ESMU Benchmarking in European Higher Education

Early 1999, ESMU launched a European Benchmarking programme on university management. ESMU "Benchmarking in European Higher Education" activities are designed to improve the use of benchmarking in higher education.

The ESMU benchmarking programme aims at measuring and promoting good practices in university management. The programme works on an annual basis and focuses each year on different topics such as on management processes such as internal quality assurance, student services, e-learning strategies, and research management. Quantitative indicators are gathered but above questionnaires focus on qualitative data gathering related to management processes. In the course of the benchmarking programme, participating higher education institutions produce self evaluation reports and ESMU experts evaluate higher education institutions’ reports against a set of good practices. Participating higher education institutions meet in workshops to discuss and exchange good practices.

ESMU offers benchmarking courses and support to benchmarking groups on demand, building on extensive experience gained with collaborative benchmarking groups and two EU-funded projects. The projects ran in two phases:

1. Phase I (2006-2008): the first phase aimed to better understand the concepts and practices of benchmarking with a view to improve its use in higher education. An analysis of collaborative benchmarking in higher education was carried out with extensive desk research. The project produced:

- An online tool with examples, advice and an online bibliography

- A practical handbook with a review of literature and a step by step approach to benchmarking

- An extensive desk research report on benchmarking in higher education

- Guidelines for good practices for effective benchmarking

- A platform to promote exchange and good practices for benchmarking in higher education

2. Phase II (2008-2010): in the second project phase these results were taken further with:

- Four benchmarking groups of HEIs for wide exchange, advice and best practices in workshops. These groups focus on governance, university-enterprise cooperation, curriculum reforms and lifelong learning;

- An online collaborative learning community (in a restricted are of the website);

- Benchmarking tools (questionnaires, reports, handbooks of good practices);

- A series of dissemination events.

A handbook and a practical guide on benchmarking is available on the website: http://www.education-benchmarking.org/

Benchmarking elearning in European universities

A benchmarking exercise on e-learning was launched in the spring of 2009. The exercise was initiated by the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and gathered a group of nine European universities. The project started in April 2009 and ended December 2009.

The benchmarking exercise was co-organised by ESMU and European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU). It combined ESMU's collaborative benchmarking approach (benchmarking through a comparative exercise of good practices between universities) and EADTU's more individually-oriented approach.

EADTU's E-xcellence online tool, consisting of a set of 33 e-learning benchmarks, was used as a starting point to the benchmarking exercise.

The aim of the benchmarking project was to identify good practices on e-learning by learning from other participants. All participants defined an action plan/roadmap for improvement.

Participating universities were:

1. University of Southern Denmark
2. University of Copenhagen
3. Aarhus University
4. University of Latvia
5. Lund University
6. University of Kuopio
7. University of Porto
8. University of Bologna
9. University of Oulu

The University of Southern Denmark hosted the online questionnaire for the benchmarking exercise (accessible only to project participants).

For more details see http://www.esmu.be/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94&Itemid=94

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