Discussion in Thematic Groups Working group 4 External Evaluation and Accreditation Doctoral Studies

Benchmarks What is the meaning of the word ? A list of what a bachelor (master, PhD) should know and what competences he or she should have The ‘Dublin descriptors’ are too general. They should be specified in such a way that they pertain to physics. This specification should be not so detailed that innovation of a curriculum is prohibited by the benchmarks.

External evaluation and accreditation Different procedures in different countries / regions: External evaluation and accreditation are carried out by different bodies but are closely connected. Accreditation is a paperwork process. External evaluation (visiting committee) is a separate process.

Constitution of the committee In some countries (e.g. NL) external evaluation carried out by a visiting committee that visits all physics departments in the country. The visiting committee is mainly constituted of physicists. In other countries (e.g. DE) the visiting committee is constituted of experts in various disciplines and visits a number of related disciplines. Experiences in accreditation Recommendation External evaluation should as much as possible be done by experts in the discipline. Disadvantages: There may be only one physicist in the committee who may have decisive influence in all matters of his discipline. Professionals in other fields may have a tendency to ‘formalize’ (concentration on the rules rather than the content). Advantage: The accreditation is cheaper, since more disciplines are visited at the same time.

Value of external evaluation Important is: what the visiting committee tells us. Important is the process of preparation for an external evaluation. We may spot our own weaknesses and improve on them before the committee visits our departments. The external evaluation process stimulates looking at each others strengths and weaknesses. It may be experienced by expert members of visiting committee’s who carry what they have noticed elsewhere seen to their own departments. Recommendation Use the preparation before external evaluation for improvements. Recommendation Try to learn as much as possible of positive strengths of other departments. not only

Getting accustomed to the process of accreditation Do not teach: ‘quantum mechanics ’ Teach: ‘competences in quantum mechanics’ Recommendation: Professional evaluators tend to focus on ‘competences’

Concerns about the Bologna process Splitting integrated five year courses in the 3+2 BaMa structure do not seem to promote international student exchange. Finalizing bachelor degree, preferably at home university, does not promote student exchange in third year of studies. Introducing the ECTS units and splitting up the curriculum in smaller units of a fixed number of ECTS, does not always seem to make ‘ the programmes more ‘ easily readable and comparable’ than they used to be before.

Internal evaluation Workload of students is an important parameter in the Bologna document. Only 25% of the respondents of the EG 4 questionnaire appears to ‘measure’ student workload Recommendation Let us insert a question on the workload in course unit-evaluation questionnaires. If the concept of the ECTS-credit (based on student workload) is to be used throughout Europe with confidence it should more or less reflect reality. Remark: Fears for unrealistic answers in the questionnaires

Next year’s activities for Working group 4 Investigating the present status of doctoral studies Present data are from EUPEN questionnaire in1999 : (see ‘Third Cycles Studies’ by Lupo Dona dalle Rosa) Since that time there are changes: e.g. in France|: - introduction of ‘doctoral school’ - some responsibility for employment of the candidates - students should be employee’s rather than students e.g. in the Netherlands - attempts to make PhD-students really students rather than employee’s - as was the previous situation - introduction of ‘graduate school’