Topic: Qualitiy management and accreditation for study programmes in forest sciences and related disciplines
June 27th till 29th, 2018 in Padova, held by the Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry (TESAF)
About the Conference
Following its success in enterprises and public services, quality management and assurance has also become in recent years a major concern in academic education in many countries in Europe and the World. In many cases, the ambitious goal of improvement of learning and teaching by implementation of quality management structures and processes and by accreditation has only been fixed on paper and is not yet implemented in daily teaching and learning activities. On the other hand, there are examples of Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences where a ‘culture of quality’ has been established which is working pretty well. The efforts on university level are embedded in national and international initiatives to improve higher education, e.g. within national accreditation systems and the Bologna Process. Study programmes in forestry and related sciences have been included in these endeavors from the beginning.
Members of the SILVA network often have been working at the forefront in their universities to modify and innovate teaching and learning in study programmes on forestry. A first overview about “quality assurance and curriculum development” was given already within the SILVA conference in Valencia, Spain, in 2006. Since that time, the institutional landscape in higher education underwent many changes. Hence, it is time for revisiting quality management and assurance from today’s point of view. Amongst others, the following questions should be addressed:
- Which challenges are we facing now for quality assurance in higher education on university level, on subnational and national level?
- Are accreditation approaches really improving teaching and learning, or do they only increase bureaucracy?
- How to monitor, evaluate and accredit international study programmes, joint and/or double Master Degrees?
- What are the relations between higher education in forestry and overarching quality assurance approaches, e.g. the European Qualification Framework (EQF)?
- What are the regional differences between European and Non-European Universities in the perception and awareness of quality in teaching and learning?
- What can we learn for study programmes in forestry from examples of best practice quality assurance systems outside and inside universities?
- How informative are graduate surveys for the adaptation of study programmes to the needs of future students?
- More generally, which roles and functions in quality assurance processes should be assigned to student representatives, to alumni or to employers?
Read more: First Annoucement
Read more: Second Annoucement
Read more: Third Announcement
Read more: Proceedings