Elsevier Elsevier's annual themed edition, entitled "Studying," provides insights into how the country regards its Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes. In 2009 Elsevier published the assessments of professors and students regarding the Business Administration, Public Administration, Health Sciences and Industrial Engineering and Management programmes in Twente. The 2009 results show a clear improvement in comparison with the previous year. The Industrial Engineering and Management programme in Twente scored above average and much higher than the other technical universities.
The examination score reporting terms have improved considerably for all the educational programmes. This year's survey results were also more favourable than in the previous year for practicum placements in the Bachelor's programmes. In general, the facilities were found to be under the national average by both Bachelor's and Master's students. Of course, we hope that this point will enjoy vastly improved quality assessments after the Faculty's new building comes into use. The move is planned for the 2010 summer period.
As respects the Master's programmes, the Elsevier guide indicated that opportunities for specialisations in the Master's degree programmes could be improved. Better results are also possible in terms of student preparation for the labour market. Diverse quality improvements have already been made in the programmes, including changes to curricula, with the aim of achieving better assessments in these areas.
| Elsevier Survey Students Assessment of 2009 Bachelor's Programmes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Administration | Public Administration | Health Sciences | Industrial Engineering and Management | |
| University of Twente | 7,1 | 7,3 | 7,0 | 7,7 |
| National average | 7,2 | 7,4 | 7,3 | 7,4 |
The Business Information Technology and European Studies programmes were not reviewed in the Elsevier's quality assessment survey.
Quality assessments in both the Higher Education Choices Guide and Elsevier show that the School of Management and Governance programmes is in the ascendant. There is, however, still room for improvement. Two of the faculty programmes, Business Information Technology and Health Sciences, had assessments that exceeded the national average. The other programmes scored at the national average. The European Studies programmes, however, were not included in the national Higher Education Guide.
Business Information Technology scored very well in the survey and tied for top position with Computer Science in Amsterdam, as programmes that students found most interesting. The Guide's result for the BIT programme was confirmed by an excellent inspection report. Health Sciences tied with Rotterdam, Maastricht and Amsterdam for second place in the rankings; clear progress in comparison with last year's ranking of fifth place. Health Sciences will continue to improve with this year's fundamentally renewed curriculum.
Business Administration ended up in third place with five other universities behind it. From the 2007 academic year a phased redesign of the curriculum has been implemented. The Bachelor's Programme is now an interesting combination of all the sub-topics in business studies and it compares well to other programmes at a national level.
Public Administration still receives good assessments from experts, and the programme came third place among nine programmes. This is an improvement over the previous year when the programme came seventh. The majority of the criticism was reserved for the facilities in Enschede.
Industrial Engineering and Management at the UT, received an average final score and finished second with Eindhoven in the rankings. The UT's programme scored the best within the discipline in terms of the number of students who remained enrolled after one year.
It is true for all the programmes that quality improvements can be made with regard to the amount of contact hours spent with instructors. In various programmes there has already been progress brought about by adjustments and changes to a few of the courses. Additionally, the average score for the instructors and lesson material have been a focus for attention. Further work to achieve more intensive, proactive study counselling is being carried out at a faculty level. Study guidance is now available per programme, and proactive study information is also offered regarding choices available after the completion of foundation courses, including studying in other countries, among other related topics.
Based on current outcomes for planned improvements as well as improvements already in progress, we are very much looking forward to a survey based on more recent numbers.
| School of Management & Governance 2009 2010 Guide to Higher Education Choices |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business IT | Business Administration | Public Administration | Health Sciences | Industrial Engineering and Management | |
| UT programmes Total Score | 64 | 54 | 56 | 60 | 52 |
| Lowest to highest score among comparable programmes in the Netherlands | 40-68 | 36-66 | 52-74 | 54-70 | 46-58 |
| Number of programmes in comparison study | 8 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 3 |
| Ranking | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |