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A case study: the way of the Romanian Agency ARACIS to the authorization

A case study: the way of the Romanian Agency ARACIS to the authorization to award EUR-ACE Label. Prof. Ioan Curtu , ARACIS President, curtui@unitbv.ro Prof. Radu Damian Director, Quality External Evaluation Department of ARACIS, radu.damian@aracis.ro

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A case study: the way of the Romanian Agency ARACIS to the authorization

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  1. A case study: the way of the Romanian Agency ARACISto the authorization to award EUR-ACE Label Prof. IoanCurtu,ARACIS President, curtui@unitbv.ro Prof. Radu DamianDirector, Quality External Evaluation Department of ARACIS, radu.damian@aracis.ro Prof. IacintManoliurepresentative of ARACIS in ENAEE, manoliu@utcb.ro 1st ENAEE Conference Porto, 12-13 November 2012

  2. CONTENT Engineering education in Romania Quality assurance and accreditation in Romanian higher education ARACIS and EUR-ACE ARACIS and ENAEE ARACIS and EUR-ACE Label Concluding remarks

  3. Engineering education in Romania

  4. Academic year 2012-2013 109 universities • 56 public universities • 37 private accredited universities • 16 private authorized universitieswith provisional authorization

  5. Engineeringprogrammes are offered by: • 41 universities • 35 public (including 9 technical universities and 5 comprehensive universities with engineering programmes in predominance) • 6 private

  6. Distribution of universities offering engineering education throughout Romania in the academic year 2012-2013

  7. “Nomenclator” of fields and specializations in the first cycle degree approved by the government • 25engineering fields • 144 specializations

  8. Engineering education in Romania before Bologna True “continental” or “binary” system 300 ECTS 180 ECTS 5-year (integrated) programme “inginer diplomat” 3-year programme “inginercolegiu”

  9. Engineering education in Romania after Bologna Second cycle degree (120 ECTS) master 2 years 4 years First cycle degree (240 ECTS) Inginer (engineer)

  10. Law 288/2004 for the implementation of the Bologna process • university studies in Romania are organized in three cycles; • the first cycle, with a duration of 3-4 years (180-240 ECTS Credits) is called “Licenta” (synonymous with “Licence” in French). The qualification level acquired by graduates from the first cycle should be sufficient to assure employability. The Law stipulates that for engineering education the first cycle is of 4 years duration 240 ECTS credits); • the second cycle, with a duration of 1-2 years (60-120 ECTS Credits), is called “Master”. The cumulative duration of the first cycle (licence) plus the second cycle (Master) should correspond to at least 300 ECTS or 5 years; • the third cycle corresponds to doctorate studies having, normally, a duration of 3 years; • the existing short, 3-year programmes, have to be discontinued, unless they can be converted into programmes corresponding to the licence. This option was not considered in engineering, since only one kind of first cycle programme, of 4 years duration, was established.

  11. Quality assurance and accreditation in Romanian higher education

  12. NO accreditation before 22 December 1989 • Programmes and curricula were approved by the Ministry of Education

  13. Dramatic changes • starting with academic year 1990-1991 • several new public universities • explosion in the number of private universities

  14. Law 88/1993 Establishment of the National Council for Academic Assessment and Accreditation (NCAAA) under the authority of the Parliament NCAAA functioned until 2005

  15. Law 87/2006 Establishment of ARACIS (AgentiaRomanapentruAsigurareaCalitatii in InvatamantulSuperior) Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education

  16. Features of ARACIS • autonomous public institution of national interest • legal entity with its own income and expenditure budget • independent agency, free for any political or other external influences

  17. Features of ARACIS • GENERAL agency, covering all fields of higher education • Two strands: • Quality assurance • Accreditation • 14 Committees for various fields, among which 2 Committees for engineering sciences

  18. Accreditation of higher education institutions in Romania a 2-stage process • provisional authorization • (the institutions has the right to engage in the educational process and to organize entrance examinations) • accreditation • (the institutions has, in addition, the right to issue diplomas recognized by the Ministry of Education and to organize entrance examinations for graduate, post-graduate, master and doctoral programmes)

  19. Accreditation of engineering programmes • general criteria, common for all fields • specific criteria, set up by the Engineering Sciences Committees

  20. ARACIS results between January 2007 – October 2012 Starting with 2009, accreditation of 628 master programmes

  21. ARACIS and EURACE

  22. EUR-ACE project (2004-2006) • The Union of Associations of Civil Engineers of Romania (UAICR) among the partners • Preparation of EUR-ACE Framework Standards (EFS) • On 5th March 2005, presentation and discussions on EFS in Bucharest, organized by ACAAA and UAICR. EUR-ACE Board represented by IringWasser

  23. Main outcomes of the EUR-ACE project : • Foundation of the European Network for the Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE), Brussels, February 2006 • (UAICR among the 14 founding members) • ENAEE has registered the EUR-ACE® Trademark and authorizes agencies to add the EUR-ACE label to their accreditation

  24. EUR-ACE Implementation project 2006-2008 • UAICR among the partners • November 2006: first 6 agencies authorized to award the EUR-ACE label • CTI (FR) • ASIIN (DE) • Engineers Ireland (IE) • Ordem dos Engenheiros (PT) • Engineering Council (UK) • RAEE (RU)

  25. EUR-ACE SPREAD project 2008-2010 • ARACIS among the partners • Working package 6 of the project: Spread of the EUR-ACE system in Romania

  26. First visit to ARACIS of ENAEE/EUR-ACE delegation of three “mentors”: GiulianoAugusti, Pierre Compte, Jana Moehren, on 18-19 February 2009 • Meeting with the ARACIS President and other memebrs of the board • Meeting with the President and General Secretary of the General Association of Civil Engineers of Romania • Meeting with representatives of 10 Romanian universities offering engineering programmes

  27. ARACIS procedure did not require to include representatives of the profession in the evaluation teams for programmes in all fields • November 2009: to comply with EFS, ARACIS Council decided to set up a “Committee of Employers” and to open a “Register of evaluators coming form the professional world” enabling the presence in the evaluation team for engineerng programmes of representatives of the professional world • July 2010: first intensive training course for the new evaluators

  28. Second visit of the three “mentors’, 14-15 July 2010 • Meeting with ARACIS Board, with two ARACIS Engineering Sciences Committees and with all members of the newly created Committee of Employers • ARACIS produced “Specific evaluation standards for granting EUR-ACE label study programmes in the fundamental field Engineering Sciences” • October 2010: ARACIS applied to ENAEE for authorization to award the EUR-ACE Label, fulfilling the objective of EUR-ACE SPREAD project for Romania

  29. ARACIS and ENAEE

  30. A Review team named by ENAEE Label Committee: Erbil Payzin (Müdek), Alexander Gromov (RAEE), Mark Jones (Engineering Council), chaired by Erbil Payzin • November 2010 – February 2011. ARACIS Application Form reviewed, additional information required and received by the Review team • 28 February – 5 March 2011: participation of the Review team to two programmes (Information Engineering, Chemical Engineering) at the Faculty of Engineering in Foreign Languages at the University “Politechnica” Bucharest

  31. Review team produced on 2nd June 2011 a final report after receiving form ARACIS comments on the draft report send on 2nd May 2011 • The Report was examined in the Label Committee meeting on 27th September 2011

  32. Main recommendations transmitted to ARACIS by the Review team: • ) revise the procedures to be followed for EUR-ACE accreditation by ARACIS so that sufficient emphasis is placed on consideration of programme outcomes and their achievement by graduates. • ) introduce requirements for composition of the evaluation panel to ensure that subject expertise is appropriate and that sufficient resource is available to complete the review. • ) introduce requirements for ensuring that the visit schedules are designed to permit the particular evaluation activities required to judge key parameters related to EUR-ACE accreditation, particularly those pertinent to the achievement of program outcomes by the graduates.

  33. In its meeting on 12th October 2011, the Administrative Council ENAEE, on the basis of the report of the Review team, considered that it was too early to award to ARACIS the authorization to award the EUR-ACE Label

  34. Measures taken by ARACIS following the decision of ENAEE AC: • improvements in the evaluation procedures, particularly on assessment of achievement of programme outcomes • inclusion in the review panel of representatives of employers with experience and professional competence in the specific field

  35. On 2ndFebruary 2012, the EUR-ACE Label Committee requested the Review Team chair to attend one additional accreditation visit made by ARACIS • The Review Team chair attended on 28 – 29 May 2012 the accreditation visit made by ARACIS to the programme of Manufacturing Engineering (first cycle) at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca • A supplementary Report of the Review team issued on 13th June 2012

  36. On 13thSeptember 2012, the Label Committee recommended to the ENAEE AC to authorize ARACIS to deliver EUR-ACE Label • In the same day, ENAEE AC approved the recommendation of the Label Committee

  37. ARACIS and EURACE Label

  38. End of a long journey • Main actions taken by ARACIS to reach the statute of agency authorized to deliver EUR-ACE labels • the foundation of Employers Committee, followed by the periodic training of evaluators of this Committee; • the revision of the accreditation methodology for engineering sciences in order to fully comply with the EUR-ACE Framework Standards; • publication of “Specific evaluation standards for granting the EUR-ACE label to study programmes in the fundamental field of engineering sciences”; • the development of the EUR-ACE accreditation process as an additional layer to the core (mandatory) process used for the periodic evaluation of engineering study programmes; • ensuring the run of mandatory and EUR-ACE accreditation process for engineering programmes in an integrated way, using a joint evaluation panel consisting of 3 experts assigned by the relevant Engineering Sciences Committee and 2 experts assigned by the Employers Committee;

  39. Immediate objectives for ARACIS • to conduct promotional activities in order to convince institutions to make an option for the (voluntary) EUR-ACE accreditation simultaneously with the mandatory accreditation; • to increase significantly the number of evaluators coming from the professional world, in order to cover all domains of engineering sciences; • to organize activities for the training of all evaluators involved in the process of accreditation of engineering programmes, to observe the standards of assessment for the award of EUR-ACE Label; • to prepare an application to be submitted to ENAEE for the authorization to deliver EUR-ACE labels also for the second cycle (Master) study programmes.

  40. Concluding remarks

  41. Main credentials of ARACIS when applying in October 2010 to ENAEE to be authorized to deliver EUR-ACE labels: • a rich experience of almost 17 years (considering also its predecessor, NCAAA) in the evaluation of hundreds of engineering programmes; • activity in a country with a system of engineering education strong, diverse and with a tradition of almost 150 years; • membership in ENAEE, ENQA, CEEN-QA and listed in ENQA Register; • the advantage of being mentored during the two years of the EUR-ACE SPREAD project by a most capable team, chaired by the ENAEE President; • provided willingness to act quickly in order to have its standards and procedures complying with EUR-ACE Framework Standards.

  42. A happy end, but …. The process lasted too much (almost 4 years) A better communication between the applicant organization and the authorizing one, would certainly minimize the duration.

  43. Thank you for your attention!

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