Arie Nieuwenhuizen awarded with the Excellent Education prize 2017 for HAP-20203

The Executive Board of Wageningen UR highly values excellent education. Therefor the Executive Board awards a prize for excellent education on a regular basis.

Based on experiences in the past and suggestions from chair holders, the IPOP working group “Quality of Education” designed a method for rewarding excellent courses. A budget of 37.500 euro is set aside to reward the 30 best courses. In 2017, the awarding of the excellent education prize is done according to this procedure. A quality indicator is calculated on the results of questions on course set up, learning outcomes, teaching methods, previously acquired knowledge, overlap, the contribution of the lecturers to the learning process, examination and on the general rating of the course. This year also the two best courses with more than 400 students will be rewarded. To qualify for an Excellent Education Prize, a course has to meet two conditions; at least 10 students have filled in the course evaluation, and the response rate for the course was at least 20%.

The executive board holds in great esteem the opinions of students on their education. This is an important indicator whether Wageningen University provides education that inspires and meets students’ expectations. Student satisfaction is an important indicator for quality of education, but should not be the sole source of information. This is the reason the peer review of courses will be taken into account as well. In the near future  a successful peer review will be prerequisite for a course to receive a prize. This year, 47% of the courses in the list of prize winners has been peer reviewed. The percentage peer reviewed courses for all courses in 2016/2017 is 32%.

Based on the results of the course evaluations in 2015/2016 the 30 most appreciated courses have been identified. It contains 5 courses from AFSG, 1 course from the department ASG, 8 from ESG, 9 from PSG and 7 from SSG.

Congratulations for all course coordinators and their teams of lecturers, who have accomplished these results!  Well done!