Understanding Quality in Higher Education 2

Autor(en)

Colin Tück, Airi Rovio-Johansson, Tove Bull, Jeroen Huisman, Gianfranco Rebora, Matteo Turri, Nik Heerens, Angela Short

Preis

15,99 € (117 Seiten, PDF)

Inhalt

• European Quality Assurance Register: Enhancing Trust through Greater Transparency

  Colin Tück

  In order to increase transparency of quality assurance and enhance confidence in higher education, the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) was founded in 2008, following intense debates in the Bologna process. This article provides a brief outline of the historical background leading to the establishment of EQAR and describes the key features of the new association that has been established by the E4 Group (ENQA, EUA, EURASHE and ESU) to operate the register. It explains how the inclusion of quality assurance agencies on the register works and concludes with a brief outline of some future challenges in EQAR’s work.

• Roles and Interactions of Different Players in Quality Assurance

  Airi Rovio-Johansson, Tove Bull

  This article looks at the rapid transformation of universities over the last decades and how various stakeholders position themselves on the higher education knowledge market. Following a brief historical background to the new economic conditions of the universities which have transformed their roles in society, the role of the Bologna reform process as an agent for change is discussed. Public and regional responsibility for higher education in a global knowledge-based market remains crucial. The article links these wider perspectives to the question of quality assurance, elaborating on institutional autonomy and the role of the students, stakeholders and agencies in this process.

• The Effects of Quality Assurance in Universities

  Empirical Evidence From Three Case Studies

  Jeroen Huisman, Gianfranco Rebora, Matteo Turri

  This article focuses on the impact of evaluation in the university, with particular attention paid to institutional and organisational levels. The impact of evaluation is divided into three areas: organisational learning, resources and power management. Using three European universities as case studies, the impact of evaluation is recorded empirically. The important role of quality culture and organisational structures on determining the impact of evaluation is also investigated. The analysis highlights certain fundamental factors in understanding the effects of evaluation. These include the importance of peer review, the differences between teaching and research evaluations, the significance of the time factor and the risk of degeneration of the evaluation process.

• Student Participation in Higher Education – the Story of Scotland and sparqs

  Nik Heerens

  This paper provides an overview of student engagement within the Scottish higher education sector, as well as of the role of the sparqs development service, which is to assist students’ associations and higher education institutions to develop their capacity for full and effective student participation in institutional governance and quality assurance. The article will outline the background, main characteristics and activities of sparqs and will discuss good practice, key challenges and thoughts on the way forward. The Scottish experience may be considered to be an example of good practice in supporting and stimulating effective student engagement, a model which could serve as an inspiration for other higher education systems.

• Bureaucracy: The Enemy of a Quality Culture

  Angela Short

  This article contends that the bureaucratic structure commonly found in higher education institutions, favoured for its ability to manage complex work in large organisations, is unsuited to embedding a quality culture. The author argues that this organisational form, characterised by job specialisation and rigid lines of demarcation, promotes individual as opposed to collective efforts and as such is incapable of supporting a quality culture, which for the purposes of this paper, is understood to be a culture capable of meeting the needs of all stakeholders. The author suggests methods of organisational redesign that can result in the required paradigm shift. These will be discussed under four main headings: structure, culture, leadership and staff development.