Project results are:
Online benchmarking tool, which will be used to compare quality processes and practices of VET institutes with each other and with the CQAF, and to identify best practices in quality assurance in VET,
Project results are:
Online benchmarking tool, which will be used to compare quality processes and practices of VET institutes with each other and with the CQAF, and to identify best practices in quality assurance in VET.
The benchmarking tool consists of:
- Benchmarking methodology: A report describing the theoretical background, the state of the art in the theme of quality assurance in VET, analysing similar software tools and proposing a methodology for the benchmarking tool
- Benchmarking questionnaire: The core of the benchmarking tool is a multiple choice questionnaire to be filled in by VET providers
- Best practices template and instructions: A tool to assist VET providers to compile their best practices in a consistent way for on-line publication
- Specifications for the on-line benchmarking tool: a document describing the technical requirements and providing a design of the software tool.
- On-line benchmarking tool: The electronic tool, which is an on-line questionnaire, placed on the portal, individual and statistic reports (not fully developed yet).
- Collection of quality profiles that will be the benchmark data for the comparison. At the moment there are 42 quality profiles on-line, when the number reaches the minimum target of 100 quality profiles, then the full functionalities of the benchmarking tool will be activated.
- Collection of best practices. VET providers with excellent performance in some quality criteria will be asked to submit their best practices. The best practices will then go through a selection, evaluation and revision process before publication.
Thematic portal, hosted in the address www.bequal.info. The portal has been developed using the popular open source software joomla. It consists of the front end and the back end for its administration.
The portal includes the following functions.
Online benchmarking tool, as described above
- Blogs
- News and newsfeeds
- Links
- Library
- Resources and articles
- Polls
- Login module
- Who is on-line module
- RSS function
It is multilingual, at the moment available in English with some parts in German and Spanish. In the second year of the project it will be available in all partners’ languages. The national versions are not/will not be identical with the English one. The core information will be the same, but national versions may include additional information of national interest, such as articles, links, documents, news, etc.
Establishment of a Community of Practice (CoP) in the theme of quality assurance in VET. For the creation of the CoP, there have been a series of networking activities for VET stakeholders and practitioners, in view to facilitate the best or good practices exchange. The networking activities, so far, include direct contacts with VET providers and stakeholders, organisation of workshops, presentations in conferences and other events and the operation of blogs n the portal. In the second half of the project dissemination and exploitation activities will be intensified and the most important promotion activity, namely the participation in “Employment Week” exhibition in Brussels will take place.
