Jargon buster
All of the terminology can be a little overwhelming, and even meaningless if you've never been involved before. That's why this page is here - to help give an understanding of the different roles, meetings and terms.
Periodic Departmental Reviews
Periodic Departmental Reviews, or PDR for short, happen in every academic unit every 5-7 years. They involve reading through all of the paperwork produced throughout the period of time since the previous PDR, and deciding areas for improvement, places for commendation and action plans for the coming years, with scrutiny from a panel of internal and external members, including the VP Education. The department rep will be asked to write a report for the panel, with input from course reps, as a student submission, and reps should also be invited to have a chat with panel too.
Annual Reviews
Annual Reviews are an annual process which evaluates the provision in academic departments through activities such peer observation and engagement with student feedback. The process occurs at the end of each academic year (for undergraduate and postgraduate research), or after every course has closed (for postgraduate taught programmes). They are sent to Staff Student Committees for reps to be able to comment on the plans the department has made to address concerns or criticisms in the previous academic year.
Curriculum Consultants
Curriculum Consultants are reps who attend the final Validation Panel before a new course/module or degree programme is put out into the big wide world.