ECA Code of Good Practice and ANECA

Transcription

1 ECA Code of Good Practice and ANECA This document is property of ANECA. The content of this document could be used just if it s origin is mentioned. V. 01_31/03/08

2 CONTENTS 1. Background 2. Introduction 3. Method and content 3.1. Purpose 4. Compliance with the standard to cooperate with other agencies 5. Conclusions 6. Other comments by ANECA Direction V. 01_31/03/08

3 1. BACKGROUND At the end of 2007, ANECA Direction decided that, once the Agency had been favourably evaluated by ENQA based on the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (hereinafter, ESG), it would be the time to meet the ECA s recommendations to its members to meet its Code of Good Practice. As a result, and based on the ECA Management Group s recommendations establishing that, in view of a favourable ENQA evaluation, the agency did not have to repeat the entire evaluation process all over again, all that it needs is to present a supplementary report to the agency s self-evaluation report, an external evaluation report and an improvement report ( In December 2007, ANECA Direction decided to entrust its Advisory Board to analyse compliance with that Code for two reasons: 1. Because it is the driving force behind the self-evaluation process in accordance with the ESG Standards and Guidelines, giving it the right perspective on how to meet the ECA Code of Good Practice. 2. Because it is the body that represents Spanish society and which has a view of ANECA that is independent of the institution s technical work. After that commission, the Advisory Board drafted a report on the degree of compliance with the ECA Code of Good Practice, with the arguments set out below V. 01_31/03/08

4 2. INTRODUCTION In November 2007, the Management Group of the ECA Consortium adopted a Recommendation on compliance with the Code of Good Practice (CGP) for its members. That Recommendation concludes that, in view of the limited differences between the ENQA s ESG and the ECA s CGP, the agencies that have already received a positive decision from ENQA in the evaluation process based on the ESG do not have to completely repeat this in order to prove that they also comply with the CGP. In September 2007, ENQA confirmed that ANECA complied substantially with the ESG Standards and Guidelines. As a result, this report is issued as a supplement to ANECA s Self-Evaluation Report based on the ESG Standards and Guidelines ( and to the positive conclusions from ENQA s External Evaluation Report ( Its main objective is to provide an analysis and evidence which enable ECA to verify and, when the time comes, to certify that ANECA also complies with the CGP. 3. METHOD AND CONTENT 3.1. Purpose The ECA Management Group s recommendation to its members to comply with the CGP refers explicitly to the similarity between both sets of standards and reminds them that the ENQA Board already acknowledged the coincidence between the CGP standards and Part 3 of the ESG. The ECA confirmed this coincidence in its own Recommendation, except with respect to standard 11 of the CGP which requires that the agencies that belong to ECA must collaborate regularly with other European networks or agencies in the field of quality accreditation. There is no equivalent standard in the ESG, so checking its compliance is not included in ANECA s self-evaluation report based on those ESG V. 01_31/03/08

5 The Management Group s Recommendation states that compliance with standard 11 of the CGP can be checked by providing evidence about the agencies active international cooperation within the framework of the ECA consortium and other networks, as well as about their participation in domestic networks as required by several national laws. As a result, once additional compliance with standard 11 has been proven, the ENQA s positive decisions about compliance with the ESG will also be considered to be positive by the ECA Management Group with respect to compliance with the CGP. Therefore, in view of those comments, the CGP s other standards can be considered to be common to the ESG, so there is no problem in checking ANECA s compliance in the Self-Evaluation Report drafted for its recent external evaluation by ENQA. 4. COMPLIANCE WITH THE STANDARD TO COOPERATE WITH OTHER AGENCIES Standard 11 of the CGP refers to collaboration on a regular basis with other national and/or professional accreditation agencies and with European networks or agencies. From the outset, ANECA has always collaborated with other evaluation and accreditation agencies from Europe and Latin America and participated in numerous European and international projects. Five years after inception, ANECA believes that one of its most developed strengths is its very ample collaboration with other agencies and networks in the field of quality evaluation and accreditation in higher education. ANECA s cooperation with other agencies and networks spans four spheres: regional, Europe, Latin America and international. - Cooperation with the regional agencies existing in 11 of the 17 Autonomous Communities in Spain in the REACU (Spanish Network of University Quality Agencies) created to foster collaboration among Spanish agencies. The regional agencies main powers are to evaluate the non-civil servant teaching staff and to evaluate the study programmes proposed by the universities in their region V. 01_31/03/08

6 The Article 31 of the University Act 4/2007, of 12 of April, which modifies and updates the former Act from 2001, establishes that ANECA and the regional agencies, in agreement with international standards of quality, must establish cooperation mechanisms. The REACU has shown to be one of them. - Cooperation at the European level with ENQA and ECA. ANECA is a full member of ENQA and her Director takes part in the executive Board. Furthermore, ANECA has collaborated with ENQA organising some events such as the General Assembly in 2005 and a Workshop on Student Involvement in the processes of quality assurance agencies October ANECA is a founding member of ECA, and it hosted both the first meeting in Cordoba in 2003 and the Dissemination Conference in December In the framework of ECA, ANECA has signed agreements with other agencies in the way towards the future recognition of the accreditation results. - Cooperation with evaluation and accreditation agencies of Latin America, in the framework of RIACES (Latin American Network for Accreditation Agencies in Higher Education). ANECA, amongst other technical works, has coordinated the working group that submitted the RIACES Glossary on Quality Assurance and Accreditation and has designed the project CINTAS on Internal Quality Assurance of the Accreditation Agencies in Latin America in June The project s objective is to provide training and advice to the quality agencies of the network and to prepare them for their external evaluation. Moreover, ANECA has participated very actively in the Common Area for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean-European Union (ALCUE). In this sphere, ANECA bridges the gap between Europe and Latin America-Caribbean, which could be very important and significant for the other European agencies. ANECA has recently collaborated with the University Coordination Board as responsible for organising the Euro-Latin American Seminar on Quality Assurance Mechanisms and Codes of Good Practices: Towards an Inter-regional Recognition, held in June V. 01_31/03/08

7 - International worldwide cooperation within the framework of INQAHEE. ANECA participates on a regular basis with the annual workshops and the biannual conferences organised by this network. 5. CONCLUSIONS ANECA complies with the European standards established by ECA for the Higher Education Accreditation Agencies as a result of the following evidence: - its accreditation experience in various fields, although some of its accreditation activities is characteristic only of ANECA and do not have an equivalence at agencies from other European countries, such as the evaluation of the teaching staff; - its broad cooperation experience with other accreditation agencies both within the framework of ECA and Latin American agencies, many of which have broad accreditation experience. - its capacity and independence to define its own procedures and standards for the new accreditation tasks that have been recently implemented for the initial accreditation verification and subsequent accreditation of new official degrees, as well as the accreditation of civil servant teaching staff. In this new legal framework, ANECA is in the heart of the quality accreditation of the two key parts for improving the higher education system in Spain: the degrees and the teaching staff. Therefore, if there is confirmation that ANECA complies with the standards of ECA s Code of Good Practice, this will boost its ability to successfully deal with the major task allocated to it by law V. 01_31/03/08

8 6. OTHER COMMENTS BY ANECA DIRECTION The analysis performed by ANECA s Advisory Board, shows that cooperation with other agencies has been one of the Agency s strategic lines since That can be seen in both objective 5.5 of the Strategic Plan Horizon 2010 ( and in ANECA s various action plans and reports V. 01_31/03/08