Quality Assurance Policies Research Articles

Walking the line: quality assurance policy development and implementation in Việt Nam

Although Việt Nam’s experiences with quality assurance (QA) policy development have been influenced by its relationships with, and funding from, the World Bank and regional organizations, the state-centric values of the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam still navigate the implementation process. The development of QA in Vietnamese higher education has walked a fine line between neo-liberal, free market strategies and state-centric, protectionist perspectives. Policy document analysis and key informant interviews show that the implementation of QA policies in Việt Nam is an example of how one developing country walks the line between state-centric values and neoliberal principles.

Évaluation des connaissances des échographistes sur les clichés d’échographie de dépistage du deuxième trimestre recommandés par le Comité technique national de l’échograpahie

To evaluate the sonographers' knowledge of the National Technical Committee of Ultrasound's recommendations concerning second trimester ultrasound.Anonymous questionnaire was sent by e-mails containing 25 questions about demographic elements, the practice of second trimester ultrasound and the recommendations of the National Technical Committee of Ultrasound about second trimester ultrasound.Six hundred and eighty-four responses were obtained. Six hundred and fifty-three upon 684 (95%) of respondents practice second trimester ultrasound and 635 upon 653 (97%) know about the existence of the report of the National Technical Committee of Ultrasound. The rates of correct answers concerning recommended biometrical images vary between 97% for the biparietal diameter and head circumference, 98% for abdominal circumference and 100% for the femur length. While for morphological images, rates vary between 52% and 100%. A subgroup analysis (whether the respondents have already read the recommendations or not) showed that those who had read the recommendations have significantly better results than those who did not.Those who have already read the recommendations have better knowledge and global knowledge can be improved. National recommendations serve to promote a policy of quality assurance of ultrasound and may be used in medicolegal issues. The societies that make recommendations should more diffuse their work and practitioners should make effort to pursue the continuing medical education and to implement the recommendations.

European Quality Assurance from a policy perspective: where did we come from, where are we heading?

Die Entwicklung europäischer Qualitätssicherung aus einer Policy Perspektive: Woher kommen wir, und wohin geht die Reise?Der Beitrag diskutiert die wichtigsten Entwicklungen europäischer Qualitätssicherung in den letzten zehn Jahren. Im Fokus steht dabei die Analyse des Impacts aktueller Qualitätssicherungspolicies (z. B. die European Standards & Guidelines) auf europäischer und nationaler Ebene. Basierend auf einer Literaturanalyse aktueller Policystudies wie den Bologna Progress Reports erkundet der Beitrag nicht nur Themen, die im aktuellen Qualitätssicherungsdiskurs als besonders relevant erachtet werden (z. B. Diversität oder Stakeholderbeteiligungen), sondern bietet auch einen Ausblick auf wahrscheinliche Entwicklungen der nächsten Jahre.22.03.2013 | Tia Loukkola (Brussels)

Accreditation Policy of Higher Education: A Case Study of Japan

The quality of a country’s higher education (HE) and its assessment, monitoring and accreditation policies are a key not only to its social and economic wellbeing but are also a determining factor in the status of that HE system at the international level. In Japan, quality of education has been an important issue ever since the modern education system was founded in the late 19 th century; as Japan worked to catch up rapidly with western industrial countries. Since, the 1950s, the Japanese HE has been accustomed to assurance for the establishment of new universities and colleges. Thus quality assurance (QA) policy as such is not a new responsibility for Japanese higher education institutions (HEIs). However, the concepts of QA and accreditation are still new. Since 2004, the quality assurance and accreditation system (QAAS) requires that all universities in Japan are to undergo an accreditation process, once every seven years by certified agencies. Accordingly, this paper addresses a brief summary of QA framework of Japanese HE, which we divide simply into main distinct features; the self-evaluation, Standards for Establishing Universities (SEU) and the certified evaluation organizations. As of 2008, there are three institutional accreditation bodies in Japan; Japan University Accreditation Association (JUAA); National Institutional for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation (NIAD-UE); and Japan Institution for Higher Education Evaluation (JIHEE). This paper aims at presenting how these three certified agencies build up their accreditation knowledge base. Moreover, this paper proposes a theoretical model (ERSS Model) of accreditation policy making process in Japan. This model consists of four phases; Evaluation, Recognition, Synthesization and Socialization.

Why are common quality and development policies needed?

The EMI project is based on the collaboration of four major middleware projects in Europe, all already developing middleware products and having their pre-existing strategies for developing, releasing and controlling their software artefacts. In total, the EMI project is made up of about thirty development individual teams, called “Product Teams” in EMI. A Product Team is responsible for the entire lifecycle of specific products or small groups of tightly coupled products, including the development of test-suites to be peer reviewed within the overall certification process. The Quality Assurance in EMI (European Middleware Initiative), as requested by the grid infrastructures and the EU funding agency, must support the teams in providing uniform releases and interoperable middleware distributions, with a common degree of verification and validation of the software and with metrics and objective criteria to compare product quality and evolution over time. In order to achieve these goals, the QA team in EMI has defined and now it monitors the development work and release with a set of comprehensive policies covering all aspects of a software project such as packaging, configuration, documentation, certification, release management and testing. This contribution will present with practical and useful examples the achievements, problems encountered and lessons learned in the definition, implementation and review of Quality Assurance and Development policies. It also describes how these policies have been implemented in the EMI project including the benefits and difficulties encountered by the developers in the project. The main value of this contribution is that all the policies explained are not depending on EMI or grid environments and can be used by any software project.

Technologie des lames virtuelles

As e-health becomes essential to modern care, whole slide images (virtual slides) are now an important clinical, teaching and research tool in pathology. Virtual microscopy consists of digitizing a glass slide by acquiring hundreds of tiles of regions of interest at different zoom levels and assembling them into a structured file. This gigapixel image can then be remotely viewed over a terminal, exactly the way pathologists use a microscope. In this article, we will first describe the key elements of this technology, from the acquisition, using a scanner or a motorized microscope, to the broadcasting of virtual slides through a local or distant viewer over an intranet or Internet connection. As virtual slides are now commonly used in virtual classrooms, clinical data and research databases, we will highlight the main issues regarding its uses in modern pathology. Emphasis will be made on quality assurance policies, standardization and scaling.

Effect of the Affordable Medicines Facility—malaria (AMFm) on the availability, price, and market share of quality-assured artemisinin-based combination therapies in seven countries: a before-and-after analysis of outlet survey data

Malaria is one of the greatest causes of mortality worldwide. Use of the most effective treatments for malaria remains inadequate for those in need, and there is concern over the emergence of resistance to these treatments. In 2010, the Global Fund launched the Affordable Medicines Facility--malaria (AMFm), a series of national-scale pilot programmes designed to increase the access and use of quality-assured artemisinin based combination therapies (QAACTs) and reduce that of artemisinin monotherapies for treatment of malaria. AMFm involves manufacturer price negotiations, subsidies on the manufacturer price of each treatment purchased, and supporting interventions such as communications campaigns. We present findings on the effect of AMFm on QAACT price, availability, and market share, 6-15 months after the delivery of subsidised ACTs in Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, and Tanzania (including Zanzibar). We did nationally representative baseline and endpoint surveys of public and private sector outlets that stock antimalarial treatments. QAACTs were identified on the basis of the Global Fund's quality assurance policy. Changes in availability, price, and market share were assessed against specified success benchmarks for 1 year of AMFm implementation. Key informant interviews and document reviews recorded contextual factors and the implementation process. In all pilots except Niger and Madagascar, there were large increases in QAACT availability (25·8-51·9 percentage points), and market share (15·9-40·3 percentage points), driven mainly by changes in the private for-profit sector. Large falls in median price for QAACTs per adult equivalent dose were seen in the private for-profit sector in six pilots, ranging from US$1·28 to $4·82. The market share of oral artemisinin monotherapies decreased in Nigeria and Zanzibar, the two pilots where it was more than 5% at baseline. Subsidies combined with supporting interventions can be effective in rapidly improving availability, price, and market share of QAACTs, particularly in the private for-profit sector. Decisions about the future of AMFm should also consider the effect on use in vulnerable populations, access to malaria diagnostics, and cost-effectiveness. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Assessment of desiccants and their instructions for use in rapid diagnostic tests

BackgroundMalaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are protected from humidity-caused degradation by a desiccant added to the device packaging. The present study assessed malaria RDT products for the availability, type and design of desiccants and their information supplied in the instructions for use (IFU).MethodsCriteria were based on recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Community (CE) and own observations. Silica gel sachets were defined as self-indicating (all beads coated with a humidity indicator that changes colour upon saturation), partial-indicating (part of beads coated) and non-indicating (none of the beads coated). Indicating silica gel sachets were individually assessed for humidity saturation and (in case of partial-indicating silica gels) for the presence of indicating beads.ResultsFifty malaria RDT products from 25 manufacturers were assessed, 14 (28%) products were listed by the “Global Fund Quality Assurance Policy” and 31 (62%) were CE-marked. All but one product contained a desiccant, mostly (47/50, 94%) silica gel. Twenty (40%) RDT products (one with no desiccant and 19 with non-indicating desiccant) did not meet the WHO guidelines recommending indicating desiccant. All RDT products with self- or partial-indicating silica gel (n = 22 and 8 respectively) contained the toxic cobalt dichloride as humidity indicator. Colour change indicating humidity saturation was observed for 8/16 RDT products, at a median incidence of 0.8% (range 0.05%-4.6%) of sachets inspected. In all RDTs with partial-indicating silica gel, sachets with no colour indicating beads were found (median proportion 13.5% (0.6% - 17.8%) per product) and additional light was needed to assess the humidity colour. Less than half (14/30, 47%) IFUs of RDT products with indicating desiccants mentioned to check the humidity saturation before using the test. Information on properties, safety hazards and disposal of the desiccant was not included in any of the IFUs. There were no differences between Global Fund-listed and CE marked RDT products compared to those which were not. Similar findings were noted for a panel of 11 HIV RDTs that was assessed with the same checklist as the malaria RDTs.ConclusionRDTs showed shortcomings in desiccant type and information supplied in the IFU.

Engaging international students

PurposeAustralia has enjoyed two decades of growth in international student enrolments. This phenomenon, combined with the evolution of quality assurance policy frameworks, has stimulated interest in the social and academic experiences of international students and their educational outcomes. The Australian Universities Quality Agency's (AUQA) second round of quality audits assessed and reported on the performance of Australian universities in the area of “internationalisation”. AUQA findings and recommendations for required action send powerful messages to guide university priorities, practices and strategies in pursuit of quality enhancement in relation to student engagement. This paper seeks to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a thematic analysis approach to explore “internationalisation” in 14 AUQA audit reports published between 2006 and 2010.FindingsThis paper identifies three key areas arising from AUQA audit reports that form a basis for discussion in this paper. These areas are: the social and academic engagement of both international and local students, and matters relating to English language standards and support. Observations arising from AUQA university reports direct attention to examples of initiatives that appear to be enriching the quality of the student engagement and indicate where further development may be required.Practical implicationsIn seeking strategies for enhanced student experience, AUQA supports collaboration across universities in devising models for identifying student needs and creating mechanisms that bring about quality student experience, engagement and language outcomes. This analysis of the reports will likely assist those stakeholders working in universities who wish to identify successful approaches to promote the engagement of international students and refine existing useful and positive strategies in implementing and developing ideas in their own individual university contexts.Originality/valueAnalysis of the substantial text of AUQA reports have been underexploited by researchers to date. This paper is likely to be of interest to those stakeholders of international education in universities, not only in Australia but in other national contexts where international students are significantly represented.

'Education . . . Education . . . Education'.

'Education . . . Education . . . Education'.

Quality Assurance Policies and Indicators for Long-Term Care in Estonia

An assessment of quality assurance policies in LTC in Estonia finds in general that much progress has been achieved in creating and monitoring the quality of inputs of services (infrastructure, personnel, planning and funding). Some attempts have been made to evaluate the processes of LTC services, but almost nothing is found about the evaluation of the results.One problem is that quality monitoring is not yet developed, but some steps towards routine monitoring and publishing the results have been included in future plans of social and health care in Estonia. Also, quality-related databases are expected to be improved and published, which allows patients and clients to find the best practices according to their needs.

Quality Assurance Policies and Indicators for Long-Term Care in the European Union, Country Report: Latvia

This paper describes the quality assurance system for long-term care services in Latvia. Policy planning for long-term care is undertaken by the Ministry of Welfare and the municipalities. Monitoring takes place at three levels: by the ministry, the municipalities and social service providers themselves. The legislation sets out requirements for social service providers and the evaluation of quality standards against a few criteria. The degree to which institutions attain the quality standards is assessed in three-level rating system (on the satisfaction of requirements), but the qualitative results are not publicly available.During 2011, a new system was developed and introduced for social service providers to evaluate the quality of their services themselves. This new self-evaluation system is based on the Common Assessment Framework of the European Institute of Public Administration, and provides comparable quality indicators across social service providers. At present, self-evaluation is voluntary, but in light of its superiority compared with the existing system for monitoring quality, self-evaluation is expected to replace it.

Long-Term Care Quality Assurance Policies in the European Union

This report analyses the quality assurance policies for long-term care (LTC) in the following countries: Austria, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.The authors first discuss quality assurance in LTC by analysing: the dimensions of quality, the policy frameworks for quality in LTC, the different levels of development of LTC quality policies at the international, national, organisational, and individual levels. Second, they describe the methodology for collecting and analysing data on quality policies in the selected countries, and report and discuss the results. Policy recommendations are proposed at the end.

Towards an integrated framework for Lean Six Sigma application: Lessons from the airline industry

By following a qualitative methodological approach, this article aims to investigate the critical factors influencing the application of Lean Six Sigma (L6σ) in an airline company. Secondary data were collected through an analysis of company's written procedures and quality assurance policies. In addition, primary data were collected through a number of interviews with managers. Findings suggest that there are particular factors that influence the implementation of L6σ such as leadership and strategic orientation, quality-driven organisational culture, continuous training, teamwork, customer satisfaction, and technical systems. This study supports the view that the above factors are not only significant for L6σ application but, also, can be seen as useful investigation tools in their potential application. This article has four major contributions. Firstly, it expands our understanding regarding the implementation of L6σ in the service industry, by exploring the interrelationship of both positive and negative factors affecting its application. Secondly, it focuses on the responses of managers, who always play the most significant role in the adoption sophisticated management practices. Thirdly, it explores L6σ application in an airline service industry, which seems to be neglected by the current literature. Finally, it provides future research studies with an integrated framework that can be investigated in many different organisations coming from other sectors, attempting to find ways of institutionalising L6σ philosophy in any organisational setting.

Quality assurance policy frameworks and mechanisms in former technikons

Opportunities to study and explain the quality assurance policy framework and mechanisms in former technikons in response to the growth in programme re-accreditation have become an isolated territory. Conceptually, this was a legacy study looking at the extent to which quality structures and practices were already entrenched in Universities of Technology as a result of their association with a prior QA regime under which they operated for between ten to twelve years – that is, SERTEC. The thesis of the study was that Universities of Technology would exhibit a sound state of readiness for the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) by way of establishing quality assurance structures. The study was conducted with 30 academic heads of department from 6 institutions. With the aid of structured interviews, questionnaires and documentary data were used to identify the implementation gap between the intentions underpinning the quality framework and actual outcomes. The study revealed that generally, the Universities of technology had instituted enabling quality assurance infrastructures and environments for them to easily accommodate the incoming Council on Higher Education / Higher Education Quality Committee regime. This suggested that for a few exceptions, the SERTEC regime had helped to institute more than just an awareness of the need for the necessary structures, but also a policy framework, and an overall enabling environment. There was a legacy of quality in the institutions, although a number of quality gaps still existed in terms of the overall organizational quality platform. The thesis of the study was therefore generally found to be tenable. Key words: Quality improvement, programme re-accreditations and quality enhancement.

Lean Six Sigma in a service context

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate issues related to the application of Lean Six Sigma (L6σ) in a service industry. By adopting a case‐study approach this paper analytically explores the critical success factors that affect L6σ implementation.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a qualitative approach attempting to explore the nature of L6σ application in a service context. In particular, two case studies from the telecommunications industry have been selected. Secondary data were collected through an analysis of companies' documents, written procedures and quality assurance policies. Moreover, primary data were collected through a number of interviews with managers and quality experts.FindingsThere are particular factors that influence the implementation of L6σ in organizations, that can be distinguished in facilitators like Top Management Involvement & Support, Quality‐driven Organizational Culture, Quality‐driven Training, Top Down & Bottom Up Project Selection, Customer Satisfaction, Prior implementation of other quality improvement programs and Supportive Performance Management & IT Systems, and inhibitors such as Lack of Awareness for L6σ, Lack of Awareness for the Need of Continuous Quality Improvement Programs & L6σ, Lack of Strategic Orientation, Working Mentality & Habits.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation of the study is the fact that in both cases only managers and top administrators were approached. Frontline employees who are directly involved in L6σ approach may offer a clearer view on issues related to the impact of critical factors on L6σ application.Originality/valueThis study has four major advantages. First, it expands our understanding regarding the implementation of L6σ in a service industry, in which the application of management models is more complex and problematic. Second, it focuses on the responses of managers, who always play the most significant role in the adoption of such techniques. Third, it explores the quality management initiatives in the telecommunications industry. Finally, it provides future studies with a L6σ multi‐factor application approach that can be further tested and developed.

Quality Assurance Policies and Indicators for Long-Term Care in the European Union

This Policy Brief summarizes findings from Work Package (WP) 5 of the ANCIEN project and its three objectives: first, collecting comprehensive information on national quality assurance policies and indicators in LTC systems in 15 EU member states; second, using the collected data to derive a typology of national systems on quality in LTC; and third, producing recommendations at all levels (European, national and local) to improve quality of LTC in Europe. The study has identified four clusters of countries based on the respective quality assurance policies and indicators. Comparing these results with the clusters identified in WP1, gaps between national policies for LTC and quality assurance policies have been identified. Also, some quality issues have been identified and analyzed across Europe: professional integration, the quality of informal care, the transparency of quality assessment results, quality monitoring and professional education. This paper provides policy recommendations on these issues.

Disentangling instructional roles: the case of teaching and summative assessment

While in some higher education contexts a separation of teaching and summative assessment is assumed to be self-evident, in other contexts the opposite is regarded to be obvious. In this article the different arguments supporting either position are analyzed. Based on a systematic literature review, arguments for and against are classified at the micro-, meso- and macro-level. Articles specifically discuss the way in which making use of an external examiner influences the learning environment, the quality assurance policy and the policy of an institution with respect to the outside world (users, other institutions, etc.). In addition, the literature reveals that the suggested arguments and positions for and against disentangling instructional roles are highly context specific. Strikingly, empirical evidence for these arguments is rather scarce. There is a need, therefore, for a systematic research program which investigates the influence of the large and diverse set of assumptions and presuppositions on the disentangling of instructional roles.

Reforms, Leadership and Quality Management in Greek Higher Education

This article reports on research to form an understanding of how to account whether and how quality management (QM) has been adopted in Greek higher education. Greece only recently introduced quality assurance policies. In this study, I will describe governmental reforms related to QM policies until 2010. An issue that is frequently addressed concerns the role of leadership for the implementation and facilitation of QM. Therefore, the study will also discuss how leaders (rectors and vice-rectors) in Greek universities perceived external environmental pressures and to what extent they adopted (or not) QM. Neo-institutional theory has become a dominant approach for explaining how organizations adapt to institutionalized pressures for change of their business theory from their environments and has been applied to different organizational phenomena; therefore, in order to explain why Greek higher education institutions adopt QM I used the neo-institutional theory.

On the importance of the macro-social factors that can determine the quality of research

In our paper, we will present some of the findings that we have obtained in the framework of an international research1. Although the call for papers of this conference did not exactly mention the topics we are about to introduce, we decided to present our results here since we find them rather challenging.On one hand, it is in fact important to study the different mechanisms that can be introduced in the higher educational sector in order to assure quality in research (for example, creation of a policy of quality assurance within the institutions, or make it possible to find and follow up every single research, or introducing a protocol to be followed in terms of the documentation of the scientific researches etc). But on the other hand, it is also important to investigate into the conditions of research at the macro-sociological level, so at the level of the nation-state (in fact, such investigations could deal with the role of the supra-national agencies also, these latter having a growing influence on research activities.)Our first research results in the last ten-fifteen years of educational research in Hungary show that the researches in the second part of the 20th century dealing with the working mechanisms of the educational system were in fact heavily influenced by some macro-sociological factors. First, one has to keep in mind that the majority of these researches were lead by publicly founded and managed research institutions, first of all by the Ministry of Education. Second, the Hungarian case also reveals the importance of the general characteristics of the ruling political regimes, for example, authoritarian functioning (like censorship and the hostility toward critical reflection) may constitute a serious barrier to social scientific research, particularly for educational research. As it will be demonstrated, this was particularly the case for Hungary in the first phase of pure communist dictatorship.Third, research can be hindered simply by the lack of money. In this respect, one has to keep in mind that in general in Hungary and in many other countries these are the political authorities who are in the position to commission researches.1 "žKnow and Pol" research is an Integrated Project funded by the European Commission under Priority Seven (Citizens and Governance) of the Sixth RTD Framework Programme. It deals with the relationship between knowledge and policy. For more information: www.knowandpol.euAnd of course, the presence of some or all of these barriers decreases the likeliness of commissioning (on behalf of the State) any big researches with the aim of studying a given public policy. In fact, even if Hungary became a pluralistic democracy from the end of the 1980ies on, where the liberty of opinion and human rights are respected, researches can still be hindered by institutional and financial dependence of the investigations.In what follows we will try to outline the evolution of the institutional framework that in Hungary determined the nature of the researches on the educational system.