Subject-level quality assurance in computing: experiences from three national perspectives.

Abstract

This paper examines some aspects of the Quality Assurance processes in Computing departments in three European universities. We first examine the operation of a quality assurance activity in the School of Computer Science in Iceland. The next case is an example from Sweden and finally we present a case from the United Kingdom. In each case, we examine the motivation for the outcome-based assurance methodologies that predominate in countries that are engaged in the Bologna Process in terms of the use of competence-based assessment. We compare the application of these processes to departmental review, focusing on the aims and objectives, who controls the process, the areas covered, the methodology and the use to which the information is put. We discuss some of the implications for teaching when different quality assurance processes are used and finally, we make some observations about the relatively sparse literature on Computing Education subject-specific quality assurance.

Citation

MCDERMOTT, R., DANIELS, M. and LARUSDOTTIR, M. 2014. Subject-level quality assurance in computing: experiences from three national perspectives. In Proceedings of the 2014 Frontiers in education conference (FIE 2014): opening innovations and internationalization in engineering education, 22-25 October 2014, Madrid, Spain. Piscataway: IEEE [online], article number 7044182. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2014.7044182

• Conference Name: 2014 Frontiers in education conference (FIE 2014)
• Conference Location: Madrid, Spain
• Start Date: Oct 22, 2014
• End Date: Oct 25, 2014
• Acceptance Date: Oct 22, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Oct 22, 2014
• Publication Date: Feb 19, 2015
• Deposit Date: Mar 14, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 14, 2017
• Print ISSN: 0190-5848
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Article Number: 7044182
• Series ISSN: 0190-5848
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2014.7044182
• Keywords: Outcomebased quality assurance; Qualifications framework; Learning outcomes; Competence based assessment
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2222