Making the benchmarks explicit through programme specification

Abstract

The article introduces the concept of benchmarking as a referencing process to support self‐regulation of quality and outcome standards in higher education programmes. It examines the potential for exploiting the product of programme specification to explain which institutional and external reference points or benchmarks have been used to inform the design of programmes. It provides practitioner commentary on the process of benchmarking based on the worked examples provided in the Quality Assurance Agency guidelines for preparing programme specifications and offers an emergent practice model. It concludes by identifying key development issues that will need to be addressed.