AEC Handbook – Internal Quality Assurance in Higher Music Education

It explains in the first four chapters in a simple way the main elements of a possible internal quality assurance system. Chapter five and appendix give you some practical assistance by presenting a simple procedure which you might use in developing a first system for internal quality assurance, and by presenting the systems for internal quality assurance of two European conservatoires. This publication is written for people working within a conservatoire, with a good overview of the institute, maybe with management responsibilities such as a head of department or maybe even a principle, or in other cases as a staff member who is, on behalf of the management, asked to develop an internal quality assurance system.  This handbook is talking about internal quality assurance from perspective of the 'what' on four possible levels: the quality of product, the quality of the processes leading to the product, the quality of the organisation in which the processes leading to a product takes place and  the quality of the internal quality assurance system that monitors organisation, processes and product. 
Concerning the quality, there is made a division in two separate kinds of performance indicators, 'hard facts' ( financial or operational results) and 'satisfaction statements' (made by individuals on the quality of your conservatoire).
For both hard facts and satisfaction statements it is important to remember that the amount of possible data to gather is endless.  Finally, although hard facts as well as satisfaction statements are more or less “objective” data from outside the conservatoire, one has to remember that they only get meaning once they have been related to your goals, your analysis and your decisions.