The 13th European Quality Assurance Forum focused on how institutions and quality assurance agencies can build systems that encompass a broad range of activities, including learning and teaching, research, governance and administration, and service to society.
As a tool for supporting the quality of higher education, quality assurance (QA) has in many European higher education systems focused largely on learning and teaching. However, as underlined in the introduction to the Standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the EHEA (ESG), higher education institutions should have QA policies and processes that cover other institutional activities, and in parallel, external QA is increasingly looking into these policies. This edition of EQAF will explore how institutions and QA agencies can build QA systems that encompass a broad range of activities, including learning and teaching, research, governance and administration, and service to society.
Through a mix of plenary and parallel sessions, the 2018 EQAF, entitled ‘Broadening the scope of QA’, combined presentations of current developments in QA with discussions on research, policy and practice that took place in paper sessions and workshops.
Each year EQAF provided a platform for discussion, professional development and exchange of experiences among the main stakeholders in QA. Specifically, the Forum was of interest to rectors and vice-rectors responsible for QA, QA officers in higher education institutions, students, QA agency staff and researchers working on higher education or the QA field.
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Consult the full papers, or have a look at more photos of the forum.
About WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business)
The institution that would later become today’s WU was founded over 100 years ago on 1 October 1898. Now WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business) is a modern public university committed to excellence in research and research-led teaching.
The mission WU has defined for itself goes well beyond providing a high-qualityCampus2 education for the university’s over 22,000 students. WU’s roughly 2,100 employees are working continuously to further improve teaching and research quality and campus life in all relevant areas. One of the goals WU has set itself is to achieve and maintain a place among the worlds’ leading institutions of higher education. WU is working to strengthen its global profile by offering a range of English-taught Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes and by emphasising internationalisation in its research activities. WU’s triple accreditation by EQUIS, AACSB, and AMBA – the three foremost international accreditations for business and economics universities – is a testimonial of WU’s high quality standards. WU’s excellent international reputation is reflected in its student population: roughly one in four students on campus has come to study at WU from abroad.
WU’s campus, which was officially opened in 2013, is located in Vienna’s second district and consists of six building complexes. Campus WU boasts modern auditoriums with state-of-the-art equipment, Austria’s largest business and economics library, plenty of workstations for independent study, and generously sized PC labs. The buildings on Campus WU take up a total built-up area of 35,000 m². Apart from its impressive architecture, Campus WU also boasts a range of attractive publicly accessible grounds that encourage students, staff, and visitors to explore the area and enjoy its unique atmosphere. Campus WU provides meeting places, event locations as well as open spaces – a completely new neighborhood within Vienna’s second district has emerged.
Photo ©2014 BOANET.AT
About AQ Austria
The Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation Austria (AQ Austria) is the national independent quality assurance agency for the Austrian higher education system. It was founded in 2011 by a merger of three former existing Austrian agencies.
According to its legal mandate, AQ Austria is responsible for the accreditation of higher education institutions and their programmes (private universities and universities of applied sciences), audits of the internal quality management systems (public universities and universities of applied sciences) consultancy to HEI and thematic analyses.
AQ Austria has a strong international profile and performs quality assurance activities also outside the country, notably in the German speaking countries and Southeast and Eastern Europe. Being member of ENQA and also EUA and EURASHE, the agency participates actively in international projects in order to develop quality assurance approaches further.
© Pascal Riesinger/PhotoArt
The European Students’ Union (ESU) and Österreichische Hochschülerinnen- und Hochschülerschaft (ÖH) invite all student participants of EQAF to a special session to exchange their expertise and discuss the Forum topics from the students’ perspective. Participants are requested to register separately and in advance for this free session. Further details and registration information are available here.
EQAF participants are welcome to attend this special session organised by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research and AQ Austria. Please note that places are limited. Participants are requested to register separately and in advance for this free session. Further details and registration information are available here.
A pre-forum session providing an introduction to the quality assurance framework of the European Higher Education Area. Participants are requested to registered in advance for this free session.
A pre-forum briefing for keynote speakers, parallel plenary speakers, paper and workshop presenters and chairs.
Introduction to the Forum
Caty Duykaerts, Chair, EQAF Programme Committee
Welcome from the hosts
Heinz Faßmann, Austrian Federal Minister of Education, Science and Research
Stefan Pichler, Vice-Rector for Research, Vienna University of Economics and Business
Achim Hopbach, Managing Director, AQ Austria
James Williams, Quality in Higher Education
Discussion with the chair and the audience
Practical information on the networking reception
Chaired by Michael Murphy, EUA
Heli Mattisen, Estonian Quality Agency for Higher and Vocational Education (EKKA)
Katrin Niglas, Tallinn University
Christoph Niedermann, ETH Zurich
Petra Lauk Kwasnitza, Swiss Agency of Accreditation and Quality Assurance (AAQ)
Discussion with the chair and the audience
Practical information on breakout sessions
Facilitated by Adam Gajek, ESU
Participants will have a choice of attending a workshop lasting 90 minutes or two paper sessions lasting 45 minutes each, with a 15-minute break in between to allow the participants to move around.
Workshop 1 - Exploring the supporting potential of two reflection instruments to concretise a vision and strategy on quality culture development
Workshop 2 - Quality assurance of assessments – good practice exchange
Workshop 3 - Quality and efficiency in teaching and learning: friend or foe?
Paper 1 - Internal QA policies across the full spectrum of institutional activities
Paper 2 - Bologna’s Trojan Horse? Language usage in the Netherlands as a quality issue
Paper 3 - Broadening the scope of quality assurance systems to doctoral education. The case of the University of Aveiro
Paper 4 - The ARCU-SUR System: an accreditation system for South America?
Paper 5 - Making the move from quality assurance to quality culture concrete: an example from the field of music
Paper 6 - Academic integrity
Paper 7 - Broadening the scope of QA through partnership with students
Paper 8 - Changes in the German accreditation system: a new equilibrium between universities, agencies and the German Accreditation Council
Paper 9 - Designing a framework for internal quality assurance of research in a Flemish University of Applied Sciences
Paper 10 - Building QA systems: the Engaged and Responsible Label (ERL)
Paper 11 - Case study of coordinated students’ representation in quality assurance at Vilnius University
Paper 12 - Use of sectoral qualifications frameworks in a development of study programmes
Participants will have a choice of attending one of three parallel sessions which will present various projects or initiatives in QA.
QA and strategy
Lucien Bollaert, EURASHE QA Community of Practice
Chaired by Nora Skaburskiene, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University
Quality of administration in higher education – the Swedish example
Asa Kettis, Uppsala University
Eva Oquist, SUHF Working Group on Quality in Administration
Chaired by Aleksandar Šušnjar, EQAF Programme Committee
QA of service to society
Cristina Sin, A3ES
Orlanda Tavares, A3ES
Kari Seppl, University of Turku
Chaired by Jacques Lanarès, EQAF Programme Committee
Findings from the Bologna Process Implementation Report
David Crosier, Eurydice
Chaired by Karl Dittrich, EQAR
CALOHEE: A new innovative approach towards quality assurance?
Robert Wagenaar, International Tuning Academy, University of Groningen
Chaired by Tia Loukkola, EQAF Programme Committee
QA of e-learning
Sandra Marcos, ACSUCYL
Esther Huertas AQU Catalunya
Roger Roca, AQU Catalunya
Chaired by Gohar Hovhannisyan, European Students' Union (ESU)
Participants will have a choice of attending a workshop lasting 90 minutes or two paper sessions lasting 45 minutes each, with a 15-minute break in between to allow the participants to move around.
Workshop 4 - Quality assurance processes and learning & teaching strategies: how to use the ten European principles for the enhancement of L&T in QA contexts
Workshop 5 - Bridging organisational gaps with process management – a holistic approach to QA
Paper 13 - The wisdom of students: monitoring quality via social media and student reviews
Paper 14 - Quality management of e-courses – process supporting development of digital culture in higher education – Estonian case
Paper 15 - Implementation of the first national survey to measure the experiences of postgraduate research students
Paper 16 - The Database of External Quality Assurance Results (DEQAR) – Quality at your fingertips
Paper 17 - Five-star student involvement
Paper 18 - Looking beyond standard QA: organisational development for the university administration
Paper 19 - Assuring the quality of credentials to support learning innovation
Paper 20 - Engaging diversely: how online students, postgraduates and others can (and should!) be full partners in quality
Paper 21- Mapping new territories – HEIs’ societal objectives in external quality assurance
Paper 22 - Beyond “diminishing resources” – quality enhancement and student engagement
Dirk Van Damme, OECD
Discussion with the chair and the audience
Invitation to next year’s EQAF
Wrap-up and thanks by Caty Duykaerts, Chair, EQAF Programme Committee
Chaired by Maria Kelo, ENQA
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