Activity Plan
Provisional version to be submitted to the appraisal of the Board of Trustees
7. Electronic version of the system
9. Chronology of the activities
The Portuguese government has created the Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Portuguese Higher Education, from now on designated as Agency or A3HE, as an assessment and accreditation agency for quality assurance by Decree-Law no. 369/2007, of 5 November, a diploma that has also passed the agency statutes published as an annex. The Agency is a private law foundation established for an indeterminate period of time, with legal status and recognised as being of public utility. The Agency acts in agreement with the referred Decree-Law, its Statutes and subsidiary with other applicable legislation.
Under the law, the Agency is responsible for the assessment and accreditation of higher education institutions and their study cycles, as well as the execution of every task intrinsic to the insertion of Portugal in the European system of quality assurance of higher education, Therefore, every institution is obliged by the norms and procedures of assessment and accreditation defined by the Agency. The Agency may also participate in other assessments of scientific nature, namely of those institutions which are part of the national research system.
Under the law and its Statutes, the Agency is independent in the performance of its activities, without prejudice of the orientation norms that the State defines through its adequate authorities.
The general operational principles to adopt on higher education quality assurance procedures are those defined under the legal framework for the assessment of Portuguese higher education, laid down by law no. 38/2007, of 16 August
Under the terms of the Agency Statutes, the Board of Trustees must appoint the Administration Board, which is responsible for the definition of the Agency’s performance, as it has real competency to perform all the acts that are made to fulfil its objectives. On 23 May 2008 the Portuguese cabinet has appointed the Board of Trustees who in its turn has appointed the Agency’s Administration Board in 17 December 2008, its composition being:
a)President – Prof. Doctor Alberto M.S.C. Amaral
b)Executive members – Prof.s Dr. Jacinto Jorge Carvalhal and Engº. João Duarte Silva
c)Non-executive members – Doctor Paulo Santiago
This document aims at informing about the status of the Agency implementation process and the Assessment/Accreditation System and presenting the Activity Plan for the present year, as determined in the no. 3 of article 11 of the Agency’s statutes.
It is mission of the Agency to guarantee the quality of Portuguese higher education, by means of the assessment and accreditation of higher education institutions and their study cycles and participation in other assessments of scientific nature, as well as ensuring the insertion of Portugal in the European system for higher education’s quality assurance.
By aiming at creating a reputation as an institution fully capable to perform its mission at national level, the Agency also aims at being internationally recognised by a dynamic of permanent updating and improvement, capable of contributing to new knowledge creation in the area of quality.
In this sense, the Agency will not be prepared to be reduced to a mere burocratic body, looking instead to its contribution for research and innovation in the area of quality. Its activity must be supported by a permanent work of research and improvement. Beyond an international assessment that is mandatory both by law and by the European register, all its work will be permanently followed by specialised researchers and, at the end of every year, the Agency will promote a meeting with foreign experts to evaluate the work done so far.
The Portuguese higher education institutions will get only benefits from the international recognition of the Agency, as this will be seen as a guarantee of the validity of the Agency’s accreditations in the European Higher Education Area.
By taking into account its specific role in the national higher education quality assurance, the Agency does not ignore that the first responsibility for quality assurance lies with the institutions themselves. This means that the mission of the Agency only makes sense when in permanent dialogue with the institutions and with their interested collaboration. Therefore, a substantial component of the Agency’s activity will be dedicated to supporting the implementation of internal quality assurance systems.
It results from the normative framework that created the present assessment and accreditation system that the Agency must assume as its main task the promotion and the diffusion of a quality culture amongst the higher education institutions. Actually, we need to start from the principle that the responsibility for the quality of education lies first of all, with each higher education institution itself that must create the internal structures and procedures adequate to promote and assure the quality of that education. The Agency will be responsible for realising audits aiming at certifying the institutional internal quality procedures1.
The very fast development of the higher education system over the last three decades in Portugal has not allowed that quality preoccupations had the advisable relevance. Therefore, in parallel with the pre-accreditation of new study cycles, it is necessary to ensure that the training activities at present offered by the institutions are over a minimum quality threshold.
The operation of the Agency is strongly conditioned by law. Under article 83 of Decree-Law no. 107/2008, of 25 June, the study cycles already in operation when the Agency started its activity, will be subject to an accreditation process, which must be completed until the end of scholar year 2010/11. And under article no. 54, of the same Decree-Law, the initial operation, in a higher education institution, of a new study cycle leading to a degree of licenciado, mestre or doutor needs to be pre-accredited.
Therefore, it must be recognised that the tasks committed to the Agency have an enormous dimension: our higher education system has today 15 public universities (including the Universidade Aberta and the ISCTE), 15 public polytechnics and 9 other non-integrated institutions, beyond around 130 private institutions (including the Universidade Católica). And the number of study cycles is very high, as can be demonstrated in Table 1.
| Public Universities | Public Polytechnics | Private Education | Catholic University | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.st cycle and integrated masters | 590a | 614a | 625a | 45 | 1874 |
| Masters | 996b | 106b | 241d | 39 | 1382 |
| Masters for teachertraining | 105c | 60c | 11c | 0 | 176 |
| Doctorates | 310a | 0 | 32e | 12 | 354 |
| Total | 2001 | 780 | 909 | 96 | 3786 |
Source: Direcção Geral do Ensino Superior
a – updated to 11/9;
b –updated to 23/9;
c – updated to 12/12;
d – updated to 18/12;
e – updated to 20/6.
As there are at present some 4 000 study cycles in operation and in 2008/09 900 new processes have entered the Direcção Geral do Ensino Superior, the dimension of the problem makes impossible to launch a regular system of assessment/accreditation that meets the legal deadlines defined. Therefore, a viable solution will be the introduction over the next two years of some form of preliminary accreditation, after which the assessment/accreditation system will be launched in more regular form. This means that initially there will be a marked emphasis on these assessment/accreditation processes, while later there will be a growing emphasis on quality improvement processes, namely on those based on the promotion of internal systems of quality assurance.
Consequently, when defining the priorities for 2009 the Agency’s efforts will be concentrated on the pre-accreditation of new study cycles and on the preliminary accreditation of study cycles already in operation, leaving for a second phase the implementation of the internal systems of quality assurance (until the end of scholar year 2010/2011) together with a system of quality improvement that will work regularly (after the end of scholar year 2010/2011).
In order that the preliminary accreditation fulfils satisfactorily its objectives it should be stressed that itis an accreditation based on minimal quality standards (as it is to be expected from a traditional accreditation system), following a trial exercise that allows the Agency to concentrate its efforts of more detailed analysis on the study cycles and scientific areas that do not show clear evidence that minimal standard are universally fulfilled. Therefore, at this moment, it must be ensured that processes are totally transparent, in order to quash any doubts about the criteria that make this preliminary accreditation possible.
Consequently the Agency proposes the adoption of the following complementary measures:
1)Definition of guidelines based on a set of performance indicators allowing the clear separation of those cases that should be submitted to a deeper analysis from those that offer no doubts that minimal standards are fulfilled;
2)To take into account, by the Agency, assessment/accreditation processes previously used by institutions and that offer guarantee that minimum standards are safeguarded and that comply with conditions laid down in article 14 of Law no. 38/2007; as mere examples it is possible to mention cases of assessment/accreditation by foreign agencies such as the ABET and EURACE for engineering, EQUIS for management,the European accreditations for Veterinary Medicine, the assessment of Medicine by the European University Association, etc.
3)The study cycles exempt from detailed assessment/accreditation in this phase off the process are considered as pre-accredited until the stable operation of the system, in the scholar year 2011/2012.
4)To proceed to an assessment/accreditation exercise of all the study-cycles that do not offer a clear guarantee those minimum standards are safeguarded.
5)The study cycles referred in the previous item and that get a positive assessment are accredited for a period of five years.
6)This proposal will allow for a modulation of assessment/accreditation processes over a limited number of cases (selected by the above mentioned mechanism) feasible until the end of scholar year 2010/2011.
This procedure format, if well conducted will allow for testing and improving the future quality system, while at the same time giving a clear sign for institutions and society that the new Agency can act in an efficient and effective way by contributing to close down the study cycles with more evident lack of quality. It will also allow for the definition of a consensus between the Agency and its partners about a common quality concept. Other visible effect will be the elimination of study cycles and of institutions without viability or in a terminal phase that will be discontinued following a decision by its own managers.
In the stable system, to enter into regular operation in the beginning of scholar year 2011/2012, attention must be focused on internal systems of quality assurance using, as example, the following methodology:
a)In the case of universities, provided they have an internal quality assurance system duly certified by the Agency and in those areas with at least 60% of its academic staff holding a PdD2, there will be a simplified accreditation system for 1st and 2nd study cycles.
b)In the case of polytechnic institutes, provided they have an internal quality assurance system duly certified by the Agency and in those areas with at least 60% of its academic staff being specialists and/or holding a PhD3, there will be a simplified accreditation system for 1st and 2nd study cycles.
c)The integrated study cycles leading to a master degree will always be the subject of accreditation and they will depend, in a way to be defined, on the existence of research duly evaluated and recognised.
The legislation that regulates the Agency’s activities imposes a number of moves that promote its internationalisation:
a)The external evaluation integrates the mandatory participation of experts from foreign or international institutions, in significant numbers (article no. 14, Decree-Law no. 38/2007, from 16 August).
b)The Revision Council is composed of five members, with relevant professional experience, without any permanent contract with Portuguese higher education institutions, and must integrate people with experience in similar foreign organisations (no. 1 of Article 18 of the Agency’s statutes).
c)The Agency is responsible for performing the actions inherent to the insertion of Portugal in the European system for the guarantee of higher education: item e) of article 6 of the Agency’s statutes).
d)The Agency must integrate the Register created in the scope of the European quality assurance for higher education (article 24 of the Agency’s statutes).
In order to correspond to the emphasis given by the legislator to internationalisation, the Agency has decided to create a Scientific Council, integrated by experts with well recognised international experience that will promote at the end of each year a debate on the annual progress of the Agency and will present a report with criticisms and suggestions to improve the Agency’s procedures. This Council is composed as follows:
- David Dill, Professor of Public Policy, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Don Westerheijden, Senior Researcher, CHEPS, The Netherlands
- Bjorn Stensaker, Research Professor, University Oslo, NIFU-STEP
- Mary Henkel, Professor Brunel University, UK
- Guy Neave, Researcher at CIPES, consultant WB, OECD, EU, Swedish Academy
- José Ginés-Mora, University of Valência and Institute of Education (University of London)
To fulfil the decision of article 26 of the Agency’s statutes, there were contacts with the ENQA’s secretariat for the admission of the Agency as an associate member. These contacts were well succeeded and the Agency has been accepted for year 2009.
At last, as consequence of the internationalisation of review teams and of the Revision Council, all assessment/accreditation processes will be submitted electronically, both in Portuguese and in English4.
The urgency in starting the Agency’s work has conditioned the initial implementation strategy. It is worthwhile to mention some initiatives:
6.1. Physical installations
From the start the Agency made sure to initiate its operation in a rented space atstreet D. Estefânia, 195 - 5.º Esq. made available by ADISPOR. The Agency’s Administration Council must acknowledge and show its gratitude for this contribution. Later the Agency has also rented a second floorto install the technical personnel to be hired. The installation had no significant costs and a transfer to definitive installations is foreseen over the present year. There will be also a small unit in Porto where for the time being will be located Gabinete de Estudos e Análise.
6.2. Installation of the Agency’s bodies
The Ministérioda Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior was asked to take the necessary steps with the Ministério das Finanças for appointing the Agency’s Fiscal Council. This appointment has no yet taken place.
The Agency has mailed official letters to every entity mentioned in article 15 of the Agency’s statutes asking for the appointment of their representatives in the Agency’s Consultative Council. It is only necessary for two entities to appoint their representatives to complete the Council.
The Revision Council has not yet been appointed, but this is only necessary from the end of 2009, when it becomes possible that some demands for revision of the Agency’s decisions will be presented.
Meanwhile the Agency’s organic chart (presented in the next page) has been approved. It represents not only the institution’s organic structure but also the organisation of its services.
It can be said that with the se moves the conditions for the normal operation of the Agency have been created.
6.3. Personnel contracts
The Agency has initiated moves to hire the administrative personnel using, whenever possible, the mobility mechanism foreseen under article 10 of Decree-Law 369/2007, of 5 November. The position of General Secretary was filled in this way and three other employees were hired, one of them being responsible for the secretariat of the Porto Office.
The technical personnel of the Agency to support the assessment/accreditation processes will be hired in May, following a public tender that was already closed. The hired personnel well attend an apprenticeship period, which includes a training Seminar at post-graduation level with duration of five months (April to September 2009). Only those employees completing this period with a positive evaluation will be offered a new contract. The conditions for admission are holding a licenciatura degree, good capacity in English and the use of informatics and post-graduation will be valued.
The personnel from the office for development and analysis will be hired in May/June and must hold a PhD or at least a Master while preparing thesis PhD and doing research in an area relevant for the Agency’s work. The hiring strategy will combine hiring people already with a PhD or PhD students to whom additional training will be ensured.
The Agency has also hired juridical support and there are moves being developed to hire an informatics technician (with a higher education degree). At last it was decided that accountancy should be outsourced andan external enterprise was hired.
7. Electronic version of the system
Every procedure must use an electronic support, as is already being used, for instance, in most operations of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Therefore, all proposals for new study cycles, the self-evaluation reports and the eternal evaluation reports, the accreditation documents, the guidelines and the documents with the definition of the accreditation standards will be treated in electronic support. For implementing this system an option had tom be made between hiring the adequate services of a company or hiring informatics personnel. It was believed that the right option is the first one so the Agency only plans, for the moment, to hire an informatics employee that will help drafting the documents for the tender and will follow the whole process.
Before launching the process several entities were consulted, namely for collecting information and for receiving support, including the Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento IP (UMIC), the Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional (FCCN),where the Agency’s platform will be located, the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and the Direcção Geral do Ensino Superior (DGESup).
At last it was agreed with the DGES that all the processes for authorisation of the operation of new study cycles that were received by this directorate to initiate operation in the scholar year 2009/2010 – and not yet under the new format that the Agency will define – will be dispatched until the end of June 2009, not being therefore transferred to the Agency.
The Agency considers that it must contribute to improve the human resources available for activities in the areas of assessment/accreditation by training technicians and researchers in quality. Therefore the Agency will offer, in 2009, the following set of training actions:
a)A full-time training study programme with duration of 5 months, for training the new technicians to be hired by the Agency.
b)Intensive training programmes for external reviewers.
c)Training programmes open for personnel and students from higher education institutions, depending on the interest demonstrated by them.
9. Chronology of the activities
In the next pages we present a chronogram with the activities planned for 2009. It should be noted that due to the late beginning of the Agency’s operations, it is assumed from the very beginning that any intervention in the new study cycles proposed for 2009/2010 is impossible. Therefore, the Agency gives priority to its own implementation and hiring their staffs as well as the preparation of the pre-accreditation of new study cycles from October 2009 (to enter into operation in the new scholar year 2010/2011) and the beginning of the preliminary accreditation of the study cycles in operation that must be completed by the end of the scholar year 2010/2011. This obviously implies the on time elaboration of the guidelines and procedure manuals for the pré-accreditation of the new study cycles and the definition of their respective accreditation standards and the launching of the preliminary accreditation system of study cycles already in operation, including the elaboration of their respective guidelines and procedure manuals and standards definition. The guidelines and the standards will be elaborated with the technical support of the Centro de Investigação de PoIíticas do Ensino Superior (CIPES), they will be discussed with representatives of the institutions and the process will be produced in electronic version until October 2009.
For a later phase we leave the definition of the norms for the establishment of internal systems of quality assurance, as well as the norms and standards for its audit and certification, a process that will take place from January 2010 until the end of 2010/2011.
The Agency will also promote an enquiry to all higher education institutions aiming at collecting proposals and ideas that will allow for the improvement of the system during its sustainable operation phase.
The Agency, in its activities, may commission studies and expert’s reports from research centres recognised by FCT, after they have demonstrated their experience in the matters to be treated.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Physical installation in Lisbon, with equipment | ||||||||||||
| Physical installation in Porto, with equipment | |||||||||||||
| Definition and acquisition of informatics network | |||||||||||||
| Hiring of informatics support | |||||||||||||
| Hiring of assessment technical support | |||||||||||||
 |
Hiring the General Secretary | ||||||||||||
| Hiring support personnel - Porto | |||||||||||||
| Hiring support personnel - Lisbon | |||||||||||||
| Selection and hiring of the evaluation personnel | |||||||||||||
| Selection and hiring of the informatics personnel | |||||||||||||
| Selection of the first evaluators | |||||||||||||
 |
Training of evaluation personnel | ||||||||||||
| Training of evaluators | |||||||||||||
| Training of institutional personnel | |||||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Elaboration of pre-accreditation guidelines | ||||||||||||
| Definition of pre-accreditation standards | |||||||||||||
| Discussion with partners | |||||||||||||
| Electronic version of process | |||||||||||||
| Presentation of new study cycle proposals | |||||||||||||
 |
Elaboration of preliminary accreditation guidelines | ||||||||||||
| Definition of minimum standards | |||||||||||||
| Elaboration of guidelines for study cycle accreditation | |||||||||||||
| Definition of accreditation standards | |||||||||||||
| Discussion with partners | |||||||||||||
| Electronic version of process | |||||||||||||
| Launching the process with institutions | |||||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Composition of the Consultative Council (C.C.) | ||||||||||||
| Presentation of the Activity Plan to the C.C. | |||||||||||||
| Presentation of the Activity Plan and Budget to the B.T. | |||||||||||||
| Composition of the Scientific Council | |||||||||||||
| Meetings with the Scientific Council (SC) | |||||||||||||
| Initial contacts with ENQA | |||||||||||||
| Registration as ENQAís associate member | |||||||||||||
| Contacts with GEPEARI | |||||||||||||
| Contacts with DGESup | |||||||||||||
| Contacts with FCT | |||||||||||||
| Visit to reference quality agencies | |||||||||||||
| Public presentation of the process | |||||||||||||
| Meeting to evaluate the Agencyís work | |||||||||||||
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