Report on the state of the External Quality Assessment in the Spanish Universities 2008

The quality agencies within the sphere of university education, in compliance with their commitment of transparancy and the rendering of accounts present this Report on the state of the external quality assessment in the Spanish universities; the third of a series of annual reports which propose to offer society and the decision making bodies of the public administrations, facts and conclusions of interest on state of the external quality assessment in the Spanish universities until May 2008.

ACECAU - Updated on Tuesday, in February 09, 2010

The present report has been coordinately prepared by the group of university quality agencies.

Therefore, its content is based mainly on the information given by each of these agencies about programmes or activities carried out in each autonomous community and their universities, including those which are developed by several of these agencies in a coordinated manner.

The document has been divided into five chapters. The first chapter, after the present introduction and the executive summary, contextualizes the whole report, providing statistic data about the University System and those changes derived from the achievement of the European Higher Education Area (EEES), to which universities are subjected.

The second chapter focuses on the assurance of the teaching quality, through the assessment of the degrees of bachelor, master and PhD, as well as the quality awards program. It also includes data about the assessment programmes for improvement of degrees, which has become more relevant for the agencies as well as for the university system in the last years. Nowadays the degrees assessment is coupled with other activities derived from the current legislation and the incorporation to the EEES.

The third chapter is dedicated to teacher quality assurance through the programmes of teaching and researching staff assessment, for the hiring as well as for the assignment of additional payback.

In the fourth chapter the internal quality assurance systems, which are beginning to be applied in university centers, are covered, such as AUDIT or other similar programmes that are carried out in some autonomous communities (CC AA) as well as teaching assessment systems like the DOCENTIA Programme

Finally, in the fifth chapter some especially relevant aspects for the near future are presented, which must be taken into account both by universities and quality assessment agencies in order to continue improving the quality and competitiveness of the formative offer.

See " External Quality Assessment in Spanish Universities 2008" report.