Annual report 2010 PDF - OAQ Organ für Akkreditierung und ...

Applied Sciences in Switzerland (KFH), the Federation of Swiss Students‘ Unions (VSS),
the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Directors of Education (EDK) and the appropriate
Federal agencies: the State Secretariat for Education and Research (SER), the Federal
Office for Professional Education and Technology (OPET) and the Federal Office of Public
Health (FOPH). A tabular summary of national cooperation by the OAQ will be found in
Annex 4.
6.2 Swiss Universities Quality Network
The Swiss Q-Network was set up at the initiative of the OAQ in the year 2003 and has
received a formal mandate from the CRUS. It is headed up by a member of the Rectorate
of Lausanne University and comprises three internal working groups (working groups for
institutional accreditation, on the situation of students and on good practices in quality
assurance). Members of this network are the quality managers of the cantonal universi-
ties and the two ETH (Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology), together with representa-
tives of the CRUS, the students’ organizations and the OAQ.
6.3 Cooperation with the VSS and the students’ accreditation pool
For a number of years, the OAQ has maintained relations with the Federation of Swiss
Students’ Unions (VSS). Cooperation is based partly on the regular use of student experts
in OAQ procedures. These students are appointed via the students’ accreditation pool
which was founded jointly by the OAQ and VSS in the year 2007. The pool comprises
students in all the disciplines at a number of Swiss universities of all kinds (both general
and universities of applied sciences). The student experts are trained jointly by the OAQ
and VSS before they take full part in a procedure. A training workshop was held in the year
under review 2010.
7 International cooperation
The OAQ is a national agency with a national mandate. To perform this mandate to the
requisite standard, international networking and cooperation are of great importance.
The OAQ is very active in European and international networks: since 2004, it has been a
member of the European Consortium of Accreditation ECA, a consortium of 17 European
accreditation agencies and since 2006 a full member of the European Association for
Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA). With its 47 members and 21 associated
organizations, ENQA represents the interests of quality assurance agencies in Europe. In
addition, the OAQ is networked with the European University Association (EUA), which is
dedicated to the interests of the European universities and the European Association of
Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE), which looks after the interests of European
universities of applied sciences.
The motivation for cooperation between the OAQ and the ECA resides in the opportunity for
disseminating and exchanging experience in the area of accreditation and in ensuring
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