Workshop in Yerevan on Internal Quality Assurance of Digital Education
On 24-25 June of the current year, a two-day workshop was held at the National Centre for Professional Education Quality Assurance Foundation (Republic of Armenia), organised under the coordination of Yerevan State University (YSU) within the framework of the Erasmus+ eCAMPUS project - “Promoting Socially Distanced and Inclusive Campus Education in Armenian Universities: elCampus.” The workshop was dedicated to the internal quality assurance of digital teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education institutions of Armenia.
The workshop brought together representatives of the project’s European and Armenian partner universities and institutions. The European partners were represented by the following universities:
- University of Genoa (Italy)
- Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain)
- University of Lisbon (Portugal)
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden).
The Armenian higher education institutions and organisations also participated in full composition:
- Yerevan State University (YSU)
- Armenian State Pedagogical University named after Kh. Abovyan (ASPU)
- Yerevan State Medical University (YSMU)
- Northern University of Armenia (NUA)
- Institute for Informatics and Automation Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (IIAP NAS RA)
- Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Armenia (MESCS RA), Committee for Higher Education and Science.
YSU was represented at the workshop by the Director of the Quality Assurance Centre, A. Budaghyan, who serves as the project coordinator; the Deputy Director of the said centre, M. Santurjyan; the Director of the Continuing Education Centre, L. Kharatyan; the Dean of the Faculty of European Languages and Communication, M. Yaghubyan; lecturer of the same faculty, L. Sargsyan; and lecturers of the Department of History, Theory and Logic of Philosophy, S. Petrosyan and S. Khachatryan.
The principal objective of the workshop was to discuss, in collaboration with Armenian universities and international partners, the quality assurance standards for digital education, self-assessment instruments, and relevant implementation guidelines for higher education institutions in Armenia.
On the first day of the workshop, the European partners, Victor Cordas, Giovanni Adorni, Reyes Hernandez, and Rui Mendes, presented their experience in quality assurance of digital education. They underscored the importance of introducing and further applying internal quality assurance mechanisms in the field of digital education. Interesting discussions were also held on the application of artificial intelligence in education.
In the course of the workshop, further consideration was given to the “Digital Competence Framework for Lecturers of Higher Education Institutions of the Republic of Armenia” (DCF), developed within the project framework, as well as its significance from the perspective of the professional, responsible, and ethical use of digital technologies and AI tools.
On the second day of the workshop, the participants, under the coordination of representatives from European universities, discussed the principal objectives and key challenges of the DCF.
Throughout both days, the participants emphasised the importance of continuous quality assurance in digital and hybrid educational environments, with particular focus on learning outcomes and the collection of evidence pertaining to their attainment, the effectiveness of teaching and assessment practices, as well as the implementation of feedback mechanisms.
The central message of the workshop was as follows: regardless of whether instruction takes place in a face-to-face, online, or hybrid format, it is important to maintain the same standard of quality assurance, the same expectations, and the same level of accountability with respect to student learning outcomes.
