Solar Energy, Vol.173, 209-214, 2018
Development of a holistic method for assessing success of renewable energy study programs
Quality monitoring and success assessment of academic study programs is beneficial to satisfy the needs of students, lecturers and employers of the graduates. However, the diversity of processes involved (e.g. coaching, competence development or further training for lecturers) among the main actors (educational institutions, learners and professionals) make quality assessment on study program level a complex and challenging task. The integration of different stakeholders' views onto a quality assessment mapping is desirable for allowing a holistic understanding on the main success factors of a study program. In this paper a methodology, originally proposed to measure success of the implementation of Solar Home Systems amongst various stakeholders is applied to develop a first approach for assessing quality and success of Renewable Energy (RE) higher education programs. When summarizing this paper by focusing on success factors, contrastive views get apparent: lecturers highlight lecturers' characteristics, students refer to hands on experience and experts spot students' education (in terms of the curriculum, state of the art course content and course assignments) as the most important success factors in study programs.