Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

9 – Quality Assurance by Design
post-secondary institutions, and other education providers
meet and maintain the minimum standards of
quality and integrity. This would include academics,
administration, and related services (USNEI, 2001). He
called on the Council for Higher Education Accreditation
to define quality. In its glossary for International
Quality Review, quality is defined as “fitness of purpose—meeting
or conforming to generally accepted
standards … [Quality assurance is] … planned and systematic
review … of an institution or program to determine
that acceptable standards of education, scholarship, and
infrastructure are being maintained and enhanced”
(CHEA, 2001). That is to say, learners’ expectations have
to be met or exceeded. In other words, they must acquire
knowledge and skills that they did not possess
before the learning experience took place. Wallace
(1999) and Smulders (2002) saw the learner in e-
learning as both a learner and a user, and then quality
standards need to be defined in practical terms on both
pedagogical and operational levels.
QUALITY ASSURANCE (QA)
Quality assurance (QA) is a planned and systematic
review process of an institution or program to determine
that acceptable standards for learner-centred education,
scholarship, pedagogic culture and expertise,
infrastructure, and organizational strategy and vision, are
being maintained and enhanced. This would include expectations
that mechanisms of quality control for benchmarking
are in place and effective. QA provides the
means through which an institution ensures that conditions
are such that students can achieve the standards set
by that institution or other awarding body. Benchmarking
provides signposts against which outcomes can
be measured. Subject benchmark statements allow the
academic community to describe the nature and characteristics
of programs in a specific subject. They also represent
general expectations about the standards for
qualifications at a given level; they articulate the attributes
and capabilities that those possessing such qualifications
should be able to demonstrate. Benchmarking is therefore
a prerequisite for quality assessment.
Quality assessment is a diagnostic review and evaluation
of teaching, learning, and outcomes based on detailed
examination of curricula, structure, and effectiveness. It
is designed to determine whether or not the institution
or program meets generally accepted standards of excellence,
and to suggest further quality improvements.
Quality improvement refers to expectations that an
institution will have to plan, monitor and improve the
quality of its programs. In most cases, the quality assurance
of an accrediting agency requires established procedures
to ensure an ongoing process (CHEA, 2001).
According to Pond (2002), the new educational online
paradigms are learner-centred, tailored, open, collaborative,
qualitative, and flexible. They may also be locally
differentiated. These criteria meet a universal set of
quality e-learning criteria. Online education should
therefore provide:
• continuity between advertising and reality
• continuity between purpose and practice
• preparation for external credentialing/further study
• personal/professional/academic growth for the learner
• relevant
• rich, multidirectional interaction
• functional, user-friendly interface
• adequate resources for: instructors, learners, curriculum
• appropriate assessment methods/opportunities
Pond’s criteria seem to be eminently constructive for a
learner’s development.
In conclusion, quality assurance, assessment, and
improvement require sets of performance, benchmarks,
and indicators based on evaluation tools and techniques.
The latter need specific criteria anchored in quality factors.
E-learning quality factors describe these systematic
reviews and evaluation of principles, guidelines, and
benchmarks. However, there is a problem related to
labour-management issues during collective bargaining
vis-à-vis quality education. It is important that to be in
alignment with the international, national and organizational
targets need to be in alignment. This is the
major challenge.
QUALITY FACTORS
It is evident that ‘quality is easier to describe and illustrate
than to define’ (Stephenson, 2005:1). Ensuring
e-learning design for cognitive engagement in practice
associated with outcomes is exactly what constitutes
e-learning (Kalantzis & Cope, 2004; Oliver, 2005). Systems
design has to ensure factors for quality at different
levels and fields, micro or macro (Hedberg et al., 2002).
Recent studies aim to identify quality factors. These
studies are guides to good practice (Grahan et al, 2002);
indicators for online teaching (Corich et al., 2004);
pedagogical dimensions for computer-based education
evaluation (Reeves, 1997); quality management (López
et al., 2003); learners’ perspective (Ehlers, 2004); pillars
for quality assurance and accreditation (Pond, 2002);
and evaluation frameworks and tools (Muir et al., 2003).
These studies referred to specific institutions’ QA standards,
defining all stakeholders’ goals based on international,
national, and organizational frameworks.
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