This proposal draws upon the first results of a research project which looks for the impact of an educational program of Continuing Professional Development for Higher Education teachers at the Rovira i Virgili University, in Spain. The implementation of the EHEA has introduced substantial changes in the conception of teaching and learning, professional profiles, knowledge and understanding of lifelong learning. Universities are under deep changes and professors also need to change their teaching practices. Responding to this new context, the Rovira i Virgili University has planned a Continuing Professional Development Program in order to keep up to date professors' teaching skills and improve their performance. After ten years of implementation, this program needs to be evaluated in order to give account of its impact both at individual as well as institutional level. This situation gives the playground to carry out a research about evaluation and assessment of continuing professional development programs.

Does the Continuing Professional Development program PROFID improve professional's knowledge, skills and practices? Is the program integrated both in its content and educational design into ongoing individual and collective professional practice? Does the program improve teaching practices and therefore has an impact on learning outcomes? Which training courses from the PROFID are more effective? These are some questions we intent to answer through the programs' impact evaluation.

Ruiz Bueno (2001) offers a comprehensive collection and systematization of theoretical concepts about evaluation of educational programs. According to the author, educational program evaluation is seen as a systematic process of collecting information that is used to make decisions regarding program improvement. Several authors (Pérez Juste, 1991, Alvira, 1991; Fernandez Ballesteros, 1996) note that program evaluation is not an isolated incident of the final results of the program, but on the contrary, it becomes an important planning action that extends to the design, the development and the outcome of the program.

Outcome evaluation phase can be differentiated according to purposes and interests involved. Depending on the purpose, Tejada (1998) identifies three types of evaluation: results-oriented verification of the achievement of objectives, impact evaluation of the program, and verification of the satisfaction of needs. Another author, Shadish (1986) considers three types of assessment: assessment of immediate effects, impact assessment, and cost assessment. According to these authors, impact evaluation of the program is rarely used in educational program evaluation. 

Tejada (op. cit) points out that impact evaluation consists on a measure of the program's impact on the institutional and social environment in which the program is embedded. In same line, Shadish (op. cit.) argues that impact evaluation consists on outcomes evaluation in the medium and long term as well as the impact on the particular context where the program takes place. In this sense, impact evaluation can give information about whether a program changes participants' professional practices or whether not. 

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