Quality Management

What does quality management mean at the University of Eastern Finland?

Quality at the University of Eastern Finland means aligning performance with the objectives to achieve top level education and research that has societal impact.

University’s mission is to educate experts and people with competence who have needed skills for society’s different tasks. The education and research must be high quality and fullfill the criterias set to the content, quality and learning outcomes of the degrees. It is the society’s guarantee that the university can be trusted. Quality management is embedded in all the university’s activities. For the students it shows for example so that the teaching responds the criterias and learning outcomes set from the authorities and working life.

Quality management is a way of ensuring that the right things are done at the right time in the right way. It ensures that the university has justification for its practices and is in control of them. Quality management lets us know whether we are achieving our objectives or if we need to change our approach.

The university’s quality culture refers to the supportive atmosphere of the university community. The quality culture reflects the commitment of the university’s staff and students to their work and studies. Together they uphold and work by the common values and objectives set for the university. Common practices are developed on the basis of feedback from customers and continuous evaluation, and those deemed good are efficiently shared within the university.

Quality policy sets the quality objectives, principles and division of responsibilities governing the university’s activities. Under the quality policy, the university’s activities are based on openness, equality, participation and communality. The university promotes the well-being of its staff and students and takes into consideration the principles of multiculturalism, global social responsibility and sustainable development.

For the students this shows by taking into account student well-being and multiculturalism in different ways, for example they are supported in several ways at the university, with the support of many actors, and through various services and as a increase of the amount of the courses in english. The principles of the sustainability and responsibility are to be seen in the contents and methods of the teaching and in the amount of the sustainability and responsibility related courses. These themes are shown in the strategic focuses of the research. Also the goal of the university becoming carbon neutral by 2025 is a part of this.

Quality System

The quality system (i.e., integrated management system) provides the framework and assigns the responsibilities and procedures for effective quality management, which we use to maintain and improve the quality of the university’s activities. The policies and procedures recorded in the university’s quality system help us ensure that we are on the right path and will achieve our strategic objectives. The quality system’s descriptions and metrics enable us to react to the targets for development identified.

The university’s activities and their development are based on the principle of continuous improvement
Plan – Do – Check – Act and Improve (i.e. the Deming cycle).

Quality management and the principle of the continuous improvement shows in different phases of the studies througt the whole studies. It shows in the fair and appropriate student selection processes having clear selection criteria and in the contents, quality and diverse teaching methods and in the support services of the teaching. Students are involved in institutional and performance development groups and they can especially influence the quality of teaching by giving the feedback from teaching and its support services, which is utilized in developing these prosesses.

Quality Management Responsibilities

The Board of the University of Eastern Finland is responsible for the university’s quality principles and policies. The UEF Leadership Group is the steering committee for the university’s quality work and carries out management reviews at the university. The university’s rectors are responsible for quality work according to how the tasks have been divided between them.

The division of responsibilities for the quality system adheres to the division of responsibilities of the university’s leadership while being integrated into normal management procedures. The faculty deans, heads of departments and units, and directors of each branch of the University Services are responsible for the performance outcomes and quality of their own unit’s activities. The Faculty Council, the steering committees of each degree programme and the Research Council are important administrative bodies in quality assurance.

Everyone at the university is responsible for the quality and development of their own work and its outcomes, including teachers, researchers, administrative staff, support service staff and students.

Quality Group
The university’s quality work and its development are coordinated by the Quality Group, which comprises representatives from the university’s faculties, University Services, independent institutes, service centres and the Student Union. The Quality Group is chaired by the university’s director of administration, whose area of responsibility as the director of University Services includes quality management. The quality team’s rapporteur and secretary is the quality coordinator.

The tasks of the quality team are to:
- Acting as a group, develop, coordinate and support the operational side of the university’s quality work
- Act as an audit steering committee in FINEEC audits
- Acting as a group, carry out the preparatory work for quality management measures that require decision-making by the university’s leadership

The quality coordinator coordinates consistency with quality management principles and procedures in the practical, operational side of quality work in cooperation with the faculties and units and is responsible for the updating of university-level quality documentation, internal audits at the university and measures related to preparing for FINEEC audits. The University of Eastern Finland has two quality coordinators, one on each campus.

The faculties have appointed quality contact persons to act as leaders of the faculties’ own quality teams or groups and as contact persons for audits, for example. They are also responsible for preparations related to the management reviews of faculties in cooperation with the persons in charge of quality in the units.

The units have designated persons in charge of quality and the deputies, who coordinate the practical side of quality work in their units and are responsible for the updating of their unit’s quality documentation. Persons in charge of quality also participate in the preparatory measures for FINEEC audits.

The university has internal auditors, who represent various personnel groups and act as auditors in the university’s internal audits together with quality coordinators.

The faculties’ quality contact persons and persons in charge of quality and the auditors perform their duties in addition to their main job.

Staff and students participate in the university’s quality work, for example by providing feedback on the university’s activities, participating in the university’s administrative bodies and development projects, and taking part in the university’s audits. If necessary, the students also act as internal auditors, especially in the audits of units that concern them, such as the Student and Learning Services.

The faculty websites in Heimo contain information on the composition of each faculty’s quality team and the persons in charge of quality in the units.

How can quality be evaluated and enhanced?

The University of Eastern Finland’s activities and their development are based on the principle of continuous improvement, i.e. the Deming cycle: Plan – Do – Check – Act and Improve

Systematic evaluation and development of one’s actions is an integral part of the quality work of all the operational units and people at the university. The Quality Group and quality coordinators are responsible for comprehensively developing the quality management system in accordance with the guidelines of the university’s Board and Leadership Group.

Management reviews
Management review is the systematic assessment of the suitability, sufficiency, effectiveness and efficiency of the quality management system with respect to the university’s quality policy and quality objectives and the university’s strategic objectives. Management reviews provide the university with information on the quality of its activities and the related development needs. They are carried out with a bottom-up approach from units to faculties to university leadership, and there is also student representatives in the university leadership group.

Audits and evaluations
An audit is a systematic, independent and documented process in which the audit evidence acquired is assessed to determine the extent to which the agreed audit criteria have been met. Audits examine whether the organisation’s quality assurance system complies with the objectives and is effective and fit for purpose.
Audits are based on quality documentation and the selected standard or assessment model. Audits do not take a stand on the objectives or outcomes of the activities. They assess the processes that the university uses to manage and develop the quality of research, education and other activities.

Internal audits
An internal audit is a periodic, independent development procedure for assessing the compliance of the organisation’s quality management system with the agreed practices, stakeholder expectations and regulatory requirements. Internal audits are also performed to demonstrate that the quality management system meets the needs of the university/unit.

The auditors of internal audits are the university’s quality coordinators and internal auditors representing the university staff, who may be joined by representatives of the university’s students, if necessary. A report is drawn up on the audit and discussed in the unit, where the necessary measures and their monitoring and evaluation are also agreed.

Benchmarking refers to comparing one’s own activities with those of others, mostly with the corresponding best practice. The university and its units aim to identify good quality cooperation partners both nationally and internationally and to carry out benchmarking with them. Internal benchmarking means comparing the functions of one’s own organisation. It is a good way to identify and disseminate common best practices.

External audits and other evaluations
Universities have an obligation under the Universities Act to regularly participate in an external evaluation of their activities and quality systems. The results of the evaluations must be public. Audits have been carried out in Finland since 2005 in accordance with the principles of enhancement-led evaluation. The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) is responsible for evaluating education and training nationally.

Universities and other higher education institutions can choose to have their quality systems certified by an external certification body in accordance with, for example, the ISO 9001 quality standard. They may also seek accreditation for individual degree programmes or their laboratory activities from a Finnish or international accreditation body. Accreditation, i.e. the verification of competence, is a procedure based on international criteria that enables the competence of an operator and the credibility of the certificates it issues to be reliably established.

Other evaluations
The university regularly carries out self-assessments of its functions, such as leadership and management at the university, for continuous improvement of its activities. The self-assessments also include examining and evaluating the university’s societal engagement and the impact of its activities on society. Annual evaluations and regular international peer reviews are carried out to assess the research performed at the university. The university also participates in evaluations of education, training and learning outcomes and various thematic and field-specific evaluations that the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre carries out nationally.

FINEEC Audits
The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) is responsible for evaluating education and training nationally. FINEEC audits assess the scope, functionality and effectiveness of the quality systems of higher education institutions (HEIs). The audits are carried out using the evaluation procedure of FINEEC and a set of criteria, which follows the European University Association (EUA) and European Higher Education Area (EHEA) guidelines and recommendations (ESG: Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area) and focuses on a student-centred approach to learning and education and the related quality assurance in higher education.
The purpose of the audit model is to assess whether the HEI’s quality work meets the European quality assurance standards, whether the quality system produces relevant information for the implementation of the strategy and the continuous development of the HEI’s activities, and whether it results in effective enhancement measures.

FINEEC audit at the University of Eastern Finland
The quality system of the University of Eastern Finland was first audited in late 2010. The university passed the audit. Carried out every six years, the second audit took place in late 2016. It was an international audit in which some of the auditors in the audit team were international quality experts and the audit language was English. The Higher Education Evaluation Committee confirmed that the university passed the FINEEC audit on 21 April 2017. The quality label received is valid for six years, until 21 April 2023.

The next audit of the quality system of the University of Eastern Finland will take place in late autumn, 9–10 November 2022, and it will be an international audit. FINEEC will appoint the audit team during spring 2022. The audit will be carried out either on site on the university campus or remotely between FINEEC and the university.
The audit is based on FINEEC’s audit framework for 2018–2024 and the evaluation criteria of the audit manual for higher education institutions 2019–2024.There are three evaluation areas of FINEEC audits which are:
I HEI (Higher education Institute) creates competence
II HEI promotes impact and renewal
III HEI enhances quality and well-being
IV HEI as a learning organization
The fourth evaluation area is selected by the HEI (The University of Eastern Finland) and it is an international theme ’University of Eastern Finland as a learning and working environment for international students and employees’, whitch is an important theme also as an strategic point of view.

The current FINEEC audit process includes a benchlearning process. The University of Eastern Finland’s partner university in the benchlearning process carried out in 2021 was the University of Jyväskylä. The benchlearning process focused on continuous learning, including stakeholder cooperation. In the benchlearning process, the University of Eastern Finland’s main focus for developing its activities was on open university education, while the University of Jyväskylä focused on continuing professional education. The universities drew up a final report on the process together.

There are three levels of the assessment scale for the evaluation areas of FINEEC audits and they are excellent, good and insufficient. In order for University to pass the audit the evaluation ares l-lll should reach at least the level good. Area lV the university’s own choice won’t affect passing the audit. After passing the audit, the HEI will receive an audit certificate and FINEEC’s quality label, which will be valid for six years from the decision of the Higher Education Evaluation Committee.