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Butlletí

A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya

97

April 2020

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EDITORIAL

University... From home

The pandemic that we are all facing is having an impact on all types of activity, and higher education and the universities are no exception. One thing that is different however is the challenge facing higher education institutions to ensure that all students achieve the same learning outcomes that they would have done in a normal situation. This is easier said than done if not impossible, unless one gets to it and does something about it.

In Catalonia the eleven brick-and mortar campus-based universities, together with the Open University of Catalonia/UOC, are prepared, ready and able to work from home. Both teaching staff and support staff (administration and services) members have, in general, the technology to do their jobs away from the workplace. But what effect will working from home (teleworking) have on teaching, which is what most concerns the more than 200,000 students at higher education institutions in Catalonia?

One first needs to differentiate between what can be put across and transmitted in a standard classroom and what other things need to be undertaken and set in place in other types of learning environment. One might assume that everything that can be learned in a classroom-based situation can be implemented via video link, aside from the need for the appropriate technology and additional effort on the part of teaching staff and students.


AQU NEWS

ARTICLES

  • The measurement of satisfaction, an essential tool in AQU's Teaching Staff and Research quality assurance procedures
    AQU Catalunya's quality management system is certified to the international ISO 9001:2015 standard. As a consequence of this, and to ensure and guarantee a robust internal quality system, AQU Catalunya annually measures the satisfaction of all stakeholders in its activities.

    The aim of this article is to describe the various mechanisms available to the section in AQU whose area of work is Teaching Staff and Research to gauge user satisfaction with the public service that it provides. More specifically, this refers to the assessment and accreditation of candidates to contract teaching staff positions at public universities in Catalonia who require a favourable preliminary report, in the category of tenure-eligible lecturers, and an accreditation of either research or advanced research for senior lecturers and professors, respectively.

    The sources for measuring satisfaction are as follows:

    The compilation of complaints, acknowledgments, inquiries and suggestions made through the website mailbox and the Agency's teaching staff-related mailbox (professorat@aqu.cat). All complaints are dealt with as non-conformities whereas suggestions are appraised for inclusion, wherever possible, as enhancement proposals. Of note is the number of e.mails ( a total of 5,839) to professorat@aqu.cat that were replied to in 2019. Following an analysis of the volume and categories of all of the inquiries, actions were introduced to restructure, clarify and make information more accessible.
    Núria Márquez - Technician and coordinator in teaching staff assessment
  • AQU Catalunya accedes to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)
    AQU Catalunya is now one of the 1,940 organisations that have signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). AQU Catalunya assesses the research output of academic staff for two main reasons:

    Ex-ante assessment to establish eligibility for contract staff selection procedures at institutions in the system of higher education in Catalonia, as a prerequisite that demonstrates that an individual has a certain level of research ability. Once accreditation has been obtained, candidates then apply to selection and recruitment procedures that are the responsibility of higher education institutions, which endorse calls for applications, set the requirements in terms of requisite experience, specialisation and capabilities, and select the individuals who best fit the profiles of available posts.

    Assessment and accreditation of merits in research (periods of six-years), in connection with productivity-based remuneration for public service and contract teaching and research staff, which accredits an individual's research during a given six-year period, under the terms provided for by law. In the case of the public universities, it is the institution's Social Council (Consell Social) that, at the proposal of the Governing Board, allocates the corresponding remuneration.
 

OPINION

  • Teaching staff assessment in higher education

    Montserrat Llagostera
    professor of Microbiology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona/UAB

    AQU Catalunya's Research Assessment Committee (CAR) is responsible for the assessment and granting of accreditation for various categories of university teaching staff, as well as the recognition of merits in research. The Agency annually publishes the criteria for the various different assessment and accreditation procedures. All of this, together with the framework of well-defined review procedures, serves as the context for the work of the members of the Research Assessment Committee's various specific committees.

    With regard to the committee that deals specifically with Life Sciences, each application is assessed by two people from the same or a closely related subject area. This is followed by a consensual face-to-face assessment of each application by the Research Assessment Committee, taking into account the two aforementioned assessments. I would here underline that the reviewers' opinions regarding assessment are given totally independently, the criteria are responsibly and rigorously applied, with both the applicant's background and the finer details stemming from the actual assessment being taken into account. These same values govern the meetings of the Research Assessment Committee that, during the time I have been a member, has made all of its decisions on the basis of consensus, which at times has led to very intense in-depth discussions.

 

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