Internal Evaluation Committee

Department of Music and Dance

At the University of Nicosia there is an internal programme evaluation process in place. The Council of the Department of Music & Dance appoints internal and external evaluators who are responsible for the evaluation of the running programmes. They evaluate the programmes and offer suggestions for improvement. The members of the committee examine the programmes’ progress, consider the feedback from the programmes’ stakeholders and make suggestions for improvement to the Department Council. Furthermore, each semester the School Dean, the Head of the Department and the coordinator of the concerned programmes address the programmes’ operations as well as any possible issues that may arise during the learning experience. Their findings and suggestions are also passed on to the Departmental Council.

Additional suggestions for improvement are offered by the faculty members of the Department in the form of issues to discuss in the Department Council meetings. In addition, all course syllabi are submitted to the course leaders (faculty members of the Department) and the program coordinator for feedback. The committee monitors the covered material in each class, the distribution of grades, the failure rates, etc. Self-assessments of the programme are also conducted via anonymous questionnaires distributed to the students.

Internal Programme Evaluation is carried out periodically and it involves faculty and students of the programme, as well as external academics and industry experts.

The Internal Programme Evaluation Process (IPEP)

The Internal Programme Evaluation Process (IPEP) is conducted as follows:

  1. IPEP is initiated 2 years after the accreditation of a programme by the Cyprus Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency (DIPAE). It is a 2-year process and is completed 1 year before the 5-year DIPAE accreditation of the programme expires, which is within the timeframe for submitting the programme for re-accreditation. In what follows, X denotes the year during which IPEP is initiated. The process is initiated at the beginning of October of an academic year.
  2. The Department to which the programme belongs will appoint the Internal Team of Reviewers (ITR) and the External Team of Reviewers (ETR):
    • ITR
      • 2 senior TRF from the programme (excluding the co-ordinator); one is appointed as chair
      • 1 student from the programme
    • ETR
      • 1 faculty member from another University who is an expert in the program area
  3. Each Programme coordinator will complete DIPAE’s relevant form(s) (those submitted for programme accreditation) and will send them to ITR and ETR.
    1. ITR will solicit feedback for the programme from faculty, students, alumni and industry experts and will examine relevant documents, course syllabi, learning and assessment material, human and physical infrastructure, etc.
    2. Each member of ETR will evaluate independently the programme and complete DIPAE’s External Programme Evaluation form(s) and send it/them to the chair of ITR
    3. ITR will evaluate the programme and complete DIPAE’s External Programme Evaluation form(s) incorporating and clearly indicating ETR’s comments/evaluation and send the form(s) to the Programme coordinator
    4. The Programme coordinator will prepare a report based on the ITR’s form(s) and present it to the Department Council and the Dean.
    5. Changes to the programme curriculum, requested budget for the program, hiring (if any) of new faculty members will take place, subject to the approval of the Department, School, Senate and Council.
    6. The programme coordinator will amend DIPAE’s relevant form(s) (completed as per point 3), under the instructions/in consultation with the Head of Department/Dean and submit it/them to the University Internal Quality Assurance Committee (UIQAC).
    7. UIQAC will provide feedback to the programme coordinator.
    8. The programme coordinator will prepare the final form(s) for submission to DIPAE.

Recently, an Internal Programme Evaluation took place according to the process described above for the programs which were up for re-accreditation.