The new EUC has two parts or interfaces: one that is public and aimed at society in general and, in particular, prospective students, and a private part that facilitates quality assurance procedures for both management in higher education institutions involved in producing self-evaluation reports and experts cooperating with AQU in external QA procedures.
The history of AQU's web portals (see Figure 1) is closely linked to two basic QA principles: the need to arrive at evidence-based evaluative judgments (Winddat, EUC Dades), and the transparency of quality assurance procedures (EUC Informes, EUC Estudis).
Figure 1. AQU's various web portals up until now
2012
WINDDAT, a tool for monitoring recognised degree programmes
Web portal that provides the necessary indicators for quality assurance and the accountability of study programme delivery.
2016
EUC Informes
Web portal that complies with the ESG standard for reporting (standard 2.5, ESG 2005).
2016
EUC Estudis
Search engine for use by society in general, developed in response to a recommendation following the 2014 ENQA external review: “AQU should consider how to take reports as comprehensible as possible to non-experts”.
2017
EUC Dades
Portal that integrates the survey databases and which replaced the Excel system of reporting used for the graduate employment outcomes and satisfaction surveys.
Who is the EUC web portal aimed at?
The public interface of the EUC portal is for use by society in general and, more specifically, prospective students. The search engine helps people to intuitively find information on quality assurance outcomes (for example, programme accreditation on a level of excellence, outcomes relating to the different standards, etc.), along with the basic data on each degree programme (name, credit distribution, mode of delivery, etc.) and figures on programme delivery and outcomes:
- employment outcomes (employment status, education-job skills match, etc.),
- admission and registration figures: trends in the admission index, full-time students, etc.
- academic results and teaching staff: % of students obtaining their degree within the expected period of time, courses and credits taught by post-doctoral teaching staff, drop-outs, etc.
The private interface is for use by people in charge of QA procedures and is organised according to the review and evaluation procedures followed at AQU and access to the corresponding quality labels. It is divided into three sections:
- Degree programmes, according to the accreditation procedures for bachelors, masters and doctoral/PhD programmes (the latter will be available in the near future)
- Faculties and schools, according to institutional review procedures
- Quality labels and certificates
What is new about the EUC portal?
- It combines information from ROC, UNEIX, the survey studies coordinated by AQU Catalunya and, coming shortly, all quality assurance procedures
- Improved graphics through the use of business intelligence (BI) technology
- The private interface, which is for producing self-evaluation reports from time series data. Indicators are grouped according to the review standards: programme overview, teaching staff, outcomes, etc.
- The private interface also includes a report for comparison with the same programme at other institutions
The future of the new EUC web portal
The new EUC portal has been created with the idea of continuous on-going growth. Developments envisaged in the near future include:
- Inclusion of the data from the student satisfaction survey
- The possibility of comparing two study programmes (degree courses) on the public interface
- The consultation of KPI reports (traffic light dashboards) on the private interface
- Interactive graphics according to gender, nationality, age, social class, etc.