Visit of Russian universities September 25 – October 3, 2014

Date

Team 1 (Saint-Petersburg – Nalchik – Moscow)

Coordinator: Elena Horska

Team 2 (Moscow – Kazan – Yoshkar-Ola – Moscow)

Coordinator: Josep Griffol

25 September 2014

(Thursday)

Arrival to Saint-Petersburg

Sightseeing in Saint-Petersburg

Arrival to Kazan

Flight Moscow - Kazan

26 September 2014

(Friday)

Visiting activities (6 hours)

in Saint-Petersburg State Agrarian University

Visiting activities (6 hours)

at Kazan State Agrarian University

Kazan sightseeing

27 September 2014 (Saturday)

Visiting activities (3 hours)

in Saint-Petersburg State Agrarian University

Travel Saint-Petersburg (15.20) –

Mineral'nyye Vody (18.40) by plane

Mineral'nyye Vody – Nalchik by bus

Visiting activities (3 hours)

in Kazan State Agrarian  University

Sightseeing in Kazan

Travel Kazan – Yoshkar-Ola by bus, departure 15:30

28 September 2014

(Sunday)

Visiting activities (3 hours)

in Kabardino-Balkarian State Agrarian University

Nalchik Sightseeing

Visiting activities (3 hours)

in Mari State University

Mari sightseeing

29 September 2014 (Monday)

Visiting activities (6 hours)

in Kabardino-Balkarian State Agrarian University

Sightseeing in Nalchik

Visiting activities (6 hours)

in Mari State University

 

 

30 September 2014

(Tuesday)

Travel Nalchik (15.10) – Moscow (17.30) by plane

Travel Yoshkar-Ola – Kazan by bus or taxi

Travel Kazan – Moscow by plane

1 October 2014

(Wednesday)

Visiting activities (6 hours) in Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy

Sightseeing in Moscow

2 October 2014

(Thursday)

Visiting activities in Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.

Final meeting and workshop

3 October 2014

(Friday)

Departure from Moscow

 

Proposal:

 

Guidelines to prepare the EU partners visits to Russian Higher Education Institutions

 

According the aim of the project, the visits of EU partners to Russian Higher Education Institutions should promote:

 

  1. Mutual learning on the quality and quality assurance mechanisms for Higher Education Institutions providing study programmes in the field of Agriculture and related sciences.
  2. Collection of good practices from Russian and EU partners on quality assurance and quality enhancement.
  3. Exploring priorities for future developments in quality assurance end quality enhancement.

 

The visits will be organized in cooperation with the Russian partners and it should promote the participation of a significant representation of EU partner institutions.

 

In principle, there will be a single. The visits can be organised under two different options:

 

  1. A single team visits all partners. According the partners profile and its representatives, the team is going to be composed by academic staff and experts in QA.
  2. There are two teams: one team for St. Petersburg, Kabardino and ending in Moscow and a second team for Kazan, Mari and ending in Moscow

 

 

The visit is expected to be organized around 4 main activities

  1. Learning about the Russian HE institution
  2. Benchmarking activity of study programmes.
  3. Dialogues on internal quality assurance strategies.
  4. Exploring the future of external quality assurance.

 

Those activities should be developed in visits that should be no longer than one day and a half. Excluding transportation and preparatory activities, the time devoted to meetings (including the tour of facilities) should not exceed 9 hours. 6 hours in the first day and 3 for the second day.

 

The topics and questions to be treated in each of those activities is not fixed in all its content, but the following tables suggest some relevant issues and possible interested persons to be invited.

 

 

Learning about the Russian HE institution.

Time devoted to this activity could be longer than a welcome and an overview of the institution, that’s why it is recommended to conduct the tour of facilities at the end of the first day.

 

Participants from the Russian partner

Content of the activity

To be proposed by the Russian partner

General presentation of the Faculty and the university.

Tour of facilities

     

 

Benchmarking activity of study programmes.

Time devoted to this activity: 2 hours.

 

Participants from the Russian partner

Content of the activity

To be proposed by the Russian partner, but it is recommended to invite the study programme coordinators

In this activity, it is expected to know how programmes are organized in the visited Russian HE Institution.

Russian HE institutions are encouraged to reflect on:

What are the good educational practices in their institution? Considering:

  • curricula structure and learning outcomes approach;
  • link of the programme with the requirements from the professional sector;
  • The role of research and the quality of the programmes;
  • The internationalisation of the study programmes (including mobility of students and staff);
  • The student integration in the professional field;
  • And the facilities available for educational purposes.

What are the current challenges from the point of view of the programme coordinators?

 

     

 

 

Dialogues on internal QA strategies

Time devoted to this activity: 4 hours.

 

Participants from the Russian partner

Content of the activity

To be proposed by the Russian partner, but it is recommended to invite, managers of the institution, teachers, students and representatives from the professional sector. In this respect it is suggested to have different audiences for these four groups.

 

 

In this activity, it is expected to know what the priorities on quality assurance and quality enhancement are. This is done according different perspectives.

 

In order to facilitate the dialogues the participants should be aware of the Part 1 of the ESG. For students and representatives from the professional sector, the dialogue will be concentrated in some of points of the ESG:

 

With the managers: there is a general analysis of the ESG.

 

With the teachers:

  • Approval and monitoring of programmes.
  • Academic careers.

 

With the students:

  • Student participation in academic affairs.
  • Assessment of students.
  • Learning resources and student support.
  • Public information.

 

With the representatives of the labour market:

  • Needs of the labour market and learning outcomes approach.
  • Mechanisms for interaction with HE institutions
     

 

Exploring the future of external quality assurance.

Time devoted to this activity: 2 hours.

 

Participants from the Russian partner

Content of the activity

To be proposed by the Russian partner

This activity is addressed to explore expectations on external QA according.

  • The focus of external QA on programme /institutions.
  • The accountability / enhancement approach.
  • The internationalization of external QA.
  • The position of their institution on the use of ESG
  • The preparation for external QA activities (evidences available for external reviews)
  • Who should be active in the external QA panels?
     

At the end of each visit the EU partners will summarise lessons learned in order to compile a report of the whole activity and to feedback the Russian partners.

 

The report of the EU partner visits to Russian partner institutions will contain the following chapters:

 

  1. General information about the activity: participants, visited institutions, dates, etc…
  2. Lessons learned from the benchmarking activities.
  3. Main ideas discussed during the dialogues on internal QA
  4. Outcomes of the exploration on the future of external QA

 

It is important to progress in the elaboration of this report after each visited institution, in order to be able to finalise the report of the whole activity at the end of the tour.