Criterion 5 – Academic Staff
AUNQA requirements for Criterion 5
TRSU QA uses each of the AUNQA criterion requirements below to assess the relevant QA practice of a program.
5.1 Planning for the needs
The academic staff planning (including succession, promotion, redeployment, termination, and retirement plans) is carried out to ensure that the quality and quantity of the academic staff fulfill the needs for education, research, and service.
Diagnostic questions
- How is manpower planning for the academic staff carried out?
- Are recruitment and promotion criteria of the academic staff established? What are they?
- What is the succession plan for key appointment holders?
- What are the challenges that the university meet or encounter with regards to human resource, such as age distribution, difficulties in filling vacancies or in attracting qualified academic staff? How does the university handle these challenges?
- What policy is pursued with regard to the employment of academic staff, both in teaching and research?
5.2 Workload monitor
The staff workload is measured and monitored to improve the quality of education, research, and service.
Diagnostic questions
- Is the staff-to-student ratio satisfactory?
- How are workload defined, measured and monitored?
- Are academic staff members satisfied with the teaching load?
- Is a policy in place with regard to involvement in seminars, supervision of final papers, practical training, or internship?
5.3 Competence evaluation
The competences of the academic staff are determined, evaluated, and communicated.
Diagnostic questions
- Are academic staff members competent and qualified for their jobs? How are they evaluated?
- Are the competencies and expertise of the academic staff adequate for delivering the programme? How are they evaluated?
- How many Master’s and PhD degree holders are there among the academic staff?
- What types of research activities are carried out by academic staff?
- What are the competences needed for the research? How are they evaluated?
5.4 Right job for a person
The duties allocated to the academic staff are appropriate to qualifications, experience, and aptitude.
Diagnostic questions
- Are the academic duties allocated appropriate to qualifications, experience and aptitude?
- What types of research activities are carried out by academic staff? Are these activities aligned to the vision and mission of the university and faculty?
- Is conscious effort made to involve professors in mentoring and/or training the junior or new academic staff?
5.5 Merit system
The academic staff is based on a merit system which accounts for teaching, research, and service.
Diagnostic questions
- How is the merit system implemented?
- What are the promotion criteria for the academic staff? Are they based on the merit system?
5.6 Roles and accountability
The rights and privileges, benefits, roles and relationships, and accountability of the academic staff, taking into account professional ethics and their academic freedom, are well defined and understood.
Diagnostic questions
- What is the accountability of the academic staff in terms of roles, responsibilities, academic freedom, and professional ethics?
- How is it demonstrated by the academic staff?
5.7 Training and development
The training and developmental needs of the academic staff are systematically identified, and appropriate training and development activities are implemented to fulfill the identified needs.
Diagnostic questions
- What are the training and development processes and plans? How are the training needs identified?
- Is there a system to develop strategic and technical competencies of the academic staff?
- What are the training hours and number of training places for the academic staff per year?
- Do the training and development plans reflect the university and faculty mission and objectives?
5.8 Performance and rewards
The performance management including reward and recognition is implemented to assess academic staff teaching and research quality.
Diagnostic questions
- Is there a performance management system? How is it carried out?
- How are the teaching and research quality of the academic staff assessed?
- How is the reward and recognition implemented? What are performance criteria for the reward?
Scoring for TRSU QA
| TRSU-QA score | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Items showing QA practice | 1 items | 2-3 items | 4-5 items | 6-7 items | 8 items |
AUNQA scoring rubrics
A seven-point rating scale used for AUNQA assessment is described below.
1. Absolutely inadequate
The QA practice to fulfil the criterion is not implemented.
There are no plans, documents, evidences or results available.
Immediate improvement must be made.
2. Inadequate and improvement is necessary
The QA practice to fulfil the criterion is still at its planning stage or is inadequate where improvement is necessary.
There is little document or evidence available.
Performance of the QA practice shows little or poor results.
3. Inadequate but minor improvement will make it adequate
The QA practice to fulfil the criterion is defined and implemented but minor improvement is needed to fully meet them. Documents are available but no clear evidence to support that they have been fully used. Performance of the QA practice shows inconsistent or some results.
4. Adequate as expected
The QA practice to fulfil the criterion is adequate and evidences support that it has been fully implemented. Performance of the QA practice shows consistent results as expected.
5. Better than adequate
The QA practice to fulfil the criterion is better than adequate. Evidence supports that it (the QA practice) has been efficiently implemented. Performance of the QA practice shows good results and positive improvement trend.
6. Example of best practice
The QA practice to fulfil the criterion is considered to be example of best practices in the field. Evidences support that it has been effectively implemented.
Performance of QA practice shows very good results and positive improvement trend.
7. Excellent (example of world-class or leading practice)
The QA practice to fulfil the criterion is considered to be excellent or is an example of world-class practices in the field. Evidences support that it has been innovatively implemented.
Performance of the QA practice shows excellent results and outstanding improvement trends.
How to write a response to the criterion requirements
- The response should describe a QA practice that the program do to fulfil the criterion. The QA may be a PDCA (plan-do-check-act) process to ensure the quality, and include documentation, evidence and result of the implementation.
- The response should illustrate clearly what the QA mechanisms or instruments are; when, where, by who, and how they are implemented and managed to fulfil the criteria.
- The response should identify and evaluate problems or issues that are not addressed, and indicate how the problems will be dealt with. The diagnostic questions in each of the criterion requirements may help identify the problems.
- To be concise and factual, the response should focus on information or data (or objective evidence) that directly addresses the criteria, and provide trends and statistics to show achievement and performance.
How the QA practice fulfil the criterion
Quality assurance practice should have QA plan that evaluates and may modify organization’s procedures to ensure that they provide the desired results. It includes documentation for the planning, implementation and assessment procedures for a project, process or any QA activity. To fulfil requirement 1.1 Outcomes formulation, for example, the QA plan should provide information to answer the following questions.
- What procedure does the program use to formulate the expected learning outcomes?
- Is a learning taxonomy used to write the statement of LOs? What taxonomy and how is it used?
- Is the taxonomy used for program or course learning outcomes, or both? Why?
- What are the objectives in terms of the quality of the learning outcomes (e.g. transparency, ease of assessment, the extent of alignment, enabling hierarchy, effectiveness, clarity to the stakeholders)?
- What is the process used to ensure that the quality objectives are met?
- What is a method used to measure the achievement of the quality objectives?
Operational Result
5.1 The programme to show that academic staff planning (including succession, promotion, re-deployment, termination, and retirement plans) is carried out to ensure that the quality and quantity of the academic staff fulfill the needs for education, research, and service.
The Faculty of Business Administration particularly Airline Business program has set the target that the students to staffs ratio of graduate programs should not exceed 30:1. Individual departments/units are responsible for arranging the initial staff selection process before submitting the candidate’s profile to The Faculty of Business for preapproval by the Academic Staff Recruitment Committee. Final approval of new staff hiring is carried out by Human Resource Department of St Teresa International University.
The Airline Business program ensures a smooth flow of operation of our academic activities, thus academic staff planning has perpetually been performed well periodical. Regulation on new staff procurement is governed by The Faculty of Business Administration. The Human Resources Department constantly keep track and perform analysis on workforce capability and capacity needs. (Append 5.1.1)
Employment capacity is determined annually by the availability of positions while competency is defined by expertise needed by current and future curricula. The need of new staff(s) is/are requested by individual departments/units to the Dean and compiled by the HR Unit.
Approval of new staff acquisition is considered from current and future workload of the departments/academic programs, student to staff ratio, students‟ and customers‟ requirements and expectations, present and prospective required core competencies, etc.
In term of staff promotion, the Departmental Head and Dean always monitor/ track records of our academic staffs‟ research outputs. Once the merit, as regulated by St Teresa International University is reached, that particular staff is encouraged to submit an application for academic promotion: from lecturer to assistant professor to associate professor and to a full professor.. The Director of Research Department follows-up potential lecturers to apply as shown in Manpower or Activity Plan for staff. (Append 5.1.2)
5.2 The programme to show that staff workload is measured and monitored to improve the quality of education, research, and service.
The Staff – to- student ratio and workloads are constantly monitored and controlled by the Program Administrative Committees to ensure the optimum quality of educational training. As regulated by the Ministry of Education Announcement titled “Standard Criteria for Undergraduate Studies 2005,” and Regulation on Undergraduate Education of St Teresa International University, the staff-to-student ratio must not exceed 30:1. Our graduate programs follow the regulation and try to maintain such a ratio.
Before Covid-19, the ratio of students per lecturer exceed targets, however, during and after the pandemic there was a large drop in student intake that made the ratio of students per teacher decreased drastically.
However, as we can see in the table the number of students admitted during the Intensive English Program in March 2023 showed a slight increase compared to the last two years 2021-2022.
In the projection of increasing student intakes, a new staff member was recruited in 2023 Aj Arissara Pila-on to replace the old lecturer (Append 5.2.1 )
|
Academic Year |
Total FTEs of Academic Staffs |
Total FTEs of Students* |
Staff-to-Student Ratio |
|
2020 |
5 |
49 |
1 to 9.8 |
|
2021 |
5 |
9 |
1 to 1.8 |
|
2016 |
5 |
10 |
1 to 2 |
|
2017 |
5 |
15 |
1 to 5 |
5.3 The programme to show that the competences of the academic staff are determined, evaluated, and communicated.
The full-time as well as the part-time lecturers are well guided and monitored in terms of career and teaching progress. The Airline Business program has various platform to showcase academic staff competencies such as Knowledge Management wherein lecturers/researchers share their strategies, methodologies, innovation and pedagogies in teaching and learning process.
The Airline Business program lecturer’s teaching and research competencies are identified and recognized during the selection process before joining the department. The lecturer is asked published research(es) in known journals and research experiences prior to hiring. In addition to a strong track record of research, potential contribution of prospective staff toward teaching topics is also determined. Teaching competence of academic staffs are evaluated every semester via students‟ feedback on the overall course and individual instructors.
The Director of Research Office assessed the research competency of lecturer and is simply monitored by publication outputs for each staff . A grace period is given to newly-recruited staffs as settling a new research endeavor usually takes a few years to generate the first research output. Moreover, the college and The Faculty of Business Administration also enforce systems called Research Output Requirement. ROR is a mandatory contribution that academic staffs make to the department each year regarding the job responsibility and outputs (Append 5.3.1)
Whenever an old or any existing academic staff retires, resign or venture to another endeavor, new academic staffs are recruited and hired, as per the academic staff plan. This is done by the HR Department, through public announcements circulated through online platform like Ajarn.com,. University website and University Facebook page. Academic staff also personally scouts and invite highly-qualified alumni, colleagues, and professionals to apply and join in the program. Possible applicants are expected to have completed a Master or Ph.D. or equivalent in Airline or Aviation Business or related fields, and to meet the ethical standards according to regulations of the Faculty of Business Administration and St Teresa International University (TRSU). All applicants are evaluated without regard to positions and dispositions ensuring academic freedom and aspirations. Mostly, applicants are also expected to meet the work ethics, language requirements and to have enough research experience published in reputed journals (except research which formed part of their degree completion), and to have experience in working in the aviation industry. Every applicant’s qualification package is assessed by program committee. The candidates are interviewed by the Faculty of Business Administration selection committee and those who pass the interview will be provisionally accepted and assessed on teaching performance by holding a micro-teaching session or demonstration on how they are able to teach the students.
During the start of each academic year, the subject to be taught for the workload and professional development is set between each academic staff and the Program Committee. The roles and responsibilities also designates the minimum expected workload of each academic staff with regards to teaching, research, and service, quantified by conversion of monthly reports of work-related activities into pre-established every semester workloads, which are aided to evaluate whether the staff has performed the minimum expected amount of jobs or duties. In addition, integrated competency evaluation of staff also takes place every semester based on TRSU’s criteria. The evaluation criteria included 3 Core Competencies and 5 Functional Competencies in 2016-2020 and have been replaced by 9 criteria items in 2020, although the Airline Business program retained 3 Functional Competencies for internal evaluation purpose. Finally, with regard to service in Knowledge Management workshop, the performance of staff is also assessed by online anonymous post-session evaluation forms, whose criteria include:
- Self-commitment to development, 2) trustworthiness, 3) ability to provide service according to objective, 4) clearness and appropriateness of advice, and 5) overall These competencies are considered since the staff recruitment planned. Such new academic staffs are notified regarding the needed competencies and the evaluation criteria at the starting and one senior/mentor is asked for each new academic staff to orient, guide and assist the new academic staff for training and development, promotion, and performance in relation teaching-learning, research and services. Likewise, these competencies and evaluation criteria are well-known by all academic staff that are related to the promotion and rewards which is generally conducted during the Annual Meeting of the University.
5.4 The programme to show that the duties allocated to the academic staff are appropriate to qualifications, experience, and aptitude.
The Airline Business program ensures enough or adequate staff to teach during class. The Head of Program looks after the needed full-time lecturer especially if there is an additional number of a student increase. The HOD requests to the Human Resource Office and the said office will post job vacancy on the university website or any search engine like the Ajarn.com
The HR Department will do the selection and hiring process. Upon the candidate’s completion of the process, final screening and approving for candidate’s start of work follows with the approval of the Dean, and HOD’s from different program (Append 5.4.1) The number of lecturer is thoroughly screened and determined in the monthly staff meeting and, if the candidates‟ profile show sufficient competency together with the department is in need of a new academic staff, the request is submitted to The Faculty of Business for allocation of staff position. Selection process is then carried on as described in the section 5.1 above. Once employed, the new staff has academic freedom to do his/her own teaching workload on his/her choice. Deployment and distribution of teaching loads for academic staffs within the department is assigned by individual course by looking at the staffs‟ educational background. The monthly staff meeting help ensure that teaching loads are equally distributed among academic staffs.
5.5 The programme to show that promotion of the academic staff is based on a merit system which accounts for teaching, research, and service.
Improvement on this Indicator for 2023-2024
One the improvement done for this Year 2023-2024 and was noted to be a best practice was the giving of merits and rewards for every full-time lecturer who has contributed support to the institution specifically in their own respective program. The University recognized academic staff’s contribution in their role as knowledge provider and exemplary performance. This also encourages teaching and non-teaching staff to excel and work best on the years to come to receive the same recognition, thus develop themselves.
The giving of merits rewards and recognition was conducted during the St Theresa International University Annual Meeting slated on May 28, 2024 at Joseph Marie Building @ 11:30 – 11:45 A.M. It was participated by all teaching and non-teaching staff including the top management who awarded recipients. The categories of the award giving were 1. H Index (Hirsch Index/Number 2, Ad Scientific Index, 3. Most Valuable Peer Reviewer and 4. Most Valuable IQA Program and SAR Development.
The Office of the Vice-president for Academic Affairs realizes that rewards and recognition play a key role in motivating academic staff. Every year, the TRSU announces many awards in recognition of academic staff who devote themselves to the best of their duties, primarily teaching and research during the Annual Meeting. Examples of such awards include Research with many Citations, Recognition for Publishing Consistently in 3 consecutive years, Best Researcher and others (Append 5.5.1-2)The Faculty of Business also announces, annually, the Outstanding Staff Award in recognition of academic and supporting staff with distinguished performances. Also available is a Publication Recognition for academic staff who publish research outputs in good-quality international journals indexed by respectable databases, such as Scopus or ISI. The reward is in the form of a certificate.
In addition, academic staffs with qualified publication records are also eligible for promotion, and teaching innovation materials from lecturer (Append 5.5.2) to assistant professor to associate professor and to full professor, the process of which follows the rules and regulations of TRSU.
5.6 The programme to show that the rights and privileges, benefits, roles and relationships, and accountability of the academic staff, taking into account professional ethics and their academic freedom, are well defined and understood.
The Airline Business program particularly the academic staff are requested and obliged to conduct research, undergo career advancement, apply for academic rank, improve teaching and learning strategies, and display teaching competence in the area of modern business, artificial intelligence,, industrial robotics and advanced sensors (Append 5.6.1). Similar to any academic program in science, public health, and education around the world, learning of new knowledge and strengthening research competencies of academic staffs can be achieved by allowing staffs to attend industrial benchmarking, advanced business operation research, aviation expo and airline business processing conference, especially the international setting.
5.7 The programme to show that the training and developmental needs of the academic staff are systematically identified, and that appropriate training and development activities are implemented to fulfil the identified needs.
The Airline Business program academic staff old and newly recruited obviously new to the system and environment has no clear idea and understanding about the institution’s rules, regulation, expected responsibility, promotion tracks, teaching philosophy, etc. The TRSU yearly conducts and organizes lecturers orientation (Append 5.7.1.1) workshops to train/educate/provide young (Append 5.7.2) staffs with such information and other related matters (Append 5.7.3)
This activity is to ensure that educational philosophy of the university is well shared and is understood directly by the staffs. Over the past couple of years, TRSU has focused on training outcome-based education to new academic staffs during the annual meeting, orientation, workshop and other career growth opportunity. Important aspects including the formulation of course learning outcomes, teaching and assessment strategies, etc. are provided, advising, student retention program and academic service to the community (Append 5.7.1.2)
After recruiting new lecturers and upon receiving appointment, new academic staffs are asked to attend a series of induction training course organized by St Teresa International University and Faculty of Business Administration for a week, During this time, the new staff will also be assigned a mentor usually the Head of Program, who will assist him/her to accommodate to life in the workplace particularly to the Faculty and University and coach him/her to reach the academic promotion of assistant, associate to professorship. He/she will have opportunity to attend various academic seminars and knowledge management meeting to broaden the mind and meet with successful staff in various fields to gain further inspiration and attain full academic freedom. On the other hand, the deputy-head of the department and the mentor such as the HR will discuss with him/her on the goal, academic job description, strategies and tactics to achieve his/her career in terms of teaching, research and services. For senior academic staff, training on outcome-based education and online technology for new normal education have mainly been done and acted since 2018, 202020, and 2022, respectively. These mechanisms of training and development for academic staff are used in order to reassure the competencies of academic staff for supporting the achievement of PLOs for learners.
The particular training and development plans can be formed and tailored according to each staff’s specific contexts to fulfill the direction of expertise and mission and vision of the Airline Business Department. Training and development also need to be made in a holistic and integrated manner, in which all academic staff’s trajectories complement each other. The allocated budgets to finance training and development of academic staff as planned are supported by the Faculty of Business Administration and Airline Business Department. Academic staff attended the training follow the instruction of the Faculty of Business Administration, the Department of Airline Business and by their own self-volunteerism. The indicators of training and development of academic staff are the progress and graduation of Airline Business students under supervision and career achievement in education, research and services.
The new staff and senior lecturers training and development plans and activities are discussed among the AB program committee during the monthly meeting, where decisions will be made with regard to course of action to achieve the plan. Mid-career and senior academic staff can also discuss their training and development plan during the monthly meeting and decisions are made in a similar manner. Previous training and development, getting involved in interdisciplinary research projects in order to acquire knowledge and skills on-the-job, and taking sabbatical leave to write textbooks or form research collaborations with overseas institution. But, these training and development plans are made on a rotation or group basis. Future training and development activities need to be made in a more systematic and cyclical manner. For those lecturers who have stayed in the institution with high experience would share and transfer international relation and communication skills to new staff through attending of meeting and collaborative work with the related institutions.
5.8 The programme to show that performance management including reward and recognition is implemented to assess academic staff teaching and research quality.
The Airline Business program has a performance assessment system such as mentoring for old and new lecturers to upgrade their status or educational attainment, class observation to determine their strengths and weakness in the teaching and learning process, published research output, application for academic positions and appropriately and desirably perform other task aside from teaching such as Guidebook: Innovation and Business Research (Append 5.8.1)
In addition, Knowledge Management Committed (Append 5.8.2) has organized an event to allow an academic staff to showcase and share its work to the public as best practice.
The Airline Business program participated and presented an academic article during the Knowledge Management session slated January 17, 2023. The topic was “Linking Student’s Assessment with Teaching Plan” presented by Dr. Rosario C. Garcia and Dr. Alfredo C. Espejo (Append 5.8.3) The aim of the topic was to create awareness and authentic assessment for our learners, thus the administrators and the lecturers will gain more knowledge on giving fair assessments to our learners.
The participants were from different faculties who received updates and assessment trends integrating various activities and strategies. The topic is considered timely due to the upcoming final examination day for students and the lecturers have to evaluate what the students can do inside the classroom.
Evidence
Self-Assessment
| Requirements | Result | Score |
| 5.1 The programme to show that academic staff planning (including succession, promotion, re-deployment, termination, and retirement plans) is carried out to ensure that the quality and quantity of the academic staff fulfill the needs for education, research, and service. | / | 1 |
| 5.3 The programme to show that the competences of the academic staff are determined, evaluated, and communicated. | / | |
| 5.2 The programme to show that staff workload is measured and monitored to improve the quality of education, research, and service. | / | 1 |
| 5.4 The programme to show that the duties allocated to the academic staff are appropriate to qualifications, experience, and aptitude. | / | |
| 5.5 The programme to show that promotion of the academic staff is based on a merit system which accounts for teaching, research, and service. | / | 1 |
| 5.6 The programme to show that the rights and privileges, benefits, roles and relationships, and accountability of the academic staff, taking into account professional ethics and their academic freedom, are well defined and understood. | / | |
| 5.7 The programme to show that the training and developmental needs of the academic staff are systematically identified, and that appropriate training and development activities are implemented to fulfil the identified needs. | / | 1 |
| 5.8 The programme to show that performance management including reward and recognition is implemented to assess academic staff teaching and research quality. | / | 1 |
| Overall | 5 | |