A bimonthly publication of AQU Catalunya

37

July 2008

During the ENQA Seminar on Internal Quality Assurance Systems in Barcelona, four workshops were organised on Standard 2.6.8 of the European Standard and Guidelines of ENQA: Accountability procedures for external quality assurance agencies.

Standard 2.6.8 stipulates "Agencies should have in place procedures for their own accountability". To every standard, several guidelines are added to define the standard itself. One of these guidelines for standard 2.6.8 was the topic of this workshop, namely: the agency's processes and results reflect its quality assurance mission and goals.

Representatives from the following external quality assurance agencies participated in the workshop: ANECA, AQUIB, AQU Catalunya (all from Spain),  ASIIN (Germany), NAHE (Sweden), NAA (Russia), HEQEC (Latvia), ECCE (UK), NCHE (Malta), ASHE (Croatia), YODAK (Cyprus), EUA (Belgium), CTI (France), CQAHE (Lithuania), NOKUT (Norway), EVA (Denmark) and NVAO (the Netherlands and Flanders).

Workshop programme

The participants were divided into small groups of three or four people from different agencies. In the groups, answers were given to the following questions, elaborating on the guideline mentioned above:

1. Does your agency have a mission and/or goals or similar?
2. What are the ambitions of your agency? Does it strive for baseline quality, quality enhancement or does it have a different focus?
3. How often are the ambitions renewed? What can be considered a good frequency?
4. Does the agency take accreditation decisions or, if not, will it do so in the near future?
5. What kinds of documents can be used to define the mission and goals?
6. Should these documents address all the elements of the mission and goals in order to adhere to this guideline?
7. Are assessments necessary or do procedure descriptions suffice?
8. What kinds of documents demonstrate the process and the results?
9. What conclusion can you draw from answering these questions?

Workshop process

The answers to these questions were mostly given as a result of a group discussion. Accordingly, answers are not available for every agency separately. Even so, an overall impression can be gained as to the performance of the agencies in these areas.

All agencies set out a mission statement and/or goals. For some agencies they are determined by law and sometimes by the agencies themselves.

All agencies aim to make decisions on baseline quality and for virtually all the agencies quality enhancement constitutes an important goal. A group of agencies focus on a mixture of baseline quality and quality enhancement, mostly depending on their profile or their mandate given by government.

The renewal rate for goals is once a year for some agencies, though for other agencies it is every three or four years. Renewal of the mission generally follows a longer cycle.

Most agencies are authorised to make accreditation decisions, while others merely prepare a decision that is ultimately made by the government.

All agencies have documents in place to lay out their mission and/or goals. These documents can be statutorily focussed or indeed authorised by the board of the agency itself. All agencies use mission, policy or strategy statements. Consistency in these documents is highly important when it comes to building trust among stakeholders.

Regular assessment and renewal of the documents is necessary to envisage ongoing developments and new challenges for the agencies.

Results and conclusions

A definition of the mission and goals can vary among agencies. Sometimes the mission and goals are determined by law and, therefore, they can be considered long-term goals; sometimes they are defined by the agencies themselves and are subject to change every year.

All the agencies aim to make decisions on baseline quality; some do so at the planning level and others at the institutional level. Most agencies strive for the quality enhancement of programmes and/or institutions.

Documents that demonstrate the mission and the goals are generally mission, policy or strategy statements. Documents that define the processes and results are usually prepared in the form of guidelines for processes, manuals, annual reports and agreements on results.

A firm conclusion drawn from the workshop is that it is important to focus on the issue of whether all the documents are consistent across the board. Consistency should be monitored by the management teams of the quality agency. In addition, agencies find it very helpful if an ENQA committee visits the agency every five years to address the quality assurance mission and goals in relation to the processes and results.