Quality Assurance and Enhancement Marketplace for Higher Education Institutions Erasmus Project

Project Title

Quality Assurance and Enhancement Marketplace for Higher Education Institutions

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries; Quality Assurance; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

The QAEMarketPlace4HEIare (QAEMP) derived from the current challenges of higher education in Europe and the limits of actual accreditation procedures. The inattentiveness QAEMP lies in the collaborative model of quality assurance that can complement accreditation and existing QA systems. The project promotes and strengthens the European cooperation in quality assurance while designing and piloting new kind of continuous, accessible, cooperation based model and tools (the Market Place) supporting so called cross-sparring (C-S) between institutions. C-S is to be understood as a process to make feedback more collaborative, concrete and objective, thanks to critical, but discreet brainstorming sessions, where strategies can be discussed, repeatedly contributing to the quality assurance with a critical external view. As in sport, a sparring partner helps to keep eyes on the objectives, learn from experience and stimulate reflectively. This approach is beneficial both for the institution evaluated, which will get a more objective view on its strengths and potential improvements, and for the sparring partner which may identify best practices that can be useful for his own institution. A virtual platform, the Market Place serves as a tool for finding the best possible sparring partners as well as a forum for networking, sharing experiences, information and best practices.
The project aimed at 1. Developing a collaborative, comprehensive and accessible evaluation process model, methods and tools for HEIs to complement the accreditation QA systems. 2. Promoting, increasing and exploiting further the European collaboration in the evaluation processes and the exchange of best practices. 3. Disseminating the model, best practices and widen the cooperation to new HEIs in Europe through the partner networks.
The partners were: P1. Reykjavik University (RU), Iceland, P2. Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS), Finland, P3. Aarhus University (AU), Denmark, P4. Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (Metropolia), Finland, P5. Umeå University (Umu), Sweden, P6. Telecom Bretagne (TB), Institut Mines-Telecom, France, P7. Aston University (ASTON), United Kingdom, P8. Queens University Belfast (QUB), United Kingdom.
The eight partners first did develop a collaborative, comprehensive and accessible evaluation process model, methods and tools for HEIs to complement the accreditation QA systems (Quality Assurance), called Market place and a guidance for the cross-sparring process for more continuous quality enhancement in educational programme development and operation.
All partners introduced the Market place and the cross-sparring process in the project webpage, with regular newsletters, academic papers, presentations at conferences and workshops. We believe that this gave opportunity to promote, increase and exploiting further the European collaboration in the evaluation processes and the exchange of good to best practices. The partners were also active in disseminating the model, Market place and the cross-sparring process and giving examples of best practices, thus widen the cooperation to new HEIs in Europe through the partner networks.
It is difficult to estimate to what degree the project did strengthening the open conversation on educational development and pedagogical innovations in Europe due to the vast variety of target groups. The eight partners were energetic in writing papers and presenting at conferences in Europe, CDIO, WEEF&GEDC, SEFI, or SPICE and thus giving educators, program leaders, program assessors in Europe the opportunity to get to know the project originality and its ready to use results. The website is also a place for distribution of the project work and outputs.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 213359 Eur

Project Coordinator

HASKOLINN I REYKJAVIK EHF & Country: IS

Project Partners

• THE QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST
• INSTITUT MINES-TELECOM
• AARHUS UNIVERSITET
• ASTON UNIVERSITY
• TURUN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY
• UMEA UNIVERSITET
• METROPOLIA AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY