Accreditation

The article defines three institutional evaluation models (English, French and Dutch one) and revises some of the experiences in institutional evaluation fron Europe and Latin America trying to extract points in common as well as between them. We could say that, mostly, the projects of institutional evaluation plan at universities emerge promoted by universities themselves and are pushed by goverments inside the context of institutional improvements.

Most of the governments put the control that implies the accreditation of universities to give the correspondent degrees. In generat terms, we could say that, the academic institutions put the stress improvements while the governments do the same with the control or accreditation of them. This is largely explained in the National Plan for Universities Quality Evaluation in progress at the time being in Spain and some ideas being considered for a better implantation of the plan.

The institutional evaluation is a subject of fundamental importance for the higher education institutions, facing the raising interest by the society in the efficiency and quality of the activities developed by the Universities. This article focus on the necessity that higher education institutions, make clear its own goals when starts the institutional evaluation process. The reflections about experiences of others are very important to help the own planning processes, but local, regional and national characteristics must be taken in account.

This article examines the evaluation procedures of postgraduate programs in a number of different countries with different political, social and economic characteristics.

Four sections discuss the main goals pursued and the most frequent evaluation methodologies that have been found through the review of several researches whose main aim is to assess university postgraduate programs offered at U.S.A., Latinoamerican countries, Europe and, especially in Spain. Strengths and weaknesses of these evaluation systems are provided, and also when these procedures were initiated. We pay a careful separate attention to practice-oriented master programs because of their differences from traditional masters and doctoral programs.

 

Key words: Postgraduate Programs, Master Programs, Program Evaluation, Accreditation, Evaluation Methodologies.