Little is known about how the complex notion of higher education quality is understood and (strategically) handled by a specific group of key university actors: directors of educational programmes. A framing analysis of in-depth interviews was conducted to explore how bachelor-programme directors in Dutch social science departments understand and…

In this contribution to the Special Issue of Studies in Higher Education, I describe developments during the COVID-19 pandemic in Dutch higher education along three lines. First, the context is outlined in chronological order. It concerns the evolution of the pandemic in the Netherlands, complemented by the general situation at my own university…

In recent years, the enhancement of learning and teaching has become a priority, not only for higher education institutions, but also for national governments, the European Union and the Bologna Process. This report aims to map the learning and teaching landscape in 28 higher education systems and to provide insight into how teaching enhancement…

Quality assurance has been at the core of the construction of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) since the very beginning serving as a tool for trust, which enables comparability of degrees Europe-wide and will foster the societies by increasing mobility. The European Students Union (ESU) launched the "QUEST for quality for…

The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has funded a five years program to encourage the use, creation and sharing of Open Educational Resources (OER) by teachers from various types of education. This program is known as Wikiwijs. Ultimo 2013, the program has come to an end. As some of the assumptions at the start of Wikiwijs proved…

The annual meeting of the ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education) IQA (internal quality assurance) Group gathered some 60 participants in the premises of the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO) in The Hague in June 2009. This seminar was a successful follow-up to the first ENQA IQA…

Dutch child care can be described as organized provision with care, guidance and additional education for children from 0-16 years old, by other people than parents or guardians in a way that is adapted to the space of twenty-four hours and the age of children and to the needs of parents or guardians. Child care in the Netherlands is characterized…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…