The Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2008
StudieavdelingenOn the 24th of September 2009 the University Board approved the "The Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2008".
The annual Report on the Quality of Education 2008 (only available in Norwegian)
The Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2008 is a report to the board of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB). It is the sixth annual report on the quality of education.
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Content of the Education quality report 2008
The Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2008 was prepared by the Department of Academic Affairs (Studieavdelingen) and contains:
- Follow-up of the Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2007. This part describes the challenges given priority by the University Board as a follow-up of the previous Report on the Quality of Education, as well as the status of the follow-up activities. It describes how the follow-up work has been organised and what have been its major strengths. It discusses lessons learned as a basis for follow-up of the Annual report from 2008.
- Summing up 2008. The report gives an overview of the achieved results and the future challenges for each of the three main areas in KSU. A change from the 2007 Report is that this part has been prepared as a separate part.
- Quality of the education 2008. For each of the eight quality areas, an evaluation of the quality and suggestions for main actions are given .This part also includes an overview of the KSU-work and background documentation. Data sources include the quality assurance system, local and national assessments, as well as oral and written reports. Students have contributed to most of these.
- Appendix. These include the action matrices from the follow-up of programme evaluations and questions for the management dialogues and subject evaluations in 2008
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Follow-up of the Annual report on the quality of education 2007
The major strengths of the follow-up of the Annual report on the quality of education 2007 were:
- The report follows the calendar year, thus the prioritised follow-up measures could be directly included in the work with plans for the coming year (2009)
- In this way, it is easier to see the follow-up measures in connection with other measures initiated or planned initiated
- Resources for the follow-up measures can be allocated in a better way
- The management has got an increased focus on the quality work and follow-up of the quality work.
- Measure plans should be developed and discussed by the Education Committee (SN), the Research Committee (FON) and the University Board in order to structure to the follow- up work
- In connection to this, it is important with motivation and ownership within the responsible unit (from Report on the quality of education 2005 and 2006)
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Achieved results for quality of admitted students (admission quality)
Quality area 1: Admission quality
- The aim of 3000 students has been achieved
- There is still a good gender balance (more women than men)
- The quality of the students was on the average good
- More international applicants for UMBs programs and subjects
- Additional focus on how to increase application to studies with natural science requirements
- Strengthen the recruitment from countries and regions with few applicants
Quality area 2: Management
- UMB has established ethical guidelines
- UMB has started the work of establishing a recruitment policy and a long-term program for competence building
- UMB continuously look at how to improve and simplify the quality assurance system
- From 2007
- Better promotion of the university’s awards for quality work to further increase the support
- UMB has so far no holistic central policy for the use of long term personnel plans
- The educational collaboration with a number of educational institutions in the region continued with increased strength
- All evaluations were carried out in accordance to plans and routines in the quality assurance systems, with the exception of a few external evaluations
- In 2008 the students reported of a higher level of satisfaction regarding the areas of lifelong learning (for example critical thinking) than earlier.
- More subjects have project assignments (challenge in 2007)
- More bachelor programs have in-depth assignments (challenge in 2007)
- Encourage increased cooperation between departments and teachers for more optimal use of the university’s overall educational resources
- Improve the offer of course literature from SiÅs
- Strengthen the contact with workplaces in order to improve the relevance of the educational programmes
- Strengthen the teachers’ competence in flexible learning methods and the use of educational tools
- A widespread investment in training within the library service, professional skills-building and student administration systems.
- UMB has a distorted gender distribution among employees in several fields, especially among the permanent scientific staff.
- UMB had a decrease in scientific publications in 2008
- Students show an increased satisfaction with the students information centre (SiT) and SiT has an important function for UMB’s students.
- Continue to focus on the importance of increased scientific publishing at UMB
- Make an ongoing assessment of the use of instruments in relation to the goal of increasing scientific publishing
- Document how many of the employees in teaching positions who meet the pedagogic qualification requirements
- Resume the work on organising UMB’s alumni network
- Make UMB's course offers /courses more visible to the outside world
- A number of concrete actions for an improved total learning environment at UMB has been conducted
- An interdisciplinary project group has been established with the aim to coordinate the work with the physical learning environment
- Social consultant, psychologist and student priest have been co-located in 2008
- UMB aims as far as possible to enable students with special needs to study and carry out exams
- Develop the transportation possibilities for commuters
- From 2007
- Many students experienced condescending attitudes from teachers and supervisors
- The management of the student housing could improve according to the student welfare survey
- The quality assurance of administrative conditions related to the PhD education at UMB is significantly improved during 2008. Among others a new PhD regulation has been prepared.
- There has been an increase of courses offered at the 400-level
- Web information about exchange programs has improved
- The number of foreign students at UMB have increased further, and the number of nationalities at campus have increased
- The student assembly’s budget for inclusion measures was improved
- Developmore indicators to measure the international perspective inUMB’s study programmes
- Improve the system of gathering and analysing student evaluations of studies at institutions outside UMB
- From 2007
- There are few international students that get involved in the university’s bodies and committees
Quality area 8: Candidates
- The number of subjects with compulsory practice has increased
- A significant higher number of doctorates have been submitted in 2008 than in previous years (can be linked to a high admission of new PhD students in 2004)
- The reasons for drop out are unknown, no survey has been conducted among those who leave UMB. The reasons for drop out during study should be examined
- Doctorate students at UMB use more time to achieve their degree than the average for the rest of the universities in Norway
- The degree of students’practice from external institutions and employers is limited in bachelor and master programs , and the opportunities of exchange and traineeship is still to a large extent unused
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The Director of Academic Affair’s recommendations from the Annual report of the quality of education 2008
Based on the annual report's assessment of the quality of education at UMB in 2008, the Director of Academic Affairs recommends that UMB focuses on the following issues in the years ahead:
1. Marketing, communication and recruitment
Acceptance
- Improve student recruitment to all educational programmes
- Strengthen recruitment to master's programmes and to higher level studies
- Improve UMB’s routines linked to the follow-up of 1st priority applicants and individuals who receive a study offer
- UMB shall promote its study programmes as especially environmentally related (“green”) when applicable
- Improve the routines linked to the spring acceptance
- Look into usage of conditional acceptance and introduce conditional acceptance from Autumn 2010
- Increase the number of students that continue at UMB after they have finalised one-year non-degree studies
- More closed studies (with waiting list) at UMB
- Increase the number of applicants to PPU due to an increased number of study positions
- Improve the incentives to stimulate cooperation between departments about subjects/programmes
- UMB has no policy on rewarding teaching merits when an individual is employed or promoted. A portfolio system which documents employees’ pedagogical competence,teaching efforts and pedagogical development work should be developed
- Strengthen the contact with employers and other relevant actors in society in order to improve the relevance of the educational programmes
- Implement ethical guidelines in the organisation and raise the awareness among the employees to make them act in coherence with the guidelines
- Develop better templates for reporting (annually to KSU or in relation to deviation) and publishing of official reports at the UMB web
- UMB shall continuously evaluate the number of study programmes and subjects related to the number of students
- Improve the information to students before and during their masters’ thesis work
- The students should get more training in oral and written presentations
- Decrease the amount of overlapping themes in subjects by improved cooperation between teachers and departments
- Start internal evaluation of study programmes using questionnaires, during and at the end of a programme
- Evaluate the strategy for avoiding plagiarism
- Consider whether the present level of mandatory activities within the various subjects are in accordance to the level one would like it to be on
- Map and identify the improvement potential of the academic training- and research component of the PhD education
- Making the students aware of how the doctors can be used in the society – a 100 % academic study or/ and a qualification for an occupation
- Improve the possibilities for new doctors to continue their careers at the university
- Define the fields and content of the PhD programmes that UMB offers
- Identify the factors that gives the unequal distribution in the number of female applicants for scientific positions and leading positions, and change the uneven sex division with a long-term recruiting policy
- Make available more time for publication and teaching at the cost of administrative tasks
- The library service has an improvement potential – clarify within what fields
- Supervision of students – clarify the competence needed to provide good student supervision and include these in job announcements
- Establish a systematic electronic registration and publication of thesises from UMB
- Increase the supply of colloquia rooms and flexible reading areas, and ensure a fair distribution of these between the departments
- Develop a holistic room plan in connection with renovation, new buildings and replacement locations, and consider routines and responsibility for distribution of permanent reading places for master students
- Clarify roles and responsibilities of ordering unit (department), coordinator (the Department of Academic Affairs), owner unit (deliverer) and trustee (DSA)
- Develop a better canteen supply
- Increase the share of students participating in student exchange or study abroad programmes as a part of their UMB degree
- Carry out a survey among students and staff to map the teaching quality of subjects that are taught in English
- The reasons for not finishing education are unknown, and there are no surveys focusing on these matters carried out at UMB today. A survey exploring reasons for not finishing education is planned carried out in 2010
- The international competence within several of UMB’s study programmes is limited, and it is unclear to what kind of international competence the graduates have achieved at the end of their education.
Published: 02.10.09
Updated: 03.03.10
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Quality Assurance System at UMB
The Quality Assurance System shall guarantee that students spend their time av UMB effectively and receive an education of high academic quality.