Accreditation of Study Programmes and graduate students Mobility in the Mediterranean and Europe Massimo Guarascio Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 1
Accreditation of Study Programmes • EUR-ACE System of Accreditation of Engineering Study Programmes • MEDACCR (MEDiterranean ACCReditation) Project • Accrimed (RMEI) Mobility and Internship • HOMERe Project • GAMe Michelangelo HOMERe Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 2
Accreditation of Study Programmes • EUR-ACE System of Accreditation of Engineering Study Programmes • MEDACCR (MEDiterranean ACCReditation) Project • Accrimed (RMEI) Mobility and Internship • HOMERe Project • GAMe Michelangelo HOMERe Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 3
Why and What’s Accreditation In HE, ‘ Accreditation ’ means the procedure according to which a recognised body attests formally the fulfilment of pre-definite standards or quantitative and/or qualitative requirements. Today, accreditation is an essential tool to promote quality of Study Programmes (SPs). Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 4
The many shades of “Accreditation ” • encourages confidence that a Study Programme is fair and accurate. • assures and confirms that a neutral and external party has reviewed the Study Programme and has found it satisfactory. assists with transfer of credits among Institutions. • Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 5
Requirements for accreditation of Study Programmes At European level, the main requirement for the accreditation of SPs is the presence of an effective internal Quality Assurance (QA) system , able to provide evidence of their capacity to achieve the established educational objectives. Accreditation is now considered an essential tool to promote the quality of SPs. Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 6
Quality Assurance Systems QA has assumed particular importance in the context of the Bologna process after the adoption of the document ‘ Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area ’ ( ES G ) by the European Ministers responsible for HE at their meeting in Bergen (Norway) on 19-20 May 2005 and revised in the meeting in Yerevan (Armenia) on 14-15 May 2015. Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 7
European Higher Education Area ( ES G ) ESG introduced the concepts of ‘ internal quality assurance ’ and ‘ external quality assurance ’. Internal quality assurance Internal QA is covered by Part 1- Standards and Guidelines for Internal Quality Assurance’ of the ESG. External quality assurance External QA is covered by ‘Part 2 - Standards and Guidelines for External Quality Assurance’ of the ESG. Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 8
Two reference sets of learning outcome descriptors for engineering SPs shared at international level are surely the ones proposed by the International Engineering Alliance (http://www.ieagreements.org/) in the • document ‘Graduate Attributes and Professional Competencies’ and by the European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education ( ENAEE , • www.enaee.eu ) in the document ‘EUR -ACE Framework Standards and Guidelines’ (EAFSG). Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 9
External quality assurance At European level, the accreditation process of SPs requires their external quality assuran ce that should include: a self-assessment or equivalent; • an external assessment normally including a site visit by an • independent body ; as established in Part 2- Standards and Guidelines for External Quality Assurance of the ESG. Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 10
ESG Standards for external Quality Assurance 2.1 Consideration of internal quality assurance External quality assurance should address the effectiveness of the internal quality assurance processes described in Part 1 of the ESG. 2.2 Designing methodologies fit for purpose External quality assurance should be defined and designed specifically to ensure its fitness to achieve the aims and objectives set for it, while taking into account relevant regulations. Stakeholders should be involved in its design and continuous improvement. 2.3 Implementing processes External quality assurance processes should be reliable, useful, pre-defined, implemented consistently and published. They include: • a self-assessment or equivalent; • an external assessment normally including a site visit; • a report resulting from the external assessment; • a consistent follow-up. Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, 11 In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25
2.4 Peer-review experts External quality assurance should be carried out by groups of external experts that include (a) student member(s). 2.5 Criteria for outcomes Any outcomes or judgements made as the result of external quality assurance should be based on explicit and published criteria that are applied consistently, irrespective of whether the process leads to a formal decision. 2.6 Reporting Full reports by the experts should be published, clear and accessible to the academic community, external partners and other interested individuals. If the agency takes any formal decision based on the reports, the decision should be published together with the report. 2.7 Complaints and appeals Complaints and appeals processes should be clearly defined as part of the design of external quality assurance processes and communicated to the institutions. Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 12
‘ External assessment ’ is an assessment carried out, usually on behalf of an agency, by an assessment team composed of more experts or 'peers' (peer review), external to the institution or SP to be assessed. At last for engineering SPs, the assessment teams are almost always made up of experts in evaluation coming in part from the academy and in part from the production, services and professions world. This composition is considered very important in order to make assessment teams not self- referential, as it is increasingly felt the need of the presence of the students in the assessment team. Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 13
Agencies for external Quality Assurance The external QA is generally on the responsibility of QA/QA assessment/accreditation agencies . In Europe there has been a strong growth of the agencies working in the field of external QA since 1990, helped by cooperation and sharing of the best practices among the agencies, and the creation of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA, www.enqa.eu) in 2000 was the natural formalization of these developments. The standards for QA agencies are established in Part 3 - Standards for External Quality Assurance Agencies of the ESG Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 2019, October 25 14
ESG Standards for external Quality Assurance Agencies 3.1 Activities, policy and processes for quality assurance Agencies should undertake external quality assurance activities as defined in Part 2 of the ESG on a regular basis. They should have clear and explicit goals and objectives that are part of their publicly available mission statement. These should translate into the daily work of the agency. Agencies should ensure the involvement of stakeholders in their governance and work. 3.2 Official status Agencies should have an established legal basis and should be formally recognised as quality assurance agencies by competent public authorities. 3.3 Independence Agencies should be independent and act autonomously. They should have full responsibility for their operations and the outcomes of those operations without third party influence. Community of Mediterranean Universities And Eastern Mediterranean University, In Famagusta, North Cyprus (Turkey) 15 2019, October 25
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