BU Research Blog

During 2021 I was actively involved in a number of programme accreditations for the Portuguese Higher Education Accreditation Agency (A3ES). Unlike the UK, in Portugal all course validations and revalidations are centralised in this agency. To help the Agency do the work, nearly 1500 experts have been recruited (in all areas of knowledge), both national and international.

Each assessment is performed by a Commission (CAE or External Assessment Commission) which is made up 3 members: the President and two supporting experts. Each CAE must have an international expert, which may or may not be the President of the CAE.

I was invited to become an international expert back in 2018 and since then I participated in all sorts of validation exercises for degrees in two assessment areas: 811 – hospitality and catering and 812 – tourism and leisure.

There are three types of validation exercises:

1. New course validations: The Higher Education Institution (HEI) submits a proposal and the CAE meets remotely to assess it and produce its recommendation report
2. Regular schedule course revalidations: The HEI produces a progress report which is assessed by the CAE. This type of assessment includes a visit to the University premises by the CAE, where progress and future developments are discussed with all main stakeholders (students, staff, course and university management and the community). The committee for this type of revalidation also includes a student from outside the institution being assessed.
3. Special schedule course revalidations: When a new course is validated, it won’t enter the regular schedule until it completes at least six years. The regular schedule for courses in the 811 and 812 areas is every 6 years (2017, 2023, 2029 etc). At the same time, new courses have to be revalidated six years after they receive their first validation. This special schedule revalidation exercise is an interim exercise until the programme catches up with the regular revalidation schedule. For example, if a new course was validated in 2015, it is up to its first revalidation six years later (2021). Since the next regular schedule is in 2023, it requires an interim revalidation in 2021, before being subjected to the regular validation in 2023 and joining this schedule thereafter. This exercise is a lighter version of the regular revalidation exercise.

In 2021 I was involved in exercises 1 and 3, either as the President of the CAE or the international expert.  The CAE I was involved in were mostly for undergraduate and masters programmes, however for the first time I was involved in a PhD programme validation, as the international expert.

Since 2019 there are special validation rules for distance learning (courses with more than 75% of the content delivered virtually), and in 2021 I was also involved in the validation of one of these courses. As opposed to the ‘in person’ courses, where the CAE is led by an expert in the area of the course, the CAE for the distance learning courses is led by an expert in distance learning, supported by two experts in the field of the course.

The validation process is quite different from the UK. To start with, there is a quantitative performance analysis that needs to be carried out. For example, the ‘staff qualification’ ratios require that for an UG degree, 50% of all the staff need to hold PhDs, and that 60% need to be working at the institution for more than 3 years (Stability index). For a PhD all staff must have doctorates and the stability index is set at 75%.  The CAE checks that the course meets these criteria and not meeting them usually leads to the non-validation (new course) or a conditional revalidation (the HEI is given time to correct the insufficiency).

In addition to the more objective assessment, there’s a lot of areas that need to be looked at that are perhaps more subjective. This includes non-academic staff, internationalisation, student performance and retention, research performance, community links and quality assurance mechanisms.

I thoroughly enjoy being a member of CAE for several reasons. First, it’s an opportunity to (re) connect with many different Portuguese academics and exchange ideas about higher education. Second, it’s also an opportunity to help HEI improve because the CAE have a lot of scope in terms of making recommendations. Third and finally, it helps to keep up with the latest developments in the Portuguese higher education sector as far as my areas of interest is concerned (tourism, hospitality and events).

I’m already scheduled to do some more assessments in 2022, and I’m looking forward to continue contributing to the exercise.

Dr. Miguel Moital, BUBS (Department of Sport & Events Management)