Main activities
The PROFFORMANCE Assessment Tool and Incentive Systems for Developing Higher Education Teachers' Performance project had been implemented between 2020 and 2022. Here are the main activities of the project.
Benchmarking
Mapping of higher education institutional strategies and practices on teachers' assessment, development and incentives in the participating countries, reviewing research results and relevant literature.
The PROFFORMANCE consortium (profformance.eu) published the final report of the benchmarking survey conducted in November 2020 among 156 higher education institutions of its 6 partner countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Serbia). The aim of the survey was to map institutional approaches to quality enhancement and support of teaching and learning, regarding assessment systems, staff development and teacher training practices. The survey aimed to search for and identify good examples, best practices and lessons to be learned.
Peer-learning activities
Organization of 3 international peer learning activities (PLA) on teachers' roles, skills and relations to students/stakeholders to determine the focus and questions of the teachers' performance assessment tool.
The aim of the PLAs (expert meetings - peer-learning activities) was to set the criteria for teachers' roles, tasks, and skills for the assessment tool to evaluate teachers' performance according to the defined areas. PLAs content was elaborated based on the benchmarking activity, the synthesis report of state-of-the-art and best practice collection and the experts’ input. In working groups, experts defined criteria upon which the related assessment tool questionnaires were based and tried to present recommendations on incentives. As a follow-up of the PLAs smaller groups of experts (4-5) were to work on drafting PLA reports, the assessment tool questions, and policy recommendations on incentives.
Elaboration of a teachers' performance assessment tool
Finalizing and customizing the assessment tool - (teachers, student, managerial, external, and self-assessment) versions.
The Assessment Tool was elaborated by the PROFFORMANCE consortium with the collaboration of 11 partners and more than 20 outstanding international experts. The project aimed to elaborate a joint criteria model for an assessment tool for teachers’ performance that may be customized to Higher Education Institutions' own needs in all European Higher Education Area (EHEA) countries. The development process started in November 2020 and finished in October 2021. PROFFORMANCE experts worked together online synchronously in the frame of peer learning activities and working group meetings and asynchronously on online co-working platforms with the involvement of external experts and stakeholders as well. After collecting teachers' tasks and roles, the structurization and rationalization process started and the EU and EHEA priorities have been defined as horizontal aspects. Finally, upon the model of the self-assessment version of the assessment tool, the peer and student versions have been adjusted as well.
The result is a well-rounded assessment tool for higher education teachers’ performance evaluation, that covers a wide range of activities related to teaching and learning. It evaluates teachers’ performance from the view of the teachers themselves, their peer colleagues, and their students, and it offers the possibility to draw attention to the European Union’s and European Higher Education Area’s priorities such as: digitalization, internationalization, inclusion, and sustainability.
Collection of good practices based on the evaluation system criteria
The PROFFORMANCE Teaching Excellence Database is an online database which contains 126 good practices of Higher Education Teachers from HEIs of the PROFFORMANCE consortium partner countries. Good practices have been collected in the frame of PROFFORMANCE International HE Teacher Award.
Recommendations for establishing an incentive scheme at institutional, national, EU and EHEA levels
In the frame of the project, the PROFFORMANCE benchmarking survey mapped institutional approaches to the quality enhancement and support of teaching and learning, regarding assessment systems, staff development and teacher training practices. The survey searched for and identified good examples, best practices and lessons to be learned.
A set of recommendations have been elaborated by László Horváth (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary) in the following themes:
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Teaching and Learning Strategy
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Strategic alignment
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Student involvement
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Performance management system specifications
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Implementation
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Support
Read the recommendations here >>
Dissemination
Profformance project dissemination had been happening through different channels.
Profformance website
The basic dissemination channel has been the project website: profformance.eu .
All project materials can be reached at https://profformance.eu/en/profformance-2020-2022
All events, products, and results have been communicated on this website - it has a dissemination page https://profformance.eu/dissemination.
Online tools (websites, publications, newsletters, etc)
The TPF and partners also used their different communication channels for dissemination - website, online newsletter, online publications - these are also collected in categories indicating the topic with hyperlinks containing texts in English or national languages on the topic.
The hyperlinks under the different categories are news on the relevant issue (project, award, tool, final event, etc)
The page collects also news and webpages of the partner countries and the universities. This is indicated in each part.
Events
The final event has been the greatest dissemination channel - as it was the first physical event after COVID.
Direct mails
All news has been also sent around through direct mail and professional lists.
by all partners - to all universities in the country
and also to participants in different PROFFORMANCE activities.
