The Power of International Networks
How International Cooperation Enabled the Austrian Students’ Union (ÖH) to Establish a QA Students Experts’ Pool
Abstract
In 2011 a new era of external quality assurance in Austria began. The process of further development of the quality assurance (QA) system showed the necessity of a deeper debate within the Austrian Students’ Union (ÖH) too. In a short period of time, ÖH gained knowledge on QA, created a QA policy and established a students experts’ pool. This paper gives an overview of the developments to enhance students’ involvement especially in external quality assurance by ÖH since 2011.
The major focus will be set on the obstacles ÖH was faced with and the process of overcoming them. It will be shown that this was only possible because of strong international cooperations and networks which provided their knowledge. A special emphasis will be set on the issues especially student organizations are confronted with when it comes to knowledge acquisition and the implementation of new structures of knowledge transfer.
This paper was presented at EQAF and reflects the views of the named authors only.
