Quality assurance

The department of Electrical Engineering (EE) is the leading department of the interdisciplinary master’s program AI&ES and overssess the quality of the education. Providing high quality education is of utmost importance and it is done continously through structural and recurrent evaluation of all educational components.  

Courses and projects are evaluated with online surveys in Evalytics. The results enables the program management to collect the thoughts and opinions of students and give them the opportunity to provide feedback on their education. Educational components that are new to the program are evaluated for 3 consecutive years using surveys, until they reach a specific level (see Quality Assurance plan in Downloads section below for criteria). The educationa components that have reached a specific level are evaluated once every 3 years.

The results of the surveys, together with the pass rates of the course, input from the responsible teacher, and input from the StudentBody are evaluated by several stakeholders, such as: the Program Committee AI&ES, the Examination Committee AI&ES, the Progarm Leader AI&ES, the Quality Assurance officer EE and the responsible lecturer/teacher. In the situation that a course posess concerns, an improvement plan will be requested from and implemented by the responsible lecturer/teacher. The following year the coruse is monitored based on the evaluation and the improvement plan. 

The educational program as a whole is also subject to yearly evaluations, organized on a central level by the TU/e. An important way of program evaluation is by analyzing the results of the National Student Survey (NSE), which is conducted every year.

In addition to the surveys, the department makes use of other more direct methods of evaluation for educational components. Student meetings are organized for bachelor and master students (year councils) on a regular basis by the StudentBody. This offers the opportunity for students to provide direct feedback on their educational program. Compared to surveys, where evaluations take place at the end of the quarter, these types of evaluation methods are powerful tools for intermediate evaluations. For an overview of our evaluation instruments, see the Quality Assurance Plan in the Downloads section below. 

A quality assurance (QA) officer is appointed by the department to monitor all the processes related to quality assurance. Moreover, the QA officer ensures that all responsible stakeholders receive the information necessary to fulfill their roles and responsibilities. The role of the QA officer is relfected by the following main responsibilities:

• maintains a record of course evaluations and determines which courses require evaluation, which policy should be used and communicates with the central QA officer of Education and Student Affairs (ESA) services on practicalities regarding the surveys
• attends meetings with other departmental QA officers to discuss general matters and developments related  to quality assurance
• writes the departmental QA plan every year.

The Quality Assurance officer of the EE department is dr. Els van Rooij.

Based on the framework of accreditation developed by the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation Organisation (Dutch abbreviation: NVAO), all educational programs are subject to periodic evaluation by writing a self-evaluation report and by a visiting panel. Accreditation is a formal decision that the educational program complies to the quality demands formulated by the NVAO and that the graduation diploma is recognized as valid by the government. Accreditation is valid for 6 years. The most recent accreditation (which was also the first one, that took place before the program started) of the master’s program AI&ES was in 2021.