Quality assurance

Providing high quality education is of utmost importance to the department of Electrical Engineering. To maintain the quality it is essential that every educational component is subject to structural and recurrent evaluation

The most common method of evaluation is by conducting surveys. Courses and projects are evaluated with digital surveys in EvaSys on a yearly basis. The results of the surveys enable us to collect the thoughts and opinions of students and give them the opportunity to provide feedback on their education. Educational components that are new will be evaluated for 3 consecutive years using surveys until they reach a sufficient level (see quality assurance plan for the criteria). Components that have reached a sufficient level are evaluated once every 3 years (1 year evaluation, 2 years no evaluation). The results of the surveys are evaluated by several stakeholders, such as the program committee, examination committee, quality assurance officer, the responsible lecturer/teacher, chairmen of research groups and the departmental board. If the course scores insufficient, an improvement plan will be conducted together with the responsible lecturer/teacher for the next round. The following year these components are monitored based on the evaluation and the improvement plan. After this the cycle of quality assurance starts again.  

The educational program as a whole is also subject to yearly evaluations, organized on a central level by TU/e or other interested external parties (VNSU). 

In addition to the surveys, the department makes use of other more direct methods of evaluation for educational components. Student meetings are organized for bachelor and master students (year councils) on a regular basis. This way students can provide direct feedback on their educational program to the staff. 

Compared to surveys, where evaluations take place at the end of the educational component, these types of evaluation methods are powerful tools for intermediate evaluations. For an overview of our evaluation instruments, see the quality assurance plan. 

A quality assurance (QA) officer is appointed by the department to maintain all the processes related to quality assurance and ensures that all responsible parties receive the information necessary to perform their duties. For example the departmental QA officer maintains a record of course evaluations and determines which courses require evaluation, which policy should be used and communicates with the central QA officer of ESA on practicalities regarding EvaSys surveys. In addition to this, the QA officer attends meetings with other departmental QA officers to discuss general matters and developments related to quality assurance. 

Based on the framework of accreditation developed by the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation Organisation (Dutch abbreviation: NVAO) all educational programs are subject to periodic evaluation by a visiting panel. Accreditation is a formal decision that the educational program complies to the quality demands formulated by the NVAO and that the graduation diploma is recognized as valid by the government. Accreditation lasts for 6 years and the current accreditation decision for the educational programs of Electrical Engineering lasts until 27th of April 2023. 

Want to know more? Contact us via the contact form below.