The workshop is entitled “The Work of the Assessment Office” Ministry of Higher Education - KRG is conducting a two-days workshop about the work of assessment office in collaboration with the Appalachian State University who nominated Dr.
Katherine Garlough, the director of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness in Northwestern Oklahoma State University for her expertise in the field to be the guest presenter.
The workshop aims at introducing the participants to the American methods in Assessment process and the efforts of the British Council on Self Assessment in Bahrain. Successful universities require methods of assuring and improving the quality of their teaching, research and community engagement. A key driver in such methods is self-assessment, supported by a culture where responsibility for quality is accepted and shared at all levels. This workshop is designed for staff with responsibility for quality at college or university level. It will focus on building the skills that participants will need to design and implement processes for self-assessment from programme to university level for both internal and external purposes.
The workshop starts from theory and moves towards practice; the first day of the workshop focuses more on presenting the methods followed or used in self-assessment processes in the US universities while the second day focuses on accreditation process and accreditation agencies as well as British and Arab efforts in accreditation specially Bahrain’s experience. The intended outcome of the workshop is to enable the participants to understand the management of an Assessment office, understand the characteristics of its staff, apply Bloom’s Taxonomy, and evaluate the evidence of Culture of Assessment. The workshop will facilitate collaboration among administrators for the development of assessment plans for 2010.
The participants are the vice-presidents for Scientific Affairs from the seven Universities in Kurdistan, two foundations of Technical Education and three representatives from each University representing the quality assurance office in their Universities. It is worth mentioning that the Ministry will implement Teaching Quality Assurance Program in the next two months as a pilot project.