Embedding a Quality Culture in Institutions

Autor(en)

Jacques Lanarès, Jürgen Kohler, Harald Scheuthle, Emidia Vagnoni, Enrico Periti, Valeria Ruggiero, Claus Nygaard, Bente Kristensen, Elke Timmermans, Frank Baert

Preis

19,99 € (111 Seiten, PDF)

Inhalt

• Developing a Quality Culture

  Jacques Lanarès

  Developing institutional quality culture is an extremely important issue, if the internal quality systems as required by Ministers are actually supposed to serve the individual and collective development of the European higher education area. The concept of quality culture is usually welcomed by HEIs, but the real meaning of the concept and the way to reach its associated goals are not as straightforward. This article hopes to contribute to the clarification of this concept and to provide some possible paths for its development. It is based on the premise that an internal quality culture must be aligned with an institution’s own context, values and strategies. Making these more explicit will strongly increase the coherence and strength of an institution’s internal quality system.

• Implementing Bologna Reforms

  An Action Plan Model

  Jürgen Kohler, Harald Scheuthle

  The article, which summarizes the collective findings of one of the EUA ‘Quality Culture’ projects, presents a practice-oriented model for implementing new Bologna study programmes. This model describes the implementation process in four distinct phases and explains in a holistic perspective the reform process, leading from strategic planning to internal evaluation. After the definition and discussion of quality as a basic principle guiding the implementation of Bologna reforms, the article presents the implementation model and discusses the roles of concepts, actors and institutions, processes and environmental factors on the basis of experiences gained and gathered in different contexts of various European universities.

• Quality of Educational Programmes

  Organisational Changes and Institutional Challenges at the University of Ferrara

  Emidia Vagnoni, Enrico Periti, Valeria Ruggiero

  Since 1999, the University of Ferrara, Italy has been engaged in implementing changes to improve the quality of its educational programmes and compete in the national and international environment. As part of this, a number of managerial tools have been implemented during the last decade. A special “quality project” has been launched, aimed at increasing the quality of education, improving transparency towards internal and external stakeholders, and defining the right context for quality accreditation of the university’s programmes. A quality assessment group (QAG) has been established for each educational programme, to monitor the level of quality according to defined parameters and a special evaluation model. A data warehouse has been implemented to collect the required data for assessments. The introduction of education programme managers and the definition of their competences, responsibilities and reporting structures, all represented change in redefining the education process. This experience has led the entire university to switch from the managerial functional model to the process model, to identify both quality and efficiency at all levels. Furthermore, it has allowed the transition from the self-referential organisational culture, to one based on the deep consciousness of the central role of students.

• Quality Work at Copenhagen Business School – How to Create a University Quality Culture

  Claus Nygaard, Bente Kristensen

  Copenhagen Business School (CBS) demonstrates its capacity for change through the development as a learning university. The term originates from the combination of the classic notion of the university as a forum for learning and knowledge and the modern concept of ‘the learning organisation’ and is today one of the strategic priorities of CBS. CBS began its long journey of development as a learning university with continuous quality improvement and the creation of a quality culture in the mid1990s. In the early 1990s one might characterise CBS as a teacher-led, didactic institution in which students had very high numbers of lectures a week with little in the way of interactive sessions; student-centred learning was not significant part of the learning process. The institution was also scattered around the city, in buildings many of which were not originally designed as learning environments and there was no noticeable student learning community. Over the last 15 years this has completely changed, yet there is no intention for the university to consider the ‘job done’. Continuous quality improvement adopting e.g. to the requirements of the Bologna Declaration about setting up learning outcomes for all study programmes strengthening the transparency and the employability of the graduates of CBS is still at the core of the quality work of the study boards at CBS. CBS has learned and continues to learn from experience both internally and externally. The challenge with being a learning university is that it is a status that has constantly to be earned.

• Developing Structures to Support a Culture of Quality

  Frank Baert, Elke Timmermans

  In 2002, EUA embarked on a four-year project, which involved 134 higher education institutions grouped in 18 networks. The major aim of the project was to identify how internal quality culture can be developed and embedded in institutions. The network which looked at partnerships considered these to be valuable structures to support a culture quality which could, at the same time, enhance the national or international appeal of an institution. This paper gives practical advice on setting up partnerships of all types, ranging from other higher education institutions or partners from regional industry, national and international partnerships through to cooperation within the framework of European programmes or informal cooperation in the field of research.