Search

The director of distance learning at Regis University in Colorado reflects on steps that must be taken to assure that university-level e-learning courses are the same quality as traditional courses. Key areas include: qualified faculty, teaching excellence, course design (with the added components of production as they apply to the application of technology-enhanced teaching tools), and standards for student services. (EV)

The purposes of this paper are twofold: a presentation of the theoretical basis of benchmarking and a discussion on practical benchmarking applications. Benchmarking is also analyzed as a productivity accelerator. The authors study benchmarking usage in the private and public sectors with due consideration of the specificities of the two areas. Special attention is paid to the presentation of the current picture of higher education and conditions for the application of benchmarking. The chosen examples of benchmarking projects conducted in higher education illustrate the spectrum of benchmarking usage. The authors conclude the paper with a recommendation for the employment of benchmarking in the higher education environment, especially in the light of competition pressures and rapid economic development. (Contains 6 figures.)

This paper presents the development and validation of a two-level hierarchical cost model for tertiary education, which enables prospective students to compare the total cost of attending a traditional Baccalaureate degree education with that of the same programme taken through distance e-learning. The model was validated by a sample of Greek university students familiar with both traditional and distance learning who evaluated them in a survey, indicating that the cost advantage of distance e-learning was tempered by the perception that traditional learning has an advantage from the standpoint of quality. The paper also offers several strategies that might help address students' concerns about the quality of distance e-learning. (Contains 1 table, 3 figures, and 1 footnote.)

This paper presents the main results of a recent survey of private higher education institutions from twelve selected European countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia) [in the framework of the UNESCO-CEPES project on "Private Higher Education in Europe and Quality Assurance and Accreditation from the Perspectives of the Bologna process Objectives," designed and implemented in collaboration with "Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management (LKAEM) and the World Bank"]. After a brief review of the current incidence of private education in the selected European countries, the authors give a description of the survey. Then the main findings are structured according to the nine goals of the Bologna Process and their corresponding level of implementation in private higher education institutions, and also to provide comparisons with public higher education institutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and with some general remarks about the role of private higher education institutions in building the EHEA. (Contains 14 tables, 12 footnotes and 3 figures.)

While rankings are a popular method for comparing the relative quality of higher education institutions, there is much confusion and debate over which indicators to use and how to present the information in ranked format. This article offers some guidelines in both areas as well as questions to consider at each stage of the ranking process. (Author)

Drawing on an international roundtable, presents summary principles to establish a typology of different countries' ranking of higher education institutions. The principles are intended to be of assistance in future discussions about the different benefits and limitations of ranking and league table systems. (EV)

Discusses five aspects of higher education assessment: institutional and program accreditation, commercial rankings, the National Research Council's effort to assess research doctorate programs, the Association of American Universities' (AAU) revised membership policy and its evaluation component, and an AAU project seeking to develop better measures of university quality. (EV)

Describes the national accreditation system for higher education institutions in the Russian Federation, including the procedure for integrated assessment of university activities by the Ministry of Education, licensing and attestation requirements, state and public professional accreditation, and the experience of Tomsk Polytechnic University in developing an internal attestation and quality assurance system. (EV)

Provides comprehensive information about new developments in the field of educational quality evaluation in Europe. Focuses on the most important international documents adopted and signed by the European authorities responsible for higher education--the Sorbonne and the Bologna Declarations, and the Prague Communique. Analyzes follow-up activities and offers background information about several specific countries. (EV)

Presents a case example of the "Millennium Intent," an effort to create an agreement between non-governmental national certification agencies in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States for the mutual recognition of the professional education and credentials of speech/language pathologists. (EV)

Traces the development of university rankings in Japan and explains the link between rankings and the mature, but drastically changing, Japanese higher education market. (EV)

Calls for the convergence of the public and private sectors in Polish higher education, particularly the procedures and institutions for the evaluation and accreditation of higher education institutions. (EV)

Explores the diversity of contexts faced by higher education in Latin America, and the measurement of its quality. Describes a proposal designed by the Catholic University of Argentina whereby the indicators used in developed countries are applied. (EV)

Discusses the accuracy (rather than the precision) of university league tables and rankings published by British newspapers, where year-to-year movements in the rankings of institutions are as much artifacts of the data and their manipulation as real changes; in addition, prospective students seem not to be strongly influenced by an institution's annual changes in rank. (EV)

The ranking of higher education institutions in Russia is examined from two points of view: as a social phenomenon and as a multi-criteria decision-making problem. The first point of view introduces the idea of interested and involved parties; the second introduces certain principles on which a rational ranking methodology should be based. (Author/EV)

Describes how "Perspektywy," a major educational publication house in Warsaw, Poland, ranks Polish public and private secondary schools and higher education institutions. (EV)

Describes and discusses the approach of the Center for Higher Education Development (CHE) ranking of German universities. (EV)

Describes how "The Times" and "The Times Higher Education Supplement" use publicly available and verifiable data to publish university league tables as an aid to the application process for young people seeking the most appropriate course programs and institutions. (EV)

Argues that higher education is essential for the facilitation of globalization, pointing out that in the Eastern and Central European transition countries, higher education has been a main engine of transition. Asserts that it too must adapt to change, such as the rigors of a market economy that require it to be accessible to all and financed from various sources, and government promotion of centers of excellence. (EV)

Reflects on seminar presentations within four major themes: (1) the acceleration of change in higher education owing mostly to information and communication technologies; (2) complementarity and contrast between virtual and classical universities; (3) institutional responses to change; and (4) quality issues. Proposes various agendas for further study. (EV)

2010 sees the end of the process of establishing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Although not all countries may have achieved all the objectives, many are those countries and universities who have implemented many of the targets set. Within the Bologna Process, there have been many developments such as: European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) for the transfer of period of study abroad; joint degrees; and quality assurance aspects among others. Guidelines for Quality Assurance and the development of an overarching European Qualifications Framework have been developed. While the Bologna Process brings with it many advantages on an education level, the discussion has not really considered the legal aspects of such a system. Once the EHEA is implemented comprehensively across Europe, situations may arise which would require universities to consider the legal aspects of learning that students may have experienced within different tertiary institutions. This paper considers what problems may arise, for example with fraudulent behaviour by students in the acquisition of ECTS credits in another university; with weaknesses or failure to prove quality of learning following an external quality assurance audit in another university; with the failure to deliver learning by one of the partner universities running joint degrees etc., and explores the possible legal implications of such situations as well as identifying the legal lacunae which exist and which need to be taken into consideration if the EHEA is to maintain the reputation that it aims for. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

How influential has the "US News" Best Colleges ranking been over the last twenty-five years since it was first started in 1983? In what ways does this influence manifest itself? There is strong evidence of the impact of the US News rankings among consumers, prospective students and their parents, and the higher education establishment in the United States. Their influence has now gone global since the US News rankings, according to some, have been the model for what has become a worldwide trend. This paper will look at all of these effects. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Rankings have become a widespread phenomenon in an increasingly competitive world of higher education. They differ with regard to their aims, objectives, target groups, and with regard to their relationship to quality and quality assessment. Generally, rankings are an external assessment of the performance of higher education institutions; they enable transparency about systems of higher education. This paper discusses the relationship of rankings and quality assurance on an institutional and a system level. A clear conception of the differences between rankings and other forms of assessment of higher education institutions helps to understand the usefulness as well as the limitations of rankings and helps to prevent false or unrealistic expectations of rankings. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

Access to undergraduate education has expanded rapidly in recent years. This is one manifestation of a rise in the relative importance of market-based resource allocation in higher education and a weakening of allocation based upon traditional views of merit. This change in priority has influenced the content of the undergraduate curriculum and introduced both content and methods whose legitimacy and educational value some question as universities market their products to attract enrolment. The paper discusses the relationship between allocation mechanism and "curriculum as product" and examines critically some of the more significant implications for undergraduate education such as course rigour and full-spectrum grading.

This paper presents both the formal and methodological variety of ranking approaches, and asks whether a really objective ranking is possible. A ranking represents compiled information, provided according to a criterion or set of criteria. Its purpose is to highlight real or perceived differences in quality. Ranking methodology refers to its criteria, the features allowing for measurement. Methods of aggregation, which focus on weightings, and different means of classification, suggest that a single, objective ranking could not exist.

The primary objective of this paper has been to define a quality university from the user's perspective, based on what students expressed regarding different aspects of the institution. Two methodologically different formats of collecting information have assisted in testing the coherence of their opinions. A qualitative and quantitative approach helped to evaluate the results. (Contains 8 tables, 2 footnotes, and 2 figures.)

Asserts that it behooves an organization like the American Association of University Professors, a major role of which is to protect academic freedom, to make sure that the integration of online instruction into the activities of traditional higher education will give rise to the same guarantees as to academic freedom and quality as in traditional university activities. (EV)

After briefly reviewing the origins, principles, and procedures of the current interest in quality evaluation of university teaching, this article questions the validity of the criteria used, e.g., numerical indicators, student evaluations, expert evaluations, and stresses instead the need for evaluation criteria to use indicators based on the quality of learning. (Author/DB)

Development of quality-assurance mechanisms for course and program offerings delivered internationally is lagging; only the United States, Australia, and Hong Kong have taken steps to regulate the quality of such imported or exported offerings. A nongovernmental organization, the Global Alliance for Transnational Education, created in 1995, will certify quality in such programs, including those delivered by electronic means. (Author/MSE)

This article describes the methodical problems of the ranking of Russian universities by the independent ranking agency RatER1 . The main features of this ranking system are public estimations of the quality of the higher education in Russia. The results of the sociological study were processed by the original statistical methods. The procedure involves the opinions of the graduate students, teaching staff, employers and independent experts. The interviews show the current state of the education system in different regions of the Russian Federation. The paper also attempts to provide some recommendations for the development of the proposed ranking method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this paper has been to define a quality university from the user's perspective, based on what students expressed regarding different aspects of the institution. Two methodologically different formats of collecting information have assisted in testing the coherence of their opinions. A qualitative and quantitative approach helped to evaluate the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bologna Process is almost at its end and European policy-makers currently reflect on appropriate objectives and policies for the next decade. Given that the Bologna Process is generally seen as an example of unprecedented change in European higher education and that the major overarching objective of the Process was to increase the competitiveness of European higher education vis-a-vis the USA and Japan, it is worthwhile to investigate how and to what extent US higher education has responded to the European developments. This article analyses to what extent elements of the Bologna Process are reflected in recent US higher education policy discourse, using Tolbert and Zucker's (1996) framework of institutionalization which assumes a gradual process of the diffusion of an innovation. This analysis stresses a more uneven, piecemeal and even haphazard process, particularly in the initial stages of the institutionalization process, and suggests an adaptation of the framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings of a survey, conducted on league tables and rankings systems worldwide, including seventeen standard ones and one non-standard league table. Despite the capacity of existing league tables and rankings to meet the interest of the public of transparency and information on higher education institutions, ranking systems still are in their "infancy". The authors suggest that, had international ranking schemes to assume a quality assurance role, it would be the global higher education community that would have to identify better practices for data collection and reporting to achieve high-quality inter-institutional comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been considerable interest in national quality assurance process in Turkey following the pilot accreditation project of the Engineering College of the Middle East Technical University (METU) by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), in 2000. ABET accreditation of the Engineering Colleges of Bosphorus and Bilkent Universities followed that of METU. These universities use their accreditation by ABET to attract the best students in the country. Newly founded private universities, in particular, are trying to use the accreditation of their programmes by international accreditation agencies for marketing purposes. The Higher Educational Council [Yuksek Ögretim Kurumu (YÖK)] , which governs all the universities in Turkey, is currently promoting accreditation studies to improve the quality of higher education in the universities. This is a report on accreditation processes in higher education in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides comprehensive information about new developments in the field of quality evaluation in Europe. It focuses on the most important international documents adopted and signed by the European authorities responsible for higher education—the Sorbonne and the Bologna Declarations and the Prague Communiqué. It briefly analyzes the follow-up activities of the Bologna process initiated by the academic community of European higher education institutions, their students and their various organizations, and describes certain important consequences linked to them. Some background information about several European countries is given so as to highlight real situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Director of Distance Learning in a university in Colorado reflects on the steps that must be taken to assure that that university-level e-learning courses be of the same quality as traditional courses. He suggests that the quality levels will be the same, if proper efforts are made to select suitable faculty members for on-line courses and that they be given proper training and support. Moreover, learning environments must be designed with care, and students must be provided with technical and academic support. Indeed, on-line students need to be offered the same level of services as traditional students. Finally, the technology policies in place must support monitoring and upgrading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]