Quality Assurance (Health Sciences)

Research Master Health Sciences & MSc Health Sciences

We aim to continually monitor and improve the quality of our programmes and courses. Of course we cannot do this by ourselves, which is why we make an effort to involve many different actors in our quality assurance. On this page you can find more information about the different ways we work on the quality of our education.

Course evaluations

It is important to us to give all of our students a voice and listen to their feedback. After all, you are why we do what we do! This is why, at the end of each course, you are required to fill out an evaluation form about that course. We have made the evaluation mandatory to avoid selection bias in the outcomes and to make sure every student is heard. Although we are able to see which students have filled out the questionnaires, we are not able to see which answers came from which student. This anonymity ensures that students can feel free to speak their minds. 

After the deadline for filling out the evaluations has passed, the results are shared with the teachers as well as with  Health Sciences staff. The teachers are then asked to fill out a so-called PDCA-form (Plan, Do, Check, Act) where they register how they plan to apply the feedback in following editions of the course. The  Health Sciences staff may also contact the teacher to discuss the outcomes, in case a course scores lower than 4 (out of 5).

Assessment Committee

The Assessment Committee is a collaboration between the examination board, the Graduate School, and Health Sciences & Clinical Research examiners. This committee meets multiple times a year to discuss assessment policy, as well as to host an ‘assessment carousel’. During this carousel, two or three teachers join the meeting to discuss their course assessment, to ask questions, and to learn from each other. The teachers get constructive feedback from the committee during this meeting, and having multiple sets of eyes take a look at the assessment often offers a new perspective. Every course is discussed in the carousel on a rotating schedule.

Assessment policy

As part of our quality assurance, the Graduate School has formulated an assessment policy. This document outlines our views on education and assessment, and provides a clear structure for the quality assurance of our programmes. It also lists our ambitions for the future. If you are interested in reading thisassessment policy, please contact graduateschool@erasmusmc.nl. 

Collaboration

There are a number of different actors involved in monitoring the quality of our assessment and education, such as the Examination Board, the Education Committee Research Masters (ECRM), and the student panel. To ensure they can do their job properly, we work to optimize the collaboration between the Graduate School and these supervisory bodies by communicating openly and being as transparent as possible.

Education Committee Research Masters & Student Panel

The Erasmus MC Education Committee Research Masters is responsible for continuous evaluation of the educational contents of the six Erasmus MC research masters programs Clinical Research, Health Sciences, Infection and Immunity, Molecular Medicine, Neuroscience and Genomics in Society. The student panel is responsible for providing both requested and unsolicited advice, as well as feedback on specific courses, assessment and programmes or related educational issues. You can find more information on the page Student representation.

Teacher professionalization

Our teachers play a major role in our education. They are experts in their field and have a wide knowledge of everything there is to learn about Health Sciences. To allow teachers to transfer that knowledge to our students in the most effective way possible, we work on the professionalization of our teaching staff. This is done in multiple ways, for example through meetings discussing the courses, by providing workshops on different topics, and through an online ‘Teaching Platform’. 

Aside from our own efforts, the Examination Board has also appointed official examiners for all assessment. Examiners are experienced teachers appointed to be in charge of the examination for a specific course, who have a BKO (basic qualification for education) or SKO (senior qualification for education). The examination board also works on the professionalization of these examiners through meetings centered around different assessment-related themes.