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Discussion in Thematic Groups
Working group 4
External Evaluation and Accreditation
Doctoral Studies
Benchmarks
What is the meaning of the word ?
A list of what a bachelor (master, PhD) should know and what competences
he or she should have
The ‘Dublin descriptors’ are too general.
They should be specified in such a way that they pertain to physics.
This specification should be not so detailed that innovation of a
curriculum is prohibited by the benchmarks.
External evaluation and accreditation
Different procedures in different countries / regions:
External evaluation and accreditation are carried out by
different bodies but are closely connected.
Accreditation is a paperwork process.
External evaluation (visiting committee) is a separate process.
Experiences in accreditation
Constitution of the committee
In some countries (e.g. NL) external evaluation carried out by a visiting
committee that visits all physics departments in the country.
The visiting committee is mainly constituted of physicists.
In other countries (e.g. DE) the visiting committee is constituted of
experts in various disciplines and visits a number of related disciplines.
Disadvantages: There may be only one physicist in the committee who may
have decisive influence in all matters of his discipline. Professionals in
other fields may have a tendency to ‘formalize’ (concentration on the rules
rather than the content).
Advantage: The accreditation is cheaper, since more disciplines are
visited at the same time.
Recommendation
External evaluation should as much as possible be done by experts
in the discipline.
Value of external evaluation
Important is: not only what the visiting committee tells us.
Important is the process of preparation for an external evaluation.
We may spot our own weaknesses and improve on them before
the committee visits our departments.
Recommendation
Use the preparation before external evaluation for improvements.
The external evaluation process stimulates looking at each others strengths
and weaknesses.
It may be experienced by expert members of visiting committee’s who carry
what they have noticed elsewhere seen to their own departments.
Recommendation
Try to learn as much as possible of positive strengths of other departments.
Getting accustomed to the process of accreditation
Professional evaluators tend to focus on ‘competences’
Recommendation:
Do not teach: ‘quantum mechanics’
Teach: ‘competences in quantum mechanics’
Concerns about the Bologna process
Introducing the ECTS units and splitting up the curriculum in
smaller units of a fixed number of ECTS, does not always seem to make ‘
the programmes more ‘ easily readable and comparable’
than they used to be before.
Splitting integrated five year courses in the 3+2 BaMa structure
do not seem to promote international student exchange.
Finalizing bachelor degree, preferably at home university, does not promote
student exchange in third year of studies.
Internal evaluation
Workload of students is an important parameter in the Bologna document.
Only 25% of the respondents of the EG 4 questionnaire
appears to ‘measure’ student workload
If the concept of the ECTS-credit (based on student workload)
is to be used throughout Europe with confidence it should more or less
reflect reality.
Recommendation
Let us insert a question on the workload in course unit-evaluation
questionnaires.
Remark:
Fears for unrealistic answers in the questionnaires
Next year’s activities for Working group 4
Investigating the present status of doctoral studies
Present data are from EUPEN questionnaire in1999 :
(see ‘Third Cycles Studies’ by Lupo Dona dalle
Rosa)
Since that time there are changes:
e.g. in France|:
- introduction of ‘doctoral school’
- some responsibility for employment of the candidates
- students should be employee’s rather than students
e.g. in the Netherlands
- attempts to make PhD-students really students rather than employee’s
- as was the previous situation
- introduction of ‘graduate school’