Notions of quality in higher education are increasingly incorporating diverse perspectives from industry and professional accreditation bodies (e.g. Pillay, 2009; Smith et al., 2008). This shift signifies a relaxing of the control of the academy on who gets to define quality at universities and a growing recognition of the need to make higher education’s value to society more explicit. However, the voices of external stakeholders are not the only new perspectives that are necessary to enhance quality and ensure universities are future-ready. Students can, and should, be included in discussions of how to define, assess and improve quality assurance in higher education (Coates, 2005; Seale, 2009).
A whole-of-institution approach to the inclusion of students throughout formal and informal university decision-making processes (e.g. governance committees, working groups, advisory boards, etc.) will be presented. We situate our work within the TEQSA guidelines and the need to support student voices and developing ideas around social equity and student rights’ in higher education (Dollinger & Mercer-Mapstone, forthcoming; Svensson & Wood, 2007; TEQSA, 2017). Additionally, we will offer reflection on the question of students’ ability to judge quality. Previous work has highlighted the benefit of gaining the student perspective on teaching or assessment feedback quality (Ferguson, 2011; Marsh, 2007), however, there is less research concerning students’ ability to judge quality outside of teaching and learning contexts. To ground this discussion therefore we will draw on literature that has consistently shown the benefits of collaborating with novice users for organisations (e.g. Kujala, 2003; Sanders, 2002). We will thus provide a rationale to support student partnership in university governance and decision-making and present a framework that introduces the dimensions (e.g. student services, course advisory boards) and methods (e.g. in-person representation, crowdsourcing) for student partnership in university governance.