Although online education is a paramount pillar of formal, non-formal and informal learning, institutions may still be reluctant to wager for a fully online educational model. As such, there is still a reliance on face-to-face assessment, since online alternatives do not have the deserved expected social recognition and reliability. Thus, the creation of an e-assessment system that will be able to provide effective proof of student identity, authorship within the integration of selected technologies in current learning activities in a scalable and cost efficient manner would be very advantageous. The TeSLA project provides to educational institutions, an adaptive trust e-assessment system for assuring e-assessment processes in online and blended environments. It will support both continuous and final assessment to improve the trust level across students, teachers and institutions. The system will be developed taking into account quality assurance agencies in education, privacy and ethical issues and educational and technological requirements throughout Europe. It will follow the interoperability standards for integration into different learning environment systems providing a scalable and adaptive solution. The TeSLA system will be developed to reduce the current restrictions of time and physical space in teaching and learning, which opens up new opportunities for learners with physical or mental disabilities as well as respecting social and cultural differences. Given the innovative action of the project, the current gap in e-assessment and the growing number of institutions interested in offering online education, the project will conduct large scale pilots to evaluate and assure the reliability of the TeSLA system. By the nature of the product, dissemination will be performed across schools, higher education institutions and vocational training centres. A free version will be distributed, although a commercial-premium version will be launched on the market.

The European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes (adopted by Ministers in Yerevan on 14-15 May 2015) is meant to be a huge step forward in removing barriers in QA for establishing and operating joint programmes. This approach has been design to enable any EQAR-registered external quality assurance agency to carry out a single QA procedure of a joint programme using the agreed European criteria and methodology. The outcomes of this single QA procedure should then be accepted by the other EHEA countries that are involved in the joint programme. However, despite the fact that this single accreditation approach was highly expected by all stakeholders, its practical implementation faced numerous challenges and obstacles. In 2017, when the ImpEA project was launched, only 19 out of 49 countries of the European Higher Education Area offered higher education institutions the possibility to use the European Approach at all. The main aim of the project was to support efficient implementation of the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes. This aim was meant to be achieved by successful completion of the following objectives: 1. Identifying key obstacles in implementation of the European Approach in the European Higher Education Area in general, and project partner countries in particular; 2. Supporting partner QA agencies in running EA-based programme accreditation procedures (ex ante and ex post); 3. Supporting partner HEIs in pursuing the external accreditation based on the EA; 4. Developing an EA implementation toolkit (set of recommendations and proposed solutions for the policy makers and QA agencies).The main target audience and direct impact groups of the project were the following: European and national policy-making bodies, higher education institutions, quality assurance agencies in terms of enhanced awareness and understanding of the European Approach. For the project partners and participants of of the project events, this was achieved through their direct involvement in, and contribution to the activities. This means in particular the work carried out in order to develop and deliver the intellectual outputs, training events, multiplier and dissemination activities.Above-mentioned members of the project target groups, not engaged in the project activities directly, this ‘enhanced capacity’ effect will be achieved through the project publications, dissemination activities and foremost, the availability of the European Approach online toolkit (www.impea.eu).The ImpEA project has received a very keen interest throughout its duration and past it. This means that the project was able to generate a robust outreach to the main target groups. More then 1650 participants took part in the project and third-party events, where the European Approach to Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes and ImpEA project were discussed and presented. The main participant groups were higher education institutions (approx. 1070 participants), quality assurance agencies (250), students (370), policy making bodies (100), stakeholder organisations (ENQA, ECA, ESU, EUA) and other interested parties (i.e.EQAR, ENIC-NARIC). The direct and indirect project dissemination activities were aimed to reach national, European and global audience. The wide outreach of the project has also direct and indirect impact on the main target groups. The HEIs benefit from undergoing EA-based accreditation procedure which, if it results with positive assessment, is automatically recognised in every EHEA country in which given joint programme is offered. This significantly reduces the bureaucratic burden comparing to current, national-based approach. Reduction of the administrative burden also facilitates development of new joint programmes as it encourages teaching staff, managers and students to engage in the simplify QA procedure. Successful achievement of the main sustainability-related project outcome, the EA online toolkit, supports the momentum for full implementation of the EA in EHEA. This comprehensive tool is a one-stop-shop and easily accessible medium for everyone interested in joint programmes and the European Approach. It is based on the knowledge and experience gained by the project partners in carrying out the project activities and intellectual outputs. Furthermore, its design has been strongly based on the qualitative and quantitative sources of information gathered throughout the project, i.e. online survey, focus groups, events participants' discussions and feedback, consortium brainstorming, etc. Therefore, it can be considered a sustainable source of long-term impact, beyond the project itself.In 2020, at the end of the ImpEA project, the number of EHEA countries accepting the EA-based accreditation procedure has significantly increased. This means that out of 49 EHEA countries, 29 introduced favourable legal frameworks.

Higher education (HE) in Morocco is regulated by statute with the state, through the Ministry, responsible for the planning, organisation, development, regulation and guidance of the system. Moroccan HE has been undergoing a process of reform for some years with recent publications indicating a rising awareness of the need to accelerate those that are more closely linked to the needs of the country, it students and its employers. A significant step was taken in 2014 with Law no 80-12 setting out the establishment of the Agence National d’Evaluation et d’Assurance Qualité de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche scientifique (ANEAQ). The ANEAQ will be taking a leading role in the implementation of the activities. The project will address a national priority by bringing together leading actors, experienced in the latest developments in national (and international) QA systems for HE, with the Moroccan authorities and universities. The Project will guide the development of a QA ‘tool kit’ to support policies and procedures relevant to Morocco. Amongst the deliverables, the project will establish a Code of Practice for the Management of QA, which will be used by the universities and by the Agency in its evaluations of the effectiveness and efficiency of university Quality Assurance systems. The project will play a major role in more closely aligning Moroccan HE with some of the most successful aspects of the European Bologna Process and thus contribute to enhancing recognition, mobility and internationalisation.

The project responds to the concerns expressed by stakeholders on the shortcomings in the labour market orientation of Higher Education (HE), focusing on the balance between practical and theoretical learning in HE and to mismatches between the skills sets of graduates and the skills they require during their early careers. EU countries have experienced a substantial increase in graduate unemployment and a decrease of quality of their employment. European students and graduates report continuously that they are worried about their careers. At the same time employers and employers’ organisations report they are having increasing difficulties in finding graduates with matching skills.In this Knowledge Alliance, Integrating Entrepreneurship and Work Experience into Higher Education (WEXHE), enterprises, associations and HEIs have come together to identify and analyse current provision of work experience in HEIs in 7 different EU countries, generating 75 case studies of work-based learning (WBL) involving all four types of disciplinary sectors (hard-pure, e.g. natural sciences; soft-pure, e.g. humanities and social sciences; hard-applied, e.g. medicine and soft-applied, e.g. social work) covering work placements, traineeships and entrepreneurships. Working with practitioners, it has created 9 comprehensive Packages of WBL, together with guidance on management, quality assurance, learning outcomes, funding and accreditation, as well as 3 Summary Reports covering the identified three modes of WBL: work placements, traineeships and entrepreneurship. These cover and support the 4 sectors and allow for tailoring to national contexts. The project aims to:• increase capacity of HE staff and enterprises to provide high quality work experience and entrepreneurship• identify what kind of WBL leads to high quality jobs• support the accreditation of WBL through ECTS and effective Quality Assurance• ensure that skills needs of employers are understood

With the continuous development of the knowledge-based society and the shared knowledge economy the role of higher education (HE) is in perpetual evolution with few constants: taking a central role in knowledge creation and innovation, building citizens for democratic societies, and providing trusted certifications. The Lebanese HE system is no exception in this regard. However, the sector has been spreading in the past two decades with a big number of institutions and programmes following different education systems. Despite great efforts supported by EU actions in the past years, the country has not succeeded in establishing yet a Lebanese agency that would be responsible for the quality and relevance of the numerous institutions, programmes and certifications. TLQAA+ is a follow up on TLQAA Tempus project. It aims at developing the culture of programmes’ evaluation and matching against national qualifications framework (NQF) for the sake of increased transparency and recognition of skills and certifications. TLQAA+ has multiple objectives. Its direct capacity building objectives fall under: i. Study the relations between recognition and quality assurance (QA), ii. Suggest a Lebanese QF, iii. Suggest recommendations regarding the QA for new delivery modes of courses and programmes and, iv. Develop necessary blocks for programmes’ evaluation and the usage of a NQF. These goals foster the culture of quality, dialogue and transparency at the programmes’ level and better serve in a Lebanese QA agency as well as internal programmes’ review. They will be experimented in the context of a pilot evaluation.In addition, the project will achieve many indirect objectives, among which: i. Nurture the climate of trust, ii. Produce a short course about internal QA units, iii. Set descriptive indicators to serve external or internal evaluation and strategic planning and, iv. Establish dialogue with the labour market based on transparency and recognition of certifications.