Published on 16.05.2022 under Agency, General, Consulting, Community, STEM education
Quality assurance in networking
Building a network, getting all the important partners to participate, getting concrete input from them, organizing communication between the partners and and and - all of this requires a lot of effort and effort.
It's finally done and the actual networking begins. Then at some point – preferably quite early on – the question arises: What can be done to permanently check and ensure the quality of the network work?
Using the zdi.NRW network as an example, we show below a tried and tested form of quality assurance in network work:
zdi stands for "Future through Innovation.NRW" and, with over 5.000 partnerships with actors from the fields of science, business, schools, politics and society, is Europe's largest network for the promotion of young STEM students. There are MINT offers for schoolchildren in all districts and urban districts throughout NRW. In the past 15 years, zdi has reached over 2 million young people. zdi is coordinated by the Ministry of Culture and Science North Rhine-Westphalia (MKW). (Further information at: www.zdi-portal.de and https://mint-community.de). matrix has been commissioned by the MKW as the state office (LGS) with the operational implementation of the joint offensive zdi.
The MINT regions in North Rhine-Westphalia - the zdi networks - receive a seal of quality from the Ministry of Science every year if they participate in the quality assurance measures of the zdi-LGS.
Dialogue-oriented quality development in networking
This is a participatory and pragmatic quality assurance. We also say: dialogue-oriented quality development. On the other hand, it is explicitly not about scientific evaluation and accuracy or the perspective from research. In this respect, quality assurance within the zdi landscape takes place as a lively and open dialogue process with the aim of continuous improvement.
The basic principle of networking at zdi.NRW is regional individuality and self-support. There is no central funding for zdi from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Ministry of Science only provides a formal framework that each region must fill individually with its own structure and program. The networks achieve permanent legitimacy through regional consensus and by ensuring permanent basic funding from contributions from the regional partners.
Elements of quality assurance in networking
Building on this, the zdi quality assurance – in addition to a large number of accompanying measures – essentially comprises the following two elements.
- Quantitative survey as part of the zdi monitoring
This is an annual survey of fundamental figures in order to make developments clear and to identify development needs. Numbers are collected, among other things
- On the organizational / personnel structure: How many people are available with what percentage of jobs for which tasks?
- for course statistics: title, type of school, grade, location, course duration, number of participants, male/female
- on school partnerships: name of school, type of school, type of participation in network work
- on extracurricular partnerships: type (university, company, foundation, association, educational institution, ...), type of participation in the network work
- Annual qualitative interviews of the zdi-LGS with the carriers of the networks
The basis of the interviews is an extensive catalog of questions on eight important aspects of networking (see graphic). The talks are conducted by experienced regional advisors from the zdi-LGS, who try to take a comprehensive, holistic view from the outside of the network work in a region and also - very importantly - the development of the region under consideration with other regions (in the same period). to compare. This is achieved by the fact that the regional consultants of the zdi-LGS exchange information with each other before, during and especially after the interview phase of all 47 zdi networks, thereby coordinating their assessment standards and thus achieving a balanced overview of the developments in all zdi networks . In addition, these coordination processes are extremely helpful in identifying and sharing good practice between regions.
A final overview of the assessment is in the form of a spider diagram, which allows at a glance the development of each individual network compared to the previous year based on eight different aspects.
At the end of the evaluation process, the regional network and the zdi-LGS agree on a mutual formulation of goals and recommendations for action for the work of the zdi network in the following year. These are defined jointly, taking into account feasibility and appropriateness.
If the overall quantitative and qualitative assessment is positive, the zdi-LGS recommends that the MKW extend the zdi quality seal for one year.
Summary of quality assurance in networking
Finally, a few central points should be repeated again because they are of crucial importance for the overall process:
- The zdi quality assurance is not about educational policy control, but about pointing out deficits and potential compared to other networks and about ensuring the sustainability of a serious approach to promoting young talent through an outside perspective.
- In particular, there is no claim to completeness or scientific accuracy. It is not a scientific evaluation.
- In principle, the results of quality assurance cannot be viewed by outsiders, but only by the commissioning ministry and the regional network itself.
You can learn more about building a community and managing a community or network here: https://matrix-gruppe.de/blog/2022/04/19/community-management/
You can find out more about MINT funding in NRW & the zdi seal of quality 2022 here: https://zdi-portal.de/blog/mint-foerderung-in-nrw-auch-2022-ausgezeichnet-zdi-netzwerke-erhalten-diesjaehrige-qualitaetssiegel/
