counselors in providing support to students, timely delivery of multimedia packages tostudy centres, regular tutorials <strong>and</strong> counseling sessions, timely feedback on assignments,timely response to student queries, feedback to students on their performance <strong>and</strong>progress <strong>and</strong> facilitation of peer group interaction.OUUK provides detailed QA criteria for services to students in regional centres.All the regional centres need to carry out an annual review of key activities: coursechoice, enrolment <strong>and</strong> fees, careers guidance, outreach <strong>and</strong> promotion, preparation,induction <strong>and</strong> <strong>learning</strong> skills development, student progress <strong>and</strong> retention, special needs,examinations <strong>and</strong> assessment, <strong>and</strong> exceptions <strong>and</strong> complaints. The findings of thesereviews are shared between regions. Other activities, managed centrally or regionally, arereviewed on an ad hoc basis from time to time. Examples include: support for studentswith disabilities, the promotion of equal opportunities, marketing <strong>and</strong> collaborativeprovision (OUUK, 2004).QA for new challengesIt appears that the quality assurance of the cross-border operations <strong>and</strong> e-<strong>learning</strong>practices is still in the initial stages of development in most of the mega universities.However, the institutions seem to recognise the need for special attention to QA systemsfor those new challenges.QA for cross-border activitiesFrom the survey data, one can conclude that there has been no need for most of the megauniversities to develop a comprehensive QA system for both imported <strong>and</strong> exporting<strong>distance</strong> <strong>education</strong> programmes. Only two mega universities reported the existence of theQA system for cross-border programmes.Guidelines for exporting programmes: IGNOU, being an exporter of its DE programmes,has set QA guidelines for exporting programmes. First, the credibility of partnerinstitutions is reviewed in collaboration with Indian High Commissions <strong>and</strong> Embassiesabroad. Second, IGNOU approves local tutors <strong>and</strong> counselors appointed by the partnerinstitutions based on their curriculum vitae. Those approved tutors <strong>and</strong> counselorsreceive training sessions on student support services from IGNOU faculty. Finally, theexamination scripts are marked centrally by IGNOU to provide reliability of studentassessment.A comprehensive QA framework for export <strong>and</strong> import: OU specifies the arrangementsfor managing curriculum partnerships <strong>and</strong> collaborative provision in its Guide to Quality<strong>and</strong> St<strong>and</strong>ards. As indicated in the Guide, the “Curriculum Partnerships Committee isresponsible for all regulatory <strong>and</strong> procedural matters relating to curriculum partnerships<strong>and</strong> for their approval subject to approval by Curriculum <strong>and</strong> Awards Board at laterstage”. Operational Toolkit Series <strong>and</strong> Operational Fact Sheets are developed bythe Curriculum Partnerships Advisory Service <strong>and</strong> provide advice, guidance <strong>and</strong>other information on curriculum partnership arrangements to all units of OU. Thesearrangements include both export <strong>and</strong> import.Other examples: Some other institutions such as AIOU, Anadolu <strong>and</strong> KNOU offerDE programmes for own citizens living in different countries. For example, AIOUcollaborates with the Commonwealth of Learning <strong>and</strong> national open universities of India,Bangladesh <strong>and</strong> Sri Lanka to offer COL Executive MBA/MPA programme. Anadolu88
offers its programmes to Turkish citizens living in Europe <strong>and</strong> the programmes areproduced under the similar QA guidelines with domestic programmes. KNOU allowsethnic Korean overseas to enroll in its DE programmes <strong>and</strong> provides its DE materials toethnic Korean residents in China.QA for e-<strong>learning</strong>A separated QA system for e-<strong>learning</strong> has not been developed in most of the institutionsinvestigated. Instead, most cases adopt the same QA criteria as they use in QA forconventional DE to assess <strong>and</strong> manage the quality of e-<strong>learning</strong> programmes or courses.KNOU, however, has developed more detailed criteria to monitor the quality ofits e-<strong>learning</strong> courses <strong>and</strong> services. Besides its conventional DE courses, KNOUhas offered 60 online courses on the Web. Three QA measures are taken during thedevelopment <strong>and</strong> delivery of e-<strong>learning</strong> courses. First, before developing any e-<strong>learning</strong> course, a review team, consisting of content experts <strong>and</strong> design experts, willevaluate the appropriateness of e-<strong>learning</strong> development <strong>and</strong> objectives, accuracy ofthe contents, <strong>and</strong> structure of the contents. Second, the review team, once a certaincourse is accepted as an e-<strong>learning</strong> course, will assess its pedagogical strategies,multimedia components, user interface <strong>and</strong> course management functions. Third, twoformal evaluation sessions will be administered during the development process. Thee-<strong>learning</strong> site under development will be open to the pubic <strong>and</strong> the review team tobe monitored. Comments from the public (including students) <strong>and</strong> the experts will becollected <strong>and</strong> used to improve the e-<strong>learning</strong> course.Whereas KNOU has developed totally online courses, AIOU has adopted a QA processin developing multimedia contents for its courses. Even though some universities suchas OUUK, CCRTVU, <strong>and</strong> SHTVU are actively incorporating e-<strong>learning</strong> components intheir DE programmes, no specific QA measures for e-<strong>learning</strong> components have beenprovided. Anadolu University offers an e-MBA programme <strong>and</strong> is working on the detailsof a QA system for e-<strong>learning</strong>.Links to national QA frameworkInternal QA systems of most of the institutions surveyed have been linked to the nationalQA framework either for DE or for HE in general.Developing national QA framework for DETurkey <strong>and</strong> India have a separate committee or agency for assuring <strong>and</strong> managing thequality of DE.Anadolu reports that its QA system complies with the st<strong>and</strong>ards <strong>and</strong> requirements of thenational QA body for <strong>distance</strong> <strong>education</strong>, that is, the Informatics National Committee(www.ii.metu.edu.tr/EMK/enfyoneng.htm). This committee is a sub-committee of theHigher Education Council which oversees the quality of <strong>higher</strong> <strong>education</strong> in Turkey.IGNOU follows the st<strong>and</strong>ards <strong>and</strong> guidelines for quality assurance determined bythe national QA agency for DE, that is, the Distance Education Council (DEC: www.ignou.ac.in/dec). The faculty of IGNOU has worked very closely with this Council indeveloping the st<strong>and</strong>ards <strong>and</strong> guidelines in DE.89
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PERSPECTIVES ONDISTANCE EDUCATIONLi
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The Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSIn addition to the
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These are some of the issues that a
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What are the trends and issues in l
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of policy implications relating to
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evince important differences that c
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inequitable regulations governing t
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associations and groups of countrie
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THE CONTRIBUTORChristopher McIntosh
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INTRODUCTIONIn his 1996 report to U
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Lastly, our analysis of the situati
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diploma or similar certificates of
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force of the undertaking. Here agai
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RELEVANT INTERNET SITESUNESCO Task
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Notes1. This phrasing has been used
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goals (Daniel, 1996). Lifelong lear
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eported that group activity had red
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NEW AREAS FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION:WO
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targets systematically for the use
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Rausch, A.S. (2003). A case study o
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Cultural and ethical issues in inte
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the cost and maintenance of learnin
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Research can be a useful tool for c
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REFERENCESBates, A. (1995). Technol
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Twigg, C. (2001). Quality Assurance
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y, for example, entering into partn
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and even greater steps, and the dec