International master’s programmes at the University of Oulu:internal evaluation report 2011/2012

Foreword Universities in Finland are themselves responsible for the quality of the education they offer, and this evaluation of the International Master’s Programmes (IMP’s) at the University of Oulu is aimed at offering tools for the development of quality. By paying special attention to issues of fairness and reliability, every effort has to be made to ensure that the evaluations are perceived of as being credible; the evaluation team for the present endeavour was formed with complete awareness of the special challenges present in an internal evaluation. In meeting these challenges all those involved in the evaluation aspire to promote good practices in the IMP’s, and develop the quality of education provided at the University of Oulu. This is the first time that the University of Oulu has embarked upon an internal evaluation of its IMP’s, though it is not the first internal evaluation. The Education Council of the University promotes the University strategy, and with this in mind has appointed Strategy Support Teams. This evaluation is connected to the work of the Strategy Support Team with responsibility for promoting internationalisation. In spring 2011, the Chair of the Strategy Support Team with responsibility for the smooth and timely progress of undergraduates’ studies presented to the Education Council an evaluation report on first year student achievement. The experiences from that evaluation have proved invaluable, both in the inception and execution the IMP evaluations; a method that had been good in the first place was developed and improved, and it is the intention that this development process will continue in the future. The evaluation team was very pleased to discover that there is plenty of good practice to be found among the International Master’s Programmes, and it is the wish of the evaluators that the University takes steps to ensure that the good practices are shared and become standard practice for all of Oulu’s IMP’s. At the same time, we are concerned that easy routes to what might be termed “surface internationalisation” should not undermine the efforts of well-planned and well-resourced programmes. The University is as strong as its weakest link. On behalf of the Internationalisation Strategy Support Team, I would like to thank the staff and students of the IMP’s for taking part in the evaluation. I would also like to thank the evaluation team for all the time and effort that they dedicated to the evaluation, and for their commitment to developing the provision of high quality education for international students at the University of Oulu. Gordon Roberts, Chair of the Evaluation Team