DEQAR events

The DEQAR Conference / EQAR Members’ Dialogue was hosted by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), thanks to the Spanish University Association (Crue Universidades Españolas).

The DEQAR Conference aimed to:

• Enable and support peer learning and exchange of experience among policy makers, stakeholders and researchers.
• Present and discuss with participants the pilot studies prepared by UGent (CHEGG).
• Explore good practices and ways to further promote the use of the database.
• Elicit suggestions on how to develop the database further.

The DEQAR Conference was organised in conjunction with the annual EQAR Members’ Dialogue (MD), an event that serves as a forum to discuss current policy developments in quality assurance.

For whom:

• All DEQAR project partners.
• ENIC NARIC representatives and other interested stakeholders representing the target groups of DEQAR
• EQAR Governmental members (41 ministries of higher education)
• EQAR Stakeholder Members (ENQA, ESU, EUA, EURASHE, BUSINESSEUROPE, Education International)
• EQAR Permanent observers (Council of Europe, UNESCO, European Commission, Bologna Secretariat)
• EQAR statutory bodies

The European University Association (EUA) and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), project partners in the DEQAR project,  hosted a webinar dedicated to using DEQAR (Database of Database of External Quality Assurance Results) on 27 June 2019.

The webinar: “Plugging the information gap – facilitating recognition through access to external quality assurance results”, introduced DEQAR and explored how the availability and transparency of information about external quality assurance can facilitate the daily work of those making academic recognition decisions.

Presentations:
Tia Loukkola, Director of Institutional Development, EUA
Samer Alzaidy, Policy Officer, NUFFIC
Colin Tück, Director, EQAR

Moderator:
Maria Kelo, Director, ENQA

A recording of the webinar can be viewed below:

EQAR registered agencies as well as stakeholder partners of the project gathered in Rome for the DEQAR User Interface Workshop on 25-26 June.

The event, attended by 30 people from 14 different countries, was hosted by CIMEA, one of the project partners and had as purpose to:

• Understand how the user-friendliness and presentation of the website could be improved to best meet the needs of the target audiences;
• Identify what supporting documentation, tools and guidance might be developed to aid end users;
• Consider how to inform current and potential audiences of the application that the Database might have in their own work;
• Look at possible additional data, change in collection scope or structure, historical data, data presentation, linkages to other resources, use of API, and machine readable outputs.

During one of the practical sessions “Systems Trials”, participants had to work through pre-prepared queries designed in advance to test different parts of the database. This yielded some interesting results, which will all be used to enhance and refine the structure, the scope and or the presentation of the database to further improve the user experience.

This was followed by a panel discussion on DEQAR stakeholder involvement and expected impact. One of the conclusions was that the different stakeholder groups not only have different expectations and different uses for the database, but also very wide-ranging understanding of quality assurance and its uses, and that taking into account these diverse purposes and wishes, within the remit of the project, would be paramount.

Another session consisted of small groups brainstorming about communication tools, linkages to other resources and possible additional data and necessary changes in the scope, structure or presentation.

Conclusions that were presented in the wrap-up session were manifold and ranged from improvements to the database that could and would be implemented immediately to recommendations that would need some further thought and analysis. The leitmotiv of the whole exercise revolved around finding the right balance between everyone’s needs and the usefulness or feasibility of all the ideas and proposals.

See photos from our event in our DEQAR User Interface Workshop album.

All EQAR registered agencies were invited to the data collection and back-end workshop that took place in Bonn in March 2018.

Agencies were not only able to put forward their questions on how to upload their data and reports, but also to test it in practice with the help of the IT developers’ team.

Apart from the practical sessions, several explanatory presentations were given:

• An overview about the DEQAR project aims, the background, the project partners and the data envisaged for the database.
• A presentation on the structural and functional overview of the database, focusing on the submission and administrative modules.
• A detailed walk-through of submission procedures and requirements.
• A presentation and discussion on the database policies, terms and conditions.

The DEQAR webinar was the first major event of the DEQAR project, dedicated to all DEQAR project partner and all EQAR-registered QA agencies. It was held in December 2017.