A practical case for the self-evaluation management of an European Computer Science School

Quality evaluation in universities has become one of the highest priorities for European governments and public administrations. In addition, the Education Ministers of the European Union have agreed that a common environment for education is needed. Evaluation has become an instrument to accredit and, thus, to guarantee the compatibility between higher education systems. The key issue in Europe in relation to evaluation and quality assurance of higher education is no longer so much why evaluate but how to evaluate. In this sense, in Spain the Council of Universities has developed (and carries out) general guidelines that apply to all universities. However, this is not sufficient. A characteristic of the process is that it stresses the need to optimize the management task. This paper explains how this problem has been solved in the self-evaluation for the Computer Engineering Program of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid