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This paper presents the main results of a recent survey of private higher education institutions from twelve selected European countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia) [in the framework of the UNESCO-CEPES project on "Private Higher Education in Europe and Quality Assurance and Accreditation from the Perspectives of the Bologna process Objectives," designed and implemented in collaboration with "Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management (LKAEM) and the World Bank"]. After a brief review of the current incidence of private education in the selected European countries, the authors give a description of the survey. Then the main findings are structured according to the nine goals of the Bologna Process and their corresponding level of implementation in private higher education institutions, and also to provide comparisons with public higher education institutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and with some general remarks about the role of private higher education institutions in building the EHEA. (Contains 14 tables, 12 footnotes and 3 figures.)

The Bologna Declaration attempts to reform the structure of the higher education system in forty-six European countries in a convergent way. By 2010, the European space for higher education should be completed. In the 2005-2006 academic year, the University of Murcia, Spain, started promoting initiatives to adapt individual modules and entire courses to the ECTS-compatible credit system. In this paper, we describe the development of an experiment under the ECTS credit scheme for the module "English Language and Literature I", a course for first year students of French Studies. This experiment took place in the 2005-2006 academic year. This was the first experiment of its kind to be carried out in the Faculty of Arts under the Bologna principles. A teaching team made up of three experienced language teachers was put together for this purpose. The experiment would have a very strict follow-through: three different types of questionnaires were designed and given to the students, teacher and observers respectively in order to establish how the new teaching plan was working. The data obtained from the questionnaires revealed how successful and rewarding this experiment was for the students and teachers involved. (Contains 4 tables, 4 figures and 2 footnotes.)

The objective of this paper is to study the use and educational application of technical resources by students of Social Education (SE) in Spain. The reasons for this research were based on the importance of gaining a deep command of the various skills associated with information and communication technologies in the acquisition of generic competencies. The research we conducted was a descriptive and interpretative study designed from a quantitative-qualitative perspective. The questionnaire was selected as the main data collection tool. Among its most important findings, the research has revealed that SE students are not frequent users of most new technologies, and that they usually copy the behaviours of their teachers in their educational application of technologies. (Contains 2 tables.)

Whereas most ranking schemes aim at the identification of the universally best performing universities, value-driven rankings take a focused perspective: they aim at monitoring the progress of some kind of societal agenda based on social values and hence look for progress concerning specific educational contents. The emerging field of education for sustainable development provides a good case for studying evaluation criteria of a value-based ranking. This paper proposes a framework for a stakeholder-based university evaluation and maps the territory of rankings addressing sustainable development. Finally a complementing evaluation is proposed to address identified shortcomings. (Contains 2 figures and 4 footnotes.)

This paper investigates how university leaders in Finland implement quality management in their respective institutions. The study uses a modified model of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model as a theoretical base in eliciting information on quality management strategies from the senior academic leaders in these universities. The main objective of the study is to explore the different management approaches in quality improvement in university management as perceived by the leaders. The study has made use of administration questionnaires and interviews as methods of data collection. Although the findings show many approaches to quality improvement in university management, one of the conclusions emerging from the study is that Finnish responses to their management styles may serve as inspiration for other universities especially with regard to quality control and leadership styles. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper presents some theoretical and methodological considerations associated with the geographical and professional mobility of science professionals, including the conduct by the authors of a large scale survey questionnaire in Poland in 1994. It does not directly relate to research conducted elsewhere in the region, but does reflect selected issues and problems encountered.

This article presents the case of student mobility through the ERASMUS programme at the University of Patras in Greece. Through research based on official records, questionnaires and interviews with students of the University of Patras who participated in mobility programmes during the period 2000-2005, this article examines the way Greek students perceive their participation in the ERASMUS programme, the problems and difficulties they encounter as well as the benefits they deem they derive from their participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]