Quality Unit

 

Quality assurance in the College of Pharmacy:

 

Education is the background of society. Quality education is important for economic growth and development. It will help to improve the citizen’s social empowerment, thoughtful behavior, and a sense of responsibility to the community. A quality management system is a mechanism for evaluating and measuring an institution's commitments and performance, described in its mission and vision and reflected in its strategic direction. The quality assurance (QA) process in educational institutions involves systematically reviewing education provisions to meet the standards.

 

Quality assurance in the College of Pharmacy is a continuous, ongoing cyclic process to ensure the mission and vision are fulfilled as per the regulatory standards. QA processes promote accountability, openness, and transparency. The college's priority is to maintain quality, equity, and efficiency standards as per the set criteria by NCAAA. The College of Pharmacy assures to establish and maintain core quality elements. At the college level, the quality assurance process is practiced and monitored through quality development and quality assurance units. The quality assurance unit develops policies, procedures, guidelines, and recommendations to cover all the aspects of pharmacy education including educational affairs, research, training, and administration. It oversees and monitors the development and implementation of all these regulations and guidelines.

 

The quality assurance committee executes this overseeing and monitoring process through the establishment of various subcommittees including the KPIs standard requirements, Annual Program Report, Course Files/PLOs report, Course Report action plan implementation, Professional Development/ Periodic review, and Training / Experiential Files subcommittee.

 

 Development and quality committee

 

1.       Promoting a culture of quality, defining it, and continuously reinforcing individual, collective, and organizational behavior in practicing it through all available means: training courses, workshops, seminars, exemplary cognitive, leadership, and managerial behaviors, for students, technicians, administrators, and faculty members.

2.       Identifying the requirements of institutional and program academic accreditation, informing academic departments and students about them to work accordingly, and ensuring their implementation.

3.       Monitoring all new guidelines regarding development and quality, and disseminating what is issued by the Education and Training Evaluation Commission, the Deanship of Development and Quality, to academic departments and all personnel in the college to improve performance and increase productivity.

4.       Implementing everything necessary to achieve the quality of the educational, research, service, and community process in the college.

5.       Preparing an executive plan for accrediting all academic programs in the college.

6.       Developing a plan to stimulate excellence and innovation in the performance of faculty members, and nominating outstanding individuals for excellence awards in the college, university, and community.

7.       Evaluating all quality processes.

8.       Studying all matters referred by the Dean of the college or by the Vice Dean for Educational Affairs and Development to the committee, and submitting appropriate proposals or making appropriate decisions.

 

 Quality Assurance Committee

 

1.       Develop an internal monitoring system and performance evaluation in all quality standards.

2.       Disseminating and promoting culture and concepts of quality among all faculty members at the college.

3.       Ensuring compliance with the requirements of the Education and Training Evaluation Commission to ensure quality, accreditation, and college qualification for obtaining local and international academic accreditation.

4.       Preparing quality-related reports.

5.       Supervising the distribution and analysis of survey results that assist in evaluating academic programs and courses by students, faculty members, and administrative staff.

6.       Implementing the college's quality assurance strategy and applying the necessary mechanisms to implement it among male and female students.

7.       Monitoring, receiving, and reviewing quality files from academic departments.

8.       Developing awareness programs to promote and instill a culture of quality, accreditation, and excellence.

9.       Holding training workshops in the fields of quality, accreditation, assessments, and evaluation.

10.   Contributing to the design of surveys and data collection and analysis tools.

11.   Monitoring the level of quality application in departments and units at the college.

 

 

1.       KPIs and surveys subcommittee:

Roles and Responsibilities of KPIs standard requirements subcommittee:

·       Identification of the applicable KPIs from the NCAAA recommended and if needed any additional for the program.

·       Creation or adoption of KPIs based on needs assessment, collection of data through the surveys, and potential for positive impact on the College and program performance.

·       Create and monitor all surveys and manage the survey collection process and forms required by the deanship of Quality and Development.

·       Writing NCAAA KPI measurement and analysis: At the end of each academic year, the KPI subcommittee headed by the Quality Assurance committee at the college level evaluates and analyzes KPIs and proposes improvement plans based on the evaluation results. The trend of the indicator from one year to the other (internal benchmarking), in addition to external benchmarks will also be analyzed.

·       Identifying the Strengths and Areas of opportunities for improvement.

·       Formulating improvement recommendations and implementing implementation plans

 

2.       Course Files/PLOs report subcommittee:

 Roles and Responsibilities of Course Files/PLOs report subcommittee:

·       Collection and review of course files for all the courses in the College of Pharmacy and submit them to the college quality assurance committee

·       Estimation and evaluation of percentage of achievement of course learning outcomes (CLOs) and subsequent PLOs of Pharm D courses from both direct and indirect method

·       Preparation of PLO report

·       Summarizing recommendations based on the % achievement and preparing action plan for underachieved courses based on the PLO report

·       Monitor and follow up on recommendations and action plans to be implemented for the following year, and collect evidence of their implementation 

 

3.       Annual program report subcommittee:

 Roles and Responsibilities of Annual Program Report Subcommittee:

·       Prepares the Annual Program Report (APR) at the end of each academic year.

·       Coordinate with the KPI committee, and PLO assessment committee to prepare the APR.

·       Follow up with the vice dean for postgraduate studies and research to get APR data for community services and research.

·       Writes the program development plan based on the information/data collected and analyzed.

·       Monitor and follow up on recommendations and action plans to be implemented for the following year, and collect evidence of their implementation 

 

4.       Professional Development and Periodic Review Sub-Committee

 Roles and Responsibilities of Professional Development and Periodic Review Sub-Committee:

•        Monitor the professional development events with the departments and vice deanships

•        Collection of the events reports from departments and vice deanships

•        Plan and organization of annual periodic program review

•        Preparation of surveys and collection of survey reports related to professional development events and annual periodic program review

 

5.       Training / Experiential Files subcommittee:

 Roles and Responsibilities of Training / Experiential Files subcommittee:

·       Maintaining the updated course specifications for the training courses.

·       Preparing the field experience report after every rotation or every year, as recommended.

·       Collecting the results of various surveys conducted by the training unit on the training students and preparing the report and the recommendations for the future course of action.

·       Collecting the evidence for the course improvement plan recommended in the previous rotation/year.

·       Formulating improvement recommendations and implementing implementation plans

 

6.       Course Report action plan implementation subcommittee

 Roles and Responsibilities of Course Report Action Plan Implementation Subcommittee:

·       Continuous Follow-up for implementation of action plan evidence during the semester and at the end of the semester with quality department representatives and/or chairpersons.

·       Collection of evidence(s) that ensure action plans are achieved and reason(s) of non-achieved action plans.

·       Preparation of a summary report at the end of the year to be submitted and proposed to quality management of the College of Pharmacy (COP)