Report summary
The evaluated doctoral study program Materials Science and Engineering educates well
trained experts in the field of materials science and engineering, who are highly
employable, and their employment in industry represents an important link with the faculty
for future collaboration and research. Good research infrastructure is available and
additional research infrastructure and equipment is available at participating faculties and
research institutes. The student-centered approach of teaching enables tailoring the study
contents to the needs of students with regards to the subject of their dissertations.
Dissertations were in general found of good or high quality and students as well as their
mentors are active in publishing their research result in international journals.
One of the weaknesses of the program is the small number of students, which also
complicates the retrieval of their satisfaction with the program through Questionnaires. No
formal engagement of stakeholders in the evaluation process has been notified. Study
program changes are made individually but not comprehensively monitored by the internal
quality assurance system at the level of the institution. Furthermore, monitoring of changes
is not documented.
This results in several partial compliance or major weaknesses or non-compliances, which
need to be addressed and overcome. The group of experts has particularly exposed:
- inadequate informing of stakeholders from outside the institution, who as a consequence
do not provide feedback needed for improvement of the content, structure and delivery of
the study programme,
- students are not engaged in actual preparation of self evaluation reports. Their opinion
is not considered statistically relevant and therefore not considered in the self evaluation
report.
This leaves the quality loop not completely closed, since there is no feedback to or from all
stakeholders assured. Students and stakeholders outside the institution are not engaged
in actual preparation of self evaluation reports. The opinion of students is not considered
statistically relevant and therefore not considered in the self evaluation report.
In addition:
- study program changes are made individually but not comprehensively monitored by the
internal quality assurance system at the level of the institution. No effective actions are taken to update the changes in course syllabi or improve the study program based on the
needs of the stakeholders outside university,
- some course descriptions are empty in terms of content, competences, expected study
results, teaching methods and assessment methods,
- the number of ECTS points and the workload of students in the compulsory subject
"Attendance at the lectures" for both the first and second year of study is too large
compared to the expected workload of students.
These actions, which by themselves represent important improvements, hould in addition
include the opportunities for improvement suggested by the group of experts in their
report.