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Quality Management in Teaching
The Vice President’s Office for Education supports the university’s organizational units (faculties, departments and institutes) in ensuring and developing the quality of their programs and coordinates the various quality assurance/quality development processes.
At the same time, the university’s decision-making and steering processes are based on intensive and constructive dialog between decentralized and central units. The decentralized units are where quality is delivered, and quality can only be effectively ensured and developed through a tangible quality culture within those units. All quality processes have been discussed and decided on by the responsible Senate committees (the Teaching Committee, the PhD Committee, the Continuing Education Committee).
A tangible quality culture requires regular reflection on performance and systematic dialog with the various stakeholders both within and outside of the university. Quality development at the University of Basel is organized systematically and includes the necessary feedback cycles at all levels, which help ensure and develop quality. This enables us to take action where needed and thus forms the key prerequisite for continuous improvement and development as a learning organization.
The central support structures of the Vice President’s Office for Education in the area of quality are therefore kept streamlined. They support and coordinate the quality assurance/quality development processes within the units and make them visible.
Prozesse
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Courses
All courses at the university are evaluated on a regular basis. The dialog between teaching staff and students is central to these evaluations. The process is coordinated by the responsible teaching committees. The teaching staff and the students discuss the detailed results of the evaluation in class in a feedback session.
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Assessment formats
There are two parts to the evaluation of assessment formats.
Key figures on assessment formats are gathered and analyzed every year. In cases where these key figures are not sufficiently informative (e.g. because students are only awarded a pass/fail), students who have taken the relevant degree subject complete a survey by the faculty.
Periodically and where required, the assessment formats of individual teaching staff are also evaluated via questionnaires directly following the examination.
The key figures or survey results are discussed by the teaching committee and with the relevant member of teaching staff where required.
To the Quality Management for Assessment Formats page (german)
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Degree programs
Degree program evaluations at bachelor’s and master’s level at the University of Basel are likewise made up of two parts.
As part of our Summative Degree Program Evaluation, key figures relating to degree programs and subjects are gathered and analyzed each year.
If required, in-depth formative evaluations can be carried out for individual degree programs. This often takes place in connection with the Development and Revision of degree programs.
The committees responsible for teaching within the relevant faculty or subject area discuss the quality of the individual degree programs based on the key figures and the survey results.
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Teaching Excange Meeting
Annual status reviews for teaching are held between the Vice President for Education and the Dean of Studies of each faculty. This review is based on the aggregated results of the three quality management processes for courses, assessment formats and degree programs. In the review, the individual degree programs are discussed, any necessary measures agreed on and the implementation of the quality assurance/quality development system for teaching within the relevant faculty examined. Topics that apply across the university are also discussed by the Teaching Committee where required.
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PhD
The relationship between the doctoral candidates and their supervisors is at the heart of any doctoral program. Responsibility for quality assurance at PhD level lies with the faculties as enforcers of the doctoral study regulations and home of the Doctoral Boards, and with the graduate schools and structured PhD programs belonging to the faculty. The courses offered centrally by the Graduate Center (GRACE) supplement the programs. At an institutional level, quality management at PhD level is based on the following factors: the doctoral agreement, evaluation of the various curricula for doctoral students, key figures, surveys completed by the doctoral students and scientific advisory boards.
All evaluation results are discussed by the responsible boards within each department and PhD program and by the respective faculty and graduate school. As PhDs span both teaching and research, the evaluation results feed into both quality assurance/quality development processes.
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Continuing education
In the area of continuing education, evaluation takes place at three levels: evaluation of individual courses/modules, evaluation of the degree program by graduates, and periodic alumni questionnaires on the implementation of acquired knowledge in professional practice.
The results of the evaluations are used by the course heads to develop and adapt the degree program, develop didactic formats and the learning skills of teaching staff, and appoint appropriate staff members. In addition, course heads produce an annual report for submission to the Continuing Education Committee and the President’s Board.
To the Quality Management for Continuing Education page (german)
