University Quality Assurance Research Articles

Assessment as an equity issue in higher education: comparing the perceptions of first year students, course coordinators, and academic leaders

Assessment practices that aim to promote both quality and equity may be compromised in a higher education market where students are consumers and grades the currency exchanged for measures of success. In such a climate, academics report feeling pressured to make course content and assessment less challenging in order to obtain positive student evaluations, and they may lose faith in university quality assurance processes that seem focused on ensuring student satisfaction with education as a product. To explore these issues from the perspectives of the main stakeholders in assessment, this paper investigates assessment perceptions of students, course coordinators, and faculty Associate Deans responsible for teaching and learning at The University of Queensland. The findings highlight differences in what these groups consider to be important assessment issues and differences in how they should be addressed. First year students are identified as a disadvantaged group due to perceptions of the role of feedback and formative assessment that may be influenced by their secondary school assessment experiences.

Cui bono? The relevance and impact of quality assurance

External quality assurance of universities exists to assure society that higher education standards are adequate and, in an increasingly global market, that they are comparable internationally. Although society has accepted an implicit compact in giving autonomy to universities in return for their dispassionate service to it, there has been an increasing demand for accountability. The introduction of quality assurance systems is a measure of accountability, but it can succeed only if it is acknowledged to measure what is important to society in a manner that it can understand. This paper argues that evaluation and quality assurance must measure standards and outcomes against international thresholds and report in a way that is comprehensible to a lay audience.

The contradictory managerialism of university quality assurance

This paper investigates how Australian universities are being disciplined to behave as commercial enterprises by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). The manual produced by AUQA, for the purpose of conducting audits of Australian universities, is analysed. I use an analytical framework that provides a means by which a text from the ‘manual’ genre can be analysed with respect to social and political contexts, using Critical Discourse Analysis. I analyse changes in the language used in subsequent editions of the manual, drawing inferences about how the AUQA manual constructs universities to behave as particular kinds of business entities. Depictions of the globalised and virtualised university are silenced in the texts. Contrary to the rhetoric of the university being a flexible, globalised enterprise, I find that universities are constructed as localised businesses appearing to be independent of direct government control but nevertheless constrained in the scope of their operation.

THE INSIGHTS FOR IMPROVEMENTS OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS ACTIVITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF CHANGES

The purpose of this article is to reveal the possibilities to improve the quality of the university’s activities and studies. Methodology – the article is prepared on the basis of systemic and comparative analysis of scientific literature, case studies, conclusions of domestic and world-wide experiences in quality assurance of Universities, Bologna process documentation analysis and their implementation experiences. Scientific problem and novelty – there are gaps in the research of management of improvement processes in Universities in the context of dynamic changes. The article discusses the impact of globalization processes that make impact to Universities and study quality assurance methods and tools. Peculiarities, problematic areas and obstacles of effective quality management system (QMS) implementation are defined in the article. There are defined models of University’s management systems, departmental interactions, identification and achievement of general goals, customer requirements. Authors of the article propose evolutionary change of study quality and improvement of university as a whole. It is advised to implement general principles of quality management and subsystem of control of main study processes in the first stage. Second stage shall include the implementation of requirements defined by European University Association. The third stage shall achieve continuous improvement based on EFQM Excellence model, recognized international standards for Universities and accreditation requirements. Recent globalization in economy, science and studies require additional efforts to integrate newest management methods, principles of sustainability and social responsibility. The quality outcomes shall be achieved throughout systematic processes of integrated QMS, and shall develop citizenship of students and academic community as a whole.

Favoring Standards-Based over Self-Review External Review Processes in University Quality Assurance Schemes

Favoring Standards-Based over Self-Review External Review Processes in University Quality Assurance Schemes

Quality assurance and gender discrimination in English universities: an investigation

The present paper argues that university quality assurance (QA) promotes a masculinist culture leading to systemic discrimination against female academics. The analysis relates to the question of what it is about academic life that results in persistent gender inequality. Based on an ethnographically informed comparative study, textual/discourse analysis of 30 interviewee transcripts reveals disguised messages about QA. The interpretation argued draws on a theoretical scrutiny of the covert power of a masculinist QA movement to disproportionately disadvantage female academics. The paper suggests that this has been made possible by a QA presentation discourse harnessed by male academics to manage identities. It argues that dominant definitions of the ‘competent academic’ that discriminate against females are normalised and cemented within a societal conscience.

Quality Assessment and Assurance in Japanese Universities: The Plight of the Social Sciences

Japanese universities are currently experiencing rapid development in quality assessment and assurance activities. In 2004, the national government introduced corporate-style governance into national universities, accompanied by a new evaluation scheme to be carried out by both a governmental committee and a national agency called the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation. Most local public universities operated by prefectures and cities have also adopted corporate-style governance and face pressure from local assemblies to engage in formal performance assessment. Furthermore, since 2004 the Japanese government has required seven-year, cyclical ‘certified evaluations’ (accreditation) for all national, local public and private universities and colleges. This certified evaluation is implemented at the institutional level and applies to new and evolving forms of professional post-graduate education programmes. Project-based funding schemes, such as ‘Centres of Excellence (COEs)’ in research and ‘Good Practices’ in various other education programmes are regarded as indirect forms of performance assessment. Despite the implementation of these initiatives, however, the means by which the quality of university education and research is best assessed remains the subject of hot debate, especially within the humanities and social sciences. This article considers the latest initiatives in quality assessment and assurance of education and research activities in Japan, focusing on policy and administrative reform and the particular challenges faced by the social sciences.

Academic staff perspectives on operating beyond industrial actions for sustainable quality assurance in public universities in Kenya

Industrial actions represent the climax of unresolved conflicts between employers and employees, and have devastating implications on quality assurance in higher education. Management of strikes in public universities in Kenya has been based on a conventional top-down approach which further undermines the greatly needed quality of human and social capital that is responsible for implementing the university mandate towards sustainable development. Results of this study show that the main causes of industrial actions are poor remuneration and offending disparities within and between employee grades in university and other civil service offices - qualifications and the ability to perform, notwithstanding. This calls for radical rationalisation and restructuring of remunerations and staff placement in the entire civil service, based on a combination of earned qualification and competence for prescribed tasks. Overall, a synergistic and people-centred motivational management system stands out as being a critical basis for strike prevention and enhanced quality assurance.

Online Programme of Excellence Model (OPEM)

Finding effective ways of improving university quality assurance requires, as well, a retraining of the staff. This article illustrates an Online Programme of Excellence Model (OPEM), based on the European quality assurance model, for improving participants' formative programme standards. The results of applying this OPEM indicate the necessity of quality policies that support the evaluators' competencies to improve formative programmes. The study concludes by outlining how faculty and agency staff can use OPEM for the internal and external quality assurance of formative programmes. Keywords—Formative assessment, Online faculty excellence program, Teaching competencies, University quality assurance.

Regulatory intermediation and quality assurance in higher education: the case of the auditors

The paper takes the external quality assurance of English universities and colleges as an example of regulation in higher education as undertaken by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). Regulatory scholarship generally has been largely disinterested in higher education and the paper applies a ‘regulatory lens’ to higher education quality assurance. It reports the findings of a research project on the role identities and perceptions of the auditors recruited by the QAA from the academic community for undertaking institutional audits. It suggests that such a group may be regarded as ‘regulatory intermediaries’, facing both ‘upwards’ to the regulator, and ‘down’ to those being regulated. As such, they have an important function in the delivery of external quality assurance regulation and the paper reports on how they mediate and understand a range of frequently conflicting pressures.

Assessing creativity in the creative arts

This paper follows the authors' and their faculty colleagues' experiences in developing an innovative approach to creative design teaching and assessment. Failure to adequately explain to students how they were to be assessed in creative design had led to a formal appeal by students and an inquiry which focused attention on how difficult it was to define creativity and creative ability. The inquiry led to University pressure for objective or transparent assessment that conformed with the University's quality assurance protocols. From the teachers' perspective, however, creative ability was associated with conceptual ideas that were higherorder thinking activities that could not be adequately assessed objectively or transparently in the conventional meanings of these terms. Subsequent investigation showed widespread disagreement among the various design and creative arts disciplines (within the University and beyond) on what constitutes creativity and what constitutes creative ability; whether creative ability is essentially intuitive or essentially rational or procedural; whether creative ability could or should be reduced to quantifiable parameters for assessment; and whether the most important aspects of creative achievement reside in the initial thinking (creative ideas) or in the subsequent process of development of the idea (crafting a work of art, design, etc.) or in the creative work that is the end product (the work of art itself). The paper follows, from the perspective of the authors as teachers, curriculum developers and researchers, how a new approach to the problem unfolded, and how a basic empirical research project tracking the psychological processes of inspiration and complex decision-making (and other applied research) contributed to the evolution of an innovative approach to creative design education that recognized multiple levels of creativity and engaged multiple forms of assessment, and that has satisfied both teachers' pursuit of realistic creative thinking objectives and the University's transparency and accountability agenda.

Early impact and outcomes of an institutionally aligned, student focused learning perspective on teaching quality assurance1

This paper describes an evidence‐based quality assurance system for teaching and learning, which takes as its starting point a well‐researched theoretical perspective on student learning in higher education. We argue this explicit use of a relevant theoretical base promotes coherence between quality assurance and improvement processes. We outline the principal features of our university's quality assurance strategy, systems and processes, and describe how the university's teaching quality assurance policy and systems have been implemented. We then consider the extent to which the project has achieved its goals of fostering an evidence‐based approach to teaching consistent with the student learning perspective on which the policy and systems are based. We also present data on student learning experiences showing reliable changes in the quality of the student learning experience. We discuss the applied significance of these changes, with a particular focus on changes in the experiences of commencing first year university students.

사이버대학 질관리를 위한 준거 개발

사이버대학 질관리를 위한 준거 개발

国境を越える大学の認可・評価に関する豪州の政策

The growth of “transnational universities, ” including offshore branch campuses and degree programs provided in partnership with local institutions, is a major factor that made higher education a target of WTO/GATS negotiations. Quality assurance for transnational universities, including approval and evaluation, is a newly emerging issue for national higher education systems in the face of globalization.This paper analyzes Australia's policy on quality assurance for transnational universities, since Australian universities are extremely active as transnational universities, and because the Commonwealth and State governments of Australia have developed an explicit quality assurance framework for transnational higher education.The analytical viewpoint adopted in the paper is that for nation states, assuring the quality of transnational universities is a control measure for embracing those universities into their national education system, as a part of their strategic adaptation to globalization. The paper examines whether or not this viewpoint is valid by analyzing quality assurance policies in Australia, a leading country in this regard.The results of the analysis confirm the validity of the viewpoint, and demonstrate that Australia, as both a supplier and recipient country, is utilizing quality assurance as a control measure for incorporating transnational universities into its national education system. The quality assurance policy of Australia, as a supplier country, is to implement external quality assurance of Australian universities' offshore programs through overseas audit visits by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA), while calling upon the universities to develop their own internal quality assurance mechanisms, in order to sustain the brand image of Australian higher education. Its policy as a recipient country is to manage the approval process for foreign universities to operate in Australia, requiring them to have equivalent quality and standards to Australian universities. While there is a difference between the former policy, which is supportive in nature, and the latter, which involves legal regulation in the form of licensing, both policies are instruments that aim to incorporate transnational universities into the national education system, and place them under the nation state's control.Australia's policies will have significant implications for Japan as it begins to recognize foreign university branch programs, and authorize moves by Japanese universities to open offshore branches, opening up its national borders to transnational universities both into Japan and outwards from Japan.

Education quality assurance in the Warsaw University of Technology - prerequisites and activities already undertaken

The last few years have seen intensive time invested in the discussions concerning quality assessment and quality improvement within the Polish university sector. There is limited experience of formalized quality assessment in the higher education sector in Poland, and several pilot projects have been running that represent a first step in establishing a general methodology, rules, procedures and, finally, system. In recent years the Warsaw University of Technology has been involved in some projects, mainly under the Tempus Programme. An essential element of quality assurance and quality assessment is that of benchmarking against international best practice; then our EU partners were visited. Data on existing quality management procedures and tools were collected and compiled, creating the background for future discussions and decisions. This year we started a new project(together with the Technical University of Lodz), devoted to quality issues - and precisely to the introduction of an internal quality education system in our universities. This paper outlines the previous results, but mainly the activities that will be carried out in the next two years to achieve the project's objective - establishment of a university quality assurance unit and introduction of a quality assurance system.

Educational Quality Assurance in Universities: an enhanced model

In the last decade or so there has been a proliferation of literature(s) concerning quality assurance (QA) in a variety of contexts. The literatures which have primary relevance to higher education span a range of disciplines or transdisciplines, including management science and development evaluation, organisational behaviour and change, and the study of higher education. While evolution has occurred in approaches to QA in many institutions, piecemeal, non‐systemic or poorly planned and integrated approaches are still common. This paper distils some key ideas from the literatures on QA and higher education culture and practice and proposes a model for educational quality assurance (EQA). The model is evolutionary, in that it (1) is built on and integrates ideas from research, practice and case evidence; (2) integrates key elements of educational environments which influence the quality of climate, process and outcome, but which are often not strongly linked in QA strategies or systems; and (3) has continual quality improvement in student learning at its heart and as its primary goal, with accountability as an important consequence.

Quality Assurance in South African Universities: Global Perspectives and Reflections on the Future

This article reflects on the state of quality assurance activities in South African universities. Reflections on developments and practices within the system are made from international quality assurance systems and practices. The article also highlights the role that the Quality Promotion Unit—the official body for quality assurance in South African Higher Education-plays in the enhancement of quality. The article concludes with perspectives on the relationship between the government and universities regarding quality, the format of a quality assurance system, as well as the understanding of quality as good practice. Concluding remarks on the key principles underpinning any quality assurance system within universities are also made.

Key Teaching Roles of a University Lecturer and their Integration into the Quality Systems of a New Zealand University

ABSTRACT This paper describes the results of a training needs analysis of the position of university lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington. The analysis identified 10 key roles which together encompass the range of teaching activities expected of lecturers. The analysis also identified an associated academic staff development programme to guide the work of the University Teaching Development Centre. Because of the growing acceptance of the results of the analysis, the University has also integrated the findings into its quality management procedures. The paper describes the use of the information in promotion and appraisal procedures, and the links between the key roles and other quality assurance mechanisms. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the gaps in the University's quality assurance systems as they relate to the key roles

Quality Assessment of Universities: The Australian Experience

Quality assurance in universities has become a pervasive issue in many countries. Special governmental agencies have been established, particularly in Europe, to assess, audit and review teaching and research effectiveness in universities. Independently, quality audit agencies have been established within higher education itself. The process in Australia, now completing its second year of operation, is unique in two respects:it addresses the whole university; evaluating quality assurance processes and outcomes across teaching, research and community service; and it provides significant rewards, up to five per cent of the operating grant, to individual institutions. This article reviews the programme and evaluates results of the first round of reviews.

Internal Quality Assurance in Dutch Universities: an empirical analysis of characteristics and results of self‐evaluation

Abstract In 1994 a research project with respect to internal quality assurance in Dutch universities was completed. The purpose of this project was to obtain insight first in the nature of self‐evaluation and the way evaluation results are utilised at faculty level and second in factors which (possibly) influence internal quality assurance in faculties. A theoretical model is being developed in which several factors are distinguished. Systems theory and contingency theory are used as starting points for the development of this model. On the basis of insights developed in this project, a contribution can be made to the design of higher education policy‐making with regard to development of the internal quality assurance in universities. We will argue, on the basis of our empirical findings, that in the further implementation of the Dutch quality assurance system emphasis should not be put predominantly on external demands, but rather should be focused at improving the self‐evaluation procedure. Such an appr...