EHEA meeting Dublin 30th-31st January 2013

Evaluating teaching and learning 1/ Introduction In the U-Multirank report, one distingnishes between : a)Focused Institutional Ranking (figures given by the institutions) b)Field-based ranking (quality of the teaching and teaching resources also filed up by the institutions) c)Field-based Ranking : student satisfaction indicators 2 European Higher Education Area' conference 30th-31st January 2013

Evaluating teaching and learning 1/ Introduction Most of the criteria a) and b) are quantitative, some of them are not clearly related to the quality of teaching, e. g. gender balance, qualification of the staff, student staff ratio. As regards this last criteria, I think that an evaluation based on the number of professors relatively to the number of students is not relevant, because very dependent on the field and pedagogic style. Measured as such the best professor is the one from whom everybody, except one, has flied the classroom ! 3 European Higher Education Area' conference 30th-31st January 2013

Evaluating teaching and learning 1/ Introduction Another point, if we accept the definition of an university as a place where students are acclimated to research, there is no criteria related to this point in teaching measure. This deserves at least reflection and a classification of the institutions between intensive research institutions and others, the criteria cannot be exactly the same. 4 European Higher Education Area' conference 30th-31st January 2013

Evaluating teaching and learning 2/ Teaching evaluation must mainly rely on students Do a systematic assessment by students of the lectures, cursus exist ? Is it public ? What kind of follow up ? Registration trends in a cursus ? Number of applications ? Happiness of the students and evaluation of the teaching facilities. If they have the possibility to re-start, would they choose the same institution ? These are the main criteria. The good news is that it is said in the report, that they can be reliably measured. But who will measure ? It is probably useful to think about to an European agency ? 5 European Higher Education Area' conference 30th-31st January 2013

Evaluating teaching and learning 3/ Evaluation by experts/accreditation I would like to rise another question. We know that a panel of experts can perfectly lead an inquiry in order to estimate the quality of : Cursus Graduation procedures It seems that it has not be envisioned, while it can be made for cheap, only by reading the curricula book (or site) of the institution. It has the advantage to oblige the university to have such a clear teaching curriculum book. 6 European Higher Education Area' conference 30th-31st January 2013

Evaluating teaching and learning 4/ Learning evaluation must rely on the quality of the output Percentage of students with a job after six months, 18 months (check ?), level of wage, right entry level in a company according to the level of the diploma(executive, technical level)? Happiness of the student with his/her job. Percentage of master students enrolling for PhD Number of PhD defenses Happiness of the employers All are relatively difficult to measure and check, but this can be done by a specialized agency. 7 European Higher Education Area' conference 30th-31st January 2013

Evaluating teaching and learning 5/ Conclusion Even for teaching measure, it’s remains some questions : Adapting the teaching criteria to research intensive institutions Adopt some criteria relying on experts’ evaluation (European experts ?) Create an European agency for processing satisfaction enquiries both of students and companies 8 European Higher Education Area' conference 30th-31st January 2013