The following outlines the responsibilities of pool members who participate in the Institutional Evaluation Programme. Pool members agree:
- To follow the Guidelines provided by the Steering Committee and to adhere to the formative philosophy of the Programme, namely to analyse a university within its institutional and national context and constraints, to promote its capacity for change and to uphold a fitness for purpose approach.
- To identify themselves as IEP pool members: All pool members potentially serve as representatives of the Programme when they discuss it with ‘potential clients’. In this situation, pool members are invited to keep the Steering Committee chair informed of their activities through the IEP secretariat, in order to ensure conformity with the Programme’s philosophy especially when the requests for an evaluation depart from the usual format.
- To avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflict of interest: in this respect, pool members are invited to disclose to the Programme’s Steering Committee, through the IEP secretariat, all current, past or foreseeable future associations with an institution to which they have been assigned, whenever any such association may give rise to an infringement on their neutrality or impartiality, either objectively or subjectively. Such associations include, but are not limited to, current, past, or potential:
- employment, e.g., as consultant by the institution
- professional relationship with senior members of the university
- attendance as student at the institution
- recipient of an honorary degree from the institution
- an unpaid official relationship with an institution, e.g., membership on the institution’s board
Such association will not automatically bar their participation in a specific evaluation: the Steering Committee will assess each case according to its merits.
- To be committed to working as members of a team, i.e., work cooperatively, under the direction of the team chair who is responsible for making final decisions regarding the site visits and the evaluation reports and to refrain from having bilateral discussions, outside the agreed site visit programme, with any staff member of a university that is being evaluated, during all phases of the evaluation process.
- While an evaluation is ongoing, to keep confidential all matters relating to that evaluation. When the evaluation is completed, to avoid mentioning any university by name in public speaking or in writing. Pool members are invited to use their judgement in applying this confidentiality clause while promoting appropriate use of the knowledge accumulated in the programme.
- Pool members, who are engaged in their individual capacity in a consultancy following an evaluation, will do so as representative of IEP and will publish any special follow-up report under the aegis of IEP unless the Programme Steering Committee authorises acting independently. They will inform the Steering Committee Chair through the IEP Secretariat before accepting this individual assignment. The principle underlying such activities is to support institutional development while avoiding doing so for personal gain. Therefore, pool members are invited to refrain from using any information related to the evaluations as a means for monetary profit (e.g., doing consultancy or similar work for a university that they have evaluated) without notifying the IEP Secretariat.