astana 23/8/2012 iqa of sps in italy 1 internal quality assurance of study programmes in italy...

Astana 23/8/2012

iQA of SPs in Italy 1

Internal Quality Assurance of Study Programmes in Italy

Alfredo SquarzoniUniversity of Genoa

Astana 23/8/2012


Items of the presentation

a) What is intended for ‘quality’ and ‘quality assurance’ (QA) of study programmes (SPs)

b) The National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR)

c) The Guidelines for the Definition of the System of internal QA (iQA) of SPs

d) The Documentation for the QA of SPs

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What is intended forQuality and Quality Assurance

of Study Programmes

Quality of University education has taken on a growing importance in the context of the Bologna process and today, after the re-organisation in cycles of the study programmes in all Europe, is probably its main objective.

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In fact, the harmonisation of the systems of tertiary education in the European Higher Education Area, the main goal of the Bologna process, can not be achieved only by sharing an organisation in cycles of the educational processes, but it supposes the sharing of the SP learning outcomes and the guarantee of their achievement.

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According to the ISO definition, in Italy for ‘SP quality’ it is intended “the grade (level) of fulfilment of the objectives established coherently with the needs and expectations of all those who are interested in the educational service provided, that is the ‘interested parties’ ”,

or, in other words,

“the level of accomplishment of the standards or quality requirements established coherently with the needs and expectations of all the interested parties”.

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A consequence of the need to promote and guarantee the education quality has been the growing attention to the processes of ‘quality assurance’ of the SPs.

In the higher education ‘quality assurance’ is a generic word which many interpretations my be attributed to.

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Always according to the ISO definition, in Italy for ‘SP quality assurance’ it is intended “the whole of the activities (processes) for the management of a study programme finalised to the achievement of the established learning outcomes, and therefore aimed at ‘ensuring trust’ in meeting the standards /quality requirements to all interested parties”.

Therefore the activities of quality assurance are concentrated on the activities necessary to provide objective evidence of the achieved quality, where for ‘objective evidence’ the ISO norm intends “data which support the evidence or veridicity of something”.

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European Standards and Guidelines

Also in Italy QA has assumed particular importance after the European Ministers of 45 countries in the Bergen meeting on May 2005 adopted the document of the ‘European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education’ (ENQA) Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG).

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The ESG have also introduced the concepts of ‘internal Quality Assurance’ (iQA) and ‘external quality assurance’.

The first regards the activities of QA in the responsibility of the institution or of the SP which provides the educational service, while the second regards the activities of QA of the agencies external to the institution which the SP belongs to and correspondes to the external quality assessment carried out by these agencies.

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The standards for the iQA refer to the key aspects that, according to ENQA, characterise the quality of a SP and that have to be considered in order to assure SP quality.

Then the ENQA document associates each standard the guidelines, which provide additional information about good practice and in some cases explain in more detail the meaning and importance of the standards.

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So today the definition of a suitable iQA system can rely on the ESG, which has found a generalised acceptance in the European context.

This does not mean that the standards defined by the different agencies for the quality assessment and accreditation of SPs – which constitute an important reference for the definition of the iQA systems – coincide with those proposed in the ESG:the coherence is in the substance, not in the form.

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This is perfectly legitimate, because the same ENQA document states that the purpose of the standards and guidelines is to provide a source of assistance and guidance to Higher Education Institutions in developing their own QA system, as well as to contribute to a common frame of reference, which can be used by institutions.

There is no intention that the ESG should dictate practice or be interpreted as prescriptive or unchangeable.

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National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research

Institutes (ANVUR)

In Italy, the body in charge of the introduction of a system of QA of SPs is the ‘National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes’ (ANVUR), appointed in 2010.

The DPR 1st February 2010, n. 76, which institutes ANVUR, at art. 2, point 3, states: “The Agency functions as national agency for the quality assurance …”.

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ANVUR considers the QA the base of every system of assessment and accreditation of SPs.So, it must not be a surprise if the first point of the document “Self-assessment, Assessment and Accreditation of the Italian University System”, approved and made public by ANVUR last 24 July, regards specifically the introduction of a system of iQA in Italian universities.

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However the ANVUR intention is not to propose

or to impose an iQA system equal for all the Italian

Universities, but :• to define the guidelines for the QA of

SPs;• to define the required documentation

(or the ‘documental model’) for the iQA.

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In the substance the guidelines indicate what iQA requires or, in other words, which are the activities to be managed for the iQA. Therefore Universities are free to define their own iQA system, provided in the respect of the ANVUR guidelines, and to establish objectives and methods for their achievement and monitoring autonomously.

Instead the documental model indicates which are the information and data that all the Universities have to make available, also in order to make possible comparison among SPs at national level.

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The Guidelines for the Definition of the

System of iQA of SPs

What implies, according to the ANVUR guidelines, the iQA of SPs?

a) First of all to assure education quality it occurs to establish intended learning outcomes of the educational service provided by the SP coherent with the needs and expectations of the society and of the labour market.

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The learning outcomes are statements – made by the academic staff – of what a learner is expected to know, understand and/or be able to demonstrate after completion of a process of learning, while the competences represent a dynamic combination of knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities to be developed and acquired by the students during the educational process.

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The choice to assume learning outcomes coherent with the needs and expectations of the labour market as the starting point for the definition of an iQA system is a consequence of the Bologna process.

In fact, the introduction of SPs organised in cycles has required the re-design of all the SPs not based on the concept of cycles.

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In the ‘old’ degree programmes the emphasis was placed on the individual interests of academic staff or on the existing organisation of studies. Furthermore their design was generally based on the assumption that the proper object of study is what the individual professor thinks the student should learn in his or her course unit.

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In a system organised in cycles the SPs have to be designed considering each cycle as an entity in itself, because the first two cycles should not only give access to the following cycle but also to the labour market. As a consequence degree programmes based on the concept of cycles should be organised in view of their desired results.

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In these programmes the focus is no more on what a student has been taught, but on what a student has learned and is able to do, that is on the achievement of the intended learning outcomes and on competence development. It is the student that has to be prepared at the best for his/her future role in the society.

The introduction of a system organised in 3 cycles has therefore requires a passage from an approach centred on the teaching to an approach centred on the learning, i.e. from staff-centred SPs to student-centred SPs, which take the student as the centre of the teaching and learning process.

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b) Then according to the ANVUR guidelines it occurs to design and plan an educational path (a syllabus) able to allow the achievement of the intended learning outcomes and to define and implement credible assessment methods of the students’ learning.Furthermore it occurs to have available teaching resources, facilities and student support services suitable for the realisation of the designed educational process.

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As a matter of fact, to assure its quality it is not sufficient a SP be ‘fit in purpose’, i.e. that the programme learning outcomes meet the needs and expectations of students, academic staff and employers, ensuring personal development and employment: it must be also ‘fit for purpose’, which means that the SP defines and implements actions suitable for achieving the declared aims.

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c) Then the SP has to monitor the results of the educational process, in order to be able to assess the grade of fulfilment of the established objectives, i.e. the ‘quality’ of the educational service provided.

d) Finally the SP has to promote the improvement, if not continual at least constant, of its educational service through a process of re-examination, because to assure quality means also to assure that every effort is made to promote its constant improvement, and the re-examination is the right process for this aim.

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ANVUR attributes to the re-examination the same meaning as the ISO 9000:2005 norm: a process programmed and scheduled, finalised to assess the fitness, the adequacy and the effectiveness of SPs’ activities, in order to implement all the necessary actions of correction and improvement.

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According to ANVUR the re-examination is aprocess to be carried out:• yearly, in order to adopt all the appropriate

actions finalised to the improvement of the SP management;

• every 3-5 years, for the re-examination of the SP objectives and design.

The activity of re-examination must be concluded

with the drawing up of a Re-examination Report,

To be made available only to authorised people.

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The Documentation for the Quality Assurance of Study Programmes

If regard the iQA system ANVUR establishes only the guidelines for its definition by the universities, as regard the documentation for the QA of SPs ANVUR defines in detail the required information and data.

In particular ANVUR has defined the structure of a form named ‘Annual Unique Form’ (SUA-CdS) to be updated yearly by every SP.

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The proposed SUA is articulated in Sections, subdivided in the following ‘Areas’:

Area A) Education Objectives

Area B) Student’s Experiences

Area C) Education Results

Area D) Organisation of the SP and of the QA

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Area A) Education Objectives

The sections of this area should describe the education objectives that the SP intends to achieve through the design and realisation of the course.In particular they should describe the ‘education needs’, i.e. the professional roles or functions foreseen for the graduates the SP assumes as reference and the associated required competences,to be documented in the following two sections:

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Section A1 – Consultations of the organisations representatives of the production, services an professions world;

Section A2 – Specific educational objectives of the SP and professional and occupational outputs provided for the graduates

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… and the intended learning outcomes, to be established by the SP in coherence with the required competences, to be documented in the following two sections:

Section A3 – Admission requirements

Section A4 – Intended learning outcomes

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Area B) Student’s Experiences

The sections of this area should describe the student’s experiences: the SP syllabus, with the indication of the scheduled teaching and learning activities, the assessment methods of the students’ learning, the learning context, i.e. the human and infrastructural resources and the student support services. They should also describe the adequacy and effectiveness perceived by the students of the educational process to be gathered through students’ questionnaires.

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In particular the syllabus description must allow to check the correspondence among the intended learning outcomes and the actual content of the SP, while the assessment methods of the students’ learning have to be documented so to ensure trust that the grade of achievement of the intended learning outcomes by the students be assessed in a credible way.

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The description of the learning context (teaching staff, facilities, student support services) should point out the correspondence between the intended learning outcomes and the available resources, student support services included.

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The sections of this area are:

Section B1 – Syllabus

subdivided in 2 sub-sections:

Sub-section B1a – Description of the syllabus, with the titles of the didactic units and their schedule and, for each didactic unit, web connection to the form with the information on the program and the assessment methods of the student learning.

Sub-section B1b - Description of the assessment methods.

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Section B2 – Calendar of the educational activities

and schedule of the learning assessment tests

through connection with the web pages with the

following information:

• calendar and timetable of the educational activities;

• timetable of the tests for the assessment of the students’ learning and composition of the exam commissions;

• calendar of the thesis sessions and composition of the graduation commission.

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Section B3 – Teaching staff

Section B4 – Facilities

subdivided in 4 sub-sections:

Sub-section B3a – ClassroomsSub-section B3b – Laboratories and computer roomsSub-section B3c – Rooms for individual studySub-section B3d – Libraries

All these information can also be made available through connection to the web pages of the SP.

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Section B5 – Student Support Services

• Orienteering in entrance

• Orienteering and tutoring ‘in itinere’

• Assistance and partnerships for periods of education out of the University

• Assistance and partnerships for the international mobility of students

• Job placement

• Possible other initiatives.

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Area C) Education Results

The sections of this area should describe the results of the students in their quantitative aspects (students in entrance, students’ studies progression, data on the graduates within the official length of the programme included) and the effectiveness of the graduates’ placement in the labour market.

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Section C1 – Data relative to the students in entrance and students’ studies progression

Section C2 – Characteristics of the final exam (thesis) with the indication of the titles presented and discussed in the last academic year.

Section C3 – External Effectivenessi.e. statistics relative to the graduates’ placement in the labour market.

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Area D) – Organisation of the SP and of the QA (access with password)

The sections of this area should provide information on the organisation and on the responsibilities with regard to both the SP management and the re-examination activity.

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Section D1 – Organisational structure and responsibilitiesfor the SP management

Section D2 – Organisation and responsibilitiesfor the QA of the SP.

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The SUA-CdS shall be made public on the web site in order to fulfil the necessary conditions for a correct communication to the students and all the other interested parties of the SP characteristics.

Furthermore the information and data of the SUA-CdS will constitute the base for all the other activities of Self-assessment, Re-examination, External Assessment and Accreditation.

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Conclusions

The ANVUR guidelines and documentation for the

iQA of SPs are certainly consistent with the ESG

and with the European best practices.

In the AVA document ANVUR has also established

the following schedule of operations for the next

future: 31.01.2013: drawing up of the first Re-

examination Report; 30.06.2013: drawing up of the SUA-CdS

2013.

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Consequently, in the next months Italian universities will be called to a intensive activity for the definition and adoption of their own system of iQA of SPs.

In Italy we say “se son rose fioriranno”, in English “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”.

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Thanks for your attention

astana 23/8/2012 iqa of sps in italy 1 internal quality assurance of study programmes in italy...

Documents

qa of sps iqa of sps

sp quality assurance

processes of quality

achieved quality

italy qa

standards quality requirements

european standards

interested parties