Topic : ’Stakeholders engagement and success of education and training systems reforms. What correlation?’
During the 10th session of CIMQUSEF crowning a decade of the AMAQUEN engagement to participate in efforts to improve quality in education systems and training, we have chosen in line with the themes covered field of quality management, to address this topical issue. Because it is linked to possible roles the different actors and stakeholders in the success of the reforms undertaken by different countries or groups of countries to improve their systems of education and training. The Cimqusef'2013 invite speakers and participants to try to answer the questions underlying the issue:
''How do the management of change promotes engagement of stakeholders in the success of the SET reforms?''.
Orginizers: Association Marocaine pour l'Amélioration de la Qualité de l'Enseignement (AMAQUEN)
More information about this event…

In the autumn of 2012, EUA launched a new project entitled ‘Promoting quality culture in higher education institutions’ (PQC), in partnership with the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), the University of Duisburg-Essen, the University of Lisbon and the University of Zagreb.
Background and concept
The PQC project follows up and builds on the recently completed EUA-led project 'Examining quality culture in higher education institutions' (EQC, 2009-2012). Research conducted within the framework of that project showed that while the majority of HEIs in Europe have built up quality assurance (QA) systems, those in charge of managing quality at universities feel the need for further capacity building in how to incentivise all stakeholders (students, academic and administrative staff) to take on the responsibility for quality, i.e. how to put Part 1 of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) into practice and build quality cultures.
The PQC project fulfils this need by developing and implementing a series of trainings with a practical approach to strengthening quality cultures and providing quality managers with the opportunity to exchange experiences and build connections for future cooperation at European level. Moreover, PQC will exploit the inputs gained from the universities themselves through the trainings to devise a workshop for the staff of the European quality assurance agencies. In this way it will communicate to the agencies how they can support HEIs in developing quality cultures through the external QA procedures which they design and carry out.
Objectives
The objectives of the project are:

• to build capacity of quality managers from HEIs across Europe to develop such internal quality assurance systems that are embedded in the institutional strategies and cultures;
• to promote European cooperation and sharing of good practices in the field;
• to raise awareness regarding the importance of internal QA and in particular quality culture;
• to advocate for the true implementation of the ESGs, i.e. the primary responsibility for quality lying with the HEIs and the responsibility to support HEIs in that process lying with the QA agencies.

Activities and timeline
The partners seek to achieve the project objectives through the following activities:

• presentation of the project at the European Quality Assurance Forum 2012 (November 2012);
• three two-day trainings for quality managers at European HEIs, in Zagreb, Duisburg and Lisbon (April-June 2013);
• workshop for QA agencies’ staff, raising awareness regarding the importance of internal QA and in particular quality culture (September 2013).

The presentations from the trainings for quality managers at HEIs are available below.

8-10 April 2013, Lisbon, Portugal

• Promoting Quality Culture in Higher Education Institutions – Tia Loukkola 
• Examining Quality Culture: Key findings – Andrée Sursock 
• Quality culture: towards a “creativity agenda” – Ana Nunes de Almeida 
• Promoting Quality Cultures – The Students View – João Faria 
• Promoting quality cultures in UL: Innovation and creativity: The view of a QA agency – Madalena Fonseca 
• Case Example: Promoting quality cultures in UL: Innovation and Creativity – “The view of Staff” – Ricardo Reis 
• How to connect (integrate) QA to the decision-making processes at all levels? – Blaženka Divjak 
• How to avoid hindering creativity at the university though bureaucratic QA processes? – Henrik Toft Jensen 

22-24 May 2013, Zagreb, Croatia

• Promoting Quality Culture in Higher Education Institutions – Ivana Juraga 
• Examining Quality Cultures: what we know and what we don’t – Thérèse Zhang and Oliver Vettori 
• Promoting Quality Cultures in the University of Zagreb – The view of Students – Mate Damić 
• The University of Zagreb – developing quality culture at a decentralised institution – Prof. Blaženka Divjak 
• Development of Quality Culture – ASHE Role – Vesna Dodiković-Jurković 
• QC, QA: a decentralised, centralised activity? – Ana Nunes de Almeida 
• Gallery walk: How to build effective communication structures to engage students – Dr Christian Ganseuer 
• How to connect QA to the decision-making processes at all levels – Christian Stråhlman 
• Promoting Quality Culture: Some promising ideas of how to engage the staff – Oliver Vettori 

26-28 June 2013, Essen, Germany

• Promoting Quality Culture in Higher Education Institutions – Ivana Juraga 
• Examining Quality Culture: Key findings – Henrik Toft Jensen and Tia Loukkola 
• The UDE‘s Quality Management System – Dr Christian Ganseuer 
• Promoting Quality Culture – Dorit Gerkens 
• Quality Management – A students' perspective – Andreas K. Klein 
• How to engage staff in the shared goal of enhancing quality? – Blaženka Divjak 
• Quality Culture and QA: Centralised and Decentralised – Sarah Ingle 
• Summary of the gallery walk: Engaging students – Tia Loukkola 
• Promoting Quality Culture: Some promising ideas of how to make something out of something – Oliver Vettori 

Registration for the workshop for QA agencies’ staff is currently open to ENQA members.
Contact
For further information on the PQC project, please contact Ivana Juraga. Click here to download the PQC leaflet.

Date: 6 Sep 2013
Start Time: 10:00 am
Location/venue: Fielder Centre, University of Hertfordshire, UK
This free one-day discussion meeting will explore challenges facing the sector in relation to assuring quality whilst also enabling quality enhancement and innovation through technology enhanced learning (TEL). We will be considering the rapid increase in the development of MOOCs (Massive Online open courses) and the impact of the Key Information Set (KIS) requirements on UK Higher Education Institutions.
Technologies impact on all aspects of the learning process, including teaching, assessment and communication. In light of changes in technologies and the changing role of e-learning within higher education, guidance and policies associated with quality assurance and quality enhancement of technology enhanced learning (TEL) need to be considered and reviewed.
The day will include; a discussion on the quality issues associated with MOOCs and feedback from a MOOC student; Michael Hamlyn, Director of Academic Enhancement at Staffordshire University. The afternoon will focus on the KIS requirements and will include presentations from Catherine Benfield, Head of Business Development at the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), and Moira Sutton from the International Centre for Guidance Studies (iCeGS), School of Education at the University of Derby. Catherine and Moira have been involved in the early evaluations of the KIS and will present findings from their respective reports regarding Institutional and User perspectives. The presentations will be followed by discussions about the KIS requirements which focus on face to face contact hours with little consideration of how institutions and academics use technology to guide and support students. The issues were recently highlighted by the JISC following the publication of a Student Academic Experience survey from Which? And the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI). Actively seeking your contributions to the QAQE debate, the day will include networking opportunities and participatory sessions to explore practitioner needs.
Attendance at the conference is free - there is no registration fee
Programme:

10.00-10.15 Registration and Coffee

10.15-10.20 Welcome

10.20-11.30 MOOCs and Quality Issues - QAQE Steering Group

11.30-11.45 Refreshments

11.45-12.15 Experiences of MOOCs – Michael Hamlyn, Director of Academic Enhancement, Staffordshire University

12.15-13.00 Discussion of MOOCs – Quality Issues and challenges for sector

13.00-13.45 Lunch

13.45-14.00 Key Information Sets - QAQE Steering Group

14.00-14.30 Early evaluation of KIS; Institutional perspectives - Catherine Benfield

Head of Business Development, Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)

14.30-15.00 Early evaluation of KIS; User experiences - Moira Sutton, International Centre for Guidance Studies(iCeGS) School of Education, University of Derby

15.00-15.15 Refreshments

15.15-16.00 Discussion of KIS - risks and benefits associated with TEL

16.00 Close of conference

Contact email

• Helen Barefoot

The JOQAR Dissemination Conference "Quality Assurance and Recognition of Joint Programmes: The Art and the Passion" took place in Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid on 20-21 June 2013. The JOQAR project is co-funded by the European Commission and is the acronym of: Joint programmes - Quality Assurance and Recognition of degrees awarded.
Today, quality assurance and recognition of joint programmes is still a major challenge. The conference provided higher education institutions, recognition authorities, quality assurance and accreditation agencies, and policy makers with the latest update on the solutions developed by the European Consortium for Accreditation (ECA) in the framework of the JOQAR project. Read more...

During spring 2013, EUA organised three training workshops for quality managers at European higher education institutions. Staff members from more than 60 EUA member institutions from 25 European countries came together in small groups to exchange experiences on how to develop and strengthen quality cultures at their institutions. Participants included vice-rectors responsible for quality assurance, members of quality assurance units, academic and administrative staff and students.
The training workshops were organised in response to EUA’s recent work which has shown that those in charge of managing quality at universities feel the need for further capacity building in how to incentivise all stakeholders to take on the responsibility for quality. The workshops sought to address this need by presenting findings from EUA’s studies on quality culture in Europe, giving an insight into current European-level trends in quality assurance, presenting case studies from the host countries, providing a forum for an open exchange of experiences and building connections among colleagues from different countries. Read more...

Registration is now open for the 8th European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF) that will take place from 21 to 23 November 2013 at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
EQAF provides a unique platform for the higher education and quality assurance (QA) communities to monitor, shape and anticipate developments in the field. The main purpose of the Forum is to foster a dialogue on QA that bridges national boundaries and leads to a truly European discussion on QA in higher education, and to create a common European understanding of QA through discussions and networking among different stakeholder groups.
Through a mix of plenary and parallel sessions, the 2013 EQAF, entitled “Working together to take quality forward”, will combine practice-oriented or research-based discussions that will take place in the paper sessions and workshops with presentations of current developments in quality assurance.
Recent studies show that European quality assurance has taken huge steps forward in the past decade: both institutions and quality assurance agencies have developed sophisticated processes that aim to assure and enhance the quality of European higher education. However, it is also widely recognised that while processes are in place, there is still need for further work in developing the engagement of the whole academic community in quality, as well as communication and cooperation with other stakeholders. This year the Forum will therefore specifically explore how both individuals and organisations can better understand the role that quality assurance can play in their daily lives, get engaged and work together to take quality forward.
The Forum will be of interest to rectors and vice-rectors responsible for QA, QA officers in higher education institutions, students, QA agency staff, and researchers working in higher education or the QA field.
To register or find out more about the 2013 EQAF and the call for contributions (for papers and workshops), which is still open until 2 August, please visit the event website.
The European Quality Assurance Forum is co-organised by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), the European Students’ Union (ESU), EUA and the European Association of Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE).

The aim is promoting Quality Assurance (QA) as a key indicator of checks and balances for the development of higher education institutions all over the world, and more specifically within the African Region.
The Association of African Universities (AAU) and GUNi-Africa have established an agreement for the encouragement between both institutions of the development and dissemination of the Africa Regional Quality Assurance Framework.
The AAU, a main voice of higher education in Africa, is one of the stakeholders that received the draft report of the study on the establishment of the Africa Regional Quality Assurance framework, distributed by GUNi with intention of seeking comments about it. Such collaboration between the AAU and GUNi-Africa is expected to become a tool for promotion of initiatives on higher education led by African institutions.

The objective of the Conference was to improve in the quality of educational services offered by different type of institutions through the presentation of new tools and experiences.
GUNi was present and participated in the Jornadas Internacionales para la Gestión de la Calidad Educativa (International Conference for Educational Quality Management), which took place last 26-28 September at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (Mexico). The event gathered 400 participants from more than 60 higher education institutions. The attendants at the Conference debated themes related to the social responsibility of universities and their contribution towards a more sustainable society.

The 8th European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF) will take place at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, from 21 to 23 November 2013.
The Forum is organized by the ENQA, ESU, EUA and EURASHE, who have publisghed a call for contributions (papers abnd workshops) from QA (quality assurance) practitioners.
This year, the 2013 EQAF, entitled “Working together to take quality forward” will specifically explore how both individuals and organisations can better understand the role that quality assurance can play in their daily lives, get engaged and work together to take quality forward.
Call for contributions deadline: 2 August 2013
For more information, follow this link.