This text integrates reflections about the indicators of quality in higher education and derives from a research project developed in the Higher Education Observatory MEC/CAPES/INEP/RIES. Its starting point is the concept of quality in higher education spelled out in LDB/96 as a referent and, considering the university, takes the constitutional provision of indissociability among teaching, research and extension as the expression that directs the quality of higher education. It acknowledges the concept of quality as multi-referenced and dependent of contexts, cultures and ideologies. It takes on that the organization of quality indicators in courses and institutions has been a major challenge when one wishes to move away from generalizing formulations. Willing to undertake an exercise of such nature, the author coordinates a study on the organization of quality indicators in undergraduate courses, based on a research instrument applied to university teachers and students. Based on the results, two families of indicators are organized: one referred in products and the other in processes. The author acknowledges the limits of exercises of this nature, but nonetheless believes they are important to guide the direction of the pedagogical processes that each institution, course or community of practices wishes to undertake.
University; Quality indicators; Undergraduate teaching
