Ultimate responsibility for academic management lies with the Director of the Laboratory who operates through the Head of Academic Division and the Head of Teaching. Course units are managed by course teams which report to the Board of Studies, and effective mechanisms operate for the transmission of reports, especially those concerned with quality issues, resources and their deployment, to the appropriate faculty and university committees. Informal quality assurance procedures have long been in place, and the Laboratory's employment of electronic communication has made a valuable contribution. Procedures have recently been put on a more formal basis to conform with the University's newly adopted policies. Annual monitoring is undertaken by all course unit teams and a comprehensive annual report on each degree scheme is considered by the Board of Studies and the Laboratory and Faculty Teaching Committees.
Action taken is reported and an action plan for the coming year is presented.
Arrangements exist for the periodic major review of degree programmes. Staff of the Laboratory have helped develop the University's quality assurance procedures and have shown a genuine concern to develop both their personal and corporate approach to high-quality teaching and learning. The annual intake target for the Computer Science and Computer Systems Engineering courses is 105, and the MSc conversion course has some 50 students. Access has been widened to students without GCE A level mathematics by providing additional mathematics units in the first year, and course revision has been undertaken to accommodate this broader student group. European involvement supports one of the University's objectives.