INTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEMS AT THE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MADRID

The European Higher Education Area framework and the new changes in the Spanish regulations in education, provides that the universities should have policies and Internal Quality Assurance Systems (SGIC) formally established and publicly available.
The extent of quality comprises the diplomas and official programs of degrees and postgraduate studies as well as the faculty, including the services that centers offer. Thus, the Guide for the design of SGIC for the university through the AUDIT, program proposed by the National

Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain (ANECA), attempts to answers two basic questions:
a) How the university centers use their administrative bodies, rules, criteria, methods, etc. to improve the quality of the curricula designs and developments, the selection and promotion of their teachers, the development of teaching and the learning outcomes.
b) How the centers involve different stakeholders in the design, development, evaluation and dissemination of teaching activities.

In 2008, Technical University of Madrid (UPM) designed the SGIC-UPM 0.0, a Generic System for UPM Centers, to participate in the first call of AUDIT for SGIC's Design Certification, which was integrated into a first Process Map supported by a Quality Manual. Since then, UPM has been working to improve this system to the current SGIC-UPM 2.0, which has a Process Map consisting of 22 processes.
In order to keep a track of the quality legislation of the Spanish university, this paper examines from the regulatory developments of quality until their implementation, while taking into consideration the agents involved in it.

Then, it discusses the scope of these regulations within the university educational system focused on the inherent bureaucratic requirements, the university structure in general and on the university community in particular: working groups and delegate committees, documentation management, quality office, appointment of staff, etc.

The core of the paper analyzes the need for a quality system from the perspective of students to whom it is addressed, and the society to which it has to account, with particular emphasis on the economic and management costs on one hand and, on the other, on how it actually affects on those elements.

Finally, some improvements are proposed both streamlining the system requirements and the necessary evidence to prove and certify their management.