The universities of applied sciences (HAW) in North Rhine-Westphalia are expanding their cooperation in the evaluation of studies and teaching education. The "Innovation in University Teaching" foundation is funding the network activities with almost 260,000 euros over the next three years.

A total of 22 out of 120 applications were selected in the nationwide funding guideline "Focus Networks". One of them is the Evaluation Working Group as a teaching-related network. Its project is based at the Aachen University of Applied Sciences, but the Hochschule Niederrhein (HSNR), one of 21 state and state-refinanced universities in the network, will also benefit from the funding.

Together with the FH Aachen, the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences and the NRW University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration, the HSNR prepared the application. "We are all facing new challenges that we can meet better if we exchange ideas and learn from each other more intensively in the future," says David Peters of HSNR, who coordinates the working group for the network together with Jörg Jörissen of FH Aachen.

For more than 20 years, the working group has offered the opportunity for HAW employees from the field of evaluation to exchange ideas. In general, this field of work includes regularly evaluating programme content and courses so that they can be further developed and remain at a high level of quality. For this purpose, student surveys are conducted, for example. In the network's working group, cross-university topics are discussed and further developed in regular meetings, including models for student success, evaluation methods and data protection.

The funding is intended to help consolidate the structures of the working group. To achieve greater presence and reach, the network plans to meet four times a year in the future instead of twice - whether on-site, online or hybrid. According to David Peters and Nadine Israel from the Evaluation Coordination Office at HSNR, an annual symposium is also planned, which universities from all over Germany will be able to attend in the future.

Other disciplines such as university didactics or quality management are to be involved, and students and lecturers are to be included even more intensively. Their perspective is particularly important because the topic of evaluation is about assessing teaching offers and learning processes and improving them for optimal apprenticeship of students.