Tag Archives: Core Business

Service Level Agreements: A Framework for Assuring and Improving the Quality of Support Services to Faculties

Abstract: The increasingly diverse student population at universities, their varied ways of participating in higher education, rapidly changing processes technology-based and other – for delivering academic programs and support/administrative services, and the multiple challenges faced by faculties, university central support services must be increasingly responsive to faculty needs and accountable for the quality of the services they deliver. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are becoming an increasingly popular way to manage and improve the delivery of internal services, in universities and other institutions. Monash has chosen to develop SLAs between central support services and faculties, giving the Centre for Higher Education Quality the responsibility for introducing and developing processes to manage them, and for integrating them with the Monash quality framework.

Introduction: While quality in higher education necessarily focuses primarily on the core business of universities – teaching and learning, assessment and research – to a great extent quality in these areas depends on the quality of the services delivered, and infrastructure provided, to faculties. More than ever, issues such as access to electronic delivery services, prompt and accurate processing of administrative and human services, appropriate infrastructure development, good communication and information systems, can influence the quality of the university experience for both staff and students. With changes such as the increasing diversity within the student population, multiple methods of accessing higher education, and rapidly changing learning technologies, quality and accountability of support services become even more important..

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