Identifying suitable indicators and assembling a ‘benchmarking toolkit’ for different areas of activity helps stimulate discussion about the student services at different quality levels, and assists staff and students to design solutions to improve services.
Purpose
A benchmarking tool (e.g. benchmarking tool for academic support) can highlight a number of principles defined by students that are considered essential to the provision on good quality services. Each principle can be elaborated to define the level of quality of provision using a 5-point scale of, for example, First Steps, Developing, Developed, Refining and Outstanding. Institutions can adapt the principles to fit their specific context, identify their location on the scale, and then discuss and agree ways in which services need to be improved.
Outcome
When using the toolkit to analyse their current provision of services against the principles, institutions can identify areas for improvement in relation to the identified principles and take appropriate actions for follow-up.