Quality Management Tools

The quality management tools (“QM tools”) described below are managed centrally, this is in order firstly to meet the University of Göttingen’s obligation be accountable to third parties, and secondly to support the faculties in their obligation to evaluate teaching under the Lower Saxony Higher Education Act. Some of these measures also contribute to quality assurance at the University Medical Centre, although it basically has its own structures and tools. In addition, there is a range of measures for quality assurance in teaching and learning which explicitly support students in their studies, e.g. the FlexNow exam administration system.

Besides involving the responsible department or area that uses a particular tool or measure, the development and adaptation of QM tools places importance on the involvement of the responsible employees from the faculties or other Central Administration areas. Currently, plans are underway for a centrally-organised survey of the students and teaching staff at the University of Göttingen. In 2018 to 2020 the University of Göttingen for example took part in an international student survey by the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE, UC Berkeley).

Question modules were developed on diversity and discrimination as part of the Design of survey modules on student diversity project run by the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Unit between October 2018 and March 2020. The tool can be used as a basis for increasing the understanding of diversity and discrimination either throughout the university or in small-scale surveys.

As well as the internal survey, the University of Göttingen also takes part in various external surveys, such as the CHE University Ranking, the Study Quality Monitor that forms part of the student services organisation’s social survey, and others.

The results of the centrally-managed course evaluation survey tool (with questionnaires for students and teaching staff) and the central survey of graduates are provided as soon as possible to the faculties’ Offices of the Deans of Studies and the University Medical Centre (with the exception of the evaluation of teaching practice, which is carried out independently by the Göttingen University Medical Centre). Further interpretation and identification of possible measures takes place independently within the relevant faculty by the responsible persons.