A. Quality Assurance System for Doctoral Studies

1. General Aspects

In each University of Barcelona faculty or school, the Internal Quality Assurance System is modelled on the standards, procedures and guidelines set out in the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education document Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) produced by the European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQUA) and adopted by the European Ministers of Education at the Bergen Ministerial Conference in May 2005. In Catalonia and in Spain, the ESG are implemented through external review in the form of the AUDIT program, a joint initiative of the three ENQUA member agencies the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AQU Catalunya), the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA) and the Galician Agency for Quality Assurance in University Studies (ACSUG). Finally, each faculty or school’s system also complies with the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science’s regulations on official university study programs.

The Faculty Internal Quality Assurance System (hereafter, IQAS) is the instrument that brings together all those activities related to the quality assurance of EHEA bachelor’s degree and university master’s degree courses and it is used both at the design phase of a faculty’s course offerings and then also during the teaching of courses, to ensure that education outcomes are being achieved.

Furthermore, the IQAS is also used to ensur the quality of the faculty’s doctoral programs. Certified by AQU Catalunya in the framework of the AUDIT program, the IQAS model is based on three lines of action: planning and documentation of the system; a process-mapping model of management organization; and the rendering of accounts on the faculty’s education programs through an annual quality review. These lines of action reflect the result of systematic analysis used to improve the quality of the faculty’s study programs.

2. The scope of IQAS for doctoral studies

In each faculty or school, the development of IQAS for UB doctoral studies considers the following guidelines:

• Education quality policy and goals

The establishment of a quality culture must be based on an education quality policy and goals that, through the appointment of IQAS managers, are publicly accessible and known.

• Quality assurance in the design of education programs

The maintenance and renewal of the range of educational courses and programs on offer must be founded on the development of methodologies for the design, approval, implementation, review and improvement of education programs and, if applicable, for their elimination and for attending to suggestions and complaints regarding programs.

• Development of education programs to encourage student learning and other student-oriented actions

The actions undertaken, including the design, development and continual improvement of external training placements and student mobility, must serve to encourage student learning.

• Quality assurance of teaching and research staff (TRS) and administrative and service staff (AdSS)

The actions undertaken must ensure that the admission, management and training of TRS and AdSS members is conducted in such a way that these staff members may work satisfactorily and complete the duties that are theirs.

• Quality assurance of material resources and services

It will be necessary to ensure that material resources and services are suitably designed, approved, managed, reviewed and improved in order to develop student learning in an appropriate manner.

• Compiling and analysing results for the improvement of education programs

The results of the education program must be compiled and analysed in order to review and improve the program. The results of the education program refer in part to the outcomes of learning, access to the labour market and the satisfaction of stakeholders (how far needs and expectations are met).

• Publication of information and rendering of accounts on education programs

It will be necessary to ensure that up-to-date information is published regularly and that accounts are rendered on the education programs provided and related aspects.

3. The governing body, unit or officer responsible for IQAS management

Pursuant to Article 46 of the University of Barcelona Statute and approved by the University’s General Council, October 2009, the Agency for Policy and Quality is the official instrument by which the UB oversees quality assurance.

As a consultative and supervisory body, the Agency is charged with thequality management of all the UB’s academic offering (EHEA bachelor’s and master’s degree courses, doctoral degrees and lifelong learning courses), and with the entirety of its doctoral studies and the evaluation of these.

Until doctoral studies are adapted to Royal Decree 99/2011 on Doctoral Studies, a committee officially called the Doctoral Program Committee will be established for each doctoral program in each UB faculty or school. A minimum of three members shall sit on these committees and one of these members will be the doctoral program coordinator, who will act as committee president. The committee will supervise and ensure the quality of the program, in accordance with the guidelines set out by the Agency for Policy and Quality, and will analyse the results of its study, draft proposals for improving the program and deliver an annual report on that program to the Faculty’s main committee for all its doctoral programs, the Faculty Doctoral Studies Committee.

The Faculty Doctoral Studies Committee, delegated by the University’s Governing Council, ensures that there is a satisfactory system of coordination between the different doctoral program committees and the decision making bodies which have been delegated responsibilities of different kinds, both within and across the faculties and schools and the departments; the Committee analyses the report submitted by the Agency for Policy and Quality and supervises the progress of doctoral studies across the University to make those improvement it deems necessary.

The Faculty’s Quality Assurance Committee ensures the implementation and effectiveness of the Faculty’s IQAS. Together with the organs described above, this Committee helps to design and implement the IQAS with the drafting of an annual review, and overviews strategic planning actions to achieve the following:

• measure, analyse and use the results of education programs, which refer in part to the outcomes of learning, access to the labour market and the satisfaction of stakeholders, in order to review and improve learning quality;
• supervise the execution of education programs and provide public accounts on aspects of their quality;
• guarantee, at all moments, that the courses being offered can be satisfactorily accredited by external agencies in accordance with Spanish legislation on higher educational course offerings.

4. IQAS mechanisms facilitating the compilation of information on the progress and results of doctoral and mobility programs

In each UB faculty or school, the procedure for making complaints and suggestions is guaranteed by the Administration of the Centre (note that the term ‘centre’ refers to any single UB faculty or school, and the ‘Administration of the Centre’ is the basic management body comprising the different offices and units that dealwith matters relating to students and teachers.). This procedure is also approved by the Faculty Board.

Basic features of the complaints and suggestions procedure:

• All complaints and suggestions are lodged at the Secretary’s Office for Students and Teaching Staff, and this office sends each complaint or suggestion to the UB governing body or officer responsible for the area in which the complaint or suggestion has been made.
• Once the UB governing body or officer responsible has prepared an answer, this is sent to the Secretary’s Office for Students and Teaching Staff, and this office delivers the answer to the complainant, and a copy of the answer to the manager or person in charge of the governing body that is affected by the complaint.

If the faculty or school does not have the authority to process complaints and suggestions, then the Secretary’s Office must send the complaint or suggestion to the official UB body that does have authority and inform the complainant of this.

Each academic year and in each faculty, the Dean’s Office and the Administration of the Centre receive a list of all the complaints and suggestions that have been made and the answers that have been given to these, and a report on the steps that have been taken by the official UB body or officer involved to remedy the problem.

Furthermore, and in line with an agreement between the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (see 1 above) and trustees at the seven Catalan public universities, a report is made on the access to the labour market of doctors graduating from the Catalan university system.

The results of the surveys (see above) are used for the institutional evaluation of doctoral programs and are sent to the doctoral program committees within each faculty.

A series of mechanisms are also established to evaluate the scientific production of doctoral students. These include access to an institutional database at the moment in which the student’s doctoral thesis is registered, so as to update student curriculums, and the creation of the University of Barcelona Board of Trustees prizes for the best scientific projects deriving from doctoral theses defended at the UB, to provide a record of the quality of UB alumni’s study achievements and research and to foster scientific production and knowledge transfer to the community at large.

5. IQAS mechanisms facilitating the implementation of actions and improvements resulting from decision making processes

The IQAS mechanisms guarantee that the results of surveys and different procedures are analysed by a faculty’s governing bodies, with the objective of improving the quality of education programs, when and where applicable. The Faculty Doctoral Studies Committee and the Faculty Quality Assurance Committee are responsible for programming the different measures to be taken to improve these programs.

B. Quality Assurance System in the Doctoral Program of Organic Chemistrys

The Doctoral Program Committee is responsible for the current business, organization and control of the inner workings of the program, as well as the organization of the Advisory Committees.

The Advisory Committeees, formed by three doctors, are the body of academic-scientific nature that performs the function of the quality assurance process of the thesis. Broadly speaking, their participation in the quality assurance of the thesis takes place through

• The resolution of the Admission of the Thesis Project,
• Annual monitoring of progress and training of doctoral,
• The scientific and academic advising of doctoral students.

The Program Commission will get academic and scientific information of the doctoral thesis at the time of deposit of the thesis. This information will be delivered along with the documentation necessary for the defense of the thesis in the Secretariat of the Programme and will become part of the indicators to assess the quality of the program.

Moreover, the evaluation of the program is based on information collected by the Program Commission at regular meetings with the researchers and doctoral students in order to check the satisfaction of all members of the Program.

The Program also makes available to all stakeholders a mechanism to transmit to the Commission suggestions or criticisms.