Quality Assurance of Educational Programmes at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zürich)

Abstract

To control teaching quality, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zürich) has developed a three part system: Firstly questioning the students every third semester about the lectures they attend and their lecturers; secondly questioning the graduates about their career embarkation and the type of employment sought (this is done by means of a questionnaire which is sent with the diploma) and finally evaluation of a department by an international expert commission every six to nine years. The latter point the evaluation of a department can be broken down into three further elements: the actual evaluation of the department by external experts; the self evaluation of the department looking at its aims, strengths and weaknesses in preparation of the external evaluation and finally the questioning of graduates of that particular department two to six years after completion of their studies about their career and studies through the retrospective eyes of a young professional.