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SØREN KRISTENSEN Moving from good to better – from quality awareness to quality management in transnational learning mobility
During: •• Monitoring; •• Tutoring (here: a person in the sending institution who follows the learning process); •• Mentoring (for placements: a person at the host enterprise who follows the learning process). After: •• Evaluation of learning outcomes (both intended and non-intended); •• Clarification (discussion experiences and putting them into perspective); •• Recognition and certification; •• Reintegration; •• Guidance (helping the participant act on new skills, insights and competences acquired during the stay abroad). These are the elements that constitute the basis for a successful learning experience, and which consequently should be used as the basis for a quality assurance strategy. The second step, then, entails these criteria being applied to a specific and concrete project (or type of project), and making them operational (measurable) in relation to this (e.g. how many hours of linguistic preparation, how much time for mentoring, which access to guidance afterwards, etc.). This step – the actual application of a quality assurance system to a concrete mobility project – is often termed quality management. Whereas both the definition of quality and quality criteria and the development of a quality awareness are to a large extent top-down processes, the quality-assurance process must necessarily involve practitioners, since it is concerned with the concrete translation of generic criteria into measurable elements of an operational strategy in relation to a concrete project (or type of project). However, in order for generic criteria to be transformed into a concrete quality assurance strategy, a practitioner must have (access to) the necessary knowledge and experience that allows him or her to do this in the most effective and cost-efficient manner. It is not enough to state that, for example, cultural preparation is important – the promoter/operator must also be able to come up with a plausible methodology and resource allocation that ensure the stipulated goals can be met. Experienced promoters may have their own ideas on how to do this. However, less-experienced operators will need an input of knowledge from the outside. The way this input of knowledge is most frequently conveyed to the operator is through so-called examples of good practice. However, as was stated above, this concept is not necessarily a straightforward one. It is not sufficient merely to assess whether a given action worked or not, for practices that have yielded results for a particular target group under particular circumstances and at a particular juncture in time are not necessarily good. To obtain this label, they must first and foremost be transferrable: the analysis must address the effectiveness of practices in relation to different variables; i.e. the conditions necessary