RIACES has formulated a Glossary of terms concerning the Systems and processes of quality evaluation and assurance. It was built on the base of a wide consultation and the participation of its members.
Introduction
Project of actualization of RIACES’s International Glossary of terms related to higher education quality evaluation and accreditation.
It is the main goal of the RIACES Glossary to be the fundamental reference in the Spanish-speaking Iberoamerican space, for the signification of the most relevant and frequently used terms in higher education quality evaluation and assurance. This Glossary must be a useful and efficient tool for quality evaluation agencies and also for Ministries and educational instances that has responsibilities and competencies in Tertiary Education. Given this, the Glossary must present a permanent will for actualization and adaptation to the Iberoamerican context as well as to the International.
Annex 1: Agencies, Institutions and Entities.
Annex 2: Different Glossaries Available in Internet
In RIACES’s First Assembly, celebrated in La Havana, a Commission of Experts (Commission Nº 5) was formed to elaborate, using a document presented to the Assembly by ANECA, a glossary of higher education quality evaluation and accreditation.
The Commission was composed by Armando Aruca (JAN, Cuba), Iván Carvajal (CONEA, Ecuador), Cecilia Dobles (SINAES, Costa Rica), Javier de la Garza (COPAES, Mexico), Harold José Rizo (CNA, Colombia) and, as project’s general Coordinator, Fidel Corcuera (ANECA, Spain).
Commission Nº 5 gathered in Madrid on 30th June and 1st and 2nd July 2005, in three working sessions out of which a first draft was presented, that was improved by the Commission's members in an online revision. In its Madrid reunion, the members of the commission used as starting point a document proposed by ANECA that considered 635 terms and acronyms with their definitions, and has been elaborated by the revision of the 34 glossaries mention in the annex.
The members of the Commission reviewed this working document, including or taking out the terms regarding its relevance for the higher education quality evaluation and assurance. The terms incorporated were those considered essential, given that the purpose of the Commission was not to include all possible terms, but those considered more relevant, having in mind the purpose of revisit it in the future.
The resulting document was distributed among RIACES’s members and send, in a printed draft, to Higher Education Institutions authorities of the Iberoamerican Countries.
After the review and comments received, the text of the glossary is re-elaborated, discussed and, finally approved in RIACES II Assembly in San José, Costa Rica.
