Preface

Although the ACAS existing policies are mostly quite good, some parts have become outdated for the following reasons:

1. They were written when national standards were very detailed and prescriptive:
1. They contain lots of details that might now be unnecessary. However, some details that became unnecessary have become necessary again.
2. Many items were simplified by joining policies and procedures into one document. This no longer works and ACAS now needs to separate policies from procedures.
3. A few things are pre-emptive; they were included in case a certain kind of problem arose. Although the problem never arose, the policy is still good.
2. We are implementing new Standards for National Recognition (SNR), announced in 2014.
3. ACAS centre has increasingly become a data processing office. The idea is to have simple, consistent systems with all data in one central database. This has had some favourable and unfavourable points:
1. This has had some favourable effects. It is now not only mandatory, it has improved quality where it is managed through the current data system, (e.g more consistent, harder for students to slip through the net).
2. On the other hand, ACAS still needs to improve where quality must be managed personally on-site, or where quality is managed separately from the core data management system. This partly was due to problems with Moodle, which we used for staff documents.
4. Generally speaking, ACAS needs to strengthen policies that would help it to acquire intellectual property, even though for some member colleges joining ACAS, the ability to retain IP rights and has been a sin qua non.
5. ACAS policies will need to accommodate the next phase of data processing:
1. automate many procedures now done manually,
2. be more intuitive and easy to use,
3. cover more processes, and
4. be more policy-based.