Joint Degree Programmes: QA across national borders – ideas and strategies Nick Harris Quality Assurance Agency for HE UK

Who is / should be interested? students universities (nation) states stakeholders (employers etc) What is being quality assured ? the study programme – whats offered is delivered ? the award – whats required to pass ? what graduates can actually do – ? –generic stuff.. what society and employers expect.. ? –specific stuff.. knowledge & understanding ? licence to practice stuff QA: but for whom.. and for what?

Different places.. different (QA) approaches? whose award ? national awards.. or an institutions accreditation or not ? external accreditation ( by a [national] agency ).. or not –programme accreditation –institutional accreditation –professional body accreditation quality labels.. a good thing.. or not ? the bases of QA learning outcomes / competencies input measures.. curriculum content, hours, staff quality etc mixture of both

What should QA consider? Should there be questions about.. the [ type(s) of ] institution (s) ? (just) what the programme intends to deliver ?.. and how ? what the programme actually delivers ? what the students think of it all ? (surveys etc) what the students achieve ?.. –( assessment.. and external examiners ) consistency.. is it needed or not ?

Who should be involved? External professional inspectorate / peer reviewers ? academics and pedagogical experts only ? administrators and quality professionals ? student(s) (on the panel) ? stakeholders ? Internal.. teaching / research staff administrators students alumni

What makes a joint.. ?.. s different / special ? an integrated programme.. delivered in and enhanced by different contexts.. –not academic tourism nor a pick and mix but they come in a variety of forms simplest.. students all study exactly same programme in 2 or more places.. students study in all of the partner institutions but not usually like that more common.. core studied in 1 or more places.. and optional bits in different places –typically means that students will not study in all of the partner institutions delivering the programme ( Joint ) degrees sometimes give specific legal rights

Different places.. different rules ? YES.. BUT.. local needs to follow local laws / rules –and often these are only concerned with local bits But an integrated programme should have integrated QA –this doesnt mean the same QA everywhere

The EUA Golden Rules.. cooperation and coordination.. [ know who is responsible for what decisions ].. identify key pre-conditions.. should be guided by curiosity and [build] trust in what is different.. based on transparency and honesty.. trustworthy communications between all partners.. sense of common ownership.. shared academic values.. expressed as agreed quality principles.. broad involvement and participation of all relevant stakeholders Quality assurance is a shared and integrated responsibility of the network as well as a responsibility to be taken by each participating institution.

Different places.. different rules.... some solutions ? QA the bits at a local level and.. hope.. ( take care of the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves ) ? –but what about local differences in the QA of the bits –do local differences really matter ? mutual recognition agreement amongst QA agencies.. –joint programme just done once.. but by whose rules? something in between.. –local rules beefed up for joint programmes –to take some account of integration of QA across the network

but there are two things we can be sure of.. good QA needs attention to detail.... and needs to be carried out with care..

Nick Harris EUA - institutional perspectives.. EMNEM.. European Masters New Evaluation Methodology.. ENQA - agency perspective.. TEEP II.. QA of trans-national joint masters