Abstract:

Universities entail a living place where students, teachers and workers participate in the learning experience. In this context, the knowledge of users about different sectors, departments, or services may affect quality assurance due to communication problems between users and university managers. Therefore, it might seem necessary to improve the ease of access to information in order to increase user participation in the quality assurance process.

This project has the main aim of improving the intern quality guarantee process of the School of Education at the Complutense University of Madrid, considering the perspective of the different actors participating in this context: students, teachers, administrative and services staff.

The project includes 4 phases. In the first one, information related to the handling of complaints, suggestions, and congratulations is analyzed, considering different points of view (teachers, students or administration staff). This phase will conclude by producing a report that compiles all the difficulties and problems frequently reported. Subsequently, in a second phase, the team searches, selects and reviews all the regulations and administrative procedures related to the needs detected in the previous phase. Regulations will be analyzed considering the international level, national regulations, as well as specific norms in the level of the Complutense University of Madrid and the School of Education. The identification of typologies of information and connections between them will allow the reorganization of the content, improving the understanding and searching process in the website of Quality hosted in the School of Education webpage.

Based on the documentation resulting from the processes described, several information materials are produced to facilitate both the information and the handling of complaints by the students, as well as by the other groups involved, that is, teachers or services staff. Graphic supports such as infographics or decision trees will be included in that public information, as well as lists of "frequently asked questions" with their answers.

In the final phase of the project, assessing the impact of the project will be performed using three systems. Firstly, a pre-post methodology will be applied, considering changes in users knowledge using a specifically designed questionnaire. Secondly, a survey will be used to evaluate the new content on the website, considering both content and structure. Finally, the development of a discussion group will be used to evaluate the new website and to suggest proposals for improvement.

Keywords:

Innovation, quality assurance process, university community, management of quality.