Francisco Marcellán Barcelona, September 9th 2004

Agencia Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad y Acreditación

Methods and approaches for a management and evaluation of

research at the Higher Education Institutions

Francisco MarcellánBarcelona, September 9th 2004

23rd Conference of Rectors and Presidents of European Technology


INDEX

• Quality in Higher Education (HE).• Objectives.• Strategic Actions.• Quality Assurance within HE Institutions.• Reliability and Transparency of Quality

Assurance.• Quality Assurance and the Involvement of

Researchers.• Constraints and difficulties.• The meaning of assessment.• Indicators.• Conclusions.


QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

“Quality in Higher Education is a description of the effectiveness of

everything that is done to ensure that diligent students can derive maximum

benefit from the educational opportunities available to them and also fulfill the requirements for the award for

which they are working”.

ENQA. Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area.


Quality in Higher Education

The analysis of Research has been made in adopting a broad concept: a knowledge

society needs “researching” in all sorts of areas and at all sort of levels. Research is an extensive activity spanning the range of human experience. It can be placed in daily life activities. It is closed

related to concepts such as expertise and design.


OBJECTIVES

Long term public policies in the field of Higher Education and Research (HE/R) should therefore meet two related objectives:

– Strengthening the HE/R system itself, and specially the efficiency of the joint production process of HE and R services.

– Enhancing the relation of the HE/R system with its environment, and specially with those forces involved in knowledge society.


Objectives

Some consequences derived from these objectives can be observe:

– Redesigning key components of the HE/R production system.

– Overcoming internal barriers (for example, the boundaries between disciplines) that inhibit further progress towards a knowledge society.

– Enhancing the relationship between HE/R and for profit and non-profit organizations.

– Embedding HE/R in the social framework.– Reinforcing the role of HE/R in public

policies.


STRATEGIC ACTIONS

• Promoting core competencies.• Promoting life-long learning and continuing

training.• Integrating HE/R in regional and local

development.• Building bridges with other social systems.• Developing integrative research programs.• Improving the initial training of researchers.• Increasing research in HE concerning both

contents and tools.


Fundamental Assumptions concerning the Value, Purpose and Nature of

Quality Assurance in HE

• The belief that providers of HE have the primary responsibility for quality.

• The need for protecting the interests of society in the quality of HE.

• The need to develop, maintain and improve high quality academic programmes for students and other beneficiaries of HE.

• The need for building both efficient and effective organizational structures within which those academic programmes can be provided and supported.


Fundamental Assumptions concerning the Value, Purpose and Nature of

Quality Assurance in HE

• The desirability of developing processes focusing on the accountability results of HE Institutions thought the effective discharge of their responsibilities for internal quality assurance.

• The importance of establishing transparency and externality in quality assurance processes.

• The avoidance of over-regulation.


QUALITY ASSURANCE WITHIN HE INSTITUTIONS

• The educational function of HE institutions is focused on design, delivery and review of academic programmes, and on the resources and other activities which support them.

• The more closer to teaching and learning environment the more effective results. A clear sense of ownership by those most closely involved.

• Focus on the assessment of students to ensure that this is equitable, transparent, valid, reliable, consistent, and clearly linked to the declared learning outcomes of the relevant award.

• Apply to the ways in which academic programmes, and the students who are studying on them, are supported by learning resources and other relevant facilities and services.


RELIABILITY AND TRANSPARENCE OF QUALITY ASSURANCE

• Quality assurance systems promote and assist continuous improvements within HE institutions and the academic programmes which they offer. The principle of continuous improvement should also be applied to the quality assurance systems themselves.

• Internal systems and arrangements for quality assurance operate most effectively when they are reliable and transparent, and where there are means to ensure that they have been appropriately applied and consistently followed.

• External involvement in quality assurance processes assists transparency and, allows a sense of added confidence in such processes, when providing an independent perspective.

• Internal quality assurance systems are effective when they are based on accurate self-knowledge, and where all relevant individuals and groups make appropriate contributions to the processes involved.


QUALITY ASSURANCE AND THE INVOLVEMENT OF RESEARCHERS

• HE Institutions should produce clear and public information about the research programmes, the dissemination of results, and impact of them.

• Effective quality assurance systems include a clear role for researchers in the review and evaluation process of the research programmes, as well as the commitment to accept the suggestions of the external reviewers.


CONSTRAINTS AND DIFFICULTIES

• Lack of explicitly formulated objectives.• Lack of a culture of self-

assessment. • Role played by the evaluators.• Integration of this process in the

strategic policy of the HE Institutions (valuation in quality and prospective).


Constraints and Difficulties

• Lack experience in quality processes.• Individualism and absence of collective

thinking.• Scepticism in the consequences of the

evaluation process.• The allocation of human and economic

resources in research parameters.• The search of references for

comparison.• The absence of items and criteria to

describe (Rankings).


THE MEANING OF ASSESSMENT

• Dynamic description of the system.• Key element in the decision

making from part of the responsible for the HE Institutions.

• Information for the society.• Element of reflection for the

researchers.


INDICATORS

1. Scientific recognition. 2. Financing and resources.3. Research training and mobility.

• Ph. D. results.• Mobility of researchers towards others HE

Institutions. • Mobility of professors from HE Institutions

towards other centres.4. Dissemination of results.

• Results in scientific production.• Results in transfer of technology.


CONCLUSIONS

• To consolidate the postgraduate programs on the basis of its interuniversity nature (national and/or international). Quality label.

• Training oriented towards non- exclusively academic activities.

• Indicators to be adjusted horizontally in agreement with the different university cultures.

• Broader diffusion of research activities.


Conclusions

• Promotion of the enterprising culture between students and professors.

• Role to be played by research as strategical axis of the HE Institutions (recruiting of human and economic resources for assuring university autonomy).

• Consolidation and stability in research trends and teams.

• Support to the management tasks by means of qualified personnel attached to the administration and services staff.

Documents

Francisco Marcellán Barcelona, September 9th 2004