Model for integral evaluation/assessment of teaching, research and management of departments of the University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

In this paper we propose a method for evaluating the academic activities of university departments in order to improve them. The evaluation includes four basic elements: global diagnosis; definition of indicators and goal-values representative of good practices in teaching, research and management; implantation and development of politics aimed at achieving the intended goals and evaluation of results. This integral evaluation model was first implanted at the University of the Basque Country four years ago. The diagnosis shows that there are major differences between departments for a given set of relevant indicators, and that there is an inverse relationship between the number of students and the research activity of the department. For this reason, policies have been developed to recognise teaching credits for teachers involved in those activities the university wants to improve. The results showed that there are six types and that it is necessary to revise institutional policies to be specific and fitted to the characteristics of these six groups.