General procedure

The Master’s organizing institutions enforce their own respective internal quality assurance procedures which are detailed below. A Studies Commission (joint commission), formed by two member representing UZ and other two members representing IAMZ-CIHEAM, have among other missions to ensure the academic excellence of the Master concerning organization, content and lecturers, in accordance with the academic regulations of CIHEAM and UZ, and to ensure the fulfilment of the requirements of quality demanded by the evaluating bodies. The representatives of each co-organizing institution in the Commission are responsible for the procedures followed to be in accordance with the quality assurance system of their own institution, as well as for monitoring their compliance in their respective institutions afterwards.

University of Zaragoza - Internal quality assurance system

Each degree avails of a quality management system that is responsible for the monitoring and surveillance of the student results and learning process throughout the studies. The quality system relies on various bodies and coordination mechanisms, and on the continuous assessment and improvement of the studies, as foreseen in the Regulations for the degrees’ quality of the University of Zaragoza.

The main actor of the quality system is the Degree Coordinator, who acts as the true academic supervisor of the degree. S/he coordinates the activities of the various units and modules to ensure their adequacy to the learning objectives set, leads the periodic assessments of the degree and proposes and drives the continuous improvement actions.

The Quality Assurance Commission is the official body governing the degree under the mandate of the Board of the Centre. It establishes the guidelines and the work framework for the Coordinator and all persons involved in the degree, and makes all the decisions related to the degree, its modifications and its improvement plans.

The Quality Assessment Commission is the body responsible for the yearly assessment of the degree planning and development, through the information given by the various information gathering procedures and through its main indicators.

The Degrees’ Commission of the University of Zaragoza supervises the correct functioning of the quality system of all the degrees of this University.

The Degree Project is the reference document gathering the outcome profiles and the competences to be acquired by the students at the end of their studies, as well as the organization, academic plans, syllabus and resources that guarantee the students’ proper conditions for the achievement of the foreseen learning outcomes. Following the stated in this reference document, the degree starts up a series of mechanisms for planning and coordinating the academic organization of units and modules, encouraged by the Degree Coordinator, whose results are drawn in the study guides. Besides, all the information gathering procedures examine the opinion and experience of students, and the judgement of lecturers, the administration and services staff, alumni and external experts. This information, together with the data contributed by the degree indicators (indicators of success, performance, efficiency, withdrawal and graduation), constitute the basis of the Yearly report for the assessment of the learning quality and results made by the Quality Assessment Commission. From this assessment report, the Innovation and quality yearly plan is designed to be approved by the degree’s Quality Assurance Commission. This plan integrates the set of measures and projects aimed to solve the possible observed shortages and to move towards the suggested directions for improvement, as well as the modifications in the degree organization and planning considered convenient at each moment.

This set of actions shapes the annual cycle of quality assessment and continuous improvement of the degree, supported by the Training Programmes for the lecturers of the University of Zaragoza and the Programmes for Innovation and training improvement.

Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza - CIHEAM - Internal quality assurance system

The IAMZ-CIHEAM structure for quality assurance is composed by the following bodies:

• CIHEAM’s General Secretariat and Governing Board. The Governing Board is composed of representatives of the 13 member countries of the institution, who are academic or research authorities appointed by their respective Governments to perform this function
• IAMZ’s Director and Principal Administrator for Training
• Studies Commission for each of the Master programmes
• Ad-hoc Commission formed by international experts internal and external to each of the Master programmes, who advise on their implementation and periodical monitoring every fourth or fifth edition

IAMZ annually reports the results of the assessments carried out and the actions taken in order to improve the quality of the Master programmes to the CIHEAM General Secretariat and Governing Board, under whose responsibility the Master degrees are granted by the institution.

Each Master programme has a Studies Commission whose mission, among others, is related to the implementation and follow-up of the quality assurance system in each specific speciality, including: (i) determining the skills and knowledge to be acquired by the Master students; (ii) setting the criteria and requirements for access to these studies; (iii) encouraging and promoting the mobility of students and academic staff involved in the Master; and (iv) ensuring the academic excellence of the Master organization, content and lecturing staff, in accordance with the CIHEAM’s academic regulations and compliance with quality requirements demanded by the evaluating bodies, both from CIHEAM and the Spanish higher education system, since it is a degree recognized by the State of Spain as equivalent to the official Master degree of the Spanish university system.

In compliance with the CIHEAM’s academic regulations, when a Master programme in a new specialization is proposed, an international group of experts in that speciality constitutes an ad-hoc Commission to advise the institution on the educational competences, content and learning activities for the new programme, and also proposes a panel of guest lecturers that will develop such programme. This Commission is composed by of a total of five or six external experts (university lecturers, researchers from public research bodies and professionals from institutions and companies in the sector) and the staff responsible for training at the IAMZ and the co-organizing institutions (in those cases of the IAMZ Master being jointly organized). One of the members of this ad-hoc Commission is appointed Scientific Director of the Master to coordinate the scientific aspects of the programme and monitor their development. In some cases, especially when the programme multidisciplinarity requires so, more than one scientific director may be designated. Likewise the Studies Commission may request the ad-hoc Commission members’ advice for the programme monitoring, if they consider so to be suitable.

During the development of the programmes, the Studies Commission carries out a continuous monitoring of the programme, through surveys made to students and lecturers, as well as through consultation with other groups involved. At the end of each edition of the Master, the Studies Commission evaluates the results and proposes relevant improvement actions for the following edition. In those Master programmes jointly organized with other institutions, as is the case of the Master in Animal Nutrition and its UZ/IAMZ-CIHEAM Studies Commission, the representatives of each co-organizing institution in the Commission are responsible for the procedures followed to be in accordance with the quality assurance system of their own institution, as well as for monitoring their compliance in their respective institutions afterwards.