Student Written Submission
What is the Student Written Submission?
The Student Written Submission (SWS) is a report put together by the Students' Union and submitted to the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) when they audit the University. The SWS is there to inform the audit team what students at the University think about their experiences studying at the University.
Click here to visit the QAA website, where you can find out more about the QAA and the SWS and download guides aimed at students regarding the audit process.
Why do I need to know about the Student Written Submission?
The SWS is written by the Union on behalf of all students at Birmingham City University, including you! Although the SWS has been completed and sent to the audit team, the Union will be asked to meet with the auditors and discuss what we have written. We will also be basing a lot of the campaigning work we do with the University on the recommendations we make in the SWS. Therefore, it is important that all our students are able to read the report and let us know what they think - does what we say match your experience or have you got a different perspective?
You can download the full document here.
If you're in a hurry and don't want to read the full document, you can also download just the conclusion and recommendations of the report here.
What happens next?
The Union's officers and a small number of students who have been involved in this work will be meeting with the audit team when they visit the University in October for a briefing visit before the main audit visit in November. The auditors will then want to meet with at least one different group of students during the audit visit itself. After the audit visit, the QAA will write a report on the University, although this won't be available publicly until around April 2011.
In the meantime, the Union will be putting pressure on the University to work towards the recommendations we make in the SWS. We will also be working on some of these issues ourselves, such as carrying out more research into the views of disabled students and working to improve the student representation scheme.
If you have any thoughts, comments or questions relating to the SWS or the audit more generally, you can leave comments below, or alternatively you can get in touch with us directly - please email either jema.davis@bcu.ac.uk or union.education@bcu.ac.uk