There might be more enterprising universities that launch courses quickly (and would probably still reserve the right to do it with things like masters courses), but most undergrad courses take years to develop and deploy anyway, so an external body reviewing the content and assessment criteria wouldn't hold things up much in comparison.
The "problem" here is standardization(or lack of it) - and it's actually very good that university courses are not standardized.
What they report is horrifying:
* Essay writing skills are lacking, "its at GCSE level"
* Students contesting any form of criticism - they go via the official channels to argue why they should get a good grade. All schools are tied up in multiple tribunals with existing staff. Often its easier just to pass the student.
* In some cases, students are SUING the university for poor grades
* Plagiarism is commonplace. There is an automated plagiarism detection mechanism for electronic submissions - but they are turned off or ignored as it's so rampant. People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. Wikipedia copying is especially used for definitions, e.g. "Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship...."
* Students don't see that their education is also their own responsibility, and see it as a purchase. Give me what I pay for.
* Students who don't turn up to classes and seminars demand the same grades as those who do.
* Hundreds of students email lecturers asking for help with their work (much more numbers and frequency than in the past).
They both despair as they see education standards falling, and theres not much they can do. They don't want to be sued by the students, nor do they want to spend all their time in tribunals, they are educators first. They see their own institution as being of very poor quality.
To me - I would look at a league table of education quality for UK universities. There isn't one, you cant compare. Previously a good chance of good education was the research output of a department, or the references of the teachers. But this, as my associates report don't mean anything anymore.
My lad is just in UK high-school but I'm surprised at how homework is set with no provision of resources and no mention of plagiarism or need to cite sources. The kids are basically expected to find their own sources, which is ridiculous - making them trust whatever Google gives them.
Once they've been inculcated into the notion that education resides in googling and cutting and pasting, without even reading the content, then it's hard to establish a good research ethic.
On top of this the teachers aren't even teaching good use of online search, or providing access to primary source material that gets referenced.
It's really dire.
Textbooks have their problems but ...
The plagiarism checker is active as well.
Most of the level 3 award tutors set a small assignment within the first few weeks of the course to assess writing level and catch any issues like dyslexia &c.
I studied CS at a top tier UK university (not Oxbridge but a tier below). The course was a mess. The professors were useless, often didn't understand their own subjects, marking was random and arbitrary, most of them quite obviously saw teaching as a chore to be disposed of as quickly as possible and many failed hard at even basic principles of teaching, like "if you set coursework, students should all have the same amount of time to complete it in".
There was no effective way for students to complain or get anything fixed. The department ran a student/professor relationships council or something which was a joke, the students on it had volunteered mostly to suck up to the staff and didn't have any idea how bad the teaching was or how hard they were getting stiffed.
If universities were _actually_ real businesses I'd have been furious and demanded my money back, but they aren't so what can you do? I just tell people not to go to university at all these days.
this isn't new. People were copying from wikipedia 18+ years ago I can assure you ahem
Undergraduate university examinations in the UK already have external examiners [1]. For the national guidance, see Chapter B7 of the QAA's Quality Code [2]. This states:
> External examiners are not normally responsible for, or involved in, the assessment of individual students to the extent that they do not carry out marking of assessed work. However, to fulfil their role external examiners view student work, which ranges from reading essays or examination scripts to viewing performances (live or recorded) or artefacts. The volume of assessment generally means that an external examiner is unlikely to be able to view all the assessed work unless the cohort is small. Samples are of sufficient size to enable him/her to form a view as to whether the internal marking has properly assessed student performance against the appropriate standards.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_examiner
[2]: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-qual...
Anecdotally I heard the same stories 25 years ago when I was at university.
As someone who interviews people for jobs - nonsense.
This is IT, where it may be (even?) more lax than in other fields.
However, from following similar discussions for years, for example on reddit and also here on HN, with lots of people commenting who do or have done hiring decisions, the majority opinion seems to be that once you have a work history the particulars ceases to matter. Looking at my own two decades of experience, incl. a small business (sold), now another startup (of 40+ age engineers and business people, software), I would not care either. I had to check young candidates, it never crossed my mind to look at their grades. Talking and then seeing them work was far more revealing.
Related (NY Times opinion piece "The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews"): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/opinion/sunday/the-utter-...
Universities are selling something for 45,000 GBP that is available for free or much cheaper in other countries and readily accessible to employers. At some point Universities need to give students their money worth in some form or another.