sparqs participated in the recent European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF) on 15th-17th November 2018 in Vienna, Austria.
EQAF, an annual gathering for quality practitioners from institutions and sectors across Europe and beyond, is a major opportunity to learn and share on practice and developments in European higher education. It is attended by around 500 delegates from over 40 countries, including student representatives. This year, sparqs was pleased to have a paper approved for presentation at the conference.
The paper, written and presented by Development Consultant, Simon Varwell, was titled “Engaging diversely: how online students, postgraduates and others can (and should!) be full partners in quality”. It summarised a number of different approaches developed through current and recent work on a number of areas, such as our engagement of postgraduate students and our project on online distance learning (ODL) and transnational education (TNE) students.
We were able to share practice and tools, talk about students’ association engagement in strategies for engaging all students, and highlight ways in which students often less engaged in quality can shape their learning, not as add-ons, but as a core part of the student community.
The session was also an opportunity to generate discussion among participants about the nature of partnership on these matters between student bodies and institutions, and promote the various resources we have available.
You can read our paper on the EQAF conference website, as well as our accompanying presentation.
For more information, please contact Simon Varwell on simon.varwell@sparqs.ac.uk
