Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) channelized all efforts and measures of the institution towards promoting a holistic development of students. It aimed at ensuring quality by working out strategies to intervene and enhance the overall experience of college.

Major Initiatives of IQAC for the Academic Year 2017-18 a) National Seminar: Teachers and Patents – Negotiating the world of Intellectual Property Rights

The Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) organized an interactive seminar entitled ‘Teachers and Patents – Negotiating the world of Intellectual Property Rights’ on December 19, 2017. The seminar aimed at bringing awareness about the power of ideas among the academia and the growing need to protect them in today’s world. The keynote session was presided over by Dr. M Kantha Babu who introduced the concepts of intellectual property rights, highlighting certain key aspects like patentability criteria and consequences of infringement.

b) Outcome Based Education
IQAC is working towards introducing Outcome-Based Education in the college’s learning scheme. Outcome-based education is an educational theory that focuses on setting academic goals and working towards achieving those goals in a systematic manner. The aim is to have each student achieve this predetermined goal by the end of the educational programme. The major benefits of this educational methodology include clarity in terms of the end goal for the students and flexibility in the forms of teaching.

A national level conference was organised followed by a three-day workshop to create awareness and exposure to the faculty members about the entire process. A committee of 10 members was formed for implementation for OBE. This committee held numerous meetings to deliberate on the implementation process. The process began with the defining of the graduate attributes in alignment with the mission and vision of the institution. Subsequently the programme objectives and the course-specific objectives have been formulated. Concurrently course objectives and course outcome of each program have been defined at the course level. Finally, the course outcomes are mapped with program outcomes and intern program outcomes are mapped with graduate attributes. Thus, OBE brings about change in curriculum design, teaching learning and assessment so as to meet the aspirations of higher education.

c) MOOCs IQAC has initiated the process of enrolment into MOOCs (massive open online course). This academic year MOOCs from Edx and Swayam were embedded in the CBCS curriculum and students were encouraged to register for the courses under the guidance of faculty members. A number of students enrolled and completed MOOCs and the certification was accepted by the Examination department for academic credits.

d) Information Processing and Dissemination
IQAC in collaboration with the Total Quality Management(TQM) Team works to collect information on various parameters such as Teaching and Learning, Research and Professional Practices, Graduation Outcome, Outreach and Perception, Student Progression in order to provide such collated data to bodies such as the NIRF and news magazines like India Today and Times of India.

e) Research Coordination
The IQAC also works tirelessly to assist the college in organizing seminars and workshops. The IQAC conceptualizes the themes for the year, suggests and finalizes resource persons and helps in inviting other colleges and universities and collaborating with them. It also helps the Research Center in publishing of research papers, and gives feedback about the seminars in order to facilitate quality enhancement in future endeavors.

f) Collaborations
IQAC works with the TQM to facilitate collaborations with academic and professional institutions by holding preliminary meetings with the representatives of colleges, universities and professional bodies and mapping the nature of collaborations. This year IQAC worked towards signing of MoUs with Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), Seattle University and Concordia University. Along with this IQAC also worked towards collaborating with Universiti Putra Malaysia for exposure programs.

g) Open House
The IQAC organized an Open House for the first-year students on 21st February, 2018 in order to give them a platform to share and express their thoughts and feelings. It allowed them to express their views, expectations and experiences with regard to the various aspects of life in college. The Open House focused on a number of topics ranging from students’ overall learning experiences within the classrooms and also life beyond it in the spheres of extra and co-curricular activities, sports and so on.

h) Open House (Women)
The IQAC also organized an Open House specifically to cater to the girl students of SJCC on 22nd February, 2018. In addition to fulfilling the purpose of the Open House as mentioned above, it focused on understanding the experiences and concerns of the girl students in particular. It provided an unbiased, stress-free environment for them to talk about their college life, challenges they face and specific complaints or concerns they have. The open house operated with the aim of using this information to bring about gender equality and providing equal opportunities for men and women.

i) Exit Interview
The IQAC conducted Exit Interviews in the first week of March, 2018 for the outgoing final-year students. The purpose of these exit interviews was to obtain feedback from the outgoing batches about their experiences over the course of three years at SJCC. It aims to better understand their experiences and their suggestions on various subjects such as relevance of course material, experiences with placements, opportunities provided, sufficiency in terms of market requirements in today’s world and so on. The IQAC desires to obtain such valuable information in order to allow for improvement in the relevant areas of learning and such and to all the institution itself to move from strength to strength.

j) Staff Evaluation
The Institution believes that staff evaluation is an important measure to assess the degree of excellence of the work performed by the faculty members. The evaluation process is conducted periodically and coordinated by IQAC. The standard evaluation criterion is based on certain important parameters like planning and preparation for class; classroom environment, and methodology of teaching among many others. The entire class participates in the assessment process. Staff Evaluations are subject to review by the Principal and the consolidated staff rating is discussed with the individual staff members by the Principal. The staff evaluation is centralized and is recorded online. The feedback facility has been introduced into the student login of the ERP systems which makes it easier for students to give their feedback on the various parameters of the Staff Performance Evaluation system.

K) NAAC Preparation:
St. Joseph’s College of Commerce was for the first time accredited by NAAC in February, 2000 with a 5-star grade for a period of five years. Since then the college has been accredited in three cycles. In January, 2018, the fourth cycle was due and all preparations for submission of SSR were completed 6 months prior to the deadline to apply for the accreditation. However, with the release of the new guidelines of NAAC the college’s third accreditation has been extended from five years to seven years due to continuous high grades in the previous accreditation cycles.