Editorial

Abstract

In this issue are published a final selection of the many excellent papers presented at the ‘Transforming Quality’ forum in Melbourne, October, 2002. In addition, there are several full-length papers and a final, ‘forum piece’, designed to raise timely and (almost certainly) lively debate. The theme of this issue is quality enhancement processes and how quality in higher education is viewed, both by administrators and by academics. As Huisman and Faber note in their title: ‘same voyage, different routes?’In a paper that examines the conflict between administrators and academic staff, Kim Watty seeks to address the fundamental question: ‘How do academics conceive quality in higher education?’Sandra Jones argues that quality in higher education can be viewed through several different ‘lenses’, with some commentators approaching it as an administrative ‘check-off’, while others view it is part of continuous quality improvement in educational delivery. ‘One values quantitative measures to demonstrate quality, the other qualitative measures’. What is needed, argues Jones, is integration so that quality improvements at the educational-delivery level complement and are reflected at the university level with qualitative information from the decentralised units of the university adding a fullness to quantitative data collected at the central level.Jeroen Huisman and Marike Faber examine the quality assurance systems of Denmark and the Netherlands, both on the face of it, very similar, against the objectives set out by the European Commission. Arguably, they are in reality taking different courses on the same voyage. While accreditation in the Netherlands is seen as the new cure-all for higher education, in Denmark, it is viewed as paving the way to mutual recognition in accordance with the Lisbon Recognition Convention.Paul Temple and David Billing consider the development of intermediary, or buffer, bodies dealing with quality assurance in higher education in Central and Eastern Europe over the last ten years. They examine this in the context of communist-era centralisation and control and more recent interventions by international aid agencies. They argue that control, rather than quality enhancement, is the dominant concern of the quality assurance agencies throughout the region and that it is important for these agencies to adopt more flexible notions of quality related to institutional goals.Patrick Griffin, Hamish Coates, Craig McInnis and Richard James investigate the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) that has been used by universities in Australia for some years to measure the quality of teaching. This important research addresses increasing calls for a broader perspective that takes into account the total experience of students as well as what happens in the classroom.Mark Barrow discusses the attempt by UNITEC to shift from a paradigm that views quality as systems compliance to one that sees it as personal care and individual responsibility where quality is about making a real difference in classrooms. In the new paradigm, a set of ‘quality principles’ has been developed to replace comprehensive standards and processes specified in the existing quality-management system. Staff are now encouraged to develop tailored processes, through controlled pilots, rather than unthinkingly implementing pre-defined institutional procedures. Is UNITEC, asks Barrow, simply moving from one form of compliance to another?