The Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2009

Studieavdelingen

The Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2009 was approved by the University Board the 28 septhember 2010. Here is a short summary.

The Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2009 is a report to the University Board at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB). It is the seventh annual report on the quality of education and complies with the criteria issued by the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT) stating institutions of higher education annually report the quality of the education and the quality (assurance) work, as well as an overview of priorities and measures in the quality work (annual report on the quality or similar) to the board of the institution.

The Quality Assurance System for Educational Activities (KSU) divides the quality of education at UMB into three main areas:

        - The quality of admitted students (admission quality)
        - The quality of UMB's educational activities (educational quality)
        - The quality of graduates (graduate quality)

These three main areas are in turn subdivided into eight quality areas each with a set of key areas and indicators. The annual report is structured along these divisions.

The Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2009 was prepared by the Department of Academic Affairs (Studieavdelingen) and contains:

1. Follow-up on the Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2008.
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 2009.

2. Summary 2009. The report gives an overview of the achieved results, positive trends and the future challenges for each of the three main areas in KSU.

3. Quality of education 2009.
For each of the eight quality areas, an evaluation of the quality and suggestions for the main actions are given .This part also includes an overview of completed KSU-work and background documentation. The background data is taken from the quality assurance system, local and national evaluations and databases, as well as oral and written reports. The students have contributed to most of the background data.

4. Appendices.
These include the action matrices from the follow-up on programme evaluations and questions for the management dialogues, course evaluations and the agenda from Education Committee (SN) and the Learning Environment Committee (LMU) meetings and more.

The Report on the Quality of Education is primarily a tool for visualising and summarising UMB’s work to improve the quality of education and to show UMB's strengths and challenges in that respect. The Report was discussed in the Education Committee (SN) 8 September (sak 47(/2010) and the Research Committee (FON) was informed of the PhD and research related parts of the report 15 September (sak 44/2010 D). The Learning Environment Committee discussed the report 17 September (sak 21/2010). The university's central management team and the heads of the departments (ILT) are informed about the (content of the) report after the processing in the Education Committee (SN). The final processing of the report is completed by the University Board. For the 2008 report the University Board decided that the management will prioritise what areas to be followed-up in the coming years.

Actions have been initiated within most of the follow-up areas of the Annual Report on the Quality of Education 2008 although a lot still remains. However there is a 1-3 years perspective on the follow-up actions and the work continues.

Based on the annual report's assessment of the quality of education at UMB in 2009, the Director of Academic Affairs recommends that UMB focuses on the following areas in the coming years:

1. Marketing, communication and recruitment (admission and control)

a.       Increase student recruitment to all educational programmes with special attention to increasing the number of applicants to the teacher education programme.

b.       Implement a dropout survey

c.       Increase the number of students that continue at UMB after they have finalised a one-year non-degree study

2. Teaching and education offers
a.       Improve the cooperation between the departments relating to subjects and study programmes

b.      The course evaluation process must be optimised

c.       The total amount of assessments (course evaluations, study programmes, student welfare survey
         and the master degree survey) must be optimised

d.      UMB should develop a policy for educational merits for employment and promotions

e.       UMB shall continuously assess the number of study programmes and subjects related to the number of students

f.        Improve the information to students before and during their master’s thesis work

g.       Consider starting an internal evaluation of study programmes using questionnaires, during and at the end of a programme

3. The PhD education

a.       Define areas and content in the PhD programmes that UMB offers (in accordance with National Qualification Framework)

b.      Consider defining more PhD programmes

c.       Increase the offer of 400 subjects

d.      Implement routines for UMB’s PhD programmes to be systematically evaluated

4. Academic resources and student support

a.       PhD students’ opportunity to participate in Norwegian language taught teaching and the declining number of Norwegian spoken PhD-student

b.      Dimensioning the Student Information Centre (SiT) in relation to the actual need (increasing)

c.       Continue to focus on the importance of increased scientific publishing at UMB

d.      Make an ongoing assessment of the use of means in relation to the objective of increasing scientific publishing

e.       Make more time available for publication and teaching at the cost of administrative tasks

f.        Study counselling – clarify the competence needed to provide good study counselling and include this in announcement texts

5. Learning environment

a.       Increase the number of group rooms and open reading areas and facilitate an equitable distribution of those between the departments.

b.      Compile an overview over time that shows the development of the reading rooms’ conditions, the number of rooms and seats available.

c.       Establish clear and unambiguous procedures for students who require facilitation during studies and examinations.

d.      Clarify who is responsible for open reading rooms

e.       Create a total room plan related to the increasing numbers of students, renovation, new buildings and replacement facilities

f.        Develop procedures and responsibilities for the allocation of permanent reading room seats for master students

g.       Prepare services to commuters on campus

h.      Clarify roles between the ordering unit (department), the coordinator (the Department of Academic Affairs), the owner unit (supplier of the EBA recourses) and the manager (DSA)

i.        Clarify and determine UMB’s canteen offer

6. Internationalisation

a.       Increase the number of students going on exchange as a part of their UMB degree

b.       Improve the system around collecting and analysing student’s assessment of studying at institutions outside UMB

c.       Identify the quality of collaborations agreement and create good practices for entering into new agreements

d.       Identify the quality of teaching in subjects taught in English through assessments among all students and staff

7. Graduates

a.       UMB should consider introducing compulsorily completion of the bachelor's degree for admission to master’s degree. This to follow up on the National Qualifications Framework intentions to increase mobility between educations and quality assurance of the master’s admission.

b.      UMB should consider to change the routines for submission of master’s thesis (not approving applications for late submission)

c.       The reasons for dropout from UMB are unknown and there are no surveys conducted among the dropouts. A survey exploring the reasons for dropout should be carried out in 2010

Published: 19.10.10
Updated: 20.10.10
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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.