Stage 2: Drafting of the report
The drafting of the Student Report must progress in parallel with that of the centre's self-assessment report. With a view to assisting the drafting of the report, the guidelines document and the report templates suggest the following structure, which is organised according to specific quality dimensions:
- Management and organisation of the degree (degree programme accreditation) or training policy of the centre (institutional accreditation).
- Teaching, learning and assessment.
- Compulsory external work placements.
- Bachelor's final thesis / Master's final thesis (TFG/TFM).
- Learning support resources and services.
- Academic environment and participation.
For these sections to be meaningful, the students drafting the report must have sufficient data and also be aware of the opinion of the collective. As such, two types of necessary information are distinguished: On the one hand, contextual information and data, and student body satisfaction on the other.
Contextual information and data should help students writing the report to analyse the degree programmes or the centre that is being accredited. This includes information (especially quantitative) on aspects such as access, teaching staff, academic performance, drop-out rates or job placement. This information is generated by the internal quality assurance system of the university or centre, and is largely publicly available. In addition to the universities' internal sources, external data sources can be used, such as the EUC Estudis portal. You can also take into account all that information (in this case, qualitative) derived from previous assessment processes that the degree or centre has passed and that has been published on the EUC Informes portal from AQU Catalunya.
As for the collective satisfaction, beyond the institutional mechanisms established for the collection of satisfaction on the learning process (which must also be subject to analysis), the people responsible for coordinating and drafting the report can collect ad hoc information, all applying appropriate and relevant methodologies according to each case. This purposefully collected information gives added value to the Student Report. Among the proposed methodologies are the most commonly used qualitative data collection techniques, such as group dynamics or individual interviews. It is also possible to design and carry out a survey to find out satisfaction about some specific aspect, especially in the case of large groups.
However, efforts should be made to ensure that the opinions collected are as representative as possible, and the source of the data or the origin of the opinions must be explained (information collection technique used and general characteristics of the participants, without individual identification). The External Assessment Committee cannot consider any comment or assessment whose origin or evidence that supports it cannot be clearly identified.