Teaching standards
The most obviously handy figure is the assessment of the department's teaching standards. Sometimes it's expressed as a score out of 24, where 24 is most excellent and one is… well, the other end of the scale.
Official inspectors visit each university department every few years to come up with these figures, which are produced by the QAA (Quality Assessment Agency) and published on their website (www.qaa.ac.uk) as well as in various other publications. If the rub-down from the inspectors was good, universities are increasingly willing to mention it in their own prospectuses and websites. If you can't find the report from an independent source, any department with nothing to hide should be willing to tell you how they were rated.
Most universities have strengths in some areas and weaknesses in others. If you happen to hear that somewhere's scored top marks for its teaching in chemistry, don't imagine that it makes a tiddler's todger of difference to its history degrees.
The assessment process is partly subjective. So, while some departments get the tasty end of the lolly, others get the stick. In general, they're a reliable test of exactly what it says on the tin: teaching standards.
There's more to a course, however, than how well you're taught — it's just one of the bigger bangs at the fireworks party.
Last updated on: 25 April 2008