Multidimensional transparency tools. Various ministerial communiqués have highlighted the diversity of European HE as an asset. A transparent, multidimensional classification system of instruments which are designed to benchmark HEIs on research and innovation, teaching and learning outcomes, services to society, level of internationalisation and mobility, governance, study fees and study environment, student and stakeholder involvement, etc., may help identify and make visible such diversity.
The development of such transparency instruments, is however, inextricably linked to a well-functioning QA system across the EHEA and to well-described QFs that are closely related to the mission of the specific HEI. Ranking, especially ranking expressed as an average of the different individual dimensions, must be avoided; such an average figure will be statistically questionable and therefore provide the reader with limited, or feasibly, misleading information.
Our vision for 2020 shows an EHEA that has built up a comprehensive information system offering all the necessary data for those demanding detailed information about the individual HEIs and HE programs across country boundaries.
EURASHE commits itself to cooperating with international authorities and HE associations to identify and develop such qualitative and quantitative descriptors and indicators that will ensure the practical usefulness of the multidimensional instruments to the prospective learner.
These topics are faced and researched by the Working Group on Quality Assurance and Transparency Tools (WG5), which is led by Stefan Delplace (EURASHE) and Andreas Orphanides (European University Cyprus).
The objectives of the WG5 are:
a. Enhancing of Transparency in Quality Assurance,
b. Promotion of International Transparency tools in HE,
c. Support European Policies towards QA in Tertiary Education.
Find out the composition of the Working Group 5.
