Quality system

Quality System

SGIC

The SGIQ is the Internal Quality Management System, which brings together all activities related to quality assurance for the centre’s official bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

The SGIQ is involved in all processes relating to the approval, monitoring and evaluation of degree programmes, in accordance with current legislation and within the VSMA framework. Its purpose is to ensure that the objectives associated with education are achieved and continuously improved.

The development of the SGIQ at all UB centres is based on a common framework that takes the following criteria into account:

Quality policy and objectives
- The centre fosters a quality culture based on a publicly available quality policy and objectives, as well as on the people responsible for the study programme’s SGIQ.
Design of the educational offering
- The centre has mechanisms that enable it to maintain and renew its educational offering, developing methods for approval, monitoring, evaluation and the periodic improvement of teaching quality. These mechanisms also provide for the possible suspension of a qualification and for addressing suggestions and complaints.
Teaching and other activities aimed at students
- The centre has procedures that enable it to check that the actions it undertakes, including external placements and mobility, are primarily intended to support student learning.
Academic, administrative and support staff
- The centre has mechanisms to ensure that the recruitment, management and training of teaching staff and administrative and support staff are carried out with appropriate safeguards so they can fulfil their respective duties.
Services and material resources
- The centre has mechanisms that enable it to design, manage and improve services and material resources to support student learning effectively.
Educational outcomes
- The centre has procedures to ensure that learning outcomes, employment outcomes and the satisfaction of different stakeholder groups are measured, analysed and used to inform decision-making and improve the quality of teaching.
Public information
- The centre has mechanisms to ensure the periodic publication of up-to-date information about its degree programmes and courses.

The SGIQ is organised mainly around two pillars: the work of the Quality Commission and the quality procedures it develops and implements to systematise and optimise process management.

Quality policy and objectives

On 12 February 2010, the Centre Board approved a document on Quality Policy and Objectives, which sets out the centre’s commitment to using all available technical, financial and human resources to comply with legal regulations and requirements that promote the quality of its teaching and services within the framework of convergence towards the European Higher Education Area.

Objectives of the Centre Board

Provide training geared towards excellence through academic provision that meets the needs of our disciplines and the expectations of students and teachers, as well as society in general.
Secure an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement, making use of all available technical, financial and human resources to ensure the optimal performance of teaching activities.
Establish mechanisms for identifying administrative, academic and management problems so that the necessary corrective and preventive actions can be proposed.
Ensure that the procedures established are suited to the nature of our courses and the objectives of our centre.
Promote the ongoing training of the centre’s staff.
Encourage the measures needed to optimise the centre’s staff working conditions.
Ensure that all centre staff are aware of this public quality policy.
Safeguard the effectiveness of the internal quality assurance system by reviewing and updating it in line with the centre’s needs.

In the same document, the Centre Board entrusts the centre’s Quality Committee with ensuring compliance with the requirements and continuously improving the efficiency of the internal quality assurance system, and with reviewing it regularly to maintain its continued suitability to changing needs.

In this regard, the centre has PEQ 10, whose objective is to “establish the procedures to be followed for defining, approving, reviewing and improving the centre’s quality policy and objectives, always following the direction set by the quality policy and objectives established by the UB”.

Quality policy and objectives

Centre Quality Committee

Composition

The members of the Quality Committee are:

A member of the management team, who will act as Chair of the Committee
The course coordinator
A representative of the Academic Office
A representative of the centre’s administration
Two representatives of the teaching staff
Two student representatives

Functions

The Quality Committee has the following functions:

prepare and keep up to date the centre’s quality policy and objectives document,
prepare, approve and review the centre’s internal quality assurance system (SGIQ),
prepare and keep up to date the map of processes related to the delivery of teaching,
support and ensure the quality of all processes involved in the VSMA framework (Verification, Monitoring, Modification and Accreditation), in accordance with current legislation,
provide assessments of the verification reports, monitoring reports, modification proposals and accreditation self-assessment reports for all the centre’s undergraduate and university master’s programmes,
prepare and review the centre’s specific quality procedures for each identified process, and ensure their actual and effective implementation,
facilitate and ensure the collection of the evidence required for the various evaluation, certification and accreditation processes in which the centre is involved,
facilitate and ensure the collection and analysis of the data needed for the centre’s decision-making and accountability,
facilitate and ensure the publication of and access to public information of interest to the various groups in the university community and society.

Process management

The center oversees and verifies the design and implementation of official bachelor’s and master’s degrees to ensure that they meet the requirements for accreditation, those specified by the UB and those set out in the various regulations and rules, and that sufficient, up-to-date public information is generated about how the programmes operate.

To carry out these tasks, the Faculty has identified all the processes related to university education that are needed to ensure that the intended objectives of its bachelor’s and master’s degrees are achieved, and has determined their sequence and interactions through the following process map.

To define how all these processes are carried out, the center’s Quality Committee prepares the Specific Quality Procedures (PEQ) and oversees their implementation in the day-to-day management of the center’s degree programmes.

Quality procedures

The specific quality procedures (PEQ) developed by the center’s Quality Committee set out the “what”, “who”, “how” and “when” of the various management and improvement actions affecting degree programme processes within the VSMA framework. The PEQ help optimise management and collect the evidence needed for the subsequent monitoring, modification and accreditation of the programmes.

Current PEQ

PEQ 010 Implementation of the center’s quality policy and objectives

PEQ 011 Drafting, review and distribution of the SGIQ’s specific procedures

PEQ 012 SGIQ DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

PEQ 020 DESIGN, APPROVAL AND VERIFICATION OF BACHELOR’S AND MASTER’S DEGREES

PEQ 021 MONITORING AND IMPROVEMENT OF BACHELOR’S AND MASTER’S DEGREES

PEQ 022 MODIFICATION OF OFFICIAL BACHELOR’S AND MASTER’S DEGREES

PEQ 023 CANCELLATION AND TERMINATION OF OFFICIAL DEGREE PROGRAMMES

PEQ 024 ACCREDITATION OF OFFICIAL BACHELOR’S AND MASTER’S DEGREES

PEQ 030 Definition of the admission profile, admission and enrolment of bachelor’s degree students

PEQ 040 DEFINITION OF THE ENTRY PROFILE, ADMISSION, SELECTION AND ENROLMENT OF MASTER’S STUDENTS

PEQ 050 Student guidance

PEQ 051 CAREER GUIDANCE FOR STUDENTS

PEQ 060 Delivery of teaching: learning methodology and assessment

PEQ 061 ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING

PEQ 062 BACHELOR’S THESIS AND MASTER’S THESIS

PEQ 070 MANAGEMENT OF EXTERNAL PLACEMENTS

PEQ 080 Management of international student mobility

PEQ 100 Management of complaints, claims and suggestions

PEQ 110 Management and improvement of material resources

PEQ 120 MANAGEMENT AND IMPROVEMENT OF SERVICES

PEQ 140 Publication and updating of public information

PEQ 141 PUBLIC INFORMATION: ACCOUNTABILITY

VSMA

VSMA is the name used to refer to the set of processes that official university programmes undergo. The acronym comes from the initials of the four basic processes in the life cycle of degree programmes:

Verification
Monitoring
Modification
Accreditation

The center manages these internal processes and ensures their coherence through the SGIQ.

Verification / Modification

Verification

Proposals for new official qualifications must undergo a prior evaluation process: verification. The centres prepare a verification report setting out the design of the new proposal. Once approved by the centre’s Board, the APQUB (UB Agency for Policies and Quality) and the Governing Council, it is sent to AQU, which prepares an evaluation report. Based on this evaluation, the Council of Universities (CU) issues a final report verifying the qualification.

Modification

As a result of the implementation and monitoring of programmes, three types of modification proposal may be generated:

improvement proposals that do not need to be included in the public information about the qualification,
proposals for non-substantial modifications to the qualification, which will be included in the public information about it,
proposals for substantial modifications to the qualification, which must undergo evaluation before being implemented.

Modifications considered substantial are those that affect both the administrative definition of the qualification and its essential academic characteristics, and will entail starting a new verification process for the qualification. In the case of less significant modifications, AQU is authorised to issue a final report approving the proposed modifications. The outcome of the modification process is reflected in the updated verification report, incorporating the changes.