Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence to the producers of the work (peers). It constitutes a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards of quality, improve performance, and provide credibility (source: Wikipedia). Before the workshop the participants received an invitation for an online questionnaire to find out whether the quality of the develop program and the quality of the staff are sufficient or have to be improved.
The peers in this case are participants from the eight universities and representatives of the agricultural sector.
After a keynote on total quality management, the indicators are being introduced and the results of the questionnaire presented. Then, in small review groups, the participants formulate questions related to the indicators. Each group puts their questions to one of the universities and askes for evidence to prove the goals have been achieved. Beside the goals of the programmes, the participants also look at the students products, their internship reports and research reports. The review groups then report their findings and present their recommendations.
Although for a lot of the standards the judgement is ‘satisfactory’, others have to be improved. Nevertheless the efforts to develop and improve the curriculum is impressive, including identification of intended learning outcomes, content and assessment system. Based on the recommendations of the review groups, participants were asked to formulate their priorities for the coming year. For the four ‘new’ universities in the project it is very crucial and important to benefit from the experiences of the starting four universities. The recommendations of the participants, the chosen priorities and the recommendations by the experts are in the report Institutional Quality Assessment. Supporting the Development of Commercial Agriculture Programmes at Ethiopian Universities – AGRIBIZZ (Niche/Eth/019).
The participants were enthusiastic about the approach and methodology used: “The best workshop I ever had.” The outcomes of workshop will contribute to the further improvement of the developed Bachelor program ‘Agribusiness and Value chain management’ and to the linkage between the universities is strengthened.