Project Overview:
Quality of education has become a widely debated topic on a global scale. Due to reforms in higher education to address the challenges of quality external mechanisms of quality assurance have been established. Governments have been increasingly engaged in the quality control of higher education institutions and-or their programmes through periodic external assessments, but higher education institutions are also responding to quality concerns by setting up internal quality assurance (IQA) mechanisms for the purpose of monitoring and management of education.
Higher education aims to fulfil multiple purposes on top of equipping the students with up-to-date knowledge and skills, HEI strive for preparing students for active citizenship, for their future careers, contributing to their employability, supporting their personal development, creating a broad advanced knowledge base, and stimulating research and innovation. Therefore, stakeholders, who may prioritize different purposes, can view quality in higher education differently and quality assurance needs to consider these different perspectives. Quality is a result of the interaction between teachers, students, and the institutional learning environment. Quality assurance should ensure a learning environment in which the content of programmes, learning opportunities and facilities are fit for purpose.
At the heart of all quality assurance activities are the twin purposes of accountability and enhancement. Taken together, these create trust in the higher education institution’s performance. Quality assurance and quality enhancement are interconnected. They can support the development of a quality culture that is embraced by all: from the students and academic staff to the institutional leadership and management. Quality assurance policies are most effective when they reflect the relationship between research and learning & teaching and take account of both the national context in which the institution operates, the institutional context and international perspectives.
The University's mission is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. This reflects one of its core values, which is to provide quality and depth of provision across all subjects. The University's quality assurance procedures provide a framework within which its institutions can examine and enhance their education to enable them to achieve this aspiration of excellence.
Project goal
The IQAinAR project aims to contribute to the enhancement and development of the internal quality assurance in HEIs in three Partner countries - Azerbaijan and Russia with international (EU) quality standards as benchmark while the same time strengthening the HEIs towards local, regional and national policies and strategies implementation. This project will focus on two main areas of HE: quality assurance of teaching (teaching, learning and assessment) and quality assurance of teacher (educator, practitioner researcher) as teacher is the key player to carry out the quality of teaching.
The project aims to enhance the quality of teaching/learning at a university level (teacher dimension – develop professional competencies of teachers), foster the quality of learning (student dimension - ability to learn, LLL, motivation, soft and hard skills of students), enhance the quality of research in relation to teachers and learners (publishing in peer reviewed journals, involvement of student researchers, collaboration in research, creating research environment and research culture).
Specific Objectives
- Benchmark analysis of the internal QA in HE in Europe
- Baseline study of the internal Quality Assurance (IQA)at local/regional level (AZ, RU)
- Development and testing of internal Quality Assurance enhancement strategy in HEI (AZ, RU)
- Creation of IQA Indicators (IQAI) and assessment scale
- Development of trainings programs and certification of HE experts in QA (study modules incl. basics of quality culture, lectures, video tutorials, IQAI guidelines, information management on systematic collection and analysis of data etc.); Elaboration of the study programs in research (study modules incl. basics of quality culture, lectures, video etc.)
- Capacity building of the staff from partners´ universities on the IQA: training and certification;
- Creation and launching of online platform with open access for HEIs and all interested parties: ● IQAI ● online training programs in QA ● videos (case studies, interviews) ● promotion ● documentation.
END RESULTS
The key outcome of the project will be development of internal quality assurance indicators, IQAI for HE in teaching, learning and assessment; as well as teacher training and certification of HE experts in education quality in respect of Internal Quality Assurance.