Annual report 2005, PDF - OAQ Organ für Akkreditierung und ...

24 Annual Report 2005
6.5 The Bologna conference of the Swiss Student Union (VSS)
In April 2005, the VSS and the student body of the University of Bern organized a Bologna
conference dealing with current developments in the sphere of quality assurance and accreditation.
The OAQ was involved in the planning phase of the event whose plenary sessions and
workshops gave the OAQ a good platform to present its tasks and activities to a wider public
among the students.
6.6 The national conference on internal quality assurance with the CRUS
In December 2005, the OAQ and the CRUS and the Finnish quality assurance agency FINHEEC
organized a conference on “Internal quality assurance at higher education institutions – requirements
and good practices”. This event which was aimed at a national and international audience
aroused considerable interest. Participants came from more than 20 European countries
and the reaction to the programme content was extremely positive.
6.7 OAQ website
The most important, easily accessible communication medium of the OAQ is the website whose
content is constantly updated and fleshed out. It provides clear and direct access in four languages
(see www.oaq.ch) to various topics of concern to the OAQ and also serves as a platform
on which the OAQ can publish decisions and reports of procedures. Since 2004, the
number of monthly hits on the site has increased favourably to an average of 4,500 from an
average of 1,000. In addition, each visit consults four to five pages. Every second visitor has
visited the site before which is an indication that it is an important information source. By far the
most interesting documents for visitors are the expert reports.
6.8 OAQ newsletter
Since the end of 2005, the OAQ has published an electronic newsletter dedicated to a particular
theme. The first issue dealt with accreditation and the second focussed on quality
assurance. It is planned to issue the newsletter every three to four months.