The Head of Thrust/Pillar/Base has broad responsibility for the quality of the delivery of courses and educational programs under their Thrust/Pillar/Base and maintaining academic standards through monitoring and approving course grades.

It is good practice for faculty/instructors to review course grade distributions annually in regard to historical distributions for their courses and with reference to the HKUST’s Guideline Grade Distribution bands, to avoid grade inflation and monitor the academic standards of assessments and the marking/grading criteria applied. Such reviews may lead to changes to the course curriculum and/or assessment.

The Committee on Undergraduate Studies (CUS):

  • annually reviews the assignment of undergraduate course grades across the University;
  • monitors course grade distributions to ensure that grading practice is reasonably uniform across Undergraduate programs and that appropriate standards are being maintained;
  • reports to the Senate on an annual basis on undergraduate course grades.

The CUS is also responsible for approving major changes to courses following course review.

A key component of course monitoring and review is the end-of-course Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ). Faculty/Instructors review SFQ reports for their courses. Reports are also reviewed by Heads of Thrust/Pillar/Base, who may discuss SFQ scores with instructors as part of teaching evaluation.

Quality Assurance Trigger Mechanism

To fit the purpose of continuous improvement, a trigger mechanism to identify areas for improvement was created from SFQ results. Under the following circumstances, the course owner will be invited to submit a report to the Committee on Teaching and Learning Quality (CTLQ) to explain the situation and associated actions for improvement:

  • Courses with overall ratings that are 10% lower than the University average
  • Courses falling within the bottom 2% in overall ratings

Records for courses with overall ratings lower than the University average for three consecutive years will be kept by the Department of Academic Governance and Senate and shared with the corresponding hub/college Dean and thrust/pillar/base Head. The thrust/pillar/base Head should review the course with the instructor and develop a plan for improvement.

30 Aug 2024