Hacia una evaluación integral del profesorado universitario: La experiencia de la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña

Abstract

Introduction. The Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) has a consolidated model to evaluate the teaching activities of their academic staff, designed to meet the requirements of the European Higher Education Area. This evaluation model has been certified by the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AQU Catalunya), and it is based on the most stringent requirements. In addition, it also has accurate information about the research activity of the faculty members, measured using the number of accredited research periods, their participation in research projects, their involvement in post-graduate activities and the number of PhD theses being advised. Method. By employing the information acquired over the years we analyze the different indicators which allow the implementation of evaluation policies at the university level. These indicators include the teaching activity, the results of the research done by the faculty members, and their involvement in universitary management, allowing us to obtain a rich picture of their overall activity, without being bureaucratic or intrusive. Results. In this paper we present a global evaluation framework, which includes both research and the teaching activities. Discussion. We also show the results obtained using this evaluation framework, and we discuss the impact of the evaluation procedure in the academic activity of the university.