Systematic Quality Enhancement Work

At University of Borås, follow-ups and quality assurances of courses and programmes are constantly carried out. In addition to the quality assurance process carried out in the bodies of the University, additional surveys are carried out, e.g. alumni survey, programme evaluations, course evaluations, employee surveys, student surveys and a local self-evaluation. The latter is based on the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education’s evaluation model, which is the guide for the action plan for quality enhancement work of schools and units carried out every third year.

The responsibility for the follow-ups and evaluations of the quality enhancement work lies on the Heads of the Department, but the Committee of Evaluationt (only in Swedish) functions as a support.

Inventing Quality Enhancement Work

An inventory of the quality enhancement work is carried out annually as an element of governing the university. The quality inventory is supposed to give both the management of the University and its employees a comprehensive overview of the ongoing systematic quality enhancement work. The critera and aspects draw on the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education quality audit. Based on this, the schools and units carry out a review of their quality work where they determine, explain and describe the present situation and point out future improvement efforts. The result of the quality inventory constitutes a means in the work with the future action plan.   

Local Self-Evaluation

The purpose of the local self-evaluation is to highlight positive aspects and draw attention to shortcomings in the work. This constitutes a basis for the development of an action plan for the quality enhancement work of the schools and units. This also contributes to schools and units co-operating in order to specify goal attainments to give a basis for the management to initiate and stimulate quality improvement. Altogether, the self-evaluations give a comprehensive overview of the quality enhancement work of the University in relation to its assignments and adopted strategies. To support the self-evaluation, a number of quality criteria have been formulated. They can be found in, S“Systematic Quality Work at the University of Borås and Guidelines for Local Self-Evaluation” (registration number 821-08-90, only in Swedish). The document also contains an account for the systematic quality enhancement work at the University of Borås.

Course Evaluations

To support the work with course evaluations, there is also the document,  “Policy for the Course Evaluation Process” (only in Swedish)  at the University. An action plan both for course evaluations and reports is found in the policy.