MODELS FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE AND ACCREDITATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The procedures for quality assurance and accreditation of higher education require the collection and structuring of a large volume of information, which is subsequently subject to verification by experts from an assessment institution and storage in national registers. The application of a centralized software system for external quality assessment unifies the accreditation procedures and optimizes them in terms of time, human, financial and other resources.

The article proposes models of software systems for quality assurance in higher education. It outlines the main principles, data flows and processes that are the basis of the accreditation procedures of higher education institutions and related activities. It purposes solutions for automation of the individual stages of the assessment procedures, the main problems and opportunities for integration of university and national systems with the quality assurance systems.

The proposed models are based on the authors’ experience in creating and using the COMPASS web-based application for (self)assessment of quality and accreditation in higher education.