Process

Renewing accreditation

Process of accreditation of Bachelor's and Master's university degrees
Survey of satisfaction on the accreditation process

The accreditation is the evaluation of the quality of a degree according to the standards and guidelines for the quality assurance in the European Space (ESG):

• Quality of the training programme
• Applicability of the public information
• Effectiveness of the Quality Assurance System
• Adequacy of the teaching staff
• Effectiveness of the learning support systems
• Quality of the results

The accreditation is the process that culminates in the degree life cycle and that involves, in case of favourable result, the renewal of the authorisation to continue teaching the degree.

Recognised programmes will have to go under the accreditation process within the time limits laid down for academic governance in the prevailing regulations, namely, within six years of validation in the case of Bachelor’s programmes and doctoral/PhD degrees and four years for Master’s university programmes. Accreditation is the process that allows checking that the teaching programme is being developed according to the original validated project.

Every year, the universities and AQU Catalunya plan together the external site visits according to the degrees that have to start the process of accreditation.

The process of accreditation is structured in two phases: the external site visit and the accreditation:

The external site visit: oriented to the continuous improvement, is the in situ validation of the development of the degree that is reflected in the external site visit report.

The accreditation: involves the issue, by the specific area commission, of the assessment report of the development of the degree, the accreditation report, based on all the evidences that are at AQU’s disposal, especially the external visit report.

Link between the processes of monitoring and accreditation

The two processes share the same standars of analysis and assesment.

The process of annual reflection on the development of degrees has to be the base of the accreditation process, in the sense that this accreditation is the completion of the monitoring process.

Therefore, it is necessary to understand these two processes as only one: a process of continuous improvement that ends with the external validation of the results.

The accreditation process started in 2014 with 8 degrees. The degrees that started their accreditation process on 2015 are at different stages at the present moment.

Rules and General Documents
PC10 Accreditation process of oficial degrees
Normative and methodology of AQU
Presentation of the accreditation process of Bachelor's and Master's degrees of the UAB
Presentation of PhD accreditation
Example of improvement plan

Documentació de suport. Models
Self-accreditation report
Example of classification of evidences in electronic format on the digital repository
External visit of the external evaluation committee