Abstract:

In January 2010 new standard for higher education in Estonia (“Kõrgharidusstandard”) regulating requirements related to institutions and persons working in higher education came into force. According to this new standard all the academic staff of institutions of higher education have to be evaluated periodically. Before that legislative act there were different evaluation systems in some institutions, but nowhere was carried out a systematic and modern evaluation process related to contemporary requirements of higher education.

According to the University Law the evaluation process of academic staff is a periodical assessment of working results and meeting the requirements set to academic positions. The aim of the process is to support the personal development and career development options of academic people. Also the suitability to the position is evaluated. The evaluation process is also an important management tool related to the development plans of the institution.

In Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences (EEUAS) the bases of evaluation model were:
• The evaluation has to be in accordance with the values and overall strategy of the school
• The evaluation process has to relieve not complicate the overall management
• The evaluation process has to be related to and has to support other internal processes
• The evaluation has to encourage cooperation, teamwork and personal development
• The evaluation process is not for punishment but for support and feedback

Parallel to EEUAS setting up its evaluation model the development of competency model for university teachers of Estonia was carried out by higher education institutions working group (funded by Archimedes). That model was one base for EEUAS for setting the criteria.

The development of evaluation model by EEUAS was motivated by finding answers to following questions:
• What is a successful university teacher like?
• What do different parties (ministry, university as an employer, students, collogues, etc.) wait from university teachers?
• How much academic freedom is there despite of all the requirements?
• How to ensure that by achieving all the competences the teachers do not loose “their own face”?
• How to ensure that the teacher gets support for his/her development form the evaluation process.

The first version of evaluation model of EEUAS was ready by the spring in 2010 and by spring 2011 three phases of evaluation were already carried out. In the autumn of 2011 a survey among the teachers who passed the evaluations will be carried out. The aim of the survey is to investigate how do the teachers think about the evaluation process, how could it be improved etc.

Current article describes the development of evaluation system of EEUAS and the first results of evaluation processes. The aim is to spread the experience with other interested institutions of higher education and other parties.

Keywords:

Applied higher education, evaluation, evaluation model, evaluating the academic staff, competency model.