Abstract
Over the past few decades, education systems, especially in higher educa-tion, have been redefined. Such reforms inevitably require reconsideration of operational notions and definitions of quality, along with a number of relat-ed concepts. This reconsideration aligns with the core of higher education re-forms: improving efficacy and compatibility with emerging social demands while adapting to competitiveness and accountability trends. As primary players in the teaching and learning process, online tutors have a protagonis-tic role and, therefore, must be equipped with a suitable set of competencies and attributes in addition to content knowledge. This quantitative research aims to analyze the perceptions of 250 online tutors working in European higher education institutions, distributed in 5 knowledge areas: Business, Education, Humanities, Sciences and Health. This descriptive and explorato-ry nonexperimental study reveals the technological and pedagogical skills and competencies that online tutors consider fundamental for effective online teaching and proposes professional development actions to ensure quality online teaching
Highlights
Over the past few decades, higher education systems have acquired a dynamic vision, aiming to reflect and support the diverse interests of the student population, employers and society in general
This study aims to critically reflect on the perceptions of academics about the skills and characteristics that successful online tutors should possess and to propose actions to improve the quality of online teaching
Selection of the online teaching team becomes a critical success factor that contributes to the acceptance of virtual learning as a "quality modality"
Summary
Over the past few decades, higher education systems have acquired a dynamic vision, aiming to reflect and support the diverse interests of the student population, employers and society in general. These diverse interests have created challenges, requiring reconsideration of operational notions and definitions of quality, along with a number of related concepts [1]. Various growth rates within our current global society lead to new products and services and to the continuous quality improvement of existing ones [4] This growth requires continuous efforts to gain competitive advantage as far as the value and the quality of the services and products are concerned. Online education has already been recognized as a key factor in the reconfiguration of quality assurance [6]
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