Quality Assurance Systems in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

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ENHANCEMENT OF QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN APEC MEMBER ECONOMIES capacity building in terms of in-house training of the Board personnel involvement of staff where possible in international quality assurance meetings and conferences Overall, the picture that emerges is heavy reliance on internal and ad hoc measures. 34
ENHANCEMENT OF QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN APEC MEMBER ECONOMIES 9. QA of Distance Education (DE) and Online Education Most QA systems of the region do not have policies and practices in place to look into the quality of education provisions when offered purely through distance education, including online delivery. Some consider DE as an integrated part of other means of educational delivery when there is some amount of face-to-face teaching and learning. Hong Kong UGC does not require registration for DE without any face-to-face teaching and learning. BAN-PT of Indonesia considers the DE operations of the HEIs and visits the regional centres of the universities spread through out the country, but it does not consider the purely online delivery. ITP-Q and NZUAAU also fall in line with the majority and indicate that they will not consider the purely online but will follow the standard method for the integrated approach of teaching and learning. Some agencies indicate that they are yet to determine their stand on dealing with DE and online delivery. MQA proposes the same methodology for online education but a special focus on issues such as entry criteria, student support for online learning, training of academic staff for online delivery, integrity of online student assessment, access to ICT etc are given special attention. PAASCU is developing guidelines for DE and SPRING follows the same method irrespective of mode of delivery. KCUE is developing a handbook to evaluate DE. Developments in the US in terms of standards, good practices, benchmarks and guidelines in QA of DE need a mention here. The Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) based at Washington DC is a National Accreditation Agency of the US and it undertakes accreditation of distance education institutions world over. It has developed standards for its QA process. The Institute for Higher Education Policy has 24 benchmarks considered essential to ensuring excellence in internet-based distance learning. With the increasing interest of the federal and state governments to ensure the quality of the distance education modes, the regional accreditation agencies in dialogue with the Council of Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) have revised their standards to include the distance education offerings into their assessment procedures. The regional accrediting commissions have agreed to the `Statement of Commitment by the Regional Accrediting Commissions for the Evaluation of Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs’. The regional accreditors of the US have also agreed to a set of best practices in DE. Several years ago, each accrediting commission adopted and implemented a common statement of Principles of Good Practice in Electronically Offered Academic Degree and Certificate Programs developed by the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET), resulting in a shared approach to distance education. More recently, desiring to complement these efforts, the regional commissions collectively, through the Council of Regional Accrediting Commission (C-RAC), contracted with WCET to fashion a more detailed elucidation of those elements which exemplify quality in distance education. The resulting statement, Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs, provides a comprehensive and demanding expression of what is considered current best practice. It is being used by each commission, compatibly with their policies and procedures to promote good practice in distance education among their affiliated colleges and universities. Both CHEA and US Department of Education while undertaking recognition reviews of accreditors, include their distance learning activities, on a periodic basis. In addition, accreditors that develop new standards or policies for distance learning may undergo a special review. Institutions like the Jones International University, the Phoenix University and the US Open University (now dissolved) have been accredited by the US accrediting commissions. Overall, there are three different approaches to QA of distance and online learning in the region. Some agencies consider all types of educational provisions in an integrated way. Some have additional emphasis on areas unique to distance and online learning. Others are yet to take a stand or are in the process of developing procedures to consider distance and 35
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