programmes in line with latest research in the discipline to ensure that the programme is up to date.
b. Changing needs of the society (learners and employers).
c. Students’ workload, progression, and completion.
d. Effectiveness of procedures for assessment of students.
e. Student expectations, needs, and satisfaction in relation to the programmes.
f. Learning environment and support services and their fitness for the programmes.
- Work as a team with the compliance officers in data generation.
- Provide trainings and workshops relating to M&E to stakeholders.
The Support Unit.
There are three (3) sub-units in the support unit:
1. Desk Officers: The function of a desk officer is:
- Communicating the University quality assurance policies, processes, and procedures to all staff in the faculty, directorate, study centres, and units.
- Working with the Deans/Heads of Departments/Heads of Units/Directors/ to develop and present the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to the Quality Assurance Directorate for consideration and approval for implementation.
- Monitoring compliance of the use of the SOPs in the faculties, departments, directorates, study centres, and units.
- Attending QA meetings organised by the Directorate of Quality Assurance.
2. QA Office Administration: The function of the QA Office Administration is:
1. Secretarial functions; this include
a. Managing the directorate emails.
b. The management of directorate stationaries
c. The management of office expenses and retirements of all spending
2. Dispatch of outgoing and receiving of incoming mails.
3. Records QA office facilities and equipment management
4. General Administration; this include
a. Preparation and coordination of all meetings and workshops in the Directorate.
b. Preparation of briefs and agenda and other papers for all meetings.
c. Preparation of Decision Extract and conveying of all decisions of all meetings for implementation
d. Drafting of letters, reports, and memos for the Director.
3. QA Site Administration:
1. Coordinate the development and maintenance QA website
2. Monitor updates of information in QA site along with the information on the university site – www.nou.edu.ng
3. Monitor the quality of information on the university website.
4. Monitor the inflow of users into the QA website.