Quality of education at Linnaeus University

Here you will find an overview of our work with educational quality – purpose, prerequisites, responsibilities and what activities are included to develop and control quality in our educations both at university-wide level and close to education at faculty and department level. This page is under construction.

The work with educational quality is primarily aimed at supporting and developing education, but also at controlling the quality of education. This applies to both undergraduate, advanced and postgraduate education.

In order for you to be able and willing to contribute to development, ask for and find help, try new ways of working, follow up and share information, the right conditions must be in place for participation, communication, development and systematics in the quality work. We call it a development-oriented quality culture. It is also the basis for how the work is divided.

Responsibility to develop and control – university-wide and close to education

The work with educational quality is primarily to develop and support our educations, but also check that the educations are of the right quality.

The work with educational quality includes everyone – students as well as employees and managers. Who is responsible for what is regulated in our rules of procedure.

The deputy vice-chancellor for education, together with the Council for Education and Learning, are responsible for the management and coordination of the university-wide quality work. They will support the faculties and the Board of Teacher Education in their educational quality work.
Faculty boards and the Board of Teacher Education have the overall responsibility for the quality work relating to education. They are responsible for guaranteeing quality in the academic activities and on the teacher programmes and for developing the activities around courses, programmes and postgraduate education.

The quality-assurance process

We develop our educations in four steps based on the quality criteria we have chosen. It is a process that starts over as soon as it has reached its final step and it is implemented on education at university-wide level. By communicating the need for operations development and planning resources for this, the process is connected and develops Linnaeus University’s entire education activities.

1. We ask and listen

The first step is to gather information about the education.

We use information from Treklövern, the Swedish Higher Education Authority and the college, among others.
We listen to the students' views, use course evaluations and questionnaires during, but also after, the education.

As a teacher, you need to encourage students to give their views on the education. Here, your own experiences of what works well or what can be improved are also important. We participate in the work with student surveys and external reviews. We are prepared to listen and reason with colleagues and managers about what the real problem is.

2. We analyse and decide on initiatives

The second step is about analysis. For example, when you receive an opinion on what works well or less well on a course – talk about it with your closest colleagues.

Why does this point of view emerge, what is the real problem and what effort would solve it?
And why does it work well in another area – is there anything we can share?

3. We prioritise and change

The third step is to fix. When we find initiatives that we can implement ourselves – we implement these. When we find things that work particularly well in our educations, we share this with each other. Each operation adds resources for its prioritised development areas through its operational planning. At times, the efforts we need to make require more resources than we have – in that case, we will ask for assistance.

4. We follow up and learn together

The fourth step in the process involves follow up. Have we made the changes we intended to make, have we received the help we needed? In future surveys and other evaluations, we follow up the effect of the measures that have been taken and see what more may need to be done.

Responsibilities and activities

The quality work is divided into four areas of responsibility regarding participation, communication, development and systematics. This applies to both university-wide and education-related levels. The work within each area of responsibility is supported by a number of activities that you will find below:

Participation: Support responsibility and participation in quality work in both academia and operational support.

Communication: Base the quality work on open communication about and from the business

Development: Focus quality work on improvements and internal learning.

Systematics: Keep the quality work appropriate, i.e. support quality assurance and business development

More about the work with educational quality

The faculties and the Board of Teacher Education design their work with educational quality based on university-wide governing documents. An overview of the quality work related to education with links to documents and decisions that you need in your work can be found on the faculties' and the Board of Teacher Education's own pages. They contain:

Each faculty's/ Board of Teacher Education's activities within each area of responsibility (participation, communication, development and systematics).
Specified concrete activities/processes for:
- Student recruitment and educational planning
- Teaching competence and environment
- Teaching and examination
- Development and quality assurance
Allocation of responsibilities/participation for activities/processes

For more information, see the corresponding page in Swedish, Utbildningskvalitet