The Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences sees itself as a regional university with the task of providing impetus and innovation for the benefit of companies and institutions in the Lower Rhine region. In addition to research and teaching education, the performance dimension of transfer is therefore increasingly becoming the focus of activities. With the Center for Continuing Education, the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences has created an institution that supports the faculties in the development and organization of academic continuing education. In this way, it positions itself as a transfer-oriented university not only in the area of research, but also in the area of teaching education. The Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences pursues three main goals by offering a portfolio of continuing academic education:

• The Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences wants to use continuing education to make the knowledge available at the university available to target groups other than traditional students.
• The Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences wants to sharpen its profile as a "transfer-oriented university" through continuing education, because continuing training is an essential element of transfer.
• As a "partner of the region," the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences strengthens the region's attractiveness and competitiveness by offering continuing education "on site" and ensuring that specialists and managers can not only be trained at the university, but can also continue their education and remain in the region.

All continuing education programs offered by the Center for Continuing Education meet the same quality standards as the undergraduate degree programme of the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences. Timeliness, relevance and practical orientation distinguish our continuing education formats. Whether certificate studies, certificate courses or training. At our locations in Mönchengladbach and Krefeld or "in-house" at your site.

Quality features of our university certificates
As a university, we offer scientific continuing education. Scientific continuing education requires that applicants have special qualifications for admission: a completed university degree and one year of professional experience or a completed vocational training and three years of professional experience. Our university certificate courses are taught by academically trained teaching staff or by professional practitioners together with a professor. Scientific methods are used or taught and professional publications are included. The contents of our courses can be placed in a Degree programme of the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences. A certificate of the university is only awarded against an examination performance.
The offer of scientific continuing education is planned, conceptualized and carried out by the lecturers of the faculties of the university. Practical relevance and application orientation of the contents are at the center of their didactic concept. For each certificate course, the lecturers create a module description that makes learning and competence goals transparent and is published on the course homepage. This module description is reviewed and approved by the faculty council responsible for the course. Specially developed examination regulations, which have also been approved by the relevant faculty councils, govern the general conditions for examinations in academic continuing education and are also published on the homepage. The Examinations Board of the relevant faculty is responsible for the proper conduct of the examination procedure, and the Chair of the Examinations Board and the person responsible for the course both sign the university certificate.

Quality assurance through evaluation
The Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences has established an evaluation procedure as an instrument for quality assurance of its continuing education courses. The evaluation is used to check the individual success of the participants in continuing education as well as the relevance of the contents of the continuing education. A further goal is the optimization of the university certificate courses under quality aspects and the determination and examination of the adequate basic conditions for a university certificate course. The evaluation process for academic continuing education is closely integrated into the university's ongoing evaluation process for undergraduate teaching education.

Evaluation of continuing academic education begins even before the course begins. In order for the lecturers to be able to adapt the course content as precisely as possible to the prior knowledge and needs of the participants, the team at the Center for Continuing Training conducts an expectation survey via the "Moodle" learning platform. After the course has been completed, it is evaluated by the participants with the help of a standardized questionnaire. In feedback meetings, the team of the Center for Continuing Education analyzes the results of the evaluation together with the lecturers and derives optimization measures for the didactic concept as well as the framework conditions of the certificate courses.

Our continuing education courses are regularly given top marks by participants. This is shown, for example, by the

• Evaluation results of the certificate courses from SS 2016 to WS 2017/2018
  Evaluation results
• Evaluation results of our pilot program "Scientific continuing education for the digital economy" (2018-2020):
  Evaluation results certificate courses
  Evaluationresults CAS certificate studies