Audit of the University of Oulu 2018

AUDIT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OULU 2018

Ellen Hazelkorn Rediet Abebe Heidi Ahokallio-Leppälä Philippe Bouillard Kati Korhonen-Yrjänheikki Touko Apajalahti Anni Tuurnas Publications 3:2018

Publications 3:2018 AUDIT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OULU 2018

Ellen Hazelkorn Rediet Abebe Heidi Ahokallio-Leppälä Philippe Bouillard Kati Korhonen-Yrjänheikki Touko Apajalahti Anni Tuurnas

Finnish Education Evaluation Centre Publications 3:2018 PUBLISHER Finnish Education Evaluation Centre

BOOK DESIGN Juha Juvonen (org.) & Sirpa Ropponen (edit) LAYOUT Juvenes Print – Suomen Yliopistopaino Oy, Tampere

ISBN 978-952-206-429-5 (pb) ISBN 978-952-206-430-1 (pdf)

ISSN 2342-4176 (paperback) ISSN 2342-4184 (pdf) ISSN-L 2342-4176

PRINTED BY Juvenes Print – Suomen Yliopistopaino Oy, Tampere 2018

Published by Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC)

Name of Publication Audit of University of Oulu 2018

Authors Ellen Hazelkorn, Rediet Abebe, Heidi Ahokallio-Leppälä, Philippe Bouillard, Kati Korhonen-Yrjänheikki, Touko Apajalahti and Anni Tuurnas

The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre has conducted an audit of the University of Oulu and has awarded the institution a quality label that is valid for six years from 28 February 2018. The quality system of the University of Oulu fulfils the national criteria set for the quality management of higher education institutions, and corresponds to the European quality assurance principles and recommendations for higher education institutions.

The object of the audit was the quality system that the University has developed based on its own needs and goals. The freely selected audit target chosen by the University was the “management of personnel well-being in a change”.

The following were regarded as key strengths of the quality system:

3 Among others, the following recommendations were made to the University:

▪▪ The university should pay attention to making the quality system more consistent across the organisational units and more comparable between the core duties. ▪▪ The university should consider developing a more effective, inclusive and integrated internal communications system, appropriate for students and staff, to enhance coherent information sharing and dialogue. ▪▪ Greater attention should be given to improving pedagogic practices to ensure an enhanced student-centred learning experience for all students and to tackling challenges with student completion.

Keywords Audit, evaluation, higher education institutions, quality, quality management, quality system, university

4 Tiivistelmä

Julkaisija Kansallinen koulutuksen arviointikeskus (Karvi)

Julkaisun nimi Audit of University of Oulu 2018 (Oulun yliopiston auditointi 2018)

Tekijät Ellen Hazelkorn, Rediet Abebe, Heidi Ahokallio-Leppälä, Philippe Bouillard, Kati Korhonen-Yrjänheikki, Touko Apajalahti ja Anni Tuurnas

Kansallinen koulutuksen arviointikeskus on toteuttanut Oulun yliopiston auditoinnin ja antanut korkeakoululle laatuleiman, joka on voimassa kuusi vuotta 28.2.2018 alkaen. Oulun yliopiston laatujärjestelmä täyttää korkeakoulujen laadunhallinnalle asetetut kansalliset kriteerit ja vastaa eurooppalaisia korkeakoulujen laadunhallinnan periaatteita ja suosituksia.

Auditoinnin kohteena oli Oulun yliopiston laatujärjestelmä, jonka yliopisto on kehittänyt omista lähtökohdistaan ja tavoitteidensa mukaisesti. Yliopiston valitsema vapaavalintainen auditointi- kohde oli henkilöstön hyvinvoinnin johtaminen muutoksessa.

Auditoinnin perusteella laatujärjestelmän keskeisiä vahvuuksia ovat:

▪▪ Yliopisto on kehittänyt laatujärjestelmää systemaattisesti. Johtoryhmä johtaa laatujärjes- telmää strategisesti ja henkilöstö, opiskelijat ja ulkoiset sidosryhmät osallistuvat hyvin sen toteuttamiseen. ▪▪ Hyvä työskentelyilmapiiri, johon kuuluvat korkea yhteistyön ja luottamuksen määrä sekä ammattimainen henkilöstön ja opiskelijoiden tukeminen läpi muutosprosessien. ▪▪ Viiteen painopisteeseen keskittyvän yliopiston tutkimusstrategian laatiminen ja tutki- musorganisaation uudistus ovat perustuneet kattavaan tutkimuksen arviointiin, tutki- musryhmien osaamisen selvittämiseen ja sekä globaalien että alueellisten haasteiden huomiointiin.

5 Yliopistolle annettiin muun muassa seuraavia kehittämissuosituksia:

▪▪ Yliopiston tulisi kiinnittää enemmän huomiota laatujärjestelmän kehittämiseksi yhdenmu- kaisemmaksi organisaation eri yksiköissä ja vertailtavammaksi yliopiston perustehtävien välillä. ▪▪ Johdonmukaisen viestinnän ja vuorovaikutuksen edistämiseksi yliopiston tulisi harkita vaikuttavamman, osallistavamman ja integroidumman sisäisen viestinnän järjestelmän kehittämistä, joka soveltuisi sekä opiskelijoille että henkilöstölle. ▪▪ Pedagogisten käytäntöjen kehittämiseen tulisi kiinnittää suurempaa huomiota opiske- lijakeskeisemmän opiskelukokemuksen takaamiseksi kaikille opiskelijoille ja opintojen läpäisyyn liittyvien haasteiden ratkaisemiseksi.

Avainsanat Auditointi, arviointi, korkeakoulut, laatu, laadunhallinta, laatujärjestelmä, yliopisto

6 Sammandrag

Utgivare Nationella centret för utbildningsutvärdering (NCU)

Publikation Audit of University of Oulu 2018 (Auditering av Uleåborgs universitet 2018)

Författare Ellen Hazelkorn, Rediet Abebe, Heidi Ahokallio-Leppälä, Philippe Bouillard, Kati Korhonen-Yrjänheikki, Touko Apajalahti och Anni Tuurnas

Nationella centret för utbildningsutvärdering har genomfört en auditering av Uleåborgs universitet och har beviljat universitetet en kvalitetsstämpel som gäller i sex år från och med den 28 februari 2018. Universitetets kvalitetssystem uppfyller de nationella kriterierna för kvalitetshantering som fastställts för högskolor och motsvarar de europeiska principerna för och rekommendationerna om högskolornas kvalitetshantering.

Föremål för auditeringen var Uleåborgs universitets kvalitetssystem som universitetet tagit fram utifrån sina egna utgångspunkter och mål. Auditeringsobjektet som universitetet kunde fritt välja var var ledning av personalens välbefinnande vid förändringar.

Kvalitetssystemets viktigaste styrkor är:

▪▪ Universitetet har utvecklat sitt kvalitetssystem systematiskt. Ledningsgruppen leder kvalitetssystemet strategiskt. Personal, studerande och externa intressenter deltar aktivt i implementeringen av systemet. ▪▪ Gott arbetsklimat, som inkluderar omfattande samarbete och stort förtroende samt stöd till personal och studerande genom förändringsprocesserna som är professionellt ordnat. ▪▪ Utarbetandet av universitetets forskningsstrategi som betonar fem fokusområden och förnyelsen av forskningsorganisationen har grundat sig på omfattande utvärdering av forskningen, utredning av forskningsgruppernas kompetens och beaktande av såväl globala som regionala utmaningar.

7 Bland annat följande rekommendationer framläggs för Uleåborgs universitet:

▪▪ Universitetet bör fästa mer uppmärksamhet vid att utveckla kvalitetssystemet så att det fungerar jämnare i alla enheter och att systemet blir mer jämförbart mellan de olika grundläggande uppgifterna. ▪▪ För att främja en konsekvent kommunikation och växelverkan bör universitetet överväga att utveckla ett mer effektivt, inkluderande och integrerat internt kommunikationssystem som lämpar sig för både studerande och personal. ▪▪ Vid utveckling av de pedagogiska metoderna bör större uppmärksamhet fästas vid att garantera en mer studentcentrerad lärupplevelse för alla studerande och vid att lösa utma- ningarna med genomströmning.

Nyckelord Auditering, högskolor, kvalitet, kvalitetshantering, kvalitetssystem, universitet, utvärdering

8 Contents

Abstract...... 3 Tiivistelmä...... 5 Sammandrag...... 7

1 Audit targets and process ...... 11 1.1 Audit targets...... 11

1.2 Implementation of the audit...... 12

2 The organisation of the University of Oulu ...... 14

3 The quality policy...... 17 3.1 Rationale, objectives and division of responsibility...... 17

3.2 Communication of the quality policy ...... 20

3.3 Link between the quality policy and the institution’s overall strategy...... 21

4 Quality system’s link with strategic management ...... 22 4.1 Information produced by the quality system for strategic management...... 22

4.2 Functioning of the quality system at different organisational levels and units..... 25

4.3 Quality culture ...... 25

5 Development of the quality system ...... 27 5.1 Procedures for developing the quality system...... 27

5.2 Development work after the previous audit...... 29

6 Quality management of the institution’s core duties...... 30 6.1 Degree education ...... 30

6.2 Samples of degree education...... 34

6.2.1 Bachelor’s degree in Teaching and Education and Master’s degrees in Primary Teacher Education and in Early Childhood Education ...... 34

6.2.2 Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Information Processing Science ...... 38

6.2.3 Doctoral Degree Programme of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine ...... 42

9 6.3 Research, development and innovation activities...... 46

6.4 Societal impact and regional development work ...... 50

7 Management of personnel well-being in a change...... 54 7.1 Functioning of the quality management procedures...... 54

7.2 Participation in quality work...... 56

8 The quality system as a whole ...... 58 8.1 Comprehensiveness and impact of the quality system...... 58

8.2 Quality culture...... 60

8.3 The quality system as a whole...... 60

9 Conclusions...... 61 9.1 Strengths and good practices of the quality system...... 61

9.2 Recommendations...... 62

9.3 The audit team’s overall assessment ...... 63

9.4 Higher Education Evaluation Committee’s decision ...... 63

Appendices...... 70 Appendix 1. Audit criteria...... 64

Appendix 2. The stages and timetable of the audit process...... 70

Appendix 3: Programme of the audit visit...... 71

Appendix 4. Finnish higher education system...... 72 1 Audit targets and process

1.1 Audit targets

The target of the audit is the quality system that the University of Oulu has developed based on its own needs and goals. The focus of the audit were the procedures and processes that the institution uses to maintain, develop and enhance the quality of its operations. In accordance with the principle of enhancement-led-evaluation, the audit did not evaluate the university’s objectives, the content of its activities or its results. The aim of the audit is to help the institution to identify strengths, good practice and areas in need of development in its operations.

Audits by the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) evaluate whether an institution’s quality system meets the national criteria (Appendix 1) and whether it corresponds to the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area1 (ESG). Furthermore, the audit evaluates how well the quality system meets strategic and operations management needs, as well as the quality management of the university’s core duties and the extent to which it is comprehensive and effective. In addition, FINEEC audits focus on evaluating the institution’s quality policy, the development of the quality system, as well as how effective and dynamic an entity the system forms.

The University of Oulu chose the “management of personnel well-being in a change” as its optional audit target. As samples of first- and second cycle degree education, the university chose the Bachelor’s Degree Programme in Teaching and Education and the Master’s Degree Programmes in Primary Teacher Education and in Early Childhood Education. As a sample of doctoral education, the university chose the Doctoral degree programme of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine. The audit team chose the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programme in Information Processing Science as the third sample of degree education.

1 Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area are available at http://www.enqa. eu/index.php/home/esg/ 11 The audit targets for the University of Oulu were:

1. The quality policy of the higher education institution 2. The quality system’s link with strategic management 3. Development of the quality system 4. Quality management of the higher education institution’s core duties a. Degree education (including first-, second- and third-cycle education)2 b. Research, development and innovation activities (RDI) c. The societal impact and regional development work3 d. Optional audit target: Management of personnel well-being in a change 5. Samples of degree education: i. Bachelor’s degree in Teaching and Education and master’s degrees in Primary Teacher Education and in Early Childhood Education ii. Doctoral degree programme of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine iii. Bachelor’s and master’s degree programme in Information Processing Science 6. The quality system as a whole.

A set of criteria that is based on a scale of four development stages of quality management (absent, emerging, developing and advanced) was employed in the audit. The development stages have been specified for each audit target and they are determined individually for each audit target. The optional audit target is not taken into account when evaluating whether the audit will pass.

1.2 Implementation of the audit

The audit is based on the basic material and self-evaluation report submitted by the University of Oulu as well as an audit visit to the University on 17–19 October 2017. The audit team also had access to electronic materials that were important for quality management. The main phases and timeframe of the audit process are listed in Appendix 2.

An international audit team carried out the audit in English. The University was given the opportunity to comment on the team’s composition, particularly from the perspective of disqualification prior to the appointment of the audit team.

2 First-cycle degrees include bachelor’s degrees and second-cycle degrees include master’s degrees. Third-cycle degrees include postgraduate licentiate and doctoral degrees. 3 Including social responsibility, continuing education, open university education, as well as paid-services education 12 The audit team:

Ellen Hazelkorn, former Policy Advisor to the Higher Education Authority, and Emeritus Professor and Director, Higher Education Policy Research Unit, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland (Chair of the audit team)

Kati Korhonen-Yrjänheikki, Managing Director, the Education Fund, Finland (Vice-chair of the audit team)

Rediet Abebe, Doctoral student, Higher Education Group, University of Tampere, Finland

Heidi Ahokallio-Leppälä, Vice Rector, Häme University of Applied Sciences, Finland

Philippe Bouillard, Head of Civil, Architectural and Urban Engineering Dept., Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Senior Advisor Touko Apajalahti from FINEEC acted as the project manager for the audit, and Planning OfficerAnni Tuurnas from FINEEC acted as the backup for the project manager.

As indicated, the audit team conducted a three-day audit visit to the University. The purpose of the visit was to verify and supplement the observations made of the quality system based on the audit material. The programme of the visit is shown in Appendix 3.

The audit team drew up this report based on the material accumulated during the evaluation and on the analysis of that material. The audit team members produced the report jointly by drawing on the expertise of each team member. The University of Oulu was given the opportunity to check the report for factual information prior to the FINEEC Higher Education Evaluation Committee’s decision-making meeting.

13 2 The organisation of the University of Oulu

The University of Oulu was founded in 1958. The university defines itself as an international science university which creates innovation for the future, as well as well-being and knowledge through multidisciplinary research and education.

The university pursues a mission that aims at promoting free research, education and culture of an internationally high standard, building competence that increases well-being, and safeguarding the availability of a highly educated labour force and researchers in its area of influence. In this strategy, emphasis is placed at promoting high quality, multidisciplinary and cooperative research and innovation that enable making significant contribution to solving global challenges in five key focus areas. These focus areas address creating sustainability through materials and systems, molecular and environmental basis for lifelong health, digital solutions in sensing and interactions, earth and near-space system and environmental change, and understanding humans in change situations.

The university has two campuses that are both located in the City of Oulu.

The University of Oulu has ten faculties:

▪▪ the Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine ▪▪ the Faculty of Education ▪▪ the Faculty of Humanities ▪▪ the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering ▪▪ the Faculty of Science ▪▪ the Faculty of Medicine ▪▪ the Faculty of Technology ▪▪ Oulu Business School ▪▪ Oulu Mining School, and ▪▪ Oulu School of Architecture

14 In addition, the university coordinates the operations of two off-campus institutes: The Kerttu Saalasti Institute in the municipality of Nivala, and the Kajaani University Consortium which is a consortium of four networked universities (University of Oulu, University of Eastern Finland, University of Jyväskylä and University of Lapland) that have units in the cities of Kajaani and Sotkamo.

The organisation within the faculties is based on research units. Each faculty is led by a Dean, and each research unit is led by a Head of a research unit. Degree education is organised into degree programmes. A faculty education committee oversees the bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes in each faculty. Regarding doctoral education, in addition to the individual doctoral programmes, the university has a Graduate School that coordinates doctoral education at the university level.

The organisation of the University is described in the Figure 1:

UNIVERSITY COLLEGIUM BOARD

RECTOR Jouko Niinimäki

ADMINISTRATIVE VICE RECTOR VICE RECTOR VICE RECTOR HALLINTOJOHTAJA CHIEF FINANCIAL COMMUNICATIONS HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR RESEARCH EDUCATION CO-OPERATION Essi Kiuru OFFICER DIRECTOR DIRECTOR ELECTRICAL E OULU MINING MOLECULAR B BUSINESS SCHOOL NATURAL S BIOCHEMISTRY & ARCHITECTURE & TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION INFORMATION HUMANITIES EDUCATION MEDICINE

FACULTIES NGINEERING CIENCE SCHOOL IOLOGY

Sodankylä Geophysical Kokkola University Kajaani University Consortium Kerttu Saalasti Institute Observatory Consortium Chydenius

FIGURE 1. Organisation of the University of Oulu.

15 Table 1 presents key facts and figures of University of Oulu

TABLE 1. Key facts and figures of University of Oulu.

Students (full-time equivalent, 2016) Number Bachelor’s degree 5449 Master’s degree 3689 Licentiate degree 9 Doctoral degree 618 Degrees awarded (annual average 2014–2016) Bachelor’s degree 1322 Master’s degree 1361 Licentiate degree 5 Doctoral degree 180 Staff (full-time equivalent, 2016) Professors 200 Other teaching and research personnel 1440 Other staff 896

16 3 The quality policy

The quality policy’s rationale, objectives and the overall division of responsibilities are clearly defined as a result of an inclusive process. The quality policy is accessible to internal and external stakeholders and the university has channels to support the communication of the quality policy. The information needs of different stakeholder groups should still be addressed more carefully. The quality policy is well-aligned with the university’s strategy.

The quality policy of the University of Oulu is at a developing stage.

3.1 Rationale, objectives and division of responsibility

The quality system of the University of Oulu is built on a comprehensive and supportive quality policy. The policy sets guaranteeing effectiveness, productivity and fluency in education, research and interaction with society in keeping with the university’s strategy as the overarching objective of the quality system.

The quality policy promotes a participatory approach towards quality management. There is no separate unit responsible for quality management, instead quality management is perceived and practised as a shared responsibility. The University of Oulu operates with an integrated quality system where the responsibilities for quality management are integrated with everyday work and tied to the division of responsibilities defined for managerial positions. The quality policy of the University of Oulu establishes a strong link between quality management and operations management.

The quality system is based on the principle of continuous improvement of operations according to a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle which is presented in Figure 2. This cycle, which is at the core of the quality system, provides the framework and procedures for planning, implementing, monitoring and improving operations at all levels of the university. The framework is suitable for application at university, unit and individual levels.

17 FIGURE 2. The quality system of the University of Oulu.

The quality policy defines key principles that guide the quality management system. These principles focus on the notion of quality management as an integral component of the university’s operating culture; encompassing all functions and actors of the university community; improving operations through feedback, evaluations and indicator data; producing information useful in assessing effectiveness, productivity and fluency of operations; setting objectives, implementing actions and assessing results; supporting improvements in education, research and other activities; supporting the spreading of good practices; and joint designing and utilising of quality management procedures, processes and systems. The policy provides guidelines for quality management in areas of strategic management, education, research, interaction with society, support services and resource management. The comprehensive scope of the policy enables enhancing quality work in all areas of operation and levels of the university structure.

18 Based on the audit interviews, the university community and its external stakeholders are aware of the quality policy and broadly understand the main purpose of the quality policy, especially the principles of continuous improvement of operations and shared responsibilities for quality management. However, the University could still clarify and improve the definition of key concepts and principles embedded in the quality policy, including the concept of quality itself, as well as how this is defined and what it means for the University, in a manner that is easily understandable for actors and relatable to their daily activities. This is important as a clear definition of quality could not be found either in the recently approved quality manual or in the descriptions of the quality system, even though the university does have indicators to assess the quality of education, research and interaction with society. Although the academic staff seem to agree that the quality policy and quality manual have become clearer after the previous audit, they also indicated in the audit interviews that the quality policy is somewhat abstract and remote to the daily work.

Responsibilities for quality management are defined mainly in the quality policy. The Rector is in charge of overseeing the quality management at the university. The policy assigns quality management responsibilities mainly to the Vice Rectors of education, research and co-operation, Deans, Education Deans, Heads of research units, Programme Directors and Heads of units. Staff holding managerial positions are tasked with the responsibility of overseeing the quality management of specific operations undertaken in their units. In addition to specifying what is expected of such key actors, the division of responsibilities for quality management exists at units.

The quality policy is complemented by the other documents and tools that the university uses to define quality management responsibilities. These include the university regulations, financial reporting tools, annual calendars, the management system document, and other frameworks that guide staff on how to conduct operations with high quality. The university’s operations are structured as a process and the core processes are research, education and interaction with society. Process descriptions describe the university’s operations and the Information Management System contains a process map that illustrates the university’s actions as a whole. Based on the audit visit, the operational instructions are the key aspects for defining the responsibilities for quality work.

However, the university could still improve the clarity and concreteness of division of responsibilities for quality management by providing more detailed descriptions of the roles and responsibilities that individual academic staff, students and external stakeholders have in relation to quality management. The audit interviews conducted with academic staff indicated that the responsibilities they have at the individual level for quality management do not seem to be always clearly communicated to them. It is also important to clearly specify in what ways external stakeholders are expected to participate in quality management.

The audit interviews confirmed that internal and external stakeholders participated actively in the processes of formulating, evaluating and developing the quality policy through extensive discussion sessions where, for instance, academic staff, students, management, the Board of Directors, and external stakeholders provided inputs for the draft quality policy.

19 3.2 Communication of the quality policy

The university’s intranet Notio is the primary platform where information regarding the quality system and its basic principles and procedures are communicated. Quality system documentation includes the university’s quality policy, action plans, operating policies and operating instructions accessible on the intranet and the quality manual. The quality manual adds further detail to the descriptions of the quality system and quality management practices defined in the quality policy. The aim of the quality manual is to translate the quality system to concrete terms and link the principles and practices of quality management. Some of the documentation can also be found in the university’s operative information systems.

Based on the audit material, the university has put in place mechanisms that are capable of facilitating active communication of the quality policy, objectives and principles of quality management, and strategically important activities. Information is communicated through, for instance, internal communication channels, information systems, management forums, university regulations, management training courses and other platforms. In addition, email and organised coffee-room conversations are other channels of communication frequently used by staff. Despite the existence of these mechanisms, based on the interviews, there are still limitations when it comes to communicating the quality policy in a way that takes into consideration the information needs of different stakeholders. Information about quality management could be communicated more effectively particularly to students and international members of the university community.

Based on the interviews, students mostly use and rely on email, news feeds and the Tuudo student mobile application rather than accessing information through the Notio intranet. The interviews revealed that students feel that Notio does not contain much information useful for them in managing their studies and they find it to be data-heavy and generally not designed in a manner that caters to their needs. As it is now, the intranet is used mainly by student representatives; for others accessing information on the Tuudo mobile application is easier and more convenient. However, as the mobile application is mainly an information channel for study-related matters, this raises the question about how ordinary students receive relevant information regarding quality management.

The availability of information in English to international staff and students also needs improvement. Although international students and staff feel that the university has improved substantially in this regard, the practice of providing information in English still varies across units and faculties. Generally, international students and staff feel that most quality-related communication takes place in Finnish. The details of information can often be lost when, for example, a long email or a section on the university website are translated into English only with a few lines. The audit team sees that such fragmentation in communication can negatively influence the feeling of integration into the university community. Thus, it is important that the university continues to progress in providing more complete and easily accessible information to the international staff and students.

20 3.3 Link between the quality policy and the institution’s overall strategy

As part of reforming the quality system (see Chapter 5.1), the university has demonstrated commitment in updating and developing the quality policy in a manner that properly reflects its revised strategy. The previous Model for Operational Development has been updated and developed into a more recent, comprehensive and elaborate quality policy through years of internal processes and self-evaluations. The objectives and principles of the quality policy are linked to the university’s overall strategy and it provides a clear direction for the quality management system.

The quality system is also firmly linked to strategic and operations management, and in so doing supports the implementation of the university strategy (see Chapter 4). The quality policy and the quality management system promote fluency and high-quality undertaking of operations in the five key strategic focus areas identified in the university’s new strategy, effective from 2016 to 2020. The quality policy puts forward sets of indicators that help the university assess performance in education, research, interaction with society and other aspects of organisational activities. The audit interviews held with various groups indicated that the pursuit of high quality in all areas of operations constitutes the core value of the quality policy and the fundamental principle underpinning the quality management system and implementation of the university strategy. The audit team commends the emphasis given at the university to developing a comprehensive, informative and strategically embedded quality policy.

The link between the quality system and the university strategy could be further reinforced by harmonising the manner in which the quality system supports strategic objectives across the core missions and the organisation. For instance, making the application of the PDCA cycle more visible and consistent (see Chapter 4), as well as enhancing the support of the system for developing societal interaction (see Chapter 6.4) could contribute in this regard.

21 4 Quality system’s link with strategic management

The quality system’s link with strategic management is very clear and observable. Despite the many changes the University of Oulu has gone through over the last few years, the university’s strategic operations management and quality system operation form an integral whole. Information produced by the quality system serves the needs of strategic management and decision-making. Various channels exist to communicate the information and the information is put to use systematically in the annual planning process. The system works evenly across different organisational levels although more coordination of development activities is needed. Specific responsibilities are executed with commitment and the general principle is that every community member participates in quality work.

The quality system’s link with strategic management is at a developing stage.

4.1 Information produced by the quality system for strategic management

The University of Oulu adopted its current strategy for 2016–2020, Science with Arctic Attitude, following a strategic planning process that had involved the university community widely. The university’s quality policy aims to support strategy implementation by producing information for the needs of strategic and operations management. During the audit visit, the team found compelling evidence that the university’s strategic operations management and quality system operation combine to form an integral whole.

The main tool for strategy implementation is the annual planning process that is supported by the annual calendar of the University’s operations management (Figure 3). Operational steering comprises steering by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the internal steering within the university. The University’s internal system includes the long-term strategy, associated action plans, annual operational plans and budgets for the next year as well as follow-up systems. Top management annually evaluates the strategy and identifies any change needs. The results of the evaluation are discussed in connection with the Board’s annual strategy review. In autumn, the

22 units prepare proposals for their unit-specific action and financial plans. In internal target and performance negotiations, the Rector and the Vice Rectors agree with the units on the objectives for the next few years, as well as on funding. The units report on the achievement of the agreed objectives in their interim and annual financial statements.

FIGURE 3. The Annual Calendar of the University as presented in the quality manual.

A key tool of the quality system to support the concrete expression of strategies and targets is the web-based TATU system. The TATU system is used for the internal target and performance negotiations and supports operational planning and budgeting from the unit level to the university level. The audit team holds the internal target and performance negotiations as a strength of the way the quality system integrates with strategic management. The process has been used mainly for quantitative targeting, but from 2016 onwards, the university has also integrated quality targets into the process and the TATU system. Although quality targets have now been introduced to the annual planning process, some of the interviewed staff were worried that because all key performance indicators are quantitative and follow directly from the Ministry’s funding indicators, there is a concern that this does not encourage working towards quality evenly in all fields of the university. However, the different kinds of internal and external evaluations (see chapter 5.1) have been an important source for also obtaining qualitative information that has been used effectively to improve both operations and quality management.

23 To communicate the information that the quality system produces in an accessible way, the university has a web-based portal called SISU. It collects different indicator reports on education, research, personnel and finances in one place and provides a dashboard view on the key indicators. Based on the interviews, the SISU portal facilitates the use of information for staff holding managerial positions and the university is able to learn how effectively its core operations are running with the help of the system. However, the SISU is not used very much by other members of the community and the use of the portal is limited also because it currently provides reports only in Finnish.

On the whole, the information communication channels seemed fragmented. Based on the interviews, staff members get information via email and from the Notio, SISU and TATU systems, and students mentioned email, the Tuudo mobile application, and the WebOodi and Moodle learning management environments as their information sources. The self-evaluation report also pointed to limitations in the usability of data at research unit levels. The audit team sees that the information needs of users at different levels of the organisation should be addressed more effectively and the university should consider developing a more inclusive and integrated internal communications system to enhance coherent information sharing and dialogue.

The interviews indicated that the university strives to improve the methods of following activities and to enable stronger use of indicator and monitoring data. In doing so, the university works towards reinforcing the link between the quality system and strategic management as well as supporting operations management. One step towards this is the new business intelligence system that the university is planning to introduce to replace the SISU portal. The new system will provide timely information more automatically and allow for better analysis of the data. When developing the new system, the audit team encourages the University to improve the usability of the data and find better ways of balancing the volume of data and the ways in which it is presented. The use of follow-up data in strategic management could be improved, especially by expanding the indicators to cover the strategic objectives more systematically and to help ensure that the operations of the university are well-aligned with the key focus areas of the strategy. It is also important to make sure that processes are not overloaded with information and that sufficient room exists for actions and follow-up.

In addition to the information systems, material about the operation and objectives of the quality system are communicated in university and unit level bodies, as well as in faculty or degree programme level staff meetings. Based on the interviews, the information flow through the line organisation works efficiently. However, information sharing between faculties and units of the university is an area in need of development. The university could do more work in actively enhancing the visibility of institutional expertise and major ongoing activities both internally and externally. New initiatives in this direction – that were positively highlighted in the interviews – include Deans’ meetings, where the Deans from all faculties meet to discuss common issues, the professor forum and the research unit leader forum, which are organised by the HR department twice a year and which serve to build joint awareness of where the university is as an organisation.

24 4.2 Functioning of the quality system at different organisational levels and units

The defined management responsibilities, principles and practices create a frame of reference for management that covers the entire organisation. The general principle of quality work is that every staff member and student participates in quality work while top management has the overseeing role over the quality management (see also 3.1) as a whole. Although the positioning of top management at the vanguard of quality work is commendable, the audit team would like to encourage the university to consider balancing the weights between strategic leadership and ensuring openness to the wider community. Based on the interviews, the management of the quality system is in practice rather top-heavy, where staff in management positions tend to launch and decide the majority of initiatives and processes. The audit team sees that engagement at grassroots level could be strengthened (see also 5.1). This holds also for students, whose involvement in quality management currently happens mostly through feedback and student representative roles.

One key issue that became evident from the self-evaluation report and the interview sessions during the audit visit is the need to clearly understand and address the challenges the University may encounter with the integrated quality system without a separate unit for quality management. These challenges broadly relate to issues of comparability and coordination. The understanding and implementation of quality and quality management were found to be somewhat inconsistent across faculties and education and research units. The audit team recommends that now, having completed the biggest organisational changes, the university could reinforce its efforts towards making the quality system more systematic, without necessarily having to harmonise every procedure and process. The audit team encourages the university to consider improving the coordination of quality management activities and procedures across units and levels of the university, for example, by strengthening network-based coordination. A healthy balance should be ensured between quality management procedures that need to be comparable throughout the university and those over which units may have the flexibility to tailor to their specific needs, in order for the system to function effectively without having a separate unit responsible for it. However, overall, the audit team was impressed that despite the many changes the university has gone through during the last few years, it has been able to keep the quality system running as an integral whole.

4.3 Quality culture

In 2010, the new Universities Act stressed universities’ autonomy, and the strategy became a very important guiding force. That has meant more strategic steering, management system development and information- based planning and follow-up practices. The management responsibilities, principles and practices contained in the quality system create a frame of reference for management that covers the entire organisation. Based on the audit visit, the defined division of responsibility works mostly effectively, and those holding specific responsibilities are committed to the tasks. The audit team sees room for improvement in expressing individual actors’ responsibilities and

25 the division of responsibilities between different actors in more concrete terms (see also chapter 3.1). For example, the interviews proved that the staff members in the new middle-management positions execute their responsibilities with high motivation, but attention should be paid to making their workload more balanced and predictable (see also 5.2).

Quality management is strongly integrated in the university’s operational culture. The University has a long history in quality work, since the early 1970s, and the current model for quality management is the result of continuous development. Based on the audit interviews, there is a strong commitment across the university to continuously improve the quality system and operations, which is in line with the PDCA principle laid out in the quality policy (see chapter 3.1). The university’s quality culture is also characterised by general awareness of the strategy, which means that activities can be examined against the backdrop of objectives set in the strategy. The university’s strategic management and operations management combine with the quality system. This process emphasises the significance of setting targets, monitoring and improvement based on the monitoring. The audit interviews suggested that the implementation of the PDCA framework of quality management could be more visible and systematic throughout the university. The framework is currently not that well internalised, which means that in practice the staff often implement the PDCA cycle without being conscious of it. This elevates the risk of inconsistent application of the quality policy. The team also encourages the University to consider embedding risk analysis more into the PDCA process, in order to be conscious of the intended and unintended consequences of decisions and actions.

The objectives set out by the university in its strategy form the shared goals of the entire university community and in the annual performance appraisal discussions the goals are also set at the employee level. The university has a well-established practice of holding face-to-face discussions with employees. The audit team was impressed by the fact that most of the employees have goals of their own and 99% of the employees have had performance appraisal discussions during this year, which also serves as evidence of the commitment of the different actors. The role of the annual discussions in quality management and in advancing the quality culture will strengthen further in the future, as following the move to include quality goals for the units, the university aims to also include quality-related goals for all employees.

Based on the interviews, stronger communication with students regarding quality stands out as one factor that could still improve the university’s quality culture. The good practice of teacher to student tutoring (see chapter 6.1) could serve as one channel providing it.

26 5 Development of the quality system

The University of Oulu has introduced a variety of methods by which to evaluate and develop its quality management system. The quality system produces information through which the university is able to identify strengths and areas in need of development in its quality system; these in turn are used for developing quality management procedures. A culture of self-assessment supports the development work. The development of the quality system after the previous audit has been moderately systematic and strategically-led.

The development of the quality system is at a developing stage.

5.1 Procedures for developing the quality system

The University of Oulu has a quality system in which the responsibilities for quality management are integrated with everyday work, rather than a separate unit primarily tasked for it. The University Executive Group actively engages in leading and supervising the quality management system. The main tools that the university uses to assess, monitor and follow the development of the quality system are feedback practices, internal evaluations and external quality audits conducted by FINEEC. Since the quality system is closely integrated into everyday work, its development has been strongly linked to other developments in the university’s management and operations management systems.

The audit interviews indicated that a strong culture of collecting feedback exists in the university. The active feedback practices and internal dialogue support the development of the quality system. The feedback and assessment practices have been systematised, and this has played a significant role in improving the quality system, which the audit team commends. Together with the feedback, the tools of the quality system that support strategic and operations management (see chapter 4.1) help management also in overseeing the quality system and in identifying strengths and areas in need of development. The developments in the operative information system, in the student feedback system, and structural restructurings are examples of this in practice.

27 The awareness of developments outside each staff members’ own units was, however, found to be inadequate during the audit. Developing mechanisms for identifying, selecting, and disseminating good practices across the university would in the audit team’s view be crucial to exploit the considerable potential the university currently has for internal learning. While some limited discussion platforms, such as the Faculty Education Committee and university level education management group exist to share information across faculties, the audit team encourages the university to consider setting up more systematic and wider mechanisms for sharing good practices.

Based on the audit material and interviews, the university has a commendable culture of self- assessment that enables frequent internal reviews, self-evaluations, assessments and reforms. The self-evaluation report, for instance, mentions those conducted on the activities of the Board, degree programmes, curriculum, study processes, research and IT administration services as well as the research assessment exercises. These institutional evaluations are often linked to reforms and activities aimed at improving the methods and standards of operations and can focus on assessing the quality system in particular or more generally monitoring overall institutional operations.

The self-evaluations conducted in 2007, 2013 and 2017 have been used to considerably improve the quality system and corresponding operational instruments. As an example of a major development, it is through such a process that the university shifted from working with a separate unit responsible for quality management to integrating the responsibilities for quality management into everyday work. The development of the Model of Operational Development, quality policy, division of quality management responsibilities, process descriptions, operations instructions and remodelling of several other managerial and operational components have been the product of such evaluations.

The existing internal systems of quality management also support external evaluations, including quality audits carried out by FINEEC. The university has shown an impressive ability to encourage self-evaluation; most of the areas requiring further review and development were also identified in the self-evaluation report.

In an effort to further develop the quality system, the university’s plans include improving the coherence of the quality system, strengthening communication and coordination, and systematising the implementation of feedback collected from stakeholders. Amongst these, the audit team identifies the fragmentation of quality management efforts and absence of robust coordination as a key challenge. This is because the existing system can be vulnerable to disruptions in the cycle of continuous development because responsibilities for undertaking quality management activities are dispersed across various individuals and units. The audit team sees that it is particularly important to systematically coordinate the otherwise fragmented and dispersed responsibilities for quality management.

Coordination is also important with respect to the quality system as a whole. Although there is clear evidence of successful development, the audit team sees that the system as an entity has not been developed as systematically as it could have been. Development work could be further strengthened by defining an overall process encompassing the individual procedures that the university uses for developing the system.

28 Based on the audit material, the initiation, reforming and main responsibilities for developing the quality system largely concentrate around top management. The team sees it as challenging to effectively embed quality management at individual levels so that people across all levels of the university’s hierarchy can fully participate and influence the process of developing the quality system and the university’s outcomes.

5.2 Development work after the previous audit

The main recommendations of the previous audit were related to the risk of under-utilisation of the large volume of information, to the updating of the quality documentation and to having external stakeholders engaging more directly in the quality system. Based on the audit material and the interviews, the audit team sees that the development of the quality system after the previous audit has been moderately systematic and strategically-led by the Executive Group. There is also a shared understanding among the university community that the system has been improved substantially and that it functions better than in the past.

After the audit, the university has been actively working on a wide range of development activities such as carrying out self-evaluations, developing the organisational structure of the university, developing information systems and indicators, and improving information based planning practices and systematising documentation practices. A key development activity has been the continuous improvement of the quality system itself. The self-evaluations conducted on the quality system in 2013 and 2017 have been instrumental in continuously developing the quality system as discussed above in chapter 5.1. In this regard, the development of the Model for Operative Development and the formulation of a comprehensive quality policy and other supportive regulative tools for facilitating quality work are good examples of the extent to which this objective is being accomplished. Efforts have also been made to encourage the active participation of stakeholders, particularly in implementing initiatives and reforms. There are now mechanisms in place to engage internal and external stakeholders in the quality system.

Since the university has introduced several major changes over the past few years, it is the audit team’s opinion that it is now time to pay attention to ensuring stability and to carefully examine the impacts that have emerged from these activities. It is important to conserve the energy, enthusiasm and well-being of all the staff. The audit team highlights the importance of constant vigilance with respect to the workload required for carrying out quality management responsibilities as a result of having an integrated quality system model. Based on the interviews, introducing several changes within a short period has increased the workload of staff who have administrative responsibilities in addition to their teaching and research responsibilities. The audit team suggests that more could be done in making the workload predictable and putting in place mechanisms that provide sufficient support during, for instance, structural and operational reorganisations or internal and external evaluations. The annual calendar of operations could play an important role in this regard.

29 6 Quality management of the institution’s core duties

6.1 Degree education

The quality management procedures for degree education are functional with a very good example of implementation of a plan-do-check-act quality cycle. The quality system produces relevant information that is used for developing the degree education but the use of information is not as systematic when corrective actions are planned and implemented. The internal and external stakeholders are properly involved in quality management while the involvement of the external stakeholders remains informal. The quality management of key support services requires further attention in order to develop a systematic and coordinated approach.

The quality management of degree education is at a developing stage.

Functioning of the quality management procedures

The University of Oulu has set out its objectives in line with those of the Ministry of Education. The university provides graduates, post-graduate and doctoral programmes, as well as professional further, continuing and open education, across nine fields. The fields of education are aligned with areas of research excellence, described by the university as being an integral part of its scientific activity.

The University of Oulu has identified six strategic objectives for the development of degree education during 2016–2020:

1. Improving the attraction of the educational offer and student engagement 2. Promoting smooth studying processes 3. Modern, digitised learning environments and pedagogic development 4. International studying experience 5. Structure supporting cooperation with working life 6. Systematic doctoral training

30 At the strategic level, the annual planning and negotiation process, supported by the TATU system (see chapter 4.1), is the main quality management tools that translates strategic goals to faculty and unit level targets, which are then followed up during the interim reporting and in the next annual negotiations. Based on the interviews, the strategic objectives are specific, clear, relevant and timely but the audit team suggests that to be fully operational, these objectives could be better aligned with the targeted performance indicators thus making implementation and monitoring easier.

The Vice Rector of Education has overall responsibility for the degree education’s quality management; Education Deans have a similar responsibility at the faculty level. After the change to a research-unit based organisation, the educational programmes do not form their own units but operate in a matrix organisation model. To manage this structure, the University has recently appointed programme directors to be in charge of the degree programmes, and who must negotiate the allocation of the teaching loads with the research units. This system is quite recent, and the university has not yet thoroughly analysed the consequences of this new structure. The audit team regards the appointment of programme directors to help strengthen programme management as a good practice. However, based on the interviews, the programme directors should still be better empowered in their positions in order to ensure smoother delivery of the programmes. The programme directors are often only spending a portion of their time (typically 25%, sometimes up to 50%) in this role while a significant portion of the quality workload falls on this role. This creates a tension between responsibilities and workload. Further attention is therefore required and the creation or development of new support services, or increasing the time allocated for the Program Directors´ tasks could be considered.

Degree programme committees are in charge of designing the curricula and the learning outcomes. The committees are also in charge of monitoring the implementation by collecting data and conducting annual reviews. During the audit visit, the team received evidence of how these reviews lead to improvement in the degree programmes. Based on that evidence, the quality management procedures for degree education seem to be functioning very well for bachelor and master programmes. The PDCA cycles are generally well implemented and managed at the appropriate level, with a clear definition of roles and responsibilities of the different actors.

The University of Oulu is systematically collecting information about the degree education: progression and completion, international students, share of students completing 55 ECTS, student feedback, employability surveys, etc. The information is easily available in the SISU portal. However, during the interviews, the audit team observed variable practices in analysing this data or using them to drive the necessary changes.

Students feel that there are sufficient formal and informal platforms for providing feedback. Students have access to feedback surveys available at course, programme, university and national levels. The audit team also confirmed that students feel that their feedback is sufficiently taken into consideration and followed by improvement measures. Among others, examples of curriculum revision and the introduction of so-called working life learning, reorganisation of courses in doctoral programmes and widening the accessibility of university facilities to students were given in the interviews. The audit team views the encouragement of staff, students and external stakeholders to provide feedback to improve the quality of degree programmes as a strength. The

31 university has managed to create a supportive environment that encourages open dialogue and the flow of feedback. Students feel that they can influence what goes on in their programmes, although at the course level the impact of student feedback could still be improved as based on the interviews, the implementation of the feedback at present can considerably depend on the individual teacher’s motivation, and varies across the university. While the collection of student feedback is systematic, the quality of the surveys could be improved, particularly the course feedback survey where the form in the audit team’s opinion does not meaningfully cover all the aspects related to teaching and the learning environment.

The promotion of smooth studies is shared by the university community. The tutoring system for students, including teacher and peer tutors, is working well and enables individual support for students and their individual study plans. There are also one-to-one development discussions on the progress of individual students and staff towards their personal development plans. Efforts have recently been made to tackle the high number of students who do not acquire 55 ECTS per year. However, the audit team observed often some acceptance of current performance levels, and that the current progression and level of completion receives insufficient attention. Only occasionally, a clear and systematic analysis is performed to understand why students are unable to reach 55 ECTS. The audit team recommends that the university addresses the matter with a systematic action plan. The plan should take into account the many opportunities for improvement that exist, depending on each particular programme, in terms of developing an enhanced student- centred learning experience for all students. It could also serve in making the student learning experience more consistent across faculties and academic units.

Regarding doctoral education, the University of Oulu has recently significantly re-organised its university-level graduate school (UniOGS) with the aim of better harmonising doctoral training and offering modules covering transversal skills or competences. The audit team holds that the creation of a single doctoral school for the whole university is a significant achievement and is already enhancing the quality and consistency of the student experience. The quality management system of the doctoral studies is therefore improving but is still in a transitional situation. It requires further development in terms of stating the learning objectives and outcomes of each doctoral programme, not limited to the transversal 20 ECTS modules that are coordinated by the UniOGS. The audit team recommends that the responsibilities of UniOGS for the quality management of doctoral education should be strengthened to include the collection and analysis of information about progression, completion and employability.

The attractiveness of the educational offer is a concern for the Oulu region as a whole. To address these challenges, the university has intensified their information sessions and developed new activities particularly towards primary and secondary schools. Based on the interviews, these actions are not yet fully planned and developed and further coordination work will be necessary when they require the commitment of several key support services. The University may also consider increasing the role of external stakeholders in this regard as they share this very important concern.

A clear strength is how the university has developed policies and conditions to strengthen internationalisation, including the recruitment of staff and students, mobility, research collaboration and assessment. Arrangements allow students to easily access all information concerning mobility,

32 and to systematically transfer credits. In order to further develop their international attractiveness, the university should continue developing more systematic communication in English aimed at international students and staff members (see also 3.2). A systematic approach should seek to ensure a more even quality level when, for example, the same programme is delivered both in Finnish and in English. Appropriate English training should be made available to faculty members and staff when necessary.

Participation in quality work

The formal involvement of staff in university, faculty and programme level committees and boards is evident. The committees and boards are operational and committed to the quality work. In addition to the official bodies, examples of joint development work done by teachers within a faculty were given in the interviews. Additionally, individual teachers have autonomy and responsibility for quality in developing their own teaching.

Students have active representatives in the committees and boards at all levels of the organisation. Beyond the involvement of the student representatives, however, the students’ role is limited primarily to giving feedback through the various feedback systems. While the audit team finds the feedback culture of the university a clear strength, the team suggests that the university identify more appropriate and useful channels of communications to ensure students are active throughout different phases of the PDCA cycle.

The participation of external stakeholders is visible, but it relies too much on informal contacts. The audit team recommends that their involvement is developed to be more systematic and significant in its influence and impact.

In order to ensure that the quality culture is more motivating to students and external stakeholders, the audit team suggests the university should communicate the actions and impacts more systematically. Making analysis reports and outcomes easily available is especially pertinent in cases where students or external stakeholders are surveyed.

Quality management of key support services

The university support services have recently been restructured. These changes have met with broad support, and there is a high level of satisfaction across the university community. Based on the interviews, further development is proposed, including improving the services from the user’s perspective and developing user feedback channels. The feedback systems serve as a useful tool for quality management in support services, but they require better integration and coordination in the future. Likewise, the development and implementation of common principles should be addressed. However, the university is well aware of these needs and is planning actions for coordinated development of the support services.

33 6.2 Samples of degree education

6.2.1 Bachelor’s degree in Teaching and Education and Master’s degrees in Primary Teacher Education and in Early Childhood Education

The University of Oulu has a long history of providing degree programmes in Teaching and Education. As such, its position is well regarded throughout the community, and it attracts students from around Finland and internationally. There are well-defined quality management procedures but they are not fully functional and do not adequately keep the curriculum and pedagogic approaches in line with international research and student feedback. Staff, students and external stakeholders have an active role in the quality work of the programme but evidence is missing of a clear enhancement effect of their participation.

The quality management of the Bachelor’s degree in Teaching and Education and Master’s degrees in Primary Teacher Education and in Early Childhood Education is at an emerging stage.

The University of Oulu offers a Bachelor’s degree and two Master’s degrees in education, focusing on early childhood education and primary teacher education, which provide teachers mainly for northern Finland. The programmes are situated within the Faculty of Education, which is one of the eight faculties of the University of Oulu. Both Master’s programmes are connected via the same bachelor’s degree programme. At Masters’ level, students can choose special education, education/ early childhood, primary teaching education or music education. In addition, there are two other Masters’ programmes (music and special education) and two international Master’s programmes (Education and Globalisation, and Learning, Education and Technology) which are not discussed under this audit target. The programme structure of the faculty is presented in Figure 4.

FIGURE 4. Structure of the degree programmes within the Faculty of Education.

34 All programmes help prepare graduates for careers as teachers, as well as in education policy, administration, technology development, leadership and management. Emphasis is placed on equipping students with 21st century skills, as well as broadly based learning modules, phenomenon- based learning and multidisciplinarity. The BA programme is three years and carries 180 ECTS, while the two MA programmes are two years and carry 120 ECTS.

In 2016, there were 957 BA and MA students studying primary and early childhood education, with minor changes over the years in terms of enrolment and completed degrees.

Quality management related to the planning of educational provision

The process of curriculum design, monitoring, review and revision is described as per the PDCA model, beginning with collaboration with practitioners as well as the teacher education forum. The appropriate learning outcomes are identified with a focus on skills and competences required for graduates, referred to as 21st century skills in the interviews.

Based on the interviews, students feel well prepared to be teachers and enjoy the field-work experience gained during studies and are pleased that their teaching qualification is recognised in Finland and abroad. Students who have studied abroad felt the programme at the University of Oulu compared well with their international experiences.

There does however appear to be a gap between how the quality process and management system is described and how it works in practice. The procedures, while well described, are not always systematically implemented, which has implications for quality enhancement. The audit team found insufficient evidence as to how academic research feeds into the curriculum in a structured and systematic way, which reflects also on the development of the programmes’ own teaching and learning methods. There is a good research environment, with some research groups receiving very positive assessments in the most recent research assessment exercise. However, there was little overall evidence of how new forms of teaching or research about student learning – with respect to their own students or the school students of their own students – was incorporated into the curriculum to make it more relevant. The audit team recommends that the link between teaching and research is made more systematic and coordinated so as not to rely too much on individual members of staff and individual research groups.

Based on the interviews, the societal impact of the programme was conceived principally in terms of producing graduates for northern Finland, without explicit reference to the role or responsibility that the graduates – as early education or primary school teachers – will ultimately have on the future of Finland. In this respect, the education programme is concerned with two groups of students: the university’s students, and the school children that will be taught by the graduated teachers from the programme. This duality presents particular challenges for the programme.

The audit team sees considerable opportunities regarding life-long learning in developing a portfolio of continuous professional development for existing teachers, including the university’s own graduates. However, this potential was not yet fully recognised.

35 Quality management related to the implementation of educational provision

The quality management process as described above follows the PDCA model. Interaction with students, academics and external stakeholders provides an important method by which to receive feedback about teaching and learning methods, assessment, students and graduate competences and relevance to working life etc. However, systematic embeddedness of the quality management system is not always evident. Based on the self-evaluation and the interviews, student feedback is valued as important input for the PDCA process, but in practice there is a lot of variation in how well the feedback leads to actions at the course level. Student experiences also seem to vary according to module, between Finnish and international students, and between the programmes.

Concerns were expressed, to different degrees, about: pedagogic practices in the teaching being too didactic, insufficient investment in and use of digitalisation for learning or development of new learning platforms, varying practices in feedback to students on their learning, and in some cases a mismatch between learning outcomes, the curriculum and the assessment. Furthermore, because courses are primarily pass or fail, some students feel they do not get a full understanding as to how they are doing, and little idea as to why certain marks were given. Attention should also be paid to ensuring appropriate levels of language proficiency in courses provided in English, especially given that the university and the faculty were seeking to internationalise the student experience.

Regarding student well-being, the practice of teacher and peer tutors (see chapter 6.1) is commendable. Based upon the interviews, the tutoring teachers are interested in their students, and students value the practice especially at the beginning of their studies. Students felt there was flexibility to plan their studies. Study planning is supported by personal study plans that are done at the beginning of the studies, and discussed with the tutors and revised during studies if needed. Students actively use the Tuudo mobile app to manage their studies and access relevant and up-to-date information concerning student life, although the university also regularly uses email for communications.

Based on the interviews, the staff are pleased that they are able to influence their work, and correspondingly to receive support through the change process. Academic staff say they have participated in the university’s strategy development process, and meet regularly with their Dean to exchange information regarding developments at the university as well as to give feedback to the Rector. Individually, faculty members meet with their manager to discuss their own personal development plan, and set individual goals with respect to research and publications, external funding, conference attendance or training.

The key evaluation methods and follow-up indicators are generally suitable for successful development of the programme. Student progress is monitored in line with the university and national framework, and the programme follows the performance indicators defined at the university level. However, graduate progression into the workplace and their views of the relevance of the programme were not systematically tracked, which poses the risk of developing a gap between the student experience and working life. The audit team recommends that despite the high demand to enrol on the programmes and the high societal demand for the graduates, the

36 programme should work with greater urgency to revise the curriculum and workload requirements, to challenge their own pedagogic practices and to take measures to tackle problems of student progression measured by the 55 credits per credit year indicator.

Participation in quality work

Collaboration between the programme and its various stakeholders, inside and outside the university, forms an important part of the ethos of the programme.

External stakeholders are regularly consulted, and in turn, their relationship to the programme is described as positive. Likewise, the experience and feedback from the teacher training school, where students undertake internships, provides a good way to get information about the skills requirements for students and is a clear strength of the programme.

Student feedback is continually sought and, based on the interviews, the university student feedback form is easy to use. There is also a feedback day, when teachers discuss the issues raised, and the response. The tutor-teacher system is considered an important way for students to also provide feedback, although more attention should be paid to reflecting on the feedback and making the appropriate changes.

Despite the various mechanisms for receiving information and involving stakeholders in the quality process, attention should be paid to the extent to which the concerns are systematically taken into account or integrated into the activities surrounding programme management.

37 6.2.2 Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Information Processing Science

The quality management procedures related to the planning and implementation of the Information Processing Science programme are fully functional. The curriculum work is systematic and intended learning outcomes are benchmarked to international standards. Staff, students and external stakeholders participate actively in the development of the programme. The programme is part of a strong ICT ecosystem and co-operation with the industry is very close. Open and collaborative working culture characterised by trust enables constant and agile development. There is evidence that quality work enhances the development of the programme.

The quality management of Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in Information Processing Science is at a developing stage.

Education in Information Processing Science consists of three degree programmes:

▪▪ 3+2-year programme, which leads to the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Master of Science; ▪▪ 2-year Master’s programme with three different sub-programmes: students who already have completed Bachelor’s in Finland, an international programme Software, systems and services development in global business environment, as well as a European double degree programme in software engineering; ▪▪ Doctoral degree programme in information processing science.

The audit team chose the Bachelor’s and Masters’ programmes as the third sample of degree education for the audit. The Bachelor’s degree consists of 180 ECTS and Master’s degree 120 ECTS. The teaching language in Bachelor’s studies is Finnish and in Master’s studies it is English. The degree programmes are provided by three research units: Empirical Software Engineering in Software, Systems and Services; the Human Computer Interaction and Human-Centred Development; and Oulu Advanced Research on Science and Information Systems.

Quality management related to the planning of educational provision

The Programme Director and the Teaching Development Group oversee the planning of the programme. The yearly development plan contains goals, steps, actors, the people in charge, schedule, indicators and follow-up processes. All resource information regarding teaching in the degree programme is collected into a resource matrix, which is a key document supporting the planning and implementation of teaching. Based on the interviews, the resource negotiation and allocation process is systematic and transparent and the matrix a good practice developed by the programme.

Annual curriculum work is systematic and follows university-level steering. The Degree programme committee decides on the degree-level descriptions, learning outcomes and structure of the curriculum. The intended learning outcomes are benchmarked to international standards and

38 curricula recommendations, which the audit team sees as a strength. The last major curriculum reform was implemented seven years ago and small changes have been made on a continuous basis. A larger reform is currently ongoing.

The close co-operation with working-life characterises the culture of the programme and the links between the programme and working-life are exceptionally strong. Most of the teachers have working experience in industry or research organisations. Human-centric and multidisciplinary approach of the degree programme is a strength that also enhances employability of students. An international learning environment prepares graduates to multicultural working-life. While the long cycles of curriculum planning can cause challenges in responding to the developments in the field, based on employability statistics and the interviews, the curriculum seems to be meeting labour market needs.

Research units behind the programme constantly have research projects with industry, which enhances the utilisation of research results. However, the audit team sees potential in involving more students in ongoing research projects, and in more systematic integration of research results into the curriculum work.

Lifelong learning is built in to the degree programme. During the interviews, the external stakeholders stressed the importance of general abilities over specific needs, and were positive about graduate access to continuous professional development. The audit team sees this as very important, especially because of the fast changing skill needs of the field. However, the university would be advised to discuss lifelong learning requirements directly with the students, as they might wish for even closer alignment with technical trends in industry.

Quality management related to the implementation of educational provision

The overall planning of implementation is done using the resource matrix. The responsible teachers have significant freedom to make choices on learning and assessment methods at the course- level. Based on the interviews and the self-evaluation, there is a need to enhance collaborative and participatory curriculum development work in the programme. One action already taken by the programme is compiling module groups of courses. The degree programme has also recognised a need to better coordinate the learning and assessment methods in order to coordinate the workload during semesters. The audit team recommends that the process by which students receive feedback about their learning is better systematised, because based on the interviews, variations exist between teachers.

Study counselling and small group tutoring are seen as significant tools for enhancing students’ learning and well-being. A teacher and a peer tutor are nominated for each new student following the university’s practice which provides individual support for students and their individual study plans.

The programme is, however, one of the weakest at the university in terms of the share of students completing 55 credits per year. The interviews revealed that the programme management has analysed the reasons behind the slow study progress. Challenges have been identified, including

39 problems in recruitment, study motivation and skills, as well as managing teaching and support services. The programme has started to address these challenges, and as a result the median of the first-year students’ progression has increased from 43 ECTS in 2014–15 to 46 ECTS in 2016. The most visible change was in the lower quartile: from 27 ECTS to 34 ECTS. Improvement is still slow, and the audit team strongly encourages the programme to seek new measures to improve study progress. For example, based on the interviews, there is a need to systematically assess the workload of courses in order to ensure that overload of course contents does not prohibit study progress.

A large proportion of degree programme students already have working-life experience, and also work alongside their studies. The team recommends taking into better account the heterogeneity of the student population regarding their previous studies, and their individual work and private life situations, when planning and implementing the courses. It would be important to improve the processes for recognising and acknowledging prior learning and communicating this to students. Based on the interviews, the recognition procedures are not as straight-forward or well-known as they should be.

Challenges in attracting enough motivated students pose serious risks for the programme. Several actions have been taken to tackle the problem, but in the audit team’s opinion more are needed. Stronger branding and marketing of the programme is needed nationally and to select target groups internationally. For example, the good practices that the programme has in industry co- operation could be made more visible in marketing and branding.

Student feedback and analysis of the performance-related quantitative indicators are key evaluation methods for the programme. Course accomplishments are used to predict the share of students getting 55 credits a year, the graduation rate and total studying time. There is a need to develop the information systems further in order to better monitor individual student progress in relation to study goals during the academic year. Feedback from students is collected from courses through the university-level system, during Feedback Days twice a year, through the Finnish Bachelor’s Graduate Survey as well as through occasional interviews. In the interviews, the team received various examples of improvements made following student feedback. Feedback utilisation could still be strengthened by beginning to use also the open-ended questions of the Finnish Bachelor’s Graduate Survey.

Participation in quality work

Staff, students and external stakeholders participate actively in the quality work in the degree programme. All the stakeholder groups have also been involved in the ongoing major curriculum reform. The quality work leans strongly on the Programme Director. Officially, 50% of the Programme Director’s working time is reserved for this role, but in practice the responsibilities do not easily fit into that. However, as discussed also in Chapters 4.3 and 5.2, this is a common challenge within the new organisational model.

40 Teachers are responsible for collecting and analysing the course feedback, and for developing their own courses. The Feedback Days are a key forum where the development needs of the courses and programme as a whole are discussed with the staff and students, which the audit team notes as good practice. One third of the teachers in the programme are non-Finnish. Despite this, key documents related to planning, implementation and development of education are mostly available only in Finnish. The audit team encourages the programme to develop the documentation and ways of operation to enable full participation of non-Finnish members of staff in quality work.

Students are represented in the decision-making and preparatory committees of the programme and student input to quality work is strong through the feedback practices. Co-operation with the student guild is active. For example, there are joint efforts to develop recruitment through developing social media presence, web pages and marketing material of the degree programme.

Oulu Innovation Alliance is an important regional network with which Information Processing Science collaborates, thereby bringing considerable benefit to the area through rapid growth of the technology sector. External stakeholders are actively involved in developing the programme. Company representatives visit as guest lecturers and case studies from industry are often used in teaching Both the Bachelor’s and Master’s programme have capstone projects embracing real-life topics; the Master’s thesis is often conducted within a company. Co-operation with working-life functions well, but to a large extent it is based upon the well-established individual networks that staff have built up themselves. Developing deeper co-operation and employer feedback as part of the operating principles and structure would facilitate more systematic processes and reduce the risk of losing important networks when people move on.

41 6.2.3 Doctoral Degree Programme of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine

There are well-developed and functional quality management procedures that support the implementation of doctoral studies including admissions, personal development, supervision, students’ follow-up and assessment. However, the quality management procedures for degree programme level planning, such as curriculum development, definition of learning outcomes or systematic programme review are not fully functional. While personnel groups, students and external stakeholders are involved in quality work, their involvement is primarily informal. There is little evidence of the effectiveness of quality work on the degree programme as a whole.

The quality management of Doctoral Degree Programme in Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine is at an emerging stage.

The university-level graduate school, UniOGS (see also chapter 6.1), was significantly restructured in early 2017 by creating a structure of four doctoral training committees and multidisciplinary doctoral programmes and 21 doctoral degree programmes. The new structure is described in Figure 5.

FIGURE 5. Organisation of doctoral training at University of Oulu as visualised in the self- evaluation report.

The programme chosen by the university to be evaluated is the Doctoral Degree Programme in Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine (BM-DDP) which is part of the Health and Biosciences Doctoral Programme (HBS-DP). Of the 640 full-time equivalent university doctoral students in autumn 2016, 44 were enrolled on this programme.

The mission of the programme is to provide doctoral students with excellent theoretical and technical training upon which they can build their future careers at the highest national and international level. In addition to the research work leading to the dissertation, the programme includes doctoral training of 20 ECTS containing mostly transversal training on research methods.

42 Quality management related to the planning of educational provision

The BM-DDP programme is relatively new, having been established in 2017 during the restructuring of doctoral education. Because of this, the self-evaluation report primarily described practices from the former Biocenter Oulu Doctoral Programme that preceded the current BM-DDP. Some elements of the reform were explained, such as the introduction of a transversal doctoral training of 20 ECTS or the provisions to follow-up the students. Based on the self-evaluation and on the further information gained through the interviews, the responsibility of programme and quality management in the new structure is not yet clearly established or shared by the different actors within it.

Programme management is split between UniOGS for the initial doctoral training and the Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine for further scientific content. The Doctoral Training Committees are in charge of preparation and coordination of the 20 ECTS training. Whereas this structure is not unusual, it has created a gap in the quality management system whereby the responsibilities of full curriculum design including learning outcomes and regular programme review are not clearly articulated. Following this, the intended learning outcomes for the doctoral degree programme as a whole have not been clearly defined, as illustrated by the fact that the mission statement is the only stated programme level objective and as such, is very generic and could in the audit team’s opinion apply to any doctoral programme. The audit team recommends that the new operational structure is further developed to ensure that the doctoral programme committee is empowered to look into the full development of the curriculum, aims and learning outcomes of the degree as a programme. Nevertheless, the links between research and education in this doctoral programme are very well matched and the quality of research has been highly regarded by past external evaluations. This should serve as a good platform for developing systematic approaches to the programme development.

The planning of education functions and supports studies at the level of the individual doctoral student. UniOGS has made the Personal Development Plan compulsory which, in the audit team’s opinion, is a very good tool, putting doctoral students in charge of their own development, including preparing for life-long career training. The personal development plan combined with a well-functioning tutoring system enhances abilities for lifelong learning, and also often strengthens the motivation to study.

The doctoral programme is relatively well connected to external stakeholders, for example, to the university hospital and medical companies. It is part of a strong biomedical ecosystem in the region. There is a specific course available for students on PhD and Working Life organised by the Business Kitchen. Research has a strong practical context with many students working on real- life projects. Services of the patent office of the university are also available, enhancing possible commercialisation of the research results. The quality of the facilities and equipment together with qualified technicians is highly appreciated both by students and Faculty members.

43 Quality management related to the implementation of educational provision

The procedures related to the admission, follow-up, supervision and assessment of the students are established and well-functioning. The four-year structure of the doctoral programme as part of UniOGS provides a clear study structure and time-limit for the programme. There are individual follow-up groups for students consisting of the principal tutor and two additional tutors. The group supports and steers students in their research. Based on the interviews, students see the individual follow-up group as a valuable addition to the more formal supervision process. The well-functioning tutoring system is a clear strength of the programme.

The related programme level quality work, including application of the PDCA cycle, however, has not yet been clearly implemented. The data, which is systematically collected, is restricted to the national indicators related to funding. The audit team suggests that the university consider rethinking aspects of the quality management system related to doctoral studies and identifying additional and appropriate performance indicators beyond simply relying on national indicators. These indicators would enable UniOGS and the doctoral programme committee to regularly assess the doctoral programme, including progression, completion and employability.

The dialogic nature of the working culture in the doctoral programme enables active use of informal feedback in its implementation. In the current situation, the quality management of implementation relies mostly on feedback collected from students during their follow-up meetings and other informal feedback. The audit team found evidence of actions taken based on this feedback. However, the formal feedback system needs to be improved to address the specific aspects of doctoral level education, taking into account the needs of the different levels of management in the new structure. Overall, a systematic approach to applying the PDCA principle of the university to quality management of the implementation of the degree programme is required.

The strong internationality of the doctoral programme is a strength of the learning environment. It is one of the few programmes at the university offering the opportunity to complete a joint doctoral degree with Ulm University. However, the quality management procedures related to joint doctoral degrees are still under development. Furthermore, bearing in mind challenges associated with the limited recruitment base in northern Finland, it is important for the programme to identify other recruitment approaches to ensure the programme’s future success.

Participation in quality work

As already stated, there is little evidence of specific programme level quality work. Staff participate actively in the supervision of doctoral students and supporting them in their research.

Students are associated to the governing bodies of UniOGS or within their faculty. They voice their views during follow-up meetings or informally with their supervisor, or with any member of the follow-up committee or any Faculty member. Past experience shows that some students have used these opportunities and improvements have been made on this basis.

44 Students mentioned the open and communicative culture of the programme as a strength. However, there is still room for improvement in formalising the quality work with students. As an example, feedback from doctorates graduated from the programme and their employers is not collected systematically.

External stakeholders are informally involved in curriculum development, which is demonstrated, for example, by increased attention dedicated to genetics in the programme. Involvement of external stakeholders in the definition, supervision and assessment of the doctoral theses should be encouraged. Such an approach could make the programme even more attractive and relevant for working life. This could also provide channels to widen and encourage the formal participation of external stakeholders in the planning and reviewing of the degree programme, and prove an attraction for future students.

45 6.3 Research, development and innovation activities

The university has recently undertaken a significant reorganisation of university structures and services to reorient them in line with five research fields. In doing so it has drawn on evidence from a comprehensive research assessment exercise, assessment of regional and international benchmarks, and faculty expertise. The process has embodied all aspects of the PDCA cycle of quality management with strong support from the university and external communities. Having achieved this, the university should look to further embed the process consistently across all units, especially with respect to training for research supervision, research ethics and IPR, and pedagogic training. This will improve the overall quality of research and research training.

The quality management of research, development and innovation activities is at a developing stage.

Functioning of the quality management procedures

The University of Oulu has a strong focus on research. There are around 650 doctoral students, constituting over 7% of the national share, while scientific publications are about 9% of the national share. Over recent years, the university has undertaken a fundamental and strategic restructuring of its organisation and its teaching and research activities around five multi-disciplinary themes. It has identified themes which align academic expertise with global and regional challenges. The university aims to position itself as an international science university, wherein “science” is equated broadly with “knowledge” rather than disciplines.

The five focus areas are: creating sustainability through materials and systems; molecular and environmental basis for lifelong health; digital solutions in sensing and interactions; earth and near-space systems and environmental change; and understanding humans in change. In addition, there are four multidisciplinary research institutes. By defining the way in which the university is organised, the basic unit has become the research unit which consists of one or more research groups. Varying in size, these research units are now the accountable administrative unit. Each unit is aligned with at least one of the focus areas and reports its activities accordingly.

Research support services have been realigned accordingly in a matrix framework. The single research support service has been replaced by a distributive model, providing targeted support based in each faculty as well as support across the university as a whole. The unit is also responsible for guiding and supporting research integrity and ethics. Technology transfer and commercialisation, as well as entrepreneurial, activities are being reviewed, and will sit within the purview of the new Vice Rector of Co-operation. The Tellus Innovation Arena, incorporating the Business Kitchen and Demola, aims to create a new culture for teaching and learning by bringing students, academics/researchers, and external stakeholders together in the heart of the campus; the Rapid Research Radicals component, which aims to facilitate collaborative research, is due to start in 2018.

46 The university strategic plan for 2016–2020 identifies five strategic objectives. These emphasise the importance of the five focus areas, the importance of critical mass and international networks, high quality infrastructure and support services, complying with open science and systematically enhancing impact. The revised resource allocation model, HR policy and the recruitment strategy, as well as the strategic research fund, reinforce this strategic approach. There is a clear delineation of roles and responsibilities for each research actor (e.g. Rector, Vice Rector of research, Dean, Head of research unit, individual researchers) and unit (Board of Directors, Research Management Group, Research Council) with respect to promoting and enhancing the quality and development of research. Underpinning these efforts, the university has established an annual operations and quality management system. A research assessment exercise (RAE) was conducted in 2007, and again in 2014.

The RAE involved a comprehensive review of research activity, using international peer-reviewers; 49 self-formed research communities comprising researchers from several departments and faculties participated, albeit participation was voluntary. The aim was to assess research quality and identify strong areas of research, to build critical mass, to strengthen multi- and interdisciplinary research and international recruitment, and to promote mobility among Finnish researchers. The results of the RAE were used to inform strategic priority areas. The PDCA loop was evidenced by the process, which was verified by researchers in the interviews.

The university relies on international peer review to assess research quality. It balances this with the use of bibliometric indicators, with particular emphasis on the number of Jufo classified publications4 as well as the level of research funding, especially from the Academy of Finland. Going forward, and given the breadth of university research and the university’s role within this region of Finland, the audit team considers it important to re-consider emphasis on journal impact factors and funding. Care should be taken with respect to unintentional impacts on particular disciplines, such as the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the university’s orientation. The audit team recommends that the university identify a wider set of research indicators, including the impact of research on society and the region (see also chapter 6.4). There is considerable work going on in this regard at the European Union level and internationally, which would be helpful in the process.

Operating in a competitive environment, nationally and internationally, puts quality at the forefront of RDI. Quality is measured using indicators such as peer-reviewed publications, publication impact factor and research funding obtained from the Academy of Finland. There is regular reporting on research activity, and the research support services provide information about forthcoming research funding opportunities and provides help with applications. All academics are expected to teach and do research albeit the precise balance is discussed as part of the personal development plan conversations.

Despite the university undertaking significant change in a short period of time, in the interviews there was general applause for the strategy especially with respect to it providing a clear direction and differentiation for the university and its research. Throughout, personal support had been

4 The Jufo Publication Forum is a classification of publication channels created by the Finnish scientific community to support the quality assessment of academic research. It is accessible online at http://www.julkaisufoorumi.fi/en 47 provided to those wanting it. Focus on the Arctic was especially welcomed as a way of bringing different elements of the research together with a common focus on the region and local communities. Yet, the audit team sees that the new organisational model carries some risk. The resource allocation model – which aims to reward and incentivise research in high-impact journals – carries unintended consequences because of how it measures different disciplinary fields and quality using traditional bibliometric measures. This process has particular implications for humanities and education researchers. A similar effect is possible because regional impact, including collaboration with local stakeholders, was not formally recognised, with implications for particular fields and the university’s broader mission. This latter point is also evident in the fact that linkages between research and development and innovation are weakly articulated. The Future Factory initiative, which is a competition whereby students are introduced to one of the university’s five research themes, aims to offer new students an active start to their studies. This has the potential to help overcome some of these gaps, but it is early days.

Participation in quality work

The process by which the five research focus areas were identified is a good illustration of how the quality management system functions. Professors came together, in several workshops, to identify the global challenges and common areas; the process involved looking at areas of research focus and expertise, with data and analysis drawn from the most recent RAE. A competence-based survey sought to align research units, and individual researchers, with the focus areas, and also to help identify requisite support mechanisms. There are regular meetings between researchers and Deans, with concurrent meetings within the research units. Large research units have formal meetings between Head of the research unit and sub-groups and individual researchers, while smaller groups (e.g. single researchers with post-docs and doctoral students) operate on a more informal basis. The participation of docents and doctoral students in the process, including identification of the five research areas, and their knowledge of the process, was not systematic across the university.

The regularity and formality of research team meetings is best suited to large groups, although even smaller groups reported that they met frequently as a team. The main difference is in the scale of activities, the capacity of the group to generate and host seminars, etc. The process itself generates its own feedback loop. The extent of change across the university has impacted most aspects of university life, and has created additional requirements on individuals. For people involved in RDI, there is general approval of the process and the orientation of these changes.

While procedures around research ethics and promotion of open science are well recognised and supported by the research support services, there is some unevenness with respect to other aspects of quality management. For example, there is no consistent training for research supervision or research ethics and IPR, and pedagogic training is voluntary.

External stakeholders were not involved in the actual strategic reorganisation or identification of the five focus areas, but overall were positive about them. They helped strengthen and freshen up the university’s position. Given the types of employment available in the Oulu region, stakeholders

48 found it easier to approach and work with technological faculties, to develop research projects on real-life topics and to jointly supervise students. Similar linkages are developed through the various Tellus Innovation Arena initiatives. These all provide vital feedback albeit there did not appear to be a systematic process with respect to RDI.

Quality management of key support services

The research support services have undergone significant reorganisation. They can be divided across research funding support, institutional research and research assessment and evaluation; commercialisation and technology transfer; and entrepreneurship and business links. Together, they have a high level of expertise, and provide the typical range of support services found in most universities of Oulu’s size and mission. While the reorganisation into a more disaggregated structure seems to have been made in response to requests from researchers for greater subsidiarity, there is a risk that this can lead to the fragmentation of service provision. This tension may also be due to the fact that separate aspects of research support services, e.g. research support office pre- and post- award, as well as commercialisation and engagement, all come under the remit of different Vice Rectors. Thus, the extent to which the services provide coherent and integrated service is not yet evident, and the audit team recommends that attention be paid to this.

49 6.4 Societal impact and regional development work

Functional quality management procedures advance the development of the institution’s societal interaction and regional development work. The quality system produces relevant information that is successfully used for the development of the operations although the key performance indicators and integration of the collected need further development.

Staff, students and external stakeholders participate with commitment to the quality work. The open and collaborative culture of the strong innovation ecosystem of which the university is part enables agile development that is a clear asset strengthening the societal and regional development work. However, this aspect should be further enhanced during the next phase of the quality management of key support services.

The quality management of societal impact and regional work is at the developing stage.

Functioning of the quality management procedures

The university’s quality manual defines that interaction with society is predominantly implemented through education and research. The objectives of societal and regional development are based on the university strategy and on the agreement with the Ministry of Education and Culture. According to the quality manual, these objectives are

▪▪ to increase significance of the university internationally in selected research focus areas; ▪▪ to enhance economic welfare through educating competent and adaptable professionals; ▪▪ to develop strategic national partnerships that sharpen the profile of the institution; ▪▪ to improve opportunities for lifelong learning; ▪▪ to promote innovation by offering a stimulating environment encouraging multidisciplinary solutions; ▪▪ to foster co-operation with the economic life, public and third sector; ▪▪ to build bridges for the exploitation and commercialisation of the research results; ▪▪ to develop usability of research results with stakeholders through a common goal-setting and measurement of results; ▪▪ to boost regional competitiveness and vitality; and ▪▪ to intensify and combine regional resources in research, education, business and public administration.

The university aims to have a key role in renewing society’s functions through its research and innovation activities, and by producing an educated and competent labour force. The university has identified four key functions that advance its interaction with society: strategic partnerships and co-operation structures, entrepreneurship and innovation activities, alumni relations and external communications. The interviews during the audit visit provided evidence

50 that co-operation with external stakeholders is intensive and built strongly in the culture of the university, and that the societal impact and entrepreneurship focus has strengthened in the university strategy. The co-operation activities are multidisciplinary and extend to the public, private and third sectors.

The University has versatile ways of collecting feedback on societal and regional impact. The surveys for Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate graduates are the most important feedback channels for alumni. External stakeholders are involved in the Advisory Board, External Relations Council, the Board of Directors and in the boards of the faculties. The innovation and co-operation platforms Oulu Innovation Alliance, Business Kitchen, Demola and Tellus Innovation Arena, and key strategic partner meetings as well as personal contacts of the university staff provide possibilities to give direct feedback to the university.

However, observations made during the interviews suggest that the goals for societal interaction are not always clear to internal stakeholders of the university. The audit team sees room for crystallising the goals, especially from the viewpoint of education, and communicating them more actively. It would also be important to increase awareness of the achievements of the university. For example, the intranet could provide a better overview of the core goals, tools, processes and achievements of societal and regional development work.

Feedback is complemented by data collected concerning co-operation with companies, such as volume of co-operation, number of co-operation contacts, nature of co-operation, and location of the companies. Qualitative stakeholder interviews are also carried out. Moreover, the university follows the number of students and staff who participate in certain external stakeholder activities, and qualitative information is gathered on external stakeholders’ satisfaction with the co-operation. In addition, the regional units of the university have feedback systems and indicators geared to monitoring and developing interaction with the regions. The university has also representatives in the regional councils of Oulu and Kainuu which enables participation to the development of the regional strategies.

Information obtained through the various channels has been used successfully for strategic planning, annual performance review of the university as a whole and also for unit-level planning and development processes. The restart of civil engineering education, the setting up of the Oulu Mining School, and also the university’s excellence in 5G technology are examples of impacts of listening carefully to external stakeholders’ feedback and collaborating closely with them.

Several good practices exist also in high school co-operation, such as the “Oulu Kaverit” (representatives of the university visiting high schools) and “Abi-päivät” (high school students visiting the university) concepts, and regular co-operation with study counsellors in high schools. The university has plans to further intensify co-operation with high schools. Bearing in mind the challenges of attracting enough motivated students in certain fields, the audit team supports these plans as there is a need to develop more ways for targeting potential students, especially outside the Oulu region.

51 Despite the various ways to gather relevant feedback, the university has identified in its self-evaluation report that the information gathering procedures should be more systematic and that there is a need to improve systematic exploitation of the gathered information. Based on the interviews, the audit team agrees with this, as there is a risk of getting biased information if feedback relies too heavily on personal contacts or is too fragmented. The information is currently not centralised in one database and therefore it can be difficult for executives to get a general overview of societal and regional development work. During the interviews, it was also mentioned that customer relationship management, as a whole, should be developed further. Also, the external stakeholders mentioned that ways for collecting employer feedback could be more systematic.

According to the self-evaluation report, the key performance indicators of societal and regional development work should be developed further. The lack of incentives for it in the national funding scheme was mentioned as one reason for this, both in the self-evaluation and in the interviews. However, in the audit team’s view, integrating the societal impact aspect robustly to the development processes for education and research should also provide internal incentives for developing sufficient and relevant indicators.

The audit interviews suggested that the quality management procedures for continuing professional development should also be developed. As an example, it was brought up in the interviews that more short-focused continuing professional development offerings would be needed and systems for acknowledging prior learning in these needs to be developed.

The university has identified a need to better document the existing procedures and to provide process descriptions. As discussed above, several strengths and good practices exist in the quality management of societal and regional development work, but it is not yet as systematic as in education or research functions. However, the university has dedicated resources to co-ordinating, systematising and intensifying co-operation with external stakeholders by establishing a position of a Vice Rector of External Co-operation since 2015 which the audit team sees as good practice.

Participation in quality work

Staff, students and external stakeholders are actively involved and committed in quality work on societal and regional impact and also represented in university and faculty-level decision-making bodies. Roles and responsibilities of different actors in quality management for interaction with society are clearly defined. The university has a Vice Rector for Co-operation and Head of External Relations who are responsible for monitoring engagement with external stakeholders and developing key functions in societal and regional development. However, the tasks of individual teachers and researchers would benefit from being defined in more detail.

Based on the interviews, the quality work related to social interaction is part of the daily work through education and research and does not provide considerable extra workload. However, in the interviews university staff did not often bring up the societal impact aspect of their work. The audit team suggests the necessity to increase discussion around the societal value of the university’s core functions in order to increase common understanding.

52 The ecosystem of the Oulu region is exceptionally strong in enhancing societal and regional development through university education and research. Examples frequently mentioned during the audit visit include: the Oulu Innovation Alliance, Smart City concept as well the Tellus Innovation Arena and Business Kitchen. The co-operation is multidisciplinary, dialogic and collaborative. This enables agile strategic management, and is a clear asset that strengthens societal and regional development work. Based on the interviews, it seems that differences in external stakeholder co- operation exist between disciplines and the external stakeholders find other disciplines easier to approach than others. External stakeholders brought up that there is a need to generally increase the multidisciplinary dialogue inside the university.

The alumni of the university are actively engaged in developing the university. Many key partners of the university are also university alumni. This brings several benefits as well as risks. If the key stakeholders communicating with the university are too homogenous, there is a risk of groupthink where weak signals of changes in the operating environment may not be noticed.

Quality management of key support services

There is no common PDCA process related to societal impact and regional development work in quality management of key support services. The external relations function has a clear role with defined objectives that are stated in the self-evaluation report. According to the self-evaluation report, the importance of the general support functions is recognised, however the role of support services in the quality management of interaction with society is limited. Some work has been done to develop the indicators and guidelines for societal and regional development work in support services, such as the guidelines that the International Office uses when analysing new partners of the university, and whether they meet the strategic quality standards of the university. The audit team recommends that the university discuss how the engagement of key support services in the quality management of societal impact can be improved.

53 7 Management of personnel well-being in a change

The university has procedures in place that advance the management of personnel well-being in a change. However, the procedures are still being developed and do not yet fully support the achievement of the strategic goals set for them. The university obtains and uses information for monitoring personnel well-being, but the information is as yet insufficient to support the development the management of well- being during changes. Personnel groups are involved in quality work, although better communication would strengthen their participation. External stakeholders have project-based roles in change support, however, they participate only partially in the development of operations. Students do not have defined roles for the quality work.

The quality management of personnel well-being in a change is at an emerging stage.

7.1 Functioning of the quality management procedures

The University of Oulu has gone through several major change projects in the 2010s. The number of faculties has been changed, and research units have replaced the organisation’s earlier department-based structure. Latest change projects ended in autumn 2017 when the administration services were re-organised into centralised university administration services and the schools of Mining and Architecture were merged into the Faculty of Technology. Although the university has undergone many changes recently, based on the interviews and the results of the well-being survey, the trust-level within the organisation is still quite high and the work community is very solid. From this background, the university chose the “management of well-being in a change” as its optional audit target.

At University of Oulu the management of personnel well-being in a change means in practice that the university has prepared various change support actions targeted for different groups during changes. The purpose is to promote the success of change projects and allow operations to continue with as little disruption as possible during the change situations. The information regarding changes, process descriptions and other change support materials are mainly available on the intranet.

54 The principle of continuous improvement and the PDCA cycle are at the core of the quality system in the university (see chapter 3). Correspondingly, the tools that the university uses for management of well-being in the context of change, defined as “change support”, have been built around a PDCA cycle that is presented in the self-evaluation report:

▪▪ Plan: Planning change support ▪▪ Do: Organisation of change support ▪▪ Check: Evaluating the success of change support ▪▪ Act: Developing change support.

Based on the audit interviews, the PDCA cycle exists in practice. Core foundations, such as plans, descriptions, responsibilities, instructions and feedback are in place. However, while people are familiar with the practices, the PDCA concept itself is not well known, which poses the risk of non-systematic application.

The aim of “change support” is to enable focusing on daily work during the change processes, to identify and meet specific support needs during the change processes and to normalise change situations as soon as possible. Based on the interviews, the audit team suggests the university put additional effort into the planning phase of the change process, especially to risk analysis and correct timing and co-ordination of different actions to ensure that adequate support of the right type and the right time is offered to the right target group. Because of the different kinds of individual needs and change situations, the support required should be customised.

The discussions held during the site visit showed that the co-operation processes during the aforementioned change situations have been very systematic, well cared for and open for the employees. The HR unit has worked efficiently and helped supervisors to organise different kind of consultation events and discussions during these change projects. The change processes have been participative, involving employees to identify and implement change needs. However, the “change support” processes are primarily limited to the actions that are mandated by the Finnish act on co-operation, and as such lack deliberate focus on managing aspects related to well-being. When developing the procedures further, the university should distinguish better between what is the management of well-being during ordinary operations, what it understands as overall change management, and what it means by management of well-being during changes. This would enable the university to concentrate more on issues of well-being during change management.

There are also practices more closely related to management of well-being during changes. According to the audit interviews, the University of Oulu offers, for example, training events to the supervisors on how they need to proceed in completing the change. Occupational health care is also taking part to the change projects so that the employees of the university are able to consult psychologists directly without having to be first referred by a general practitioner. According to the self-evaluation report, the aim of “change support” in this respect is to ensure that changes do not create unreasonable stress levels for supervisors and employees and that focusing on work is possible regardless of challenging change situations. An important part is also to help individuals

55 find new directions when they are affected by the changes. The HR unit is, for example, planning training and consultancy for people who have lost their jobs because of the changes and to help them to find new positions either inside the university or elsewhere.

The university has paid careful attention to active communication in different phases of the change project. However, based on the interviews, there is still room for improvement, especially in communicating more actively the results of the change process and more active involvement of top management in communication processes. In the future, when the University of Oulu implements new change projects, the important thing is to take care of the quality and the quantity of the relevant information in the change situations. Open and systematic communication is important in change situations, where uncertainty creates stress. Especially in the university context, with its strong expert culture, people who will be taking part in the new organisation require a clear rationale as to why changes are taking place and their benefits, such as for new structures or new ways of working.

The interviews revealed that more should be done to ensure that employees have correct information regarding future plans – what is happening next and what is the employees’ role in the planning of the change. Full predictability is not possible, but it helps if planned steps are clearly communicated. This could be done, for example, by systematically arranging communication and feedback sessions with employees through the change process. Based on the interviews, the university has also noticed that the results of change processes should be communicated more clearly, and management should clearly indicate when a certain change project is over. This would build more trust for forthcoming changes. In addition, following the results of the well-being survey, decision-making and preparing decisions could be more open to the employees, as employees would like to have more influence on the university’s decision-making.

The self-evaluation report mentions the well-being surveys, occupational health care service provider’s reports, and other feedback as the information used for evaluating the success of change support. Based on the interviews, the well-being survey is the main tool to assess success. The university sets well-being development targets for faculties and research units which make action plans to improve their results. The audit team commends the fact that despite the changes, the results of well-being surveys have improved over the past few years. However, the well-being survey is not ideal from the perspective of change support. It does not include questions directly related to change situations, and thus gives only indirect information for developing the change processes. More tailored feedback systems are needed for analysing the success of change projects, and for getting usable information about good practices and successful change projects.

7.2 Participation in quality work

The key groups which participate in the quality work of change management are university and faculty management, human resources services and supervisors. The university and faculty management are responsible for making decisions on change and managing change as a whole. Their role is also to make decisions about the projects and plans, and to communicate these to

56 the organisation. The human resources services are responsible for organising “change support” required by the situation and the supervisor’s role is to lead the unit and work community in a change situation. According to the audit interviews, as in most change situations, the University of Oulu is establishing a change project, with agreed targets, responsibilities and schedules described according to the particular change envisioned.

Based on the interviews, ordinary quality work can suffer to a certain extent from having several change processes going on simultaneously. For example, the workload of the Deans or corresponding managerial positions is a challenge, as they have lots of responsibilities as well in regard to the day-to-day quality management. Supervisors could be better supported by accurate instructions and training, as success in change support depends on the supervisor’s contribution, and on whether or not the supervisor is prepared to support their unit’s work.

According to the self-evaluation report, there is no predefined role for external stakeholders in the process. Instead, their participation and roles are defined on a case-by-case basis. Regarding recent changes, employees primarily mentioned external psychological services being available. The audit team recommends expanding the role of external stakeholders in quality work. For example, occupational health care typically has a role in many “change support” processes and its expertise could be used more systematically. The university is also encouraged to think what kind of roles students or student feedback could play.

57 8 The quality system as a whole

The quality management procedures constitute a functioning system that combine with operations management to form an integral whole.

The quality system supports the strategy-based development of education, research and societal interaction. There is evidence of the impacts of quality work on the development of the core duties. The development of the operations is based on a strong quality culture where the responsibility for quality is shared by everyone.

The quality system as a whole is at a developing stage.

8.1 Comprehensiveness and impact of the quality system

The promotion and embedding of a quality culture is an essential component of academic self- governance, and a cornerstone of the academy since the 17th century. These values have been strengthened by the Bologna Process, and enshrined in quality assurance processes. Since 2005, key components of institutional-based quality assurance have been reinforced by the adoption of qualifications frameworks at European and national levels, recognition and the promotion of learning outcomes, and the paradigm shift towards student-centred learning and teaching. These actions have been underpinned by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR), and formalised in the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance across the European Higher Education Area, and by FINEEC in Finland.

The University of Oulu is a strong exemplar of this tradition. The university has developed a comprehensive quality management system with a strong emphasis on embedding a quality culture across all its activities – education, research and societal impact. Its quality manual impressively describes in detail how the quality system operates, with an overall clear delineation of roles and responsibilities.

58 The quality policy is well-aligned with the university’s overall strategy. This is strongly evidenced by the way that the university has been able to successfully review and implement its new strategy. Strong and clear coherence was exhibited across the university with respect to the new strategy, and, with some minor exceptions, there was unanimous support for the direction being taken and the speed of implementation. This is certainly impressive given the extent of change and its impact on individuals and units. There is also a good and positive working relationship between the university and its wide community of stakeholders within the Oulu ecosystem. It also illustrates the positive impact of the quality system on the university.

Despite all these very positive attributes, the audit team felt that the quality system could be more systemic, without having to harmonise every procedure and process. Rather than focusing more on prescriptiveness of the system, there is a need to ensure greater intuitive ownership of quality by all members and units of the university community, and a fuller understanding that the overall purpose of the quality management is to enhance student learning and university outcomes. Accordingly, it seems that this framework is not well-internalised. Thus, there was some inconsistency in its implementation across faculties, education and research units, and other administrative branches. In this respect, there seems to be room for improvements in ensuring a healthy balance between quality management procedures that need to be common across the university and those which units should be able to tailor to their specific needs.

Regarding education, the audit team sees the quality management procedures that the university has implemented across its bachelor and master programmes, following the PDCA principles, as a strength. The audit team was able to find clear evidence of impacts of the PDCA cycle on the development of education. Greater attention should be given to improving pedagogic practices to ensure an enhanced and consistent student-centred learning experience for all students across faculties and academic units. The new university-level graduate school is a significant initiative in this direction. Likewise, the online student course feedback system is important, but attention should be given to the value and meaningfulness of the questions being asked, and how consistently the information contained within is used by the academic team to improve and enhance education, research and support services.

The audit team would like to commend the university’s commitment to actively improving the quality of the organisation of innovation and entrepreneurial education facilities (e.g. Tellus Innovation Arena, Business Kitchen, Avanto Accelerator, Demola and Hilla), which will strengthen links between students, research and enterprise. The university’s research strategy with its five focus areas, and the reorganisation of its structure, has been based upon a comprehensive assessment of research expertise, drawing on a competence base survey for research groups and linked with global and regional challenges.

The university could do more in further developing the quality system of interaction with society, and making it more comparable with the level of quality work in education and research. Progress in this regard is expected to pick up pace with the help of the newly established Vice Rector of Co-operation position.

59 8.2 Quality culture

The university has taken the somewhat unusual step of not appointing a specific university-level quality officer or setting up a specific unit with responsibility for quality; rather, it has chosen to embed quality systems, processes and understanding across the university making it part of everyone’s work, and included it in their job descriptions. To a very large extent this approach is working – with each section and group of interviewees commenting knowledgably about their understanding of and involvement in the process. In the interviews, there may have been some hesitation around terminology, such as PDCA, but the principle of continuous improvement, which lies at the core of the quality system, was well understood. The quality culture is built upon a shared understanding that quality management is the responsibility of everyone, rather than a separate unit or network of individuals, which the audit team sees as a strength.

The university’s quality policy is communicated across the university through its Notio intranet system. The intranet is also the primary platform where information about various aspects of the university’s operations are communicated and tools used in managing quality are documented. Having a central repository is essential, but it’s unclear how effective the intranet is, as many interviewees told the Audit Team that they rarely used it or found it difficult to find information, and identified alternative communications sources including email and social media. This disjuncture highlights the difference between having lots of data and providing meaningful information. . Complaints about communication channels are common in almost every organisation, but the university should think about putting in place better mechanisms capable of facilitating active communication regarding quality work.

8.3 The quality system as a whole

The university has a good understanding and appreciation of the importance of having an effective and efficient quality management system. It has put a lot of effort into developing its system and ensuring that it works across the university. To ensure smoother operation and balanced workloads in a decentralised quality management system, the role of individual academic staff, students and external stakeholders, as well as units of the organisation need some further consideration. The audit team encourages the university to consider directing more efforts towards clarifying the individual responsibilities for quality management improving the coordination of quality management activities and procedures across units and levels of the university.

However, overall, the audit team has found the quality management procedures to form a coherent system that combines with operations management to form a functional and integral whole.

60 9 Conclusions

9.1 Strengths and good practices of the quality system

Strengths

▪▪ The university has systematically developed a quality system, which is strategically led by the Executive Group, with good participation from faculty, support staff, students and external stakeholders. ▪▪ There is a good working relationship and atmosphere in the university, with high levels of co-operation and trust, and professional support for staff and students throughout the change processes. ▪▪ The university’s research strategy with its five focus areas, and the reorganisation of its structure, has been based upon a comprehensive assessment of research expertise, drawing on the competence base survey for research groups and linked with global and regional challenges. ▪▪ There is a shared understanding that quality management is the responsibility of everyone, rather than a separate unit or network of individuals. ▪▪ The university has introduced and implemented a quality management system across its Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes following the principles of continuous development. ▪▪ There is a good culture of collecting feedback where staff, students and external stakeholders are encouraged to provide feedback to improve the quality of degree programmes. ▪▪ The university is actively improving the quality of the organisation of innovation and entrepreneurial education facilities, which will strengthen links between students, research and enterprise. ▪▪ There has been good involvement of faculty and researchers in the development of the new university strategy, and continually since, through regular meetings between staff with their Deans. ▪▪ The university has shown an impressive ability to encourage self-evaluation: most of the areas requiring further review and development were identified already in the self- evaluation report.

61 ▪▪ There is a community of alumni who are willing to actively engage and help further develop the university education and research programmes as well as promoting societal and regional impact. ▪▪ Co-operation with the ICT industry is exceptionally strong, as evidenced by opportunities to gain experience in the field, and for continuous professional development. ▪▪ The university has developed policies and conditions which enhance internationalisation, including recruitment of staff and students, mobility, research collaboration and assessment. ▪▪ There is a high degree of compliance with the professional appraisal process and completion of individual development plans.

Good Practice

▪▪ The annual calendar helps the university co-ordinate and combine quality management with operations management. ▪▪ The university has strengthened its system of programme management with the appointment of programme Directors. ▪▪ Creation of a university-level doctoral school is a significant achievement and is enhancing the quality and consistency of the student experience. ▪▪ The tutoring system for students, including teacher and peer tutors, is working well and enables individual support for students and their individual study plans. ▪▪ There is a close relationship between the teacher education programmes and the teacher training school, which provides a good feedback mechanism as well as ensuring students can obtain real-life work experience. ▪▪ The intertwined, collaborative nature of co-operation in the Oulu Innovation Alliance is an example of a strong ecosystem attracting talent, students and companies to the Oulu region. ▪▪ Several good practices exist in the Information Processing Science programme’s co-operation with working life such as case studies, project courses and thesis works conducted with companies. ▪▪ The Future Factory concept, albeit at an early stage of development, promises to be a good way to introduce undergraduate students to research and help develop skills of analysis, criticism and synthesis. ▪▪ The university has dedicated resources to co-ordinating, systematising and intensifying co-operation with external stakeholders by establishing a Vice Rector of Co-operation since 2015.

9.2 Recommendations

62 ▪▪ Greater attention should be given to improving pedagogic practices to ensure an enhanced student-centred learning experience for all students and to tackling challenges with student completion. ▪▪ More attention should be paid to the workload levels arising from carrying out quality management responsibilities. ▪▪ The systematic data collection systems, data analysis and utilisation should be developed further to support effective strategic management and decision-making. ▪▪ The university should review the student course feedback mechanism and process to ensure that questions asked are sufficiently meaningful, and that the results are better integrated into the annual review process. ▪▪ The university should develop a comprehensive communications strategy to better highlight its academic and research strengths and overall attractiveness and visibility to students, faculty and enterprise, nationally and internationally. ▪▪ Greater attention should be given to sharpening goal-setting in societal and regional development work, identifying appropriate indicators which measure achievement and communicate the outcomes and impacts more clearly internally and externally. ▪▪ Consideration should be given to embedding a risk analysis into the PDCA processes, so as to be more aware of intended and unintended consequences of decisions and actions. ▪▪ The process for change management of personnel well-being should be broadened, for example, by expanding the role of external stakeholders and by including competence management and risk analysis to the process.

9.3 The audit team’s overall assessment

The quality system of University of Oulu meets the FINEEC criteria for the quality system as a whole and for the quality management as it relates to basic duties.

The audit team proposes to the FINEEC Higher Education Evaluation Committee that the University passes the audit.

9.4 Higher Education Evaluation Committee’s decision

In its meeting on 28 February 2018, the Higher Education Evaluation Committee decided, based on the proposal and report of the audit team, that the quality system of the University of Oulu meets the FINEEC criteria for quality systems as a whole and quality management of the higher education institution´s core duties. University of Oulu has been awarded a quality label that is valid for six years beginning on 28 February 2018.

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TARGETS TARGETS 3. Development of the quality system of the quality 3. Development the HEIs subject section for Follow-up to the second audit:

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82 6983 25 26 APPENDIX 2. The stages and timetable of the audit process

Agreement negotiation between the HEI and FINEEC 19 December 2016 Appointment of the audit team 20 June 2017 Submission of the audit material and self-evaluation report 25 July 2017 Information and discussion event at the HEI 4 October 2017 Audit visit 17–19 October 2017 Higher Education Evaluation Committee’s decision on the result 28 February 2018 Publication of the report 28 February 2018 Concluding seminar 18 April 2018 Follow-up on the development work of the quality system 2021

70 APPENDIX 3: Programme of the audit visit

Tuesday 17 October 8.45–10.00 Interview of the University Executive Group 10.15–11.00 Interview of the Board of Directors 11.15–12.15 Interview of Deans 13.15–14.00 Interview of academic staff representatives 14.15–15.00 Interview of student representatives 15.15–16.00 Interview of staff of support services 16.15–17.15 Interview of external stakeholders Wednesday 18 October 9.00–09.50 Interview on Management of personnel well-being in a change 10.00–10.50 Interview of Education deans and Programme Interview of Heads of research units directors 11.00–11.50 Interview of staff of the Bachelor’s and Master’s Interview of research staff programme in Information Processing Science 13.00–13.50 Interview of students of the Bachelor’s and Interview of research support services Master’s programme in Information Processing Science 14.10–15.00 Interview of staff of the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in Teaching and Education, Primary Teacher Education and Early Childhood Education 15.10–16.00 Interview of students of the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in Teaching and Education, Primary Teacher Education and Early Childhood Education 16.10–17.00 Interview of external stakeholders of the samples of degree education Thursday 19 October 8.00–9.00 Tour of learning environments: Business Kitchen, Tellus, Demola and the international avenue 9.00–9.50 International staff and students 10.00–10.50 Interview on societal interaction 11.00–11.50 Interview of the Staff of the Doctoral programme of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine 13.00–13.50 Interview of the Students of the Doctoral programme of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine 16.00–16.45 Preliminary feedback to the University Executive Group

71 APPENDIX 4. Finnish higher education system

The Finnish higher education system comprises of universities and universities of applied sciences (UASs). All universities engage in both education and scientific research and have the right to award doctorates. The UASs are multi-field, professionally oriented higher education institutions. They engage in applied research and development (R&D) that supports education and regional development. The UAS system was established in the early 1990s. Higher education institutions (HEIs) operate under the governance and steering of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC). Furthermore, higher education institutions are independent in their internal governance.

Universities and UASs receive most of their funding from the MoEC, and the activities of HEIs are steered in practice by four-year performance agreements with the Ministry. The only exceptions are the National Defence University under the Ministry of Defence and the Police University College under the Ministry of the Interior, as well as Åland University of Applied Sciences under the local government of Åland (Landskapsregering).

Finland has adopted a national qualifications framework (NQF) in 2017. Provisions on the National Framework for Qualifications and Other Competence Modules are laid down in Act (93/2017) and Government Decree on the National Framework for Qualifications and Other Competence Modules. The framework covers the entire education system. In this framework, the qualifications, syllabi and other extensive competence modules of the Finnish national education system are classified into eight levels on the basis of the requirements. Statutory regulations on the level descriptors and the positioning of qualifications, syllabi and extensive competence modules on the various levels of the framework on the basis of required learning outcomes, are enacted by the Government Decree. With respect to higher education, degrees awarded by Finnish higher education institutions are positioned in the framework as follows:

▪▪ Bachelor’s degrees (universities of applied sciences) and Bachelor’s degrees (universities) at level 6 ▪▪ Master’s degrees (universities of applied sciences) and Master’s degrees (universities) at level 7 ▪▪ Universities’ and National Defence University scientific and artistic postgraduate degrees (licentiate and doctor degrees), the General Staff Officer’s Degree, the Specialist Degree in Veterinary Medicine, and Specialist training in medicine and Specialist training in dentistry at level 8

The Framework for Qualifications and Other Competence Modules is based on the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). The abbreviation FiNQF is also used to refer to the National Qualifications Framework.

In addition, the Government Decree on University Degrees (2004) and the Government Decree on Polytechnics (2014) define the objectives, extent and overall structure of degrees. HEIs select their own students in Finland. However, national regulations stipulate some general principles for student admission (e.g. the equal treatment of applicants).

72 The educational responsibilities of the universities are stipulated by government decree. Universities provide Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees. A pre-doctoral degree of Licentiate may be taken before a Doctoral degree.

Bachelor’s degrees consist of at least 180 ECTS (3 years of full-time study). Studies leading to a Bachelor’s degree may include: basic and intermediate studies; language and communication studies; interdisciplinary programmes; other studies; and work practice for professional development. The degree includes a Bachelor’s thesis (6–10 ECTS).

A Master’s degree consists of at least 120 ECTS (2 years of full-time study). The studies leading to a Master’s degree may include: basic and intermediate studies and advanced studies; language and communication studies; interdisciplinary programmes; other studies; and internship-based expertise. A Master’s degree includes a Master’s thesis (20–40 ECTS). In the fields of medicine, veterinary medicine and dentistry the second-cycle degree is called a licentiate. In the fields of medicine and dentistry, universities may arrange education leading to the second-cycle licentiate degree without including a first-cycle university degree in education. In medicine, a degree consists of 360 ECTS (six years of full-time study) and in dentistry the degree consists of 330 ECTS (5.5 years of full-time study).

Once a student has been admitted to a bachelor’s programme, universities usually offer them direct access to a Master’s programme in the same field. However, this is dependent on the university’s decision. Students can apply for doctoral studies after the completion of a relevant second-cycle degree. The doctoral degree consists of 4 years of full-time study after a second-cycle degree or 2 years following a pre-doctoral degree. A student who has been admitted to complete a doctoral degree must complete a given amount of studies, show independent and critical thinking in the field of research and write a doctoral dissertation and defend it in public.

Universities decide on the detailed contents and structure of the degrees they award. They also decide on their curricula and forms of instruction. In addition to this, some fields (e.g. teacher education and the education of physicians, dentists and veterinarians) have detailed regulations that apply to some extent to the structure and/or content of the degrees awarded.

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