40 2011


IMAGING & ONCOLOGY


convergence, with a goal of creating a European Higher Education Area (EHEA). While voluntary, this movement has been gaining supporters and has now been dubbed ‘The Bologna Process.’8


The ‘Bologna’ moniker was chosen in recognition of Europe’s oldest


university, located in Italy, where educational ministers of then 29 countries first agreed to action lines that would bring down educational borders. These ministers of education agreed in June 1999 to the goal of the creation of a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by 20109


. The initial priorities of the Bologna Process were made official with the ministers’ signatures on The Bologna Declaration.


Incentives for this process appear to be economic recovery, initially emphasised after World War II, and the need for closer cooperation among European nations9


. In more


recent times, The Maastricht Treaty on the European Union in 1992 identified the European continent’s aspirations for a resurgent role in the world8,10


. While higher


education was a minor part of this document, the treaty did recognise that the European economy was knowledge-based, and thus supported a system of generating and distributing knowledge8


. In 1997, the Lisbon Convention sought to facilitate the


evaluation of foreign educational credentials. The immediate precursor to the Bologna Declaration was the Sorbonne Treaty, signed in 1998 by education ministers from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy8,9


.


The major impetus behind the Bologna Declaration was the emphasised role of higher education in supporting European economic growth and the international resurgence of the Continent11


. Among a multitude of goals, the Bologna Process seeks to synchronise


participating countries’ university degree systems. The ultimate goal, however, is to create an EHEA in which students and faculty members are able to move about freely, from institution to institution and across nations12


.


Cliff Adelman, a former research analyst at the US Department of Education, has suggested that the United States should look to Europe in its quest for accountability. He argues that the Bologna Process offers some common sense solutions to the struggle to define what students should be learning and to create a better pathway through the US higher education system8


. In the US, the Lumina Foundation for Education is also


enamoured of the Bologna Process and the European process aimed at standardising what a college degree means across the continent15


. The Lumina Foundation, an


omnipresent force in American higher education and its reform, has made exploration of Bologna’s potential application in the US a priority. Work is currently underway to create a Degree Qualifications Profile defining what graduates should be able to know and do when they receive an associate, bachelor or master’s degree, regardless of what US institution they attend15


. In January of 2011, the Lumina Foundation released a draft of


its Degree Qualifications Profile, which will allow colleges, accreditors, and others in the United States to test and refine what degree recipients should know and be able to do16


The Bologna Process has yielded the Tuning Project, which is raising expectations for accountability. The major expectation is of ongoing curricular reform geared toward development of learning outcomes9


implement, evaluate and enhance quality in degree programmes17 .


While the United States may be a leader in per-student higher education spending, the return on this investment is lacking. America ranks abysmally when it comes to higher education completion rates. US state and local governments spent over 85 billion dollars funding public higher education in 2008, yet statistics show that only 56 per cent of first-time, full-time students in the US will receive a degree within six years13,14 failing numbers are likely to yield drastic consequences for American’s economic future.


. These


. Tuning provides an approach to redesign, develop, . The name ‘Tuning’


the future of the radiologiC sCienCes


profession is global


was chosen to reflect the idea that universities do not and should not look for uniformity or any sort of unified, prescriptive or definitive European curricula in their degree programmes, but should instead look for points of reference, convergence and common understanding. Thus, Tuning focuses on educational structures located within higher education institutions (and academic staff), with emphasis on the subject area level, ie the content of studies. This process will allow higher education institutions to examine curricula in terms of structures, programmes, and actual teaching, in which the required academic and professional profiles and needs of society will play an important role18


.


A major aim of the Tuning Project is to contribute to a framework of comparable and compatible qualifications, described in terms of workload, level, learning outcomes, competencies, and profile18


areas, looking at core knowledge, supporting knowledge, and communication skills8


. Statements of learning outcomes are to be defined in subject .


In the first phases of the Tuning Project, representatives from nine subject areas, including nursing, arrived at a common language to describe curricular goals. They were soon followed by representatives from sixteen other degree fields, radiography among them8 The field of radiography was identified as one of the Socrates Thematic Networks which


.


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