On 22 June, the board of ENQA decided to renew CEENQA’s status as an affiliate to the organisation. CEENQA has been an affiliate since 2006 and we are looking forward to continuing our good cooperation towards strengthening the European Higher Education Area.
Just in time before Christmas, our latest newsletter informs about the activities of our members and the network during the last few months.
Due to Covid-19, all quality assurance agencies in higher education had to drastically change their mode of operations in 2020. Physical on-site visits were replaced by virtual audits, which brought about new challenges and necessitated creative solutions. Based on more than one year of experience with such procedures and intensive discussions between member agencies, CEENQA has adopted Guidelines for Distance Evaluation in order to put together good practices and to support quality assurance agencies with further improving their procedures.
The working group of the Executive Board of the Central and Eastern European Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (CEENQA) composed of Martina Vidlakova, Olgun Cicek and Duska Radmanovic held an online meeting to discuss the implementation of this year’s Staff Exchange Program between network members.
The meeting was held on January 25, 2021 and was committed to finding a suitable partner for all ten agencies that applied on this year call to participate in the CEENQA 2021 Staff Exchange Program.
Taking into account the expressed interests of the agencies in terms of topics they consider current, the language in which the visits would take place, as well as previous collaborations, the working group agreed on five potential pairs of agencies. The proposal will be forwarded to all interested agencies, but, as in previous years, the agencies will be given the opportunity to decide on different combinations.
Due to the Corona virus pandemic, it was decided that it is recommended that staff exchanges be conducted through virtual visits. As part of the 2020 visit has been postponed, due to the pandemic, these agencies will also be proposed to join this year’s program.
The CEENQA staff exchange program between the member agencies of the network has been organized since 2018.
CEENQA is launching a new call to member agencies to participate in the staff exchange scheme in 2021. Given the ongoing pandemic and uncertain outlook to the future with respect to international travel, the 2021 staff exchange is foreseen to take place fully online. The recommended activities to pursue include: online meetings, focus groups, presentations, job shadowing, etc. Observation of online site visits and of online training of experts is strongly recommended.
Agencies planning to host and/or send staff members for fully virtual staff exchange in 2021 are asked to reply to this call by 10 January, 2021. After collecting the responses from interested agencies, CEENQA will match mutually suitable agencies and put them in touch with each other to organize the details of staff exchange.
The responses to this call and any requests for more information should be sent to Dr Olgun Cicek, Board Member (olguncicek@yahoo.com) by 10 January, 2021. Mark your calendars now!