ACTIONS CARRIED OUT BY THE ACSUG IN THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA (EHEA)

The University System of Galicia (SUG, in Galician) is based on the full authority that, according to article 31 of the Statute of Autonomy, the Autonomous Community of Galicia exercises in the regulation and administration of education in all areas, levels and grades, including, therefore, university studies.

The publication of the LOU represented a profound legislative transformation, due to the need to adapt to the EHEA and to improve quality in all areas of university activity.

On that path to quality and adaptation to Europe, the Department of Education is providing the legislative means and materials to achieve quality in the SUG. Thus, regulations have been published on hired professors (Decree 266/2002, dated 6 September, on hiring university professors), University Social Councils (Law 1/2003, dated 9 May, on the SUG Social Councils), Galician University Council (Law 2/2003, dated 22 May, on the Galician University Council) and others in application of the LOU.

The purpose of these measures is to improve the quality of the SUG and its competitiveness at the international level, especially in the area of Europe , always preserving its cultural and linguistic wealth, while favouring greater co-operation between the institutions.

One of the headings in the draft version of the General SUG Act includes the adaptation to the European Higher Education System, primarily in the area of co-ordinating the processes to achieve European convergence, the European diploma supplement and the measures for adapting the names of the diplomas, as well as the cyclical education options, ensuring that their assessment unit, in the study plans, fits the European criterion.

Along this line, established by the Department of Education and University Planning, different information and debate activities are proposed on experiences for European convergence, which are entirely necessary for achieving the required goals.

For this purpose, the Department of Education signed a collaboration agreement on 20 October 2003 with the University System of Galicia Quality Agency (ACSUG) for the convergence of the Galician Universities with the EHEA.

It is believed that the activities derived from this Agreement must be incorporated into the actions promoted by the ANECA for the entire State, materialised with the signing of an annex to the existing Framework Agreement between the ACSUG and the ANECA, in support of the European convergence processes.

All of these aspects are included among the actions to be carried out by the ACSUG, established in its statutes. Some of the most important include:

• Promoting co-ordination amongst the Galician universities, and with other institutions, in the area of quality.
• Analysing the university study plans and evaluating the impact and results of reforming and modifying them.
• Drafting reports and proposals related to the higher education systems in other countries.

Specifically, the ACSUG, based on the actions mentioned above, has established the objective of making the qualifications earned at the Galician Universities promoters, co-ordinating the creation of networks that involve a significant number of universities for presenting study plan design and degree projects.

Through its Agreement with the ACSUG, the Department of Education plans to develop an opinion in the University System of Galicia that makes it possible, with appropriate training of the lecturing staff, to improve development in the new ways of teaching and in the necessary restructuring of the qualifications.

The first of the aspects cited is to be achieved through specific activities:

• Presenting the terminology and the basic principles of the EHEA to the whole of the university community, especially the ECTS and the European Diploma Supplement.
• Training those directly responsible for its implementation (lecturers, administration and services staff and students).

The second aspect would be materialised, for the proposed qualifications, structuring the activities in order to:

• Determine the offer and demand for the qualification in the SUG and its relationship to the whole of the Spanish, European and Global University Systems.
• Analyse the content imbalance in the current study plans for each qualification.
• Establish the minimum content to define the qualification, covering at least 70% of its study plan.
• Establish the complementary material that the qualification should include.
• Involve the Professional Associations and other social agents related to the qualification.

To fulfil these objectives, the Department of Education has contributed, through the ACSUG, €148,500 for the current school year.

The Co-ordination Commission created for this purpose, in which our three universities participate, in a meeting on 10 September 2003, proposed an pilot project with four qualifications (Biology, Law, Nursing and Philology), along with a three-part document summarising the project to be carried out and the approach of the working plan.

The participation conditions proposed for the qualifications were:

• That they be offered in the SUG.
• The SUG qualifications offered at more than one of our universities committed to carrying out the common project would be given priority.
• Participation by all Galician universities that offer the qualification would be indispensable.
• Involve over 50% of the universities in the State University System that offer the qualification.

The proposed qualifications began their activity in the month of November 2003 with the presentation of the ACSUG project and the “Basic Aspects of the EHEA”. The corresponding actions were then organised in co-ordination with the Deans of each qualification, and the working groups were established, assigning tasks to each member of the group.

As mentioned in the letter sent to the Chancellors, inviting the individuals responsible for EHEA to participate in the “Workshop on the Implementation of the New European Credit: Pilot Projects Conducted at the Spanish Universities”, held on 16 March 2004, one of the objectives established, coinciding with the information presented above, was to support and promote the integration of the universities in the EHEA. .

Following the presentation of the qualifications cited, we believed it necessary to present the pilot projects from other Autonomous Communities and Universities, which took place on 16 March 2004, with debates that gave everyone a better understanding of the different subjects covered, clarifying certain aspects of the implementation of the ECTS and the structures necessary for its development. New concerns also arose which were answered through the active participation of all those in attendance and could be used as a reference in our later work.

The efforts of the entire university community must be combined: professors, administration and services staff and students, as well as all of the administrations and entities involved, taking full advantage of the opportunities derived from the convergence process to transform our University System profoundly, increasing its competitiveness and efficiency, and making it a reference model not only at the European level, but also worldwide.

This requires a major effort by all, not only from a financial point of view, but also in training, both in the strictly technical aspects, establishing and promoting the methods and procedures required to implement the new system effectively to the entire university community, as well as favouring a culture of change, motivating and raising the awareness of all groups involved to the benefits and advantages derived from that change.

During the first quarter of 2004, the working groups established in Biology, Law, Nursing and Philology carried out their work along the line defined as the second point of the ACSUG project, although at a different pace and with different results.

• Biology.

The three centres that offer Biology in the SUG, along with the rest of the Spanish universities, drafted a project, presented to the ANECA, for this adaptation process.

The Biology qualifications in the SUG expressed their willingness to conduct a pilot project in credit conversion, in some of the current subjects, to ECTS credits.

The common subject was Plant and Animal Cytology and Histology.

The optional subjects selected were:

• At the UDC: Microbiology and Environmental Biotechnology and Ethology.
• At the USC: Ethology, General and Comparative Neurobiology and Phytogeography.
• At the UVI: Animal Behaviour and Molecular Genetics.

To carry it out, a working group was established for each of the subjects, with the participation of at least all of the professors who currently teach them, selecting a co-ordinator from among them, as well as two students (one from the first cycle and another from the second cycle). The co-ordinators must be in constant contact with the deans of the four centres involved.

Initially, they worked with the number of credits and descriptors indicated in the R.D. on General Directives for the corresponding study plans to define the objectives and the level of competency and skill that the students must attain in the core subjects. The analysis of the objectives, competencies and skills must lead to a detailed schedule of the subject that includes all of the activities that a typical student must complete, including theory and practical classes. Once this adaptation has been made, it must be put into practice at each of the centres. With the different subjects selected by each university, the work may be done directly on the subject in question, taking into account the indications in the R.D. on General Directives for the study plans.

• Philology.

The four SUG faculties that offer Philology qualifications participated in a project, co-ordinated jointly by the USC and the UCM, to take on a joint study of all current Philology qualifications for the purpose of harmonisation in the EHEA. All Spanish universities that offer a degree in Philology participated in the working group, except for the universities of Jaén, Jaume I and León.

Complementary to this study, the three Galician universities wanted to present a postgraduate degree design complemented by the resulting grades, taking into account the criteria of avoiding repetition of identical postgraduate degrees and optimising all human and material resources existing in the SUG, as well as the specialisation needs of the students regarding the most demanded professional profiles.

The Philology qualifications in the SUG expressed their willingness to conduct a pilot project in credit conversion, in some of the current subjects, to ECTS credits, focusing their efforts on working with common subjects at the three Galician universities.

The subjects selected were:

• English, a core subject in the first cycle of English Philology.
• Spanish Literature, a core subject in the first cycle of Spanish Philology.
• Galician, a core subject in the first cycle of Galician Philology.

The fourth subject was different at the three universities:

• The USC worked with Latin, a core subject in the first cycle of several qualifications.
• The UDC worked with the core subject of Linguistics.
• The UVI worked with the Literary Theory subject.

The working plan was the same as for the Biology qualifications.

Nursing and Law focused their work primarily on the design of their qualifications, coinciding with the third line of work established in the ACSUG project.

Following the first working phase carried out in Biology and Philology, a workshop was given for each qualification in which the working groups in each subject presented the participants in the experiment with the works carried out and the results obtained to date, along with the timeline for full implementation. Professors from other universities that had conducted a similar project were invited to these presentations for the purpose of encouragement, examples and comparison.

These presentations increased the security of the work carried out, achieving a commitment to present these SUG pilot projects in a series of workshops outside of our universities.

At the University Innovation: The Challenge of European Convergence Workshop, held on 16 and 17 September 2004, in Madrid , the project in the Philology qualification was presented by Manuel Fernández Ferreiro.

At the New Qualifications and New Teaching and Learning Evaluation Methods in the EHEA Workshop, held in Zamora from 6 to 9 October 2004, the Biology qualification project was presented by Juan Freire.

The second line of work of the ACSUG project also included the analysis, from a tried and tested technical point of view, of the situation of the ECTS implementation in the SUG. The objective was to obtain a “snapshot of the system”, gathering the professional best practices and applicable recommendations. This work, carried out based on the data and projects carried out by the international relations offices at the three universities, is practically finished.

To satisfy one of the demands of the referenced qualifications, a set of common EHEA terms was gathered and included in a glossary attached to a working model for developing each subject.

On 15 April 2004, the ACSUG Co-ordination Commission met with the Deans of the qualifications in the pilot project. This meeting presented the work done up to then in the scope of the EHEA, and a working plan was agreed to for training the teaching staff.

A training workshop for the Geography, History and Art History qualifications was held on 5 July 2004 at the USC Geography and History Faculty.

A new collaboration agreement was signed on 28 September 2004, between the Department of Education and University Planning and the ACSUG, to continue the actions leading to the Convergence of the Galician Universities with the EHEA.

By virtue of the fourth clause of the collaboration agreement mentioned above, the planned expenditure and actions to be carried out are the following:

• Material Gathering: Study plans at the Galician universities. European, national and regional higher education regulations. Material resources for carrying out the actions derived from the agreement.
• Various meetings with experts in adapting higher education to the European Area.
• A complete study of the documentation gathered and of the information obtained at the initial meetings with the experts in adapting higher education to the European Area and a report on its application over time.
• Various meetings with the Vice-Chancellors responsible for academic organisation at the Galician universities to analyse the study plans to be adapted.
• Manage and supervise the tasks that the universities are to carry out to adapt their qualifications to converge with the EHEA.
• A study of the centres that offer, in the Autonomous Community, studies that lead to obtaining foreign diplomas in university higher education and their convergence with the European area, as stipulated in article 86 of the LOU.

On 1 and 2 October 2004, a National Workshop was organised at the USC Psychology Faculty on “The Psychology Practicum in the EHEA”.

The Co-ordination Commission for Adaptation to the EHEA in SUG Qualifications met on 5 October 2004 to define a new working plan. The points covered at that meeting included:

• Continuation of the pilot projects with the Philology, Law, Nursing and Biology qualifications.
• Incorporation of new qualifications in the EHEA adaptation project: Software Engineering (UDC, USC, UVI), Mathematics (USC), Industrial Design (UDC), Psychology (USC), Teaching, Pre-primary Education (UDC, USC, UVI), Translation and Interpretation (UVI) and Physical Education (UDC).
• The call by the ACSUG for the mention of quality on educational innovation in the EHEA.
• Teaching staff training programme.

The working plan for the new qualifications to be included in the pilot project are the same as the previous ones, with the modifications proposed by them.

The four initial qualifications will continue with the pilot project based on the following objectives:

• Creation of the Teaching Guides in accordance with ECTS criteria.
• Application of the Teaching Guide to each qualification beginning with the 2004/2005 academic year, starting with the first course and continuing in subsequent years.
• Promoting the application of teaching projects that encourage independent work and the development of skills by the students while adapting to the new ways of working by lecturers and administration and services staff.

On 14 October 2004, the Deans of the Philology Qualification in the SUG met to analyse the continuation of the pilot project in that qualification, the implementation of the ECTS in an entire course, the work of the cabinet for all subjects in the degree during the 2004/2005 academic year and the future implementation in the 2005/2006 year.