IRQAOA Department

The Institutional Research, Quality Assurance, Outreach & Accreditation (IRQAOA) department ensures achieving quality and standards as envisaged in the SUC’s Vision and Mission. It also strives to provide quality services in academic and academic support services in SUC and evaluate best practices of National and international academic institutions. This department works towards meeting the guidelines/standards/accreditation requirements provided by MOE and International accreditation agencies. The roles of IRQAOA department are detailed in the following sections.

Institutional research

The Institutional Research (IR) Unit is responsible for planning, designing data collection instruments, gathering, compiling, analyzing and disseminating information to Operational Executives and Strategic Decision makers. Major role of IR unit is to measure, analyze and report findings that facilitate in gauging the level of Institutional Effectiveness (IE), Identifying gaps and making amendments in the process of Institutional Effectiveness. Results from the various institutional effectiveness tools are used to provide guidance in preparing and evaluating annual and strategic plan and disseminate inputs for academic, administrative and operational decision makers. Institutional Research unit use existing databases and gathers additional data as warranted to determine the future course of actions in achieving the Vision and Mission of SUC. The Institutional Research unit also supports in the performance evaluation of all employee.

Quality assurance

The Quality Assurance (QA) Unit, review various feedbacks and IE reports for each academic year. The findings and suggestions on the feedbacks are disseminated to all Heads of the units after approval from the Vice chancellor for necessary decisions and actions to improve academic and academic support services. The Quality Assurance unit designs appropriate methodologies for meeting the Quality standards of the Institution in Academics and Academic Support Services to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the institution.
The IRQAOA department is responsible for providing guidelines for the implementation of policies and procedures during the academic year. QA conducts regular audits of academic and academic support services to ensure the adherence of policy and procedures for the improvements in the overall institutional quality standards. It also helps in preparing, implementing and evaluating the Strategic Plan. It also oversees the planning and closing of units, updates policies & procedures and goal setting process. The IRQAOA department also conducts developmental activities for faculty and staff members at regular intervals so as to enhance the overall institutional academic and academic support services. QA coordinates with departments for regular registration of risk incidents and their timely submissions for review by the Risk Management Committee.

Outreach and accreditation

The department facilitates the institution for obtaining renowned international accreditations such as AACSB and ABET for the academic programs offered by School of Business and School of Information Technology respectively.
The department identifies national and international institutions to collaborate for Benchmarking and to enable mutual exchange of best practices followed in both institutions.

1. To develop and maintain quality standards in the institution
2. To evaluate the Institutional Effectiveness through auditing the academic and academic support service processes and identify gaps and disseminate information to all stakeholders.
3. To evaluate the implementation of actions and outcomes for self-study purpose on a longitudinal time frames.
4. To be a center for collection, compilation and analysis of data
5. To develop IE & feedback tools and evaluate the institutional performance accordingly in an academic year
6. To comply with national accreditation standards along with classification framework
7. To facilitate the institution in obtaining international accreditations, ratings and rankings
8. To identify national and international institutions and coordinate for best practices and Benchmarking
9. To provide inputs for strategic plan review
10. To facilitate the FES, SES, AAC and BOT evaluation system
11. To coordinate submission and review of institutional planning, closing, reports and documents
12. To coordinate review of the Institutional Effectiveness System
13. To coordinate and ensure timely registration of risk incidents by all units

Institutional research

• Planning and decision support

Institutional Research unit identifies the data requirements, plan and develops assessment tools helpful in gathering appropriate information for increasing institutional effectiveness. IRO compiles, analyzes and disseminates information for decision making in the process of institutional effectiveness. It provides inputs for preparing and evaluating Strategic Plan, annual and semester plans.

• Feedback survey

Conducting various surveys that helps in assessing the status and requirements of SUC among the stakeholders is a major responsibility of the Institutional Research Unit. Student, staff, graduate and employer perceptions and opinions are imperative in determining the future directions of SUC. Therefore, IRO reviews, develops, plans and implements appropriate survey tools and analyzes and disseminates the results for appropriate action.

• National and international accreditation

IR Unit is responsible for the process of national and international accreditation process by coordinating and collecting necessary institutional data & documents required for local as well as international accreditation.

• Facilitating the performance evaluation system

The IR unit helps in developing the tools for performance evaluation systems of evaluating Board of Trustees, Academic Affair Council, Faculty and Staff. It collects and analyzes information on various stake holders and evaluates their performance through a predefined evaluation systems and forwards the evaluation results to decision makers.

Quality assurance

• Quality enhancement

SUC is committed to excellence in all aspects of academics and academic support service departments as envisioned in the vision statement. The Quality Assurance unit ensures there is continuous enhancement of the institutional goals in meeting the specified standards and requirements across all areas of Academics and Academic Support Services.

• Developing institutional policies

IRQAOA department is responsible for preparing, amending, ensuring compliance and evaluating the policy and procedures of SUC.

• Quality auditing

The IRQAOA Department coordinates with Quality Assurance Committee for conducting audit of Academic and Academic Support Services. The audit of Academics includes audit of curriculum and course syllabus at the start of every academic year and review of course files, course reports, update of course syllabus in system, implementation of course syllabus, Quality check of question papers, etc. every semester. The Quality Assurance Committee nominates a team of subject experts in coordination with DIRQAOA and Vice Chancellor who shall be responsible for the audit of course files. The audit of academic support services includes audit of start of AY preparations, start of semester preparations, semester closing audits, audit of uploads on website, portal and ERP, etc.
An audit report with gaps identified and recommended actions is prepared and sent to concerned units for implementation of necessary actions to close the gaps identified during the audit.

• Risk management

The IRQAOA Department reviews the risk incidents registered by departments and submits the Risk analysis report to Vice Chancellor. VC shall review the risk analysis report and recommend actions for decision making.

• Ensuring compliance with accreditation standards

The IRQAOA Department keeps track of all the latest updates in the MOE standards and reviews its impact on the institutional policy and procedures. It is the responsibility of the IRQAOA Department to ensure that all the necessary amendments as per the latest updates are reflected in the appropriate policies. It ensures that all the important documents of the Institution are amended as per the changes in the standards set by the MOE.

Outreach and accreditation

• International accreditation

The IRQAOA department facilitates the institution in obtaining recognized international accreditations for its various programs such as AACSB and ABET. The department also identifies recognized global ranking agencies for achieving ranking of the institution to enhance its brand image. Some of the ranking agencies currently identified include QS, Time Higher Education, Shanghai, etc.

• Benchmarking

Benchmarking in higher education is an important tool of setting higher goals and achieving them through defining specific academic processes and procedures. SUC benchmark its Key Performance Indicators and processes with institutions both inside and outside the UAE for the purpose of improving its process, programs and operations of the institution. SUC enters into Memorandum of understanding with institutions at the UAE and international level to make the benchmarking process more realistic and useful.
Apart from external benchmarking, SUC processes also includes internal benchmarking wherein every academic & academic support service unit at SUC has predefined the key performance indicators and that are to be achieved as per benchmark which is developed based on the previous year’s performance. The IRQAOA department reviews the benchmark set by different units and guides them on updating the same during the planning review of all units. SUC has also adopted standardizing Course Syllabus, nature of assessment tools, quality check of question papers to meet learning outcomes, program learning outcomes linked with the skills and competencies desirable by the industry at the academic level.

• Best practices

SUC policy and procedures are prepared based on the guidelines provided by UAE Ministry of Education 2019 standards and taking in consideration some of the best practices followed at a similar to SUC level of higher education institution inside and outside of UAE the region. SUC reviews its policy and procedure manuals before the start of the academic year and incorporates the necessary changes for the coming year. Yearly reviews are carried out at the end of the spring semester to identify status of current practices followed at SUC and to align with the requirement of MOE.

• Facilitate data for awards, ranking and listing

The Quality Assurance Unit provides data to other departments which are working towards achievement of renowned awards, and listing of SUC at national and international levels. The department helps in preparing documents, evaluating and developing application forms and equivalencies for Programs.