ULagos academics presented a relevant panel in the framework of the Congress of the Americas 2021.

In the framework of the Congress of the Americas that took place this week, on Tuesday, October 19, the parallel session “Quality Assurance and Continuous Improvement in University Internationalization” was presented with Dr. Oscar Diaz, Director of International Relations of our University as moderator and Prof. Karen Vazquez, Executive Secretary of International Relations, as speaker.

During the session, three cases were presented that explored the concept of quality assurance and the mechanisms that have been implemented in different institutions of Higher Education in Chile, Colombia, and Nicaragua.

The session began with an exploration of the differences in each of the countries, addressing the policies, procedures, processes, and mechanisms for quality assurance installed in each institution.  Special attention was paid to institutional coordination at different levels (management team, faculties, departments, research centers) and to evaluation indicators, instruments, tools, evidence, and resources, explains Dr. Diaz.

The presentation of the cases and the dialogue was of great interest and the live session was attended by 100 participants from the 32 countries that are participating in the CAEI.

The work contributes to the evaluation of quality assurance and the process of continuous improvement of internationalization strategies in higher education and their impact on institutional performance.

Consulted academic Karen Vázquez said “Internationalization has become an increasing trend in the management of higher education institutions. Despite its importance in institutional strategic plans, there is still limited attention to quality assurance and impact assessment, because one of the first problems in addressing the issue lies in the wide range of concepts on quality and the concrete application in each educational reality of each system.  Nevertheless, the trend indicates that internationalization will increasingly impact world rankings and institutional evaluation processes, which is why its study is so important. Substantively, the specific question is how internationalization is supporting institutional educational models and the creation of knowledge that each institution deploys. That is why it is so necessary to evaluate the results of the internationalization strategies that cover the substantive university functions in a transversal way (undergraduate and graduate teaching, research, and linkage with the environment)”.

You can find the activity in the following link: