Quality Assurance and CDIO

1. Quality Assurance and CDIO Dr. Juha Kontio Director of Education School of Telecommunication and e-Business Turku University of Applied Sciences FINLAND

2. Content

3. Introduction:Quality of education in focus Education and training must be improved so that enough young people are graduating with the appropriate skills to obtain jobs (Lisbon Strategy ) One of the major challenges in the next ten years is answering ever growing skill requirements with improved quality of education (Finnish Ministry of Education) A crucial success factor is an internationally competitive, high quality educational system(The Rectors Conference of Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences) As higher education is increased, we must not compromise on quality...(British Department for Education and Skills) The focus of development actions should clearly be at validating the quality ...(Finnish Ministry of Education) The structures, contents and implementation methods of higher education degrees have to be renewed in order to meet the challenges set by the changing environment. (The Rectors Conference of Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences) While making changes in the educational system the importance of quality assurance and quality management raises both at national and international level.

4. The European quality assurance policy is coordinated by European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. internal standards and guidelines, external standards and guidelines and standards for external quality assurance agencies. In Finland: Ministry of Education  National higher education policy Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council  National evaluations of HEIs HEIs  Quality assurance  Quality of education Quality Assurance at Higher Education Quality assurance means all the procedures, processes and systems that support and develop the education and other activities of the HEI (Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council, 2007)

5. ENQA guidelines for internal qualityassurance within HEIs 1.1 Policy and procedures for quality assurance: Institutions should have a policy and associated procedures for the assurance of the quality and standards of their programmes and awards. They should also commit themselves explicitly to the development of a culture which recognises the importance of quality, and quality assurance, in their work. To achieve this, institutions should develop and implement a strategy for the continuous enhancement of quality. The strategy, policy and procedures should have a formal status and be publicly available. They should also include a role for students and other stakeholders. 1.2 Approval, monitoring and periodic review of programmes and awards: Institutions should have formal mechanisms for the approval, periodic review and monitoring of their programmes and awards. 1.3 Assessment of students: Students should be assessed using published criteria, regulations and procedures which are applied consistently. 1.4 Quality assurance of teaching staff: Institutions should have ways of satisfying themselves that staff involved with the teaching of students are qualified and competent to do so. They should be available to those undertaking external reviews, and commented upon in reports. 1.5 Learning resources and student support: Institutions should ensure that the resources available for the support of student learning are adequate and appropriate for each programme offered. 1.6 Information systems: Institutions should ensure that they collect, analyse and use relevant information for the effective management of their programmes of study and other activities. 1.7 Public information: Institutions should regularly publish up to date, impartial and objective information, both quantitative and qualitative, about the programmes and awards they are offering. Do you recognize any similarity with the CDIO standards?

6. CDIO offers a framework for HEIs to guide the education development process (to improve the quality) Standard-based program evaluation Inputs: program purposes, resources and planned activities Implementation: what is actually done Impact: evidence about the program outcomes Improvement: use the results for continous program improvements Monitor progress Evaluate level in each 12 standards: 0 – 4 points  sum 0 – 48 Provide evidence besides ratings (0-4) Document decisions made for continous improvement What does this sum tell? Where are we at the moment? Is there a way to add some information to this? CDIO self-evaluation model (Standard 12) CDIO Program Evaluation Model

7. Diffusion of innovations • An innovation is an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by the unit of adoption  CDIO is an innovation, thus the innovation process in an organization becomes interesting... Is it possible to create a combination of CDIO self-evaluation and Innovation process model?

8. Creating the model Program evaluation scale Phases of the innovation process in organizations Scale Description Phase Description 0 No initial program-level plan or pilot implementation Agenda-Setting General organizational problems that may create a perceived need for innovation 1 Initial program-level plan and pilot implementation at the course or program level Matching Fitting a problem from the organization's agenda with an innovation 2 Well-developed program-level plan and prototype implementation at course and program levels Redefining/ Restructuring The innovation is modified and re-invented to fit the organization, and organizational structures are altered 3 Complete and adopted program-level plan and implementation of the plan at course and program levels underway Clarifying The relationship between the organization and the innovation is defined more clearly 4 Complete and adopted program-level plan and comprehensive implementation at course and program levels, with continuous improvement processes in place Routinizing The innovation becomes an ongoing element in the organization's activities and loses its identity Seems quite close to each other!

9. Creating the model

10. Testing the model Two evaluations: Management group (Nov-07) and Personnel (Jan-08).

11. Evaluation of the school with the extended model The innovation is modified and re-invented to fit the organization, and organizational structures are altered

12. CDIO framework included Teacher periods in industry Teacher periods in industry in our quality assurance document CDIO conference in CDIO standards CDIO conference in Nordplus project proposal CDIO conference in Boston translated to Finnish Gent Singapore CDIO möten in CDIO meeting in Program evaluations Stockholm Porto Comparison of our Nordic regional Nordic regional curricula and CDIO meeting meeting initiative Planning of Design - Survey of our Visit Chalmers in Build packages in learning environment Gothenburg Work continues curricula Planning of a Design introductory First Introductory CDIO introduced to development project course in every course personnel based on CDIO ideas curricula implementations First discussions Curricula - about CDIO in our Learn what CDIO is? CDIO application CDIO evaluation Competences - management team Assessment guidelines Project International EE 2008 Conference , Assessment analysis Active Learning Active Learning Quality up with CDIO started workshop training for teachers Liverpool , July 2006 started , 1 . 1 . 2007 CDIO process at Turku* 7 . 2006 10 . 2006 1 . 2007 4 . 2007 7 . 2007 10 . 2007 1 . 2008 4 . 2008 7 . 2008 10 . 2008 1 . 2009 4 . 2009 7 . 2009 10 . 2009 *) School of Telecommunication and e-Business

13. Progress of the innovation process in different HEIs Routinizing 40 Clarifying 30 Redefining 20 Matching 10 Agenda-Setting 0 Jan-08 Sep-06 Sep-04 Chalmers KTH LiU Sep-03 MIT DTU Sep-00 USNA Turku

14. Other way of looking the progress of CDIO implementation Years 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 LiU Chalmers MIT KTH DTU USNA Turku Redefining / Agenda - setting Matching Clarifying Routinizing Restructuring

15. Discussion & conclusions • CDIO ratings (0-4) and their descriptions are very similar to the innovation model phases • Ratings show the phase in the implementation process • The CDIO standards are well defined and supported by the well-written standard descriptions • The independent evaluation of different groups in our case produced quite similar results in most programs • The CDIO self-evaluation model functions surprisingly well: model starts from concrete topics and deals with quality matters very understandable way keeping the personnel along • CDIO offers an initiative that management and personnel can easily commit

16. … • The CDIO self-evaluation is a starting point for focusing development actions • The self-evaluation model provides necessary tools for target development actions and to enhance continuous improvements in higher education • While CDIO initiative is not a quality assurance tool, it certainly is a package that has a positive influence on the quality of higher education • The proposed extension of self-evaluation with diffusion of innovation model is easy to use and it gives additional information about the progress • Some questions remain… • How to document the evaluations? • How to show continous improvement based on the evaluations? • How to conduct evaluations with the stakeholders? • ….

17. A proposalto Nordplus Higher Education Programme • Main idea • To develop and implement a self-evaluation model in the participating higher education programs to support their quality assurance work and continuous program improvement. • Define the self-evaluation process in HEIs and develop new tools for supporting the process steps and quality assurance work in HEIs. • Develop cross-evaluation methods for international use. • At least three HEIs from three programme countries (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden) are needed • Project proposal may also include participants from other countries, but these partners cannot be funded directly from the programme • Interested? Thank you!