General information
AVAP and ANECA (the Spanish National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation) have common goals and interests as far as quality assessment, accreditation and certification in universities are concerned. They have thus signed a collaboration agreement to develop DOCENTIA (Teaching Performance Assessment Programme) – an ANECA programme which aims to provide a benchmark, a model and procedures for the assessment of teaching in universities.
The agreement came about as a result of both institutions’ belief in the importance of promoting a quality culture in universities. It also responds to the need to establish cooperation and collaboration mechanisms between the two bodies to ensure that models used to assess teaching staff are consistent, and to facilitate recognition of the processes used and future certification of assessment results.
The DOCENTIA Programme aims to meet the needs of universities and the education system in general for a model and working procedures which ensure the quality of university teaching staff and help them in their professional development. ANECA has developed a model, a procedure and a set of tools and instruments to run the Programme. The Programme has also been tailored and adapted to meet the needs of universities and the autonomous regions.
Universities, for their part, have drawn up their own manuals or documents which explain how the DOCENTIA Programme has been used to carry out their assessment work.
AVAP coordinates Valencian university participation in the DOCENTIA Programme. ANECA is the body responsible for ensuring the Programme is consistently put into practice at national level while AVAP is responsible for its implementation in the Valencian Region.
A Monitoring Committee has been set up which is made up of a chairman (ANECA’s innovation coordinator), a secretary (the person responsible for the DOCENTIA Programme at ANECA) and one representative from each of the regional agencies that have signed an agreement with ANECA (the person who is responsible for the Programme at each agency). The Committee’s roles include carrying out regular reviews of the model and the established framework procedure. This enables improvements to be made after implementing the model and responds to stakeholders’ demands.
The following universities in the Valencian Region have obtained a positive report from the Programme:
• Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
• University of Alicante
• Jaume I University
The following universities in the Valencian Region have obtained a positive report from the Programme, though with certain conditions:
• Miguel Hernández University
• Cardenal Herrera-Ceu San Pablo University