Project news

Program of the final conference (in Ukrainian) is available here: Program

Project representatives participate in law-making activities which are in an active phase now. The aim is to improve Ukrainian legislations and regulations by new opportunities of the international cooperation; to promote project results as a base approach to the quality assurance in higher education.

Workshop on introducing institutional QA procedures and General Assembly meeting was held in Kharkiv (KNURE) on September 26-28, 2013. The 2nd year results were represented and discussed; project activities for the 3d project year were planned.

The minutes of General Assembly meeting with taken decisions, terms and responsible persons were coordinated with all the consortium members and published in Repository in both languages.

The round tables were conducted on June 12-13 in Kyiv with representatives of National policy-maker organizations which couldn’t participate in the General Assembly meeting on June 17-18 in CHNU (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, State Inspection of Education in Ukraine, Institute of Innovation Technologies and Educational Content, Committee on Science and Education Issue of Parliament of Ukraine) aimed at discussion and approval of the Concept of HE QA which became a base of the consequent development project results.

The text of Concept modified following remarks expressed during discussion with above mentioned organizations is published in Repository (Outcome 1 / Main Deliverables / A Quality Assurance Concept for the Higher Education of Ukraine).

April 18-19 at Chernivtsi National University named by Fedkovych held another workshop for the project.

The concept of a national quality assurance system for higher education as one of the important results of eighteen months of the project was adopted by an international consortium of universities and approved by a representative of ENQA (Prof. Radu Damian). Concept text is published in the repository (Outcome 1 / Main Deliverables / A Quality Assurance Concept for the Higher Education of Ukraine).

Other important issues were discussed and agreed during the meeting. The domain ontology and service quality assurance system, which is designed based on the Portal was agreed. Also the current state of development of portals and TK in its full version was discussed. The distribution of interim results of the project report was presented and action plan for next six months and other plans for the project were pointed.

Members from Ukraine, Finland, Slovakia and Portugal met in Lviv to discuss middle results of the project implementation, to analyze main obstacles and risks, to consider plans and perspective for 2013 and 2014.

In particular a report on the state of the project implementation was represented and the main steps for the project outcomes dissemination within academic community, industry, national QA organizations and other stakeholders were discussed.

At the first stage of the project implementation the project experts analyzed the modern QA system for Higher Education in Ukraine, its restrictions and disadvantages, studied experience of EU partners within study visits to Finland, Slovakia and Portugal. As a result the experts will elaborate a new QA concept, criteria and procedures based on the knowledge triangle.

On the 4th of October 2012 a roundtable for QA concept according to the new project of the law on Higher Education in Ukraine developed by "Zgurovsky group" was held in UCU. Ukrainian and international experts - HEIs representatives of Ukraine, Finland, Slovakia and Portugal, Institute of higher Education of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine, Ukrainian Association of Students Self-government, National TEMPUS-office, State inspection of Education Institutions, Committee on science and education of Verkhovna Rada.

Full text of the news

The working group of the project responsible for the development of the Ontological Portal supporting HE QA of Ukraine (Workpackage 2) visited University of Coimbra and Technical University of Kosice to study their practical experience of ontological multi-user information systems development.

The participators developed a draft of the Portal specification. Main aspects of the future Portal design were presented for EU partners` supervision and widely discussed.

The work group responsible for WP1 of the project performed a two-weeks visit to Kosice (Slovakia) to study Slovak experience of the modern QAS establishment and features of QA procedures in Technical University of Kosice (TUKE).

The example of Slovak university is very demonstrative for Ukrainian HE QAS since both education systems (the Ukrainian and the Slovak ones) has common past however TUKE could perform a successful transfer to a new modern system. One of the contributory factors was ISO 9001:2000 standartisation of the University. The main goal of the standart is life-long increase of the university quality manadgement effieciency and education service.

University autonomy, participation in international projects, transparency of the QA procedures (e.g. mandatory Web-publication of data used for ranking), etc. are the main results of the new system noted by Ukainian experts. Standartisation made the University analyse and optimize its management structure; simplify and automate all internal administrative processes.

Of high interest was a report about professional certification of curricula which allows graduates to enter international companies offices (e.g. the American ones) established in Slovakia much easier. The host organization also presented development of list of requirements for professors and PhD students under their supervision. The list helps evaluating the importance of their research and take a decision about its further financing.

Project team visited University of Jyvaskyla to study European experience of QA.

The main task of the team was to develope and formalize trusted QA indicators which could be integrated into the Ukrainian QA system. The main topic was use of research component of the knowledge triangle in Finnish QA and support of high quality of study through scientific activity of the university.

The EU best practices, national trends, priorities and cultures in higher education quality assurance were studied in University of Coimbra.

The working group taking part in the visit was divided into several teams responsible for their own directions with concrete issues and tasks to be implemented. Each team analyzed existing situation and elaborated and formalized a list of trusted indices which could be used in Ukrainian QA based on Coimbra experience.

Coordination meeting was held in Kyiv. It was hosted by Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports (MESYS) of Ukraine and National Academy of Managing Personnel of Culture and Art.

Agenda of the meeting.

Representatives of all Consortium members and NTO took part in it to discuss important issues of project execution.

The first day of meeting was started by MESYS representative - Oleksandr Yakymenko. After the meeting was officialy opened Project's Coordinator, Timo Tiihonen made the project overview and presented the system of governance for the project to be established and accepted by Consortium. Under his supervision Consortium Agreement needed for operating within project was discussed. Also management and quality control structure and scheme for distribution of Indirect Costs was elaborated. Project background, objectives and expected results were presented by prof. Vagan Terziyan from University of Jyvaskyla.

On the second day project structure as whole and also tasks and timetable of the first Outcome was discussed in the details. Practical management aspects were also presented by the Coordinator to ensure the successful Project execution.