The SDU's quality organisation is therefore arranged so that the participants involved are the same as those included in the university's management structure from the Vice-Chancellor, through Deans, to the Heads of Studies for the individual programmes.
The Vice-Chancellor is the person in the quality organisation who has overall responsibility for ensuring that internal and external requirements for the programmes are translated into good practice. At the same time, the work carried out regarding quality in education in practice takes place in as close proximity as possible to the programmes, through study management, study administration and the activities of individual university teachers.
SDU's quality organisation has these participants:
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Read more about participants in the quality organisation:
The Vice-Chancellor and the Executive Board have the overall responsibility for the quality of the university's programmes. This means that the Executive Board:
- Processes and approves SDU's quality policy
- Follows up on the results of quality work throughout the university
- Decides on focus areas and measures for future work
The Executive Board comprises the Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University Director and the Deans.
Read more about the Executive Board
The Council for Education is the university's coordinating forum for overall strategic issues regarding programmes. With respect to quality work, this means that the Council for Education:
- Discusses and deals with a wide range of topics related to quality of education before and after they are dealt with on the Executive Board
- Is responsible for developing and revising the quality system
- Continuously follows up and takes stock of the quality of the university's programmes.
The Council for Education is comprised of:
- A member of the Executive Board appointed by the Vice-Chancellor, who serves as Chairman of the Council for Education
- A representative from each faculty who is either a Vice-Dean for education or another representative appointed by the Dean
- The Head of Studies from Common Administration
SDU has two coordination groups for study administration who support quality work. They are set up by the Council for Education and have a guardian who is a member of the Council for Education.
Study coordination group for quality (SAK KVAL)
SAK KVAL's task is to coordinate, implement and follow up on relevant issues within programme quality. This means that SAK KVAL deals with issues related to programme quality before and after they are discussed on the Council for Education, and that SAK KVAL exchanges experiences on the quality work in practice.
SAK KVAL consists of 1-2 experts in the field of programme quality from each faculty, typically quality coordinators/employees employed in the faculty administrations.
Study coordination group for administration (SAK KVAL)
SAK ADM’s task is to coordinate, implement and follow up on relevant issues within study administration. This means that SAK ADM deals with issues related to study administration before and after they are discussed on the Council for Education, and that SAK ADM exchanges experiences on study administration in practice.
SAK ADM consists of 1-2 programme administration experts from each faculty, such as study board secretaries and department managers in faculty administration. Representatives from the Study Service also participate.
Faculty management is responsible for ensuring that the quality of the faculty’s programmes is satisfactory. This means that the faculties shall:
- Support and set the framework for study management's quality work
- Follow up on whether the programme meet the quality policy in practice
In addition, the faculty management is responsible for a number of requirements in the quality policy, such as quality assurance of programme regulations.
There is a difference between how SDU's five faculties organise their quality work in practice, and there is therefore also a difference between which tasks are actually carried out by the programmes, and which are carried out by the faculty across all its programmes. Read more about the quality work in the individual faculties.
It is the individual programme management that has primary responsibility for the quality of a programme. This is evidenced by the fact that the head of the department is responsible for a large part of the requirements set out in the quality policy.
This means that the Head of Studies and the Study Boards must continuously work with the quality assurance of the programme and deal with such things as key figures, surveys, programme regulations and the planning of study commencement.
There is a difference between how SDU's five faculties organise the work of the Study Boards in practice. At some faculties, several sub-committees are attached to the faculty's Study Board, which cover a smaller number of programmes than the Study Board. At these faculties, the sub-committees play a central role in the handling of the quality work. Read more about the quality work in the individual faculties.
Central Administration is headed by the University Director, who has overall responsibility for ensuring that Central Administration satisfactorily supports the programme quality work. This means that Central Administration:
- Is responsible for fulfilling the requirements of the quality policy that relate to, for example, IT, physical locations and study administration
- Creates frameworks for services that support the faculty and study programme managers to fulfil their responsibilities in the quality policy
- Supports the interdisciplinary bodies on the Education Council, SAK KVAL and SAK ADM (the Executive Board is served by the Rector's Secretariat).