It is mandatory for every examination board to report annually in writing about their activities.
The purpose and usefulness of an annual report are among other things:
- justifying the method of working;
- to provide an overview of and accountability for actions undertaken, and activities, in particular in relation to the statutory tasks;
- to provide an overview of decisions taken (management information) / it supports the consistent ruling
- to reflect on and possibly adjust one's own functioning; check the PDCA cycle;
- indicate plans for the coming year;
- to provide input for improving the quality of assessment (identification, recommendations).
In the case of accreditations, it is likely that a visitation panel will ask for these reports and study them.
Annual reports also display a piece of history, which can be very useful to inform new members.
Send it in or discuss it?
The EB submits the report to the dean. Although the law does not stipulate that a dean and the EB should have a meeting to discuss the report, it does seem advisable for both parties to organize such a meeting. Identified bottlenecks, concerns, and plans can be explained and discussed in this meeting. The annual report can also provide a nice opportunity to organize a meeting with the programme director to discuss more fundamental themes, positive developments, identified areas for improvement, and plans for next year.
Format for an annual report
There are no legal rules governing the content or form of such a report. In the UT Quality Assurance Framework for Student Assessment UT (Dec. 2016) some guidelines are provided, see the box below.
As part of a UT expert meeting for Examination Boards, a format for an annual report was drawn up and later revised in a Platform meeting (revised version; Dutch). This format was provided as an example to give an overview of the subjects that could be addressed in such an annual report. Other examples and overviews of topics can be found for instance in: Handreiking Examencommissies 2021 of the Vereniging van Hogescholen (page 60-62; Dutch).
Another example and overviews of topics can be found for instance in: TUE-Annual Report for the academic year
.
>> We would love to place your format or annual report as examples! Please send it to us.