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To ensure that students obtain an effective and appropriate education, quality assurance in higher education is crucial. The primary concepts, structures, and procedures associated with quality assurance in higher education are extensively addressed in this paper. To improve student learning outcomes, institutional reputation, and overall accountability, it examines the changing landscape of higher education and the growing emphasis on quality. The introduction of the paper defines quality assurance in the context of higher education, emphasizing its complexity and the range of stakeholders it involves. It explores the numerous quality dimensions--both academic and non-academic--and their importance in promoting a well-rounded educational experience. The paper then addresses the essential tenets and strategies that support quality assurance. It looks at internal quality control approaches that enable institutions to regularly review and enhance their educational practices, such as faculty development, curriculum design, and self-assessment. To further promote openness, comparability, and accountability across higher education institutions, external quality assurance, including accreditation, benchmarking, and regulatory frameworks, is being investigated as well. The paper also explores international perspectives on quality assurance in higher education, emphasizing regional differences and global initiatives. It looks at how standards-setting organizations, professional groups, and quality control organizations influence policies and encourage institutional cooperation. To improve processes for making decisions and ensure constant enhancement, the paper also examines the role of data analysis, assessment instruments, and quality indicators. The paper also seeks to provide scholars, policymakers, administrators, and practitioners with a firm foundation to comprehend the concepts, theories, and techniques involved in quality assurance in higher education. It is a useful tool for promoting quality in higher education institutions around the world, encouraging discussion, and influencing decision-making processes.

The importance of adequate risk management is growing, whereas quality management unifies all managerial processes to direct and manage activities toward the achievement of organisational goals. The goal of this study is to validate the relevance of the link between the application of quality management principles and risk management maturity. This paper constitutes a critical literature review and an analysis of the latest scientific articles, published in international databases, and other scientific sources over a period of 15 years. In summary, organisation can attain a higher level of risk management maturity through the synergistic application of all seven quality management principles. The findings practically are beneficial for all types of organisations that seek to successfully implement risk management processes.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore existing and desired methodologies for systematic quality work to promote quality in preschools from the principal's perspective. Design/methodology/approach: A collaborative approach was used in this research project, and principals were asked to complete portfolio assignments. Their answers to those portfolio assignments were analysed by the research team and subsequently compared to total quality management values. Findings: Existing and desired methodologies for systematic quality work are presented and sorted into 13 and 17 groups, respectively. The principals desire four times more methodologies than they are presently using to promote systematic quality work, and the results show that they must extend their methodologies to support TQM values. Research limitations/implications: This research is based on answers collected from 18 principals in one municipality in Sweden. Practical implications: The use of the cornerstone model provides a framework to illustrate the application of TQM in preschools. Originality/value: Principals struggle to find time for systemic quality work. The presented results can be used to work systematically with quality in preschools and other organizations.

World university rankings have had an impact on academic competition worldwide. The comparability of ranking results depends on how data is collected within each university. When data concepts are interpreted differently, data variety is introduced and ranking results cannot be used in a meaningful manner. In this case study, the effect of semantic harmonisation of the data concepts of the "Times Higher Education" World University Ranking is evaluated. Based on two independent initiatives, in Italy and in Belgium, the data and results of this ranking before and after interuniversity harmonisation of data collection are compared. This study demonstrates that, despite the data definitions provided by the ranking organisation, the data concepts 'academic staff' and 'students' are interpreted differently within each university. These differences can affect how universities are positioned relative to each other in ranking tables. A profound level of semantic harmonisation is then required to ensure semantically comparable data.

This article explores how the Swedish policy of municipal adult education (MAE) is interpreted, translated, and enacted in study and career counselling. The data consists of semi-structured interviews with adult education leaders and study and career counsellors. Swedish MAE is characterised by extensive marketisation, with many different providers, which makes the education system complex. The findings show that a study and career counsellor is characterised as a key person for both the students and the organisation, with a role as a marketer and 'map reader' for applicants, in addition to responsibilities in admissions, the validation and mapping of students' knowledge, and quality work. The counsellor becomes a hub in a system that applicants and students find difficult to navigate and fulfils a vital function in the marketing of adult education and quality work. Thus, this complex system requires more resources for counselling to function to the benefit of the individual student. However, there is no clear regulation for how counselling should be organised, which means that counselling is organised in different ways in different municipalities with different providers. This in turn means that the availability of adequate counselling may depend on the municipality in which you live.

Accreditation is typically a voluntary process that involves a thorough evaluation of an organization's policies, procedures, and practices. Much like a colonoscopy, the evaluation process probes deep and can be uncomfortable. With the discomfort, time, cost, and effort it takes to undergo evaluation for accreditation, the natural question is whether it is worth doing. In this paper, I will review the history of accreditation and the results of systematic literature reviews focused on the impact of accreditation. I will also discuss how accreditation may help provide quality control in behavior analysis and safeguard against service providers' behaviors being solely shaped by funding sources, such as insurance providers. Lastly, I will provide critical questions consumers can ask to assess accrediting bodies' transparency, objectivity, and fairness when they are seeking accreditation.

Objectives: The text aims to present a comparison of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and English-Medium Instruction (EMI), followed by a discussion of CLIL-ised EMI, a new educational phenomenon, regarding its feasibility in content-based bilingual programmes. Method: The ideas presented in this paper are principally drawn from previous research and literature about CLIL and EMI, as well as from my personal experience with content-based bilingual education programmes. Results: Although CLIL and EMI differ in nature, CLIL-ised EMI supplements traditional EMI, which has a single objective of content learning, with special attention to students' needs, particularly their linguistic needs. It may pose challenges to teachers, especially in relation to their language-teaching activities. Conclusions: CLIL-ised EMI shows considerable feasibility in bilingual education and can overcome the linguistic challenges faced by students in content-based programmes. Implication for Practice: CLIL-ised EMI teachers are advised to be attentive to students' linguistic demands and engage in professional collaboration with language specialists to design and provide well planned language learning activities. Standardisation and quality control of bilingual programmes are also necessary at an institutional level.

Lean is a process improvement approach to improve organization's efficiency by identifying and eliminate non-value-added activities, while Six Sigma is a methodology focused on reduction of process variation. The integration of both, namely Lean Six Sigma (LSS) drives organization on waste elimination, variation reduction and value creation, which ultimately enhancing organizational performance. LSS has been viewed by prior scholars as one of effective approach for business improvement regardless of manufacturing or services industry. However, the research of LSS in education sector, particularly for business school is relatively lacking. Hence, this research aimed to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for LSS within a business school in Malaysia. The research also aimed to explore the relationship between the LSS, CSFs, and organization performance. There were six CSFs identified from literature review, while organization performance is assessed via the concept of system theory. The research was quantitative based with the lecturers in the business school as the targeted population. Questionnaire was distributed based on stratified sampling plan with 69 responded. Descriptive and Pearson correlation analysis result revealed that lecturers within the business school perceived that all the six LSS CSFs as "very important", and strongly correlated with organization performance, except CSF "project selection and prioritization". As implication, finding from this research suggested that the adaption of LSS between manufacturing and education sectors shared the commonality in term of CSF. However, the business school should look into project proposal from the lecturers' perspective as an alternate source of process improvement opportunity.

The purpose of this study is to lay a foundation for illustrating the importance of longitudinal data collection by sharing the results of the Independent Monitoring for Quality (IM4Q) program in Pennsylvania designed to collect data over time on the quality of services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In this article, we report on the history and characteristics of the IM4Q program, describe the key variables of interest, and highlight the trends in the key variables over 3 years of data collection (2013, 2016, and 2019). The descriptive results indicate mixed trends for the three areas of focus: comparable rates of people employed in community-based settings, less support-related choice, and better everyday choice-making outcomes.

The purpose of this research was to ascertain whether there had been any improvement in students' metacognitive and critical thinking skills through the development of the 'Teaching Factory Based on Troubleshooting' (TEFA-T) model in automotive vocational learning. The research had both quantitative and qualitative components and applied the 4D procedures, viz define, design, develop and disseminate. The subjects for the control and experimental groups were 32 students, and each was each group used an effectiveness test. The results showed that the TEFA-T learning model carried out the novelty value of the model syntax using the following activity steps: (1) identifying product problems, (2) defining the product problems, (3) generating and selecting several alternative solutions, (4) designing solving techniques, (5) ordering work contracts, (6) designing a product work schedule, (7) executing orders, (8) quality control, and (9) assessment. The test results showed that the TEFA-T Learning Model is valid using the Aiken'V formula and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), with a Chi-Square and x2 /df values of 219.76 and 0.8292, used to determine the model fit test (goodness-of-fit models). Furthermore, the practicality test declared it "Very Practical" with an average score of 4.56 and an Achievement of 90.02%. In conclusion, using the TEFA-T learning model to improve students' academic achievement, metacognitive, and critical thinking skills appeared to be effective (Sig. 2- tailed value is less than 0.05).

Journal manuscripts are peer reviewed with the hopes that the peer review will facilitate an editor's decision regarding the disposition of the article and that the feedback will be helpful to the authors in improving their manuscript. However peer reviews may not achieve these goals if they lack sufficient analysis and feedback. This article presents a domains of language for peer review (DoLPR) framework to improve depth and quality of peer reviews conducted on journal manuscripts. The framework was developed in hopes of improving the quality of peer reviews.

The current qualitative and quantitative study methods intend to investigate the quality of electronic examinations and the obstacles of changing the examinations' process from the participants' experiences and perspectives. The study generates feedback to enhance the adoption and improvement of the e. examination process. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, electronic exams help much during the education interruption. The study employed two tools to answer the study's central question: "To what extent did teachers and students reflect on the quality of electronic examinations' criteria?" They Were distributed among (n=165) undergraduates and (n=24) faculty members during 2020/2021. Findings from the e. questionnaire's SPSS and interview's content analyses indicated that most participants were satisfied with the e. exams' flexibility, ease of use, clarity, fairness in grading, and feasibility in time, efforts, and money. Concerning challenges, few undergraduates complained about the Network problems, e. cheating, and the number of attempts to answer e. exams. Few faculty members have complained that some questions require different preparation methods, e. exams increase students' scores without much effort. On the other hand, it opened the door for malpractices. To conclude, the results revealed that e. examinations are of high quality; they were responsible for undergraduates' high performance, saved effort and time more than the in-class exams. The study recommends future research exploring families, especially parents, about their experience with kids regarding the quality of online examinations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, research is needed to address how teachers deal with the validity and reliability of the electronic exams.

In recent years, harmonic regression models have been applied to implement quality control for educational assessment data consisting of multiple administrations and displaying seasonality. As with other types of regression models, it is imperative that model adequacy checking and model fit be appropriately conducted. However, there has been no literature on how to perform a comprehensive model adequacy evaluation when applying harmonic regression models to sequential data with seasonality in the educational assessment field. This paper is intended to fill this gap with an illustration of real data from an English language assessment. Two types of cross-validation, leave-one-out and out-of-sample, were designed to measure prediction errors and check model validation. Three types of R-squared (R[superscript 2], R[superscript 2][subscript adj], and R[superscript 2][subscript pred]) and various residual diagnostics were applied to check model adequacy and model fitting.

Employee empowerment yields positive outcomes for employees, managers, and organizations. Yet, too many employees feel disempowered at work, and managers, while wanting to empower employees, often do not know how. Contributing to this state of affairs is the lack of published, high-fidelity exercises explicitly designed to instruct students on how empowerment "feels," how empowerment "works," and how to practically empower others. In this article, we outline a 90-minute face-to-face classroom exercise that integrates the structural and psychological empowerment perspectives enabling students to "feel" empowerment or disempowerment and see the productivity and quality benefits of an empowered workforce, and teaches students how to empower others at work. While participating in the exercise, students simulate working in an airplane manufacturing organization, working either in an empowered work environment or a traditional hierarchical work environment. The exercise provides instructors with an important classroom tool to instruct students about the importance of empowerment, trust, and performance in organizational life.

This study examines the early-stage progress assessment for doctoral candidates at a British university through the perceptions of academic staff who acted as assessors. It was conducted in response to staff concerns about changes to the process that shortened the timescale for candidates to prepare and present their research for peer review. As well as having an impact on doctoral supervisors, there were implications for researcher developers and 'third space' professionals who supported candidates with research skills training. The findings of four in-depth interviews with assessors in the arts and humanities are discussed in the form of a reflective, 'structured debriefing'. The results of these reflections form recommendations for practice that highlight the importance of conceptual frameworks for doctoral assessment, and the interpretations of criteria at institutional, disciplinary and individual levels. These could be emphasised by academic supervisors and third space professionals supporting doctoral candidates through this milestone.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and address significant quality gaps present in business school dissertations in India. Dissertations, an integral and a special component of the overall business school learning process, acquaint students with the practical business world. Design/methodology/approach: The authors benchmarked the dissertation processes of business schools in India against those of reputed business schools in Germany, France, Sweden and Australia. Using a survey questionnaire, the authors checked whether business schools in India followed international processes and, if not, what could be done to adopt such processes. A sample of 367 business schools was studied to obtain reasonable evidence. Findings: There were major quality issues in the dissertation process across business schools in India. Serious groundwork preparation issues were identified, such as an absence of research proposals. Most business schools also reported that there were no rubrics for dissertation evaluation, resulting in high subjectivity in the evaluation process. Supervisor interactions and control over the progress of the dissertation were also found to be very weak. As a result, the authors conclude that dissertations from business schools in India have major gaps in quality. Originality/value: This is a novel study that examines the quality assurance of business school dissertations. It highlights major quality concerns surrounding the business school dissertation process and suggests measures to address quality issues. The study's implications apply to business schools in all developing countries and not just India.

Maintaining the quality and comparability of qualifications has become a major priority for vocational education and training (VET) systems world-wide, especially for those countries which have decentralised assessment and reporting systems. In the absence of external examinations, one policy solution to align the assessment standards of different providers is the introduction of assessment moderation. Yet there has been little, if any, research conducted in VET that has examined different approaches to moderation for quality control purposes. By drawing on lessons learnt in a range of settings (i.e. schools, vocational and higher education), this paper identifies the optimal conditions for undertaking social, external and statistical moderation approaches to quality control. It also identifies a range of potential system level factors that could hinder implementation within the context of the Australian VET sector.

Aceh grappled with political conflict with the Indonesian government from 1973 to 2005, which coincided with the devastating impact of the mega earthquake and tsunami on December 26, 2004. Subsequently, the province faced the global outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019. Therefore, a thorough evaluation of the education quality of the youth in this province by considering the various complex challenges they encounter over time is warranted. This study sought to describe the implementation of integrated total quality management and explore the correlation and relationship among customer satisfaction, leadership, and control/evaluation regarding the quality of online teaching and learning (QOLT) within senior high schools in Aceh Province, Indonesia, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 200 participants completed online survey questionnaires for data collection. The findings revealed that all independent variables (customer satisfaction, leadership, and control/evaluation) significantly influenced QOLT. However, a weak relationship existed between customer satisfaction and control/evaluation, and the correlation between leadership and control/evaluation was less pronounced. Overall, this study highlights the importance of integrated total quality management in enhancing QOLT in Aceh Province during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings contribute to the understanding of the factors that impact education quality and can inform strategies for improving the effectiveness of the education system in similar contexts.

Onsite, individualized support for early care and education providers has emerged as an effective strategy for supporting quality improvement. We explored how Technical Assistants (TAs) working with family child care (FCC) educators in a voluntary Quality Rating and Improvement System perceive FCC quality and the challenges they face in supporting quality improvement. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 11 TAs providing support to FCC educators. Transcripts were analyzed using open coding to identify categories related to quality and quality improvement. TAs identified numerous components of FCC program quality that inform their work and two main challenges they face related to supporting quality improvement. Results suggest TAs may benefit from additional training and ongoing support to help them meet FCC educators' specific quality improvement needs and view FCC quality through a strength- based lens. These results can inform how TAs and other specialists are prepared and supported to work with FCC educators and how quality improvement supports can be tailored to the unique context of FCC.

The Indonesian 2013 curriculum requires the learning process to provide opportunities for the students to develop their higher order thinking skills. Many studies believe that the use of manipulatives are effective to foster it. However, we found that the manipulatives only available for the classroom use, while the students need to also exercise using individual manipulatives outside the class. This study aims to explain the production quality management of individual manipulatives such that they can be highly accessible for students. This study was a development research consisted of eight steps -- manipulatives identification, product design, preparation, production, simulation and expert validation, limited testing and revisions, packaging, and marketing. In the simulation and validation stage, 55 teachers and 60 principals were involved as the participants, while during the testing, we involved 92 junior high school students and 58 children. The results suggested that we have successfully produced 14 types of individual manipulatives ready to sell. Moreover, the participants also gave positive responses -- at an average of 94% -- that the individual manipulatives could support the development of higher-order thinking skills.

The article shows in which areas other countries can benefit from the work of the Norwegian platform NDLA (ndla.no). This assessment is based on interviews with 13 representatives of the platform, three cooperation partners and one representative of Norwegian textbook publishers. The experiences described refer to a large-scale Open Educational Resources (OER) platform for upper secondary education, which was founded in 2006. The contents and experiences of the interviews were categorised into four areas: creation process, consumption, context based decisions and peer-production. The openness of the colleagues through the interviews conducted allows--for the first time--insights into the structures, strategies and considerations of NDLA. In conclusion, the special potential of such a state funded OER platform for inclusive education and which aspects might be relevant for higher education is shown.

This paper presents a narrative review of arguments made by researchers regarding the applicability of western and Japanese quality management systems by non-profit Islamic institutions. This review approach was employed after undertaking a literature search for selected articles based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The focus of narrative reviews in this study is to identify common themes across researches regarding non-profit Islamic institutions and quality management systems in Malaysia that can then be used to identify commonalities and critical differences among included documents. Following electronic searches of Scopus and Google Scholar sites, nine studies on quality management systems related to non-profit Islamic institutions were identified and subjected to a detailed narrative literature review. Findings reveal that the quality management systems discussed by researchers vary and there are researchers who rejected the idea of implementing western and Japanese quality management systems and instead implemented the Islamic Quality Management system, which was developed in Malaysia. This study intends to contribute to the quality of management and non-profit institution management literature with the proposition of adopting quality management systems by the management of non-profit Islamic institutions.

This study aims to assess the work of supervisory and control authorities in the field of education, as well as to create public control mechanisms for monitoring their activities and the quality of higher education. The research is based on the sociological data obtained by interviewing the members of civil society and the representatives of the education system. The methodological basis of the research is a systematic, comprehensive, structural-functional, institutional approach to the consideration of the public control in the education system. A permanent network of expert organizations should form for education quality. Control and supervisory authorities in the field of education should work more closely with the representatives of civil society. This can be performed through the organization of public councils within the control and supervisory authorities, and in higher educational institutions. The changes in the organization and implementation of public control in higher educational institutions are needed, namely: development of clear and objective procedures for assessing the quality of public university educational services; eliminating unnecessary formalities and bureaucracy in higher education during testing; ensuring greater transparency and accessibility of the results of the state audit to familiarize the public with the reports via the Internet. State regulatory authorities should evaluate not only the educational process, but also the educational activities of higher educational institutions.

We are living in the age of quality competition, in marketing term, everything only persists until sustains its quality. If something elapsing its quality is meant to ending its existence from the world gradually. The idea of quality education is challenged and comprehended from numerous aspects. During the past decade, the number of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Pakistan has increased and the need for quality education is increased. Keeping in view the needs of the society the alarming question is the quality improvement of these HEIs. In the long run, the quality of education depends upon the teachers' qualities who are serving as nation builders in the system. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) is working as a regulator of Degree Awarding Institutions (DAIs) in Pakistan. All regulated & accredited DAIs by HEC Pakistan are evaluating, improving and sustaining their quality through internal quality body Quality Enhancement Cells (QECs). All universities sustaining their internal quality through the operationalized mechanism of QEC are structured by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). The leading aim of the existing paper was to analyze the content concerning the quality assurance process of Higher Education (HE) in Pakistan. This study was conducted under the interpretive paradigm and evaluative content analysis was applied. The selected document was Self-assessment Manual used by Quality Enhancement Cells for the quality assurance of DAIs in Pakistan. Through thematic analysis, seven themes ("Curriculum," "Facilities," "Labs," "Students support," "Faculty," "Institutional support" & "Process control") were noted. Furthermore, it was assessed the QEC manual, mechanism and all its performance are measuring the quality of all disciplines with the same brush. By hanging all quality keys at the same grid (Manual), Teacher Education Programs (TEPs) are indirectly sustained in the standings of quality improvement in Pakistan. It was concluded that quality means meeting the predetermined standards and noted six themes during qualitative analysis was based on the Self-Assessment Manual used by QECs in DAIs in Pakistan.

The higher education system in Nepal has witnessed major achievements and challenges in the past few decades. This paper takes stock of the way the system has evolved and is now mismanaged, with a particular attention to the overall structure, financial management, quality control, and human resources that are central to fulfilling its societal promise. Given that these challenges have been a by-product of an evolving process of policy formation drawing from both global forces and local contexts, this analysis explains how the country has arrived at the current policy of "reluctant privatization" using path dependence and Advocacy Coalition Framework. Whereas the Government of Nepal is at a crossroads in reforming higher education, the insights from this analysis help students, researchers, and policymakers better understand the stakes involved and the potential fault lines that have occurred in its evolving historical context.

The study examines the nature of relationship between quality control measures and student output in University of Uyo and University of Calabar. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The correlational research design was used for the study. The population comprised 2,967 teaching staff and 11,635 students from University of Uyo and University of Calabar. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 642 teaching staff and 1,232 students from the sampled schools. Two instruments, one being researchers-developed instrument titled "Quality Control Questionnaire (QCQ)" and a documentary analysis checklist titled "Student Output Checklist (SOC)" were used for data collection. The instruments used for data collection were face validated by three experts. The reliability co-efficient of QCQ was determined using the Cronbach Alpha Analysis and a reliability index of 0.81 was obtained. The r-value of Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) coefficient was used to answer the research questions, while PPMC was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that the quality control on student intake and student engagement significantly relates to student output in University of Uyo and University of Calabar. It was therefore concluded that the quality of student output in University of Uyo and University of Calabar is influenced by quality control variables. Based on the findings of this study, it is therefore recommended amongst others that, universities' admission regulatory body should ensure that all prospective students vying for admission have good grades in their O'levels and Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). Furthermore, all candidates should also be admitted based on merit in order to ensure quality student output.

This article presents the design of a pedagogical method to produce interactive learning objects that allow users to learn about new statistical process control techniques, such as Data Mining, in order to address the curricular needs of college students enrolled in academic programs related to quality engineering. Acquiring skills in this type of tools enables students to have a more competitive profile to work at different organizations.

Academics and scholars need to publish their research results. In addition, they are required to publish scientific papers to prove their research commitment and to achieve certain academic titles in higher education institutions. Globally, there are many scientific journals of well-known publishing houses/universities, which offer opportunities to publish scientific work. One of the recent topics in academic circles is the increasing number of invitations to publish articles via quick procedures, without going through the adequate review process. This phenomenon is threatening academic integrity, as these publishers/journals aim at financial benefits and not contributing to scientific development and progress. There is a gap in the knowledge of the scientific researchers regarding the journal selection to publish their work. Some of them are still unintentionally publishing in such journals, mainly as a lack of information about them. The main purpose of this study is awareness-raising, warning, and guidance of scientific researchers, particularly young researchers by providing information on how to avoid submitting manuscripts in these journals. To achieve this, we have consulted the recent literature and practices of different countries, summarized the most used tools/methods to identify predatory publishers and journals, and lastly, we have developed a guiding algorithm for evaluating them.

E-learning pedagogy is used in many health training institutions in Uganda, However, despite the high investment, e-learning adoption is still low. This study aimed at ascertaining the relevance of on-line quality management in improve e-learning adoption in midwifery schools in Uganda. It used an explanatory sequential mixed methods design to ascertain if online quality management was significant at improving e-learning adoption and the on-line quality traits which would be implemented by midwifery schools to improve e-learning adoption. Data collection was conducted in two phases, the first entailed quantitative data collection and analysis to determine if on-line quality management was significant to e-learning adoption. The second embraced a qualitative data collection and analysis to ascertain the detailed traits of on-line quality management relevant to e-learning adoption. Linear regression analysis established on-line quality management had influence on e-learning adoption (p=0.000). On-line quality management accounted for 55.5% of the variance in e-learning adoption with a strong positive statistically significant relationship, and its salient traits included; Compact Disc, Read-Only-Memory materials meets the expectation of users, collaborative improvement of on-line quality, Learning Management System meets expectations of users, providing the best on-line experience, e-learning program being described as an excellent on-line learning experience, and guidelines for improving on-line quality. Midwifery schools therefore have to focus on the six most relevant traits of on-line quality management if they are to improve e-learning adoption.

The objective of the paper was to provide an overview of strategic planning and how a Strategic Plan (SP) can be developed and implemented effectively in Higher Education Institution (HEIs) in developing countries for continuous quality improvement. Related literature was reviewed and analysed using the narrative synthesis approach. It was established from the review that a SP serves as a framework for determining the quality path a HEI should chart to achieve its desired future. Advantages of strategic planning include; providing opportunity for relevant constituencies to participate in institutional governance, synchronising plans towards achieving institutional goals; prioritising for efficient allocation of resources, and engaging stakeholders for collective ownership of institutional agenda. SPs are developed based on internal and external environmental scan for institutional strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; and aligned with institutional mission, vision, values, and goals. Issues for consideration in strategic planning may include academic (teaching, research, and extension) matters, institutional governance, finance, infrastructure, Information and Communication Technology, human resource, institutional advancement and internationalisation. Challenges in planning and implementation of SPs in HEIs in developing countries include resource constraints, inadequate expertise and commitment, as well as resistance to change. For effective implementation of a SP, there should be an implementation plan that details who should do what at what time and with which resources. Successful strategic planning and implementation of the Plan depend on commitment of and collaboration among qualified planners, implementers, monitors, evaluators and other relevant stakeholders.

Testing is a modern high-quality method of knowledge check. Informatization which began in the late XX-early XXI century contributed to the growth of various tests. However, the inclusion of tests in the educational process is at a slower pace. This is largely due to the lack of a methodological basis for test development. It is proved that the test control methodology is an interdisciplinary theory that combines the achievements of pedagogy, psychology, measurement theory, quality theory, statistics, mathematics, organization and management theory. The article describes the principle of the testing methodology; the type and kinds of tests are determined, as well as the methodological principles for high-quality text creation. The criteria are described that must be met by tests: relations with education and training, objectivity, systematicity and comprehensive nature, relevance, the relationship of increasing difficulty content and form, and test optimality.

One of the challenges in scoring constructed-response (CR) items and tasks is ensuring that rater drift does not occur during or across scoring windows. Rater drift reflects changes in how raters interpret and use established scoring criteria to assign essay scores. Calibration is a process used to help control rater drift and, as such, serves as a type of quality control during CR scoring. Calibration sets are designed to provide sufficient evidence that raters have understood and internalized the rubrics and can score accurately across all score points of the score scale. This study examined the calibration process used to qualify raters to score essays from the "GRE"® Analytical Writing measure. A total of 46 experienced raters participated in the study, and each rater scored up to 630 essays from 1 of 2 essay prompt types. Two research questions were evaluated: "Does calibration influence scoring accuracy?" and "Does reducing the frequency of calibration impact scoring accuracy?" While the distribution of score points represented by the essays used in the study did not necessarily reflect what raters see during operational scoring, results suggest that the influence of calibration on Day 1 remains with raters through at least 3 scoring days. Results further suggest that scoring accuracy may be moderated by prompt type. Nevertheless, study results indicate that daily calibration for GRE prompt types may not be necessary and that reducing the frequency of calibration is unlikely to reduce scoring accuracy.