Abstract
When implementing a new QA system in 2014, NVAO conceived the Appreciative Approach as the underpinning philosophy of its new QA methodology. Previous QA methodologies were primarily compliance-led, always starting from normative standards. The Appreciative Approach has shifted the focus from the standards towards the context of the assessment. It takes this context as the starting point and in this context works towards standards.
Abstract
Many higher education institutions are revising, and in some cases reforming, their undergraduate curricula with an objective of providing a higher quality education experience to students.
Abstract
Over the last decades higher education in Sweden has been subject to a number of different national QA systems. Now and then, they have been met with criticism. In 2012, the Swedish Association of Higher Education (SUHF) decided to take a constructive and long term position on the issue. The position proved to be successful, and now a new national system is being launched.
Abstract
At the University of Graz (Uni Graz) one of the key quality management procedures in terms of research is peer-evaluation. After the first two cycles of evaluation, with different perceptions within the university, Uni Graz is currently conducting the third cycle with a considerably revised procedure and new aims as well. By the example of the faculty of theology the major changes and effects will be outlined.
Abstract
In 2015, a teaching portfolio pilot project was conducted at the University of Graz. This paper aims at sharing insights and lessons learned from that project and also points at encountered challenges.
Abstract
Core academic principles and purposes of higher education can be expressed in such terms as students’ personal development or academic identity. These are important in the Bologna process, for example in relation to life-long learning. At the same time, policies about learning outcomes regulate much of the teachers’ everyday practice. The paper analyse the extent to which this combination of perspectives can be a quality hazard, and it is argued that two particular areas can be problematic.
Abstract
There is an increase in number of overlapping student satisfaction surveys in the higher education sector. Here we present results from a national and an institutional survey. The national survey for higher education in Norway started in 2013 and has been conducted for 3 years. The institutional level, represented by Hedmark University of Applied Sciences in SE Norway, has had its own student satisfaction survey for 10 years. We show that the results from the surveys are similar, stable over time and that a further increase in number of questions seldom improve our understanding of student satisfaction.
Abstract
The extensive establishment and development of external quality assurance agencies all over the world has created a new profession so-called the external quality assurance profession.
Abstract
Internal quality assurance systems are expected to improve the institutions’ core mission of teaching and learning. Resorting to data gathered through an online survey, distributed in 2014/2015, to the teaching staff of all Portuguese private and public higher education institutions, this paper examines the impact of internal quality assurance systems on teaching and learning from the perspective of academics.
Abstract
In recent years the tone of voice in higher education policy in the Netherlands has changed from advocating tight control and accountability to giving more room to the ‘soft’ side of quality. In trying to address this change, the management of a department at Leiden University of Applied Sciences decided to find out what academic staff and students think about quality in education and how this can contribute to a shared vision on teaching. A study conducted to that end revealed that (still existing) governmental frameworks for quality control do not fit the ideas that staff and students hold on what should be central to teaching and education.