Quality Procedures in the European Higher Education Area and Beyond--Visions for the Future: Third ENQA Survey. ENQA Occasional Papers 18

Higher education reforms over the last decade, resulting in the establishment of the European Higher Education Area, with new social demands and expectations, have greatly impacted quality assurance in higher education. As a follow-up activity to two previous surveys on external quality procedures, the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) conducted a third survey concentrating on good practice in external quality assurance in order to explore the changes that are taking place, as well as the future areas of focus and activities of quality assurance agencies. The report presents a collection of current features of good practice in external quality assurance within the new priorities formulated by ENQA and following the Leuven/Louvain-la Neuve and Budapest/Vienna Communiques, highlighting the connection between the practices and the expected benefits for higher education institutions and stakeholders. In addition, the present report identifies practices that are expected to be implemented by quality assurance agencies, as well as areas where progress needs to be made, thus proposing a vision of the future of quality assurance procedures. The purpose of the report is also to promote technical and strategic networks among ENQA members addressing future challenges. "The Quality Procedures Questionnaire" is appended. (Contains 11 tables and 8 footnotes.)