International activities

AQ Austria participates actively in the improvement of quality assurance procedures at a European and international level.

Quality Assurance Agencies (QAAs) use documents to steer external quality assurance (EQA) procedures and to inform different audiences about the procedures. These “evaluation frameworks” not only govern the EQA process but also define the scope of evaluation, its objectives, standards and/or criteria, methodology and outcomes. Evaluation frameworks not only vary in the amount of information they provide, but also in style, structure and content. Is this just a matter of taste or are there certain reasons for different approaches? Why do QAAs change their evaluation frameworks and what are the processes for reviewing them? And why might it be a good or not so good idea to broaden the scope to include further topics in the evaluation? The latest study of the Quality Audit Network focusses on the analysis of institutional evaluation frameworks of 16 QAAs.

The publication can be downloaded here.

The project was selected for EU co-funding under the Erasmus PLUS call to support the implementation of European Higher Education Area (EHEA) reforms. DEQAR is EQAR's Database of External Quality Assurance Reports, launched in 2018.

For more information on the DEQAR CONNECT project: https://www.eqar.eu/kb/projects/deqar-connect

Since 2018, AQ Austria has been a partner in the project EMINENT "Towards the enhancement and harmonisation of HEIs Quality Assurance in Haiti in response to National and International developments", which is co-financed by the EU Commission from Erasmus+ program funds and led by the University of Alicante. The aim of the project is, among other things, the implementation of internal quality management at five Haitian higher education institutions and, in cooperation with the Haitian Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training, the creation of a roadmap for the further development of the higher education sector in Haiti.
Due to the political situation in Haiti as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, there were delays in the project. Despite the difficult situation, extensive measures made it possible to achieve many of the previously defined project goals by the end of the project in May 2022. Among other things, the first Haitian QM network "Interconnexion des Partenaires de l'Assurance Qualité dans l'enseignement supérieur en Haïti", or InPAQH-Sup for short, was founded and a roadmap for the further development of internal quality assurance at Haitian universities, in cooperation with the network, was published.
More information about the project can be found at: https://www.eminent-haiti.eu/
The roadmap document can be found at: https://www.eminent-haiti.eu/resources/roadmap-network-inpaq-sup

In 2018, the Quality Audit Network launched a survey among its members to find out about recent changes and upcoming developments cocerning the quality audit across Europe. The result of it is a report by Dietlinde Kastelliz (AQ Austria) and Orla Lynch (QQI), which includes both an analysis of the survey and the conclusions drawn from the information. Furthermore, it outlines possible future trends for external quality assurance.

The report can be downloaded here.

AQ Austria conducted an analyses questioning the relevance of societal objectives and their integration into the internal quality management system of HEIs`. The findings show how this issue is reflected in external quality audits in Austria. The empirical approach and the findings have been presented at EQAF 2018

AQ Austria is partner within the ERASMUS+ project „Internal Quality Management: Evaluating and Improving Competence-Based Higher Education“

Project website, http://www.iqm-he.eu/#project

Project, Internal Quality Management: Evaluating and Improving Competence-Based Higher Education (PDF)

Impact of Quality Assurance

The main focus of the working group, in which 20 agencies are represented, is to reflect on the impact of external quality assurance procedures on internal quality assurance at HEIs. Alongside a methodic document on impact analyses, the working group analyses possible strategies to measure the impact and gathers examples of good practice. The final report will be available in autumn 2014.

Staff Development

External quality assurance has a considerable influence on the recognition and development of HEIs. It is thus justifiable that HEI request adequate procedures and excellent reviewers as well as the maximum possible professionalism on the part of the quality assurance agency's employees. For the emerging occupational field of quality assurance, staff development plays an important role for the agencies. For this reason, AQ Austria participates in this working group, which is investigating possibilities of developing a staff development scheme.

Stakeholder Involvement in Quality Assurance Practices

This working group attends to the involvement of different stakeholders in external quality assurance. The main purpose of this working group is to set up a debate to identify ways of promoting and improving the active involvement of the different stakeholders related to the external quality assurance processes within the EHEA without losing sight of the national requirements within the different contexts.

The Quality Audit Network (QAN) unites European quality assurance agencies conducting review procedures of the internal management of HEIs. One of QAN's objectives is to compare the different procedural approaches and to define good practice. Another objective is to improve the procedures. Since the network was founded in 2008, AQ Austria has played a leading role in the work of QAN.

Based on an AQ Austria workshop that was held in April 2013 in Vienna, the agency has now issued a comparative analysis of quality audit procedures in the EHEA. Please find the publication here.

You can order a printed version here. (in German)

AQ Austria is a partner in the "Strengthening the Lifelong Learning in Environmental Sciences in Russia – STREAM" TEMPUS project, in which five agricultural universities contribute to the development and implementation of modular training programs (MTPs) on environmentally relevant topics in Russia, tailor-made to meet the needs of various target groups (secondary school students, undergraduates, graduate & postgraduate students, secondary school and university teachers, researchers, professionals, government employees). AQ Austria will provide guidance in this project and in cooperation with external experts, will evaluate part of the MTP in Russia.

Project website, http://www.ecostreamrus.com