Department Teaching Committees (DTCs)

All Departmental Teaching Committees must include the following membership:

• Head of Department or the person charged with overseeing teaching within the Department, e.g. a Deputy HoD for Teaching (Chair)
• One undergraduate student representative (Elected)
• One postgraduate student representative (Elected)
• One PhD student representative if PhD students fall under the Department’s Teaching Committee (Elected)

[Matters relating to PhD students are in square brackets to allow Departments to decide whether PhD students and programmes are overseen by their Research or Teaching Committee]

Departments are encouraged to include a diverse range of faculty, staff, and student representatives in DTCs. The Chair determines the quorum, but meetings typically require at least one student representative to proceed.

a) To consider issues and developments relating to all taught [and PhD] programmes in the Department, and to make recommendations to the Department where appropriate.

b) To oversee the implementation of good practice and quality assurance throughout the Department within the frameworks for quality assurance agreed within the School and to which the School is subject.

c) To consider all new course and programme proposals, and modifications to and withdrawals/suspension of all current courses and programmes prior to submission to further Departmental and School quality assurance processes.

d) To oversee teaching, academic advice, supervisory and assessment arrangements for all students and for all degree programmes in the Department.

e) To review periodically all programmes and courses [including /excluding the PhD programme] in line with the School’s recommendations and formal review processes, and to take the lead in implementing changes.

f) To oversee programme admissions in conjunction with other Departmental committees where these are established and with the School’s central Admissions service.

g) To consider proposals to institute, amend, revise or terminate academic partnerships or other arrangements with other institutions or organisations with whom the Department works in delivering teaching programmes prior to submission to further Departmental and School approval processes. Arrangements with the School’s institutional partners should be reviewed by the DTC and discussed by the Head of Department with the Vice President and Pro-Vice Chancellor (Education).

h) To consider all feedback received from students taking courses and programmes run by the Department, including from the Department’s Student Staff Liaison Committee and from student surveys (e.g. Departmental feedback mechanisms, the School’s teaching surveys and the National Student Survey), and to make recommendations to the Department as appropriate.

i) To liaise with Departmental Teaching Committees in other Departments in the School with which the Department runs joint degree programmes on all matters relating to the operation of the joint programme(s) including quality assurance and responding to student feedback.

j) To liaise with Departmental Teaching Committees in other Departments in the School where their programmes include compulsory courses provided by that Department.

k) To consider teaching and learning developments within the School and outside the School in comparable areas in relevant peer institutions and to make recommendations to the Department as appropriate.

l) To contribute to and act upon School initiatives relating to the enhancement of teaching and student experience within the School.

m) To oversee and support scholarships and prizes.

n) Departmental Teaching Committees will meet at least once in each term.

a) Departmental Teaching Committees will be serviced by the Department’s professional services staff and a secretary will be appointed for the academic year.  

b) Committee secretaries have the responsibilities set out in the School’s Committee Guidance notes, with a particular emphasis on ensuring that student feedback is considered at the meeting and reported to the Department and the TEFSG Cluster Coordinator. Committee secretaries will also ensure that meetings are scheduled at times that support the student representatives in attending, being considerate of their commitments and study workloads. 

c) Committee chairs have the responsibilities set out in the School’s Committee Guidance notes, with a particular emphasis on supporting the involvement of the student representatives. 

d) Committee chairs will meet the student representatives in advance of the first committee meeting, to welcome them, introduce them to key committee members and brief them on the committee’s work. 

e) Student representatives will commit to attending the Students’ Union training for student representatives prior to attending the first DTC meeting and adhering to the best practice guidance for student academic representation provided by the Students’ Union. 

f) Agenda preparation and the circulation of papers will follow the principles and practical guidance set out in the School’s Committee Guidance notes, ensuring that Department student representatives and staff have sufficient time to consider items to be included and to read papers. 

g) Minutes of the meeting will be prepared following the principles and practical guidance set out in the School’s Committee Guidance notes, ensuring publication of approved minutes (with the exception of reserved business) so that members of the Department (students and staff), the Students’ Union staff and relevant Professional Service Division staff are informed about the business of the Committee.  

h) Where the Committee agenda includes business which the Chair feels should not be discussed in the presence of student members, there should be a separate Reserved Business section of the agenda. In such circumstances the Chair will direct individual members or student representatives to withdraw from the meeting. The reserved business section of the meeting will usually take place at the end of the meeting so that, for practical purposes, students can leave at that point. Reserved business includes matters which are of a confidential nature, for example because they relate to particular individuals or are commercially sensitive. Minutes of discussions relating to reserved business must be reported to the Head of Department who can determine their further distribution on a confidential basis. The Head of Department may agree that published minutes of meetings may redact matters relating to reserved business. 

i) Where the Committee agenda includes business that would benefit from professional service advice or support the Chair is encouraged to invite a relevant colleague from the Professional Service Division to attend the discussion of the item.  

DTCs remain responsible for most decisions relating to the modification of existing courses and programmes when made in accordance with current guidance and in time to meet deadlines for the publication of information to current and future students.

When in doubt, departments are encouraged to contact TQARO via tqaro@lse.ac.uk at an early stage to confirm the appropriate mechanism to consider and approve changes.

All decisions recorded in DTC minutes that require updates to curriculum information must be submitted in the Akari Curriculum Management System in line with the relevant prospectus and Calendar deadlines, according to the following Akari workflows:

• Minor course changes (Annual Course Guide Review)
• Major course changes
• Course suspensions
• Course withdrawals
• Minor programme changes
• Major programme changes
• Programme suspensions
• Programme withdrawals

There is no requirement to upload a copy of the DTC minutes to Akari. For minor changes to courses, the assumption is that the editor has received any necessary department approvals before making changes to the course in Akari. When requesting major course changes, or minor and major programme changes, the editor will be asked for confirmation that DTC approval has been granted for the changes requested, and an answer in the affirmative is sufficient information for TQARO to process the changes as requested.

Important: Four requirements for departments to remember:

With regards to programme withdrawals, departments are asked to report the intention to withdraw a programme of study via Annual Monitoring (AM) in the first instance, for subsequent consideration of the resource implications by the Academic Planning and Resources Committee.  Please contact the Planning Division for guidance (Planning.Division@lse.ac.uk).

• To ensure timely submission of DTC minutes to TQARO at the end of each term. All minutes should be sent to tqaro@lse.ac.uk. There is no requirement to upload a copy of the DTC minutes to Akari.
• Departments should ensure all curriculum related decisions are made in Autumn Term or Winter Term in order to meet minor change deadlines for implementation the following year, or major change deadlines for future years. Spring Term DTC decisions may be possible if they fall before the early-May deadline for completion of all curriculum management updates via Akari workflows.
• DTCs are reminded to submit all curriculum changes via Akari. The Akari Support Site contains step-by-step guides to help departments use Akari.

You can see the existing guidance in sections 13.3-13.6 in the quality assurance handbook – see extract here).

 The full Quality Assurance Handbook can be found here.