"The road to meaningful standards and criteria in HE institutions", the Agency's contribution to the EQAF 2021 debate session
The Agency took part today in the European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF) Starter Discussion, sharing the first results of the SMARTQUAL (ERASMUS+) project, which seeks to build a set of indicators that meet the following conditions:
- A comprehensive harmonised framework of quality indicators that enable comparison of similar higher education institutions.
- Indicators that contribute useful information to respond to the different criteria applied in external assessments.
- Indicators that contribute value-added information for the various decision levels.
Esther Adot, project manager of AQU Catalunya, presented the results of this project, as part of a presentation entitled "The road to meaningful standards and criteria in higher education institutions" while Sonja Mikeska, of Münster University of Applied Sciences, presented “Agility and Trust in Quality Management at HEIs".
Esther outlined the work done as part of the SMARTQUAL project: through the analysis of both externally assessed IQAS and articles, technical reports and other specialist documents on quality management in higher education institutions, 500 indicators were collected, of which 27 were selected, applying the following criteria, collected under the acronym 'SMART’:
- Short: focused on effectiveness and efficiency and avoiding oversizing.
- Meaningful: respond to the needs of different stakeholders.
- Appropriate: aligned with quality standards.
- Reunified: a harmonised set and includes good practices implemented.
- Transversal: it can be used for different countries, contexts and types of higher education institution.
The road to meaningful standards and criteria in higher education institutions