Integrated internal evaluation in a higher education institution

Abstract

Evaluations, both internal and external, have become increasingly common and often compulsory in higher education. Nevertheless, utilising the evaluation results and linking the evaluations to the university’s quality assurance system often proves challenging. This article aims to analyse how internal evaluation should be conducted in order to enable integration of internal and external evaluations in higher education. The study is based on analysing an internal evaluation project carried out in a university in Finland. The findings of this study include presenting relevant roles and activities of stakeholders, and key requirements, during different phases of internal evaluation. The key requirements for the success of the integrated internal evaluations identified in this study include: internal evaluation should be based on peer evaluations, evaluators should be trained and given adequate base information to enable critical and logical evaluation and internal evaluation ought to be seen as a collective process with shared ownership.