PURPOSE

This policy outlines the external referencing conducted by Global Leadership Institute (GLI) to ensure high standards.

 

DEFINITIONS

External referencing: broad range of techniques comparing GLI courses and learning environment with other organisations, many of which are integrated within cycles of continuous improvement and course review.

Benchmarking: systematic comparison of an organisation’s inputs, processes and outputs against those of external partner organisations through a joint project. Benchmarks include data comparisons.

 

PRINCIPLES

Principles of GLI’s external referencing and benchmarking are as follows:

 

· support the Institute’s mission, goals and strategic priorities;

· commitment to learning from and sharing good practice;

· implementation of improvements arising from benchmarking findings;

· mutuality of expectations prior to commencement of the activity, with a view to mutual benefits for all parties;

· balanced in terms of the value received compared to costs involved in undertaking the projects.

· sharing of data and publication of findings should not occur without the written permission of all partners involved in the benchmarking exercise;

· all rights relating to any intellectual property developed in the course of the benchmarking exercise need to be negotiated and recorded by all partners involved.

 

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

· GLI Governing Board has general oversight of benchmarking and may from time-to-time commission inter-institutional benchmarking studies.

· Academic Board is responsible for advising Governing Board on academic matters, including providing advice about possible benchmarking exercises that will serve to assure and enhance academic quality.

· Academic Board can initiate and guide benchmarking exercises, the reporting and the making of recommendations for improvements by way of follow up to benchmarking results.

· All benchmarking projects must complete the Benchmarking Checklist attached prior to formally commencing the benchmarking exercise.

 

Scope

Whole Institute

Key Stakeholder

All staff and students

Proceedure

Benchmarking can be conducted as:

1. whole of institution exercise;

2. discipline specific;

3. standards based, with partner institutions on a national or international or by program.

 

Benchmarking with partner/other institutions provides valuable opportunity to share knowledge and experience, identify gaps in current practices and hence opportunity for improvement, identify new approaches and/or systems as well as ideas and bring a critical external focus to the review process.

 

Selecting Partners

When selecting benchmarking partners for whole of institution exercises, a benchmarking partner should:

 

·  have a comparable mission and values to GLI;

· be of a comparable size;

· deliver the same/similar disciplines.

 

An external benchmarking partner should:

 

· have a commitment to quality; improvement and a willingness to share

· demonstrate a record of good performance in the area(s) to be benchmarked.

 

An international benchmarking partner should have:

 

· a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or similar agreement in place with the Institute with reference to benchmarking projects;

·  English as the primary language of instruction.