Elements Of Quality

In the ten years since the inception of the Sloan Consortium, the field of online learning has entered the mainstream of higher education, making online learning a core ingredient of tomorrow¿s educational paradigms. Now that digital natives are coming of age, the blending of on-ground and online education is continuous and unstoppable. Growing demands for wide choice suggest that the blended agenda presses us rapidly into new realms of inquiry. Thus, the title of this collection, the fifth volume in the Sloan-C series on quality, is Elements of Quality Online Education: Into the Mainstream. The 14 peer-reviewed studies in this volume provide guidance for effectively responding to the challenges facing higher education.¿The studies on Student Satisfaction recognize that significant populations remain underserved. Yet asynchronous learning networks (ALNs) are widening access by easing some of the constraints of place-based, synchronous learning, so that many more and many more new kinds of learners can achieve satisfaction and success. ¿The studies on Learning Effectiveness share an emphasis on the ways that ALN exceeds the ¿no significant difference¿ minimum standard for learning outcomes.¿The studies on blending, combining face-to-face and online methods for learning, offer rich possibilities for what many see as the best of both learning modes.¿The studies on assessment go to the core of the Sloan-C quality framework and its emphasis on continuous quality improvement through demonstrating progress towards the overarching goal of affordable access for all in a wide range of disciplines.In our time of ¿profound, rapid, and discontinuous change,¿ these studies envision solutions to the challenges of online, blended and face-to-face education in higher education. Sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the purpose of the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is to help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and breadth according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines.

Elements of Spatial Data Quality outlines the need and suggests potential categories for the content of a comprehensive statement of data quality that must be imbedded in the metadata that accompanies the transfer of a digital spatial data file or is available in a separate metadata catalog. Members of the International Cartographic Association's Commission on Spatial Data Quality have identified seven elements of data quality: positional accuracy, attribute accuracy, completeness, logical consistency, lineage, semantic accuracy and temporal information. In the book the authors describe: components of each data quality element, possible metrics that can be used to measure the quality of each criteria, possible testing and rating schemes, and how these parameters might differ from a producer or user point of view. Finally no volume of this nature would be complete without a chapter devoted to necessary future research in this subject area. The chapter points out areas in need of further investigation and speculates about the use and transfer of digital spatial data in tomorrow's electronic world and at developments in presenting specified data quality information in a visualization. This book will be of interest to all of those individuals involved in geographical information systems and spatial data handling.

Quality issues are occupying an increasingly prominent position in today's global business market, with firms seeking to compete on an international level on both price and quality. Consumers are demanding higher quality standards from manufacturers and service providers, while virtually all industrialized nations have instituted quality programs to help indigenous corporations. A proliferation in nation-wide and regional quality awards such as the Baldridge award and certification to ISO 9000 series are making corporations world-wide quality-conscious and eager to implement programs of continuous improvement. To achieve competitiveness, quality practice is a necessity and this book offers an exposition of how quality can be attained. The Handbook of Total Quality Management: Explores in separate chapters new topics such as re-engineering, concurrent engineering, ISO standards, QFD, the Internet, the environment, advanced manufacturing technology and benchmarking Discusses the views of leading quality practitioners such as Derning, Juran, Ishikawa, Crosby and Taguchi throughout the book Considers important strategies for quality improvement, including initiation and performance evaluation through auditing, re-engineering, and process and design innovations. With contributions from 47 authors in 13 different countries, the Handbook of Total Quality Management is invaluable as a reference guide for anyone involved with quality management and deployment, including consultants, practitioners and engineers in the professional sector, and students and lecturers of information systems, management and industrial engineering.

A comprehensive and practical overview of the state of the science, Soil Quality Standards for Trace Elements: Derivation, Implementation, and Interpretation addresses the derivation of soil quality standards for trace elements and the implementation of these standards within regulatory and risk assessment frameworks. Forty experts from 11 countrie