Panel meetings institutional audit quality assurance

On 12, 13, and 14 February, the first panel meetings as part of the institutional audit quality assurance (ITK) will take place. On 19 and 20 March, the same panel will visit us again. The ITK is an external and independent assessment of the quality of teaching at the central level at a university or other institute of education. The ITK is carried out by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO). The ITK takes place once every six years and in the past the UG obtained a positive assessment twice. In July 2019, the UG’s positive assessment was extended to August 2025. 

Degree programme quality assurance

The upcoming round will focus on degree programme quality assurance, and will address the following question: How does the institution—and each level within it— work on safeguarding, improving, and developing its teaching in a cyclical, sustainable, and collective manner? Participation in the ITK gives us tools to improve our quality culture and our quality assurance processes. In addition, it ensures that a number of topics no longer need to be assessed during the degree programme visitation, because they will already have been assessed during the ITK. As a result, by participating in the ITK, degree programmes will have less work to do in their programme visitations.

Four programmes selected

Four degree programmes were selected for this round, allowing the panel to see how the system of teaching quality assurance works within the UG. The quality of the degree programmes themselves is not the subject of the study, as this has of course already been examined during the degree programme visitations. The participating degree programmes are: the Bachelor’s degree programme in Medicine (Faculty of Medical Sciences), the Bachelor’s degree programme in Human Geography and Planning (Faculty of Spatial Sciences), the Master’s degree programme in IT Law (Faculty of Law), and the Research Master’s programme in Behavioural and Social Sciences (Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences).

Mock visitation

In June 2024, in preparation for this ITK, we organized a so-called mock visitation. This pilot visitation went well and we confidently look forward to the panel meetings on 12, 13, and 14 February and on 19 and 20 March. The preparations are in full swing, which means that a lot of people who are involved in the aforementioned programmes have been invited to the panel meetings based on their roles. For example, the panel will talk to students, lecturers, colleagues from programme committees, boards of examiners, faculty councils, study advisors, directors of education, and faculty board members. Talks will also take place with colleagues from central service units, such as University Services, the UB, and CIT. The first round of meetings will be held with the Board of the University and the University Council.

Preparatory sessions will be organized in January, during which we will explain to participants of the meetings what they can expect from a panel meeting and we will answer participants’ questions.