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Download Seminar Agenda.

Day 1 – Tuesday, 29 April 2014

• 9:00 Registration
• 9:30 Official Opening
• Plenary Session: Overview of cross-border QA reviews in the EHEA
  • Chair: Maria Kelo (EQAR, President of the Executive Board)
  • Speakers:
  • Eric Froment (EQAR, Chair of the Register Committee) – Policy and legal frameworks of cross-border QAA
  • Melinda Szabó (EQAR, Project Officer) – Presentation of the results from the Questionnaire for QAAs
• 10:30 Coffee Break
• 11:00 Plenary Session: Insight from stakeholders involved in cross-border EQA
  • Chair: Andrée Sursock (Senior Advisor, EUA)
  • Speakers:
    • Katja Kamšek (Quality Assurance Officer, University of Ljubljana)
    • Jan Frömming (Accreditation Manager, Technical University of Munich);
    • Henni Saarela (Member of the QA Steering Committee, European Students’ Union)
    • Allan Bruun Pedersen (Senior Adviser, ENIC Naric – Denmark)
• 12:40 Lunch
• 14:00 Plenary Session: A diversity of approaches in cross-border EQA
  • Chair: Sylvia Manning (Higher Learning Commission, USA)
  • Speakers:
    • Christoph Grolimund (Director, OAQ)
    • Irene Ainsworth (Head of Degree-Awarding Powers and University Title, QAA-UK)
    • Teresa Sánchez Chaparro (Programme Director, CTI) & Caty Duykaerts (Head of Executive Unit, AEQES)
    • Marion Moser (Deputy Managing Director, ACQUIN) & Stefan Handke (Head of ACQUIN Programme)
• 16:00 Coffee break
• 16:30 Parallel sessions
• Session I. A snapshot of cross-border EQA
  • Chair: Lucien Bollaert (EQAR, Vice-Chair of the Register Committee)
  • Speakers:
    • Alicja Bochajczuk (Project Officer, Institutional Evaluation Programme – EUA)
    • Anke Rigbers (CEO, evalag)
• Session II. Simulation of a cross-border EQA
  • Facilitator: Melinda Szabo (EQAR, Project Officer)
• 18:00 Day ends
• 18:30 Guided Tour in Bayreuth
• 20:00 Dinner

Day 2 – Wednesday, 30 April 2014

• 9:30 Parallel sessions
• Session I.  Simulation of a cross-border EQA
  • Facilitator: Allan Päll (RIQAA, Advisory Group member)
• Session II.  A snapshot of cross-border EQA
  • Chair: Lucien Bollaert (EQAR, Vice-Chair of the Register Committee)
  • Speakers:
    • Alicja Bochajczuk (Project Officer, Institutional Evaluation Programme – EUA)
    • Anke Rigbers (CEO, evalag)
• 11:00 Coffee break
• 11:30 Plenary session –  Wrap-Up, Conclusions and Next Steps
  • Moderator: Colin Tück (Director, EQAR)
  • Parallel Session chairs
  • General Rapporteur: David Crosier (Education System Analyst, Eurydice)
• 12:40 Lunch and departure

The Seminar will be hosted by ACQUIN (Accreditation Certification and Quality Assurance Institute) in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth.

ACQUIN is a non-profit association, accredited by the German Accreditation Council and listed in EQAR. It is furthermore member of ENQA, INQAHEE and CEEN as well as an affiliated member of the EUA. The aim of ACQUIN is to promote and anchor quality culture in higher education.

ACQUIN has been founded in 2001 and its members now include over 160 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary and the U.S.A as well as academic affiliated professional associations. ACQUIN offers services in the field of quality assurance in higher education.

The two-day seminar will gather 30 representatives from QA agencies to discuss their experiences of carrying out QA reviews across border, the rationale behind the internationally activity of QAAs and EQAR’s role in enhancing international trust and contribute to the recognition of quality assurance agencies’ results and decisions in line with the EHEA Ministers’ commitment.

Using the collected information from the results of the Questionnaire for QAAs we willl aim to shed more light on the external reviews by QAAs across borders, and on the perceived opportunities and challenges of operating in non-national higher education systems.

The discussions in the seminar will revolve around the following questions:

• What are the experiences of QAAs with cross-border EQA? What are the benefits and challenges?
• What would enable QAAs to be (more) internationally active in their QA activities, should they consider this a priority?
• What would a reference point such as EQAR need to provide in order to be attractive to the QAAs wishing to be active in EQA?

During the seminar several presentations will be made by representatives of QAAs describing their experiences with cross-border quality assurance and ways in which the review they carried out was developed within various legal frameworks. Interactive sessions will complement these presentations, focusing on sharing good practices and discussing the challenges in cross-border reviews by QAAs.

The event will provide ample opportunity for group analysis, in-depth discussions, as well as exchange of good practices regarding international QA activities among the participating QAAs.

The result of the seminar will feed into the final project report as well as in the recommendations for future work on cross-border external QA of agencies in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).