Our Commitment to Quality Assurance
As an AACSB-accredited business school, we strive to continuously improve our curricula, programs, and teaching practices. UBC Sauder’s Assurance of Learning continuous process highlights our commitment to the quality of our students’ learning through detailed, data-driven processes that inform curricula design.
Why is this process important?
We want to know how well students learn what we teach. Our AoL process ensures Sauder students are seeing, understanding, and learning program goals and learning objectives. The process addresses four key questions:
- What will our students learn in our program?
- How will they learn it?
- How will we know whether they have learned it?
- What will we do if they have not learned it?
How does AoL work?
Faculty at UBC Sauder have collectively considered what students in each program should know and what their state of expertise should be upon graduation. (These can be found, broken down by program, on the right under Program Goals). For each program goal, there are one or more specific, measurable, learning objectives. The Learning Services team works with faculty to identify the best places to measure student success in achieving these objectives. Results from these measurements are then provided to faculty so that they may adjust accordingly.
On an ongoing basis, we gather assessment data and use it to inform curriculum changes to ensure that we are meeting program goals for each of the following degree programs: Bachelor of Commerce, MBA, Professional MBA, Master of Management, Masters of Business Analytics, and PhDs.
UBC Sauder AoL Process:
What does this mean for UBC Sauder students?
If you are a Sauder student, you don’t have to do anything. The AoL process has nothing to do with course grades. The Learning Services team will periodically seek anonymous, random samples of student work and use them to check our progress in meeting learning objectives.
What does this mean for faculty?
If work from a Sauder faculty member’s course is chosen to be measured as part of the AoL process, the Learning Services team may ask for samples of student work from a class, or for input in designing the rubrics we use to assess. Under no circumstances is any information used to evaluate faculty work or performance.
For more information:
A short overview called “Demystifying Assurance of Learning” is available on the AACSB website.
If you’d like to learn more about UBC Sauder’s Assurance of Learning process, please contact Peter Lukasik, Educational Assessment Specialist in Sauder Learning Services.
Program goals & objectives
Bachelor of Commerce (BCom)
Master of Business Analytics (MBA)
Master of Business Analytics (MBAN) http://blogs.ubc.ca/ubcsauderteachingplaybook/files/2022/12/MBAN-Program-Goals.pdf
Master of Management (MM)
PhD in Business Administration (PhD)