Single Accreditation of Joint Programmes: Pilots Evaluation Report

This report is an outcome of the project Joint Programmes: Quality Assurance and Recognition of degrees (JOQAR) awarded. The overall purpose of the JOQAR project is to ensure that joint programmes are facilitated in two specific areas: accreditation/external quality assurance (QA) and recognition. The project partners – ten quality assurance agencies and four recognition bodies – have thus decided to look into QA of joint programmes and recognition of degrees awarded by these programmes. This report looks into the QA of joint programmes and particularly in the pilots for single accreditation procedures that were set up. Each of these pilots procedures were coordinated by one agency (a JOQAR project partner) with support from the ECA Secretariat which acted as a Coordination Point for these single accreditation procedures. The pilots procedures were also meant to test and improve the functioning of the Coordination Point for future single accreditation procedures. The previous ECA project – TEAM II – has pointed out that the organisation of an external QA procedure regarding joint programmes can be quite complicated and that the agencies involved need very specialised information and expertise. The response of the JOQAR project to this need is the establishment of a Coordination Point, which will provide information on the quality assurance of joint programmes and information on recognition of degrees awarded from joint programmes. In addition, the JOQAR project addressed the issues raised in the European Commission’s report on progress in quality assurance in higher education (September 2009)1, notably in its section 4.3 “A stronger European dimension in quality assurance”.

Single Accreditation of Joint Programmes: Pilots Evaluation Report.