QUALITY

QUALITY GLOSSARY

Accreditation
An external evaluation and quality assurance process conducted by an external evaluator organization to assess whether a higher education program meets pre-defined academic and field-specific standards in a particular area.

Accreditation Body
Institutions and organizations, either domestic or international, that conduct external evaluation and accreditation activities.

Key Performance Indicator
Performance indicators that are most critical to the institution's current and future success in line with its strategic goals and objectives. They are also defined as fundamental performance indicators that are most reflective of the institution’s uniqueness and considered essential for monitoring its development in relation to its mission and objectives.

Interim Evaluation Program
The process in which higher education institutions that are fully or conditionally accredited within the scope of the institutional accreditation program are evaluated by the Board at the end of the second year following the date of accreditation.

Interim Evaluation Report
The report prepared by the evaluation team for a higher education institution assessed under the interim evaluation program.

European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA)
A non-governmental organization that promotes the dissemination of knowledge, experience, and good practices in quality assurance of higher education among European quality assurance agencies, public authorities, and higher education institutions.

European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS)
A systematic method for assigning credits to program components (modules, courses, placements, thesis work, etc.) of a higher education program for the following purposes:

To facilitate the understanding and comparison of study programs for both local and international students;

To promote the recognition of student mobility and formal, non-formal, and informal learning;

To assist universities in organizing and revising study programs.

European Qualifications Framework (EQF)
The European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF) is a lifelong learning policy tool developed to promote the understanding and comparability of qualifications. EQF enables the use of qualifications by workers and learners in another country by making them more understandable to employers, individuals, and institutions, and functions as a common reference tool connecting national qualification systems.

Information Management System
The information technology infrastructure and systems that enable an institution to collect, organize, store, and provide easy access to data when needed.

Information Management
The processes by which institutions identify, acquire, and share critical information to achieve their mission and strategies.

Evaluation Process
The processes referring to the institutional external evaluation program, monitoring program, institutional accreditation program, interim evaluation program, international institutional accreditation program, joint institutional evaluation and accreditation program, and the institute evaluation program conducted by YÖKAK.

Course Learning Outcomes
The knowledge, skills, and competencies that students are expected to acquire by the end of a course. They represent the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor achievements of students upon completion of the course.

External Evaluator
A qualified person appointed by the Higher Education Quality Council to conduct the external evaluation process within the scope of the institutional external evaluation program.

Educational Objectives
Clear and general statements that describe how a program plans to fulfill its educational mission and meet stakeholder needs. They define what graduates are expected to achieve a few years after completing the program.

Academic Staff
Refers to faculty members, instructors, and research assistants employed in universities.

Quality Assurance in Education and Training
Activities that include planning, implementation, evaluation, reporting, and quality improvement to ensure that education and training (program content, curriculum, assessment and approval of learning outcomes, etc.) meet the quality requirements expected by stakeholders.

Quality Policy in Education and Training
A framework established with the participation of institutional stakeholders that expresses the institution's approach to education, its priorities, objectives, and operational principles in educational processes.

Educational Program
A set of activities, content, and/or methods organized in a consistent sequence over a specified period to achieve the educational goals (acquisition of knowledge, skills, and/or competencies).

Europass
A system developed to ensure that individuals' qualifications are clearly and easily understood across Europe.

Accountability
The obligation to demonstrate that an activity has been carried out in accordance with accepted rules and standards and that performance results are fairly and accurately reported according to specified rules and/or plans.

Internal Evaluation
The process by which a higher education institution or program evaluates its own quality internally.

Internal Quality Assurance System
Includes the institution's quality assurance policy, standards in education and training, research, societal services, internationalization, governance standards, evidence of academic life in line with these standards, or steps for improvement. Specifically, it refers to mechanisms, evaluation processes, and relevant measurement and evaluation activities designed to determine whether the university's strategies aligned with its mission and vision—especially in the areas of education, research-development, and management—are being achieved.

Administrative Units
Administrative units in higher education that carry out support services for students and staff to support the core processes of universities.

Administrative Structure
The organizational structure established to manage the institution’s education, research, community contribution, and administrative support processes, and to ensure the institutionalization of all practices.

Human Resources Management
The strategic, comprehensive, and coherent approach to managing employees, who are the most valuable assets of institutions, contributing individually and collectively to the achievement of organizational goals.

Workload
The time/effort a student spends to achieve the intended learning outcomes.

Workload-Based Credit
A numerical value that indicates the total student workload required to complete a course aimed at achieving the intended learning outcomes.

Collaboration Management
The process of establishing and managing external collaborations in line with the institution’s mission and objectives to ensure sustainable benefit.

Improvement Cycle (PDCA Cycle)
A cycle of improvement consisting of the stages of Plan, Do, Check, and Act.

Monitoring Program
The evaluation process conducted by the Board to assess the quality development of higher education institutions that have been assessed within the scope of the institutional external evaluation program.

Monitoring Report
The report prepared by the monitoring team for the higher education institution assessed under the monitoring program.

Quality Assurance System
Encompasses all principles of planning and implementing internal and external quality assurance and accreditation processes in higher education institutions' education, research, societal contribution activities, and administrative services.

Quality Assurance Culture
The institutional, unit-level, and individual adoption and internalization of the quality assurance approach in a way that stakeholders can observe in daily academic life.