Using Self-Evaluations for Collaborative Quality Enhancement - A Case Study

This paper describes the application of a process to enhance the quality of higher education. At the heart of the process is a cross-sparring collaborative model, whereby the two institutions are critical friends. This is based on a prior self-evaluation, where the institution/programme identifies quality criteria it wants to improve.

The process is done in four steps: 1. Self-evaluate. Evaluate own programme/institution. This evaluation is done on 28 criteria. The criteria are a superset of different self-evaluation frameworks including the CDIO self-evaluation. When the self-evaluation is finished, you identify 3-5 criteria you want to improve. 2. Parring. Two institutions are parried. A good match is two institutions where the difference between their self-evaluation score on the criteria where the want to improve are rather large. 3. Cross-sparring. The two institutions visit each other to learn and inspire each other 4. Enhance. Based on inspiration and what is seen, actions to develop one’s own programme/institutions is made (and hopefully executed)

This article describes a case study of this process where the Health Care Technology Bachelor programme at Aarhus University and the Health Informatics bachelor programme from Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences are critical friends. The article focuses on the third and fourth step in the above described process and will report on the outcomes from the cross-sparring.

Aarhus University wants to learn from Metropolia on the following evaluation criteria: Appropriate workspaces and equipment, Faculty development (knowledge and teaching), Feedback is timely, appropriate and formative, Research is used in teaching and Problem solving opportunities (links to the research process). Metropolia wants to learn from Aarhus on the following evaluation criteria: A sound foundation (the new study program including the arrangements for the first year), Work placements are promoted, Design projects are integrated throughout the programme, Faculty development (knowledge and teaching) and A holistic view of learning additionally the same as Aarhus likes to learn from Metropolia, namely Research is used in teaching and Problem solving opportunities (links to the research process)

At the end of a visit, the a memo focusing on • Findings, • Impressive experiences and strengths, • Challenges, • Open questions will be filled out and based on hat an action plan developed. As described previously, the main focus of this article is to describe and evaluate the strength and weakness of this at the two institutions involved.

Proceedings of the 12th International CDIO Conference, Turku, Finland, June 12-16 2016