43

July 2009

  • Send
  • Subscribe

ARTICLES

Ten years of the Butlletí

Gemma Rauret Dalmau - Director of National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA)

First of all, I offer my sincere congratulations to AQU, and especially to the editors of the Butlletí, for their perseverence and enthusiasm over ten years, and above all I'd like to congratulate them on the quality of the publication. Ten years is a considerable period of time in the world of university quality assurance, especially when only a few pioneering countries in Europe have been involved in this field for all this time. A look at the Butlletí's development offers us an overview of the various stages in quality assurance in Catalan universities.

The Butlletí was started more or less when the Agency was first set up. We began to have a more or less defined idea of what we wanted AQU to be in the future, and the team of us working there prepared the first activities plan in 1999. In order to get the necessary funding, I submitted the proposal to the then Commissioner for Universities and Research, Joan Albaigés. I enthusiastically explained to him our intention of publishing a quarterly review to inform university students what was going on in the world of quality assurance in higher education, especially in Europe, and what AQU and the universities themselves were doing to guarantee the quality of degree programmes. He liked the idea and confessed that being the editor of a scientific journal was one of the few permitted indulgences allowed to one with political responsibilities. All the same, he gave me a good piece of advice: don't start to publish a review unless you are sure about its continuity. I don't know why but there and then I assured him that I was sure. It turns out that for once I wasn't mistaken, and in the summer of 1999 the first Butlletí came out. The second issue contained a transcription of the joint declaration by the European ministers signed in Bologna on 19 June, a declaration which was to change the development of the university over these last ten years.

The Butlletí has published the opinions of ministers, commissioners, director generals, rectors, deans, professors, experts in quality assurance and academic staff, amongst others. There are very few publications with the scope of ideas and thinking that have appeared in the Butlletí on quality, review and evaluation, and university autonomy over a period of ten years in Catalonia, together with the activities carried out by the Agency and the universities during this period, especially reviews, enhancement processes and studies on graduate employment and labour market outcomes. And it hasn't just covered the more immediate things as emphasis has also been put on issues at the forefront in the field. For example, it was already referring to the evaluation of student learning outcomes in 2001, which is one of the leading issues today.

The Butlletí has always had a markedly European character and has covered the different trends and directions of quality assurance and asessment in Europe. In 2002, it was already referring to the Dublin descriptors, which we use today in the design of new Bachelor and Master's degrees, and it also covered the first evaluations of joint degrees between universities in different countries. Almost every issue has included an article encompassing opinion at the international level.

The history of AQU and quality asurance in university education can be followed through changes in the Butlletí's format. The initial format coincided with the time when the Agency was still a consortium with the universities, and the first change was made in 2003 when the first Universities Act (the LUC) was passed in Catalonia, which led to a change in the Agency's mission and vision. Issue number 16 of the Butlletí had already been released by then and publication was once every two months. The new stage was apparent in the Butlletí's new image, which coincided with a time of maturity for the Agency. Just a mention is made here of the fact that, around about that time, AQU hosted a seminar in Sitges which was fundamental for the future of quality assurance agencies in higher education in Europe. The conclusions reached at the meeting were the germ of the external review of QA agencies, as well as the European Register. The Butlletí, of course, covered the meeting. Another very important change to the Butlletí's format was made in May 2008, when it was updated with new software and a new approach in which, in addition to articles and recommended reading, news was added, with greater ease-of-use and it was brought more up-to-date in general.

Ten years have gone by and the number of readers has increased considerably. I believe that the reason for the AQU Butlletí's success and continuity is the fact that it is a publication open to everybody with something to say from all different points of view, where one can find excellent recommendations on leading articles, and which has continued to adapt to the times while maintaining the spirit that led to its initial creation. In short, it is a publication that has known how to keep its readers interested, and it now celebrates its tenth anniversary with a bright future ahead of it. I wish it the very best for the future!

ENQA EQAR ISO

Generalitat de Catalunya

Via Laietana, 28, 5a planta 08003 Barcelona. Spain. Tel.: +34 93 268 89 50

© 2008 AQU Catalunya - Legal number B-21.910-2008