Toward Quality Assurance And Excellence In Higher Education

Quality Assurance is not a new concept in the education sector in general, and higher education in particular, though it is becoming increasingly more relevant and important. Higher education helps to improve an individual's quality of life by enabling them to inflate their knowledge and expertise, to grasp abstract concepts and theories, and to raise their awareness of the world and their community, and as such the assurance of quality is becoming more pivotal in the whole education process.There is no simple definition of the concept of quality in education, though numerous models and theories have been devised. Toward Quality Assurance and Excellence of Higher Education is a new episode of the Quality Assurance perception in higher education, which identifies the quality culture and orientation from the beginning, integrating crucial factors to build a “pyramid” of higher education excellence. The book compares concepts from the main theories of Quality Assurance, management and control when they are applied to educational systems in higher education. The book also presents a new model of excellence in higher education. Excellence is an architecture of building blocks that comes with process performance, effectiveness, harmony and collaboration which should be incorporated in a quality-oriented concept of a sustainable excellence of higher education. The model integrates four main facets: the Educational System, Quality Assurance Managing and Control, Strategic Planning and Globalization. Also presented are international “best-practices” in quality assurance in higher education, from Japan and Finland.

Quality Assurance is not a new concept in the education sector in general, and higher education in particular, though it is becoming increasingly more relevant and important. Higher education helps to improve an individual's quality of life by enabling them to inflate their knowledge and expertise, to grasp abstract concepts and theories, and to raise their awareness of the world and their community, and as such the assurance of quality is becoming more pivotal in the whole education process. There is no simple definition of the concept of quality in education, though numerous models and theories have been devised. Toward Quality Assurance and Excellence of Higher Education is a new episode of the Quality Assurance perception in higher education, which identifies the quality culture and orientation from the beginning, integrating crucial factors to build a “pyramid” of higher education excellence. The book compares concepts from the main theories of Quality Assurance, management and control when they are applied to educational systems in higher education. The book also presents a new model of excellence in higher education. Excellence is an architecture of building blocks that includes process performance, effectiveness, harmony and collaboration, and these bocks should be incorporated in a quality-oriented concept for sustainable excellence of higher education. The model integrates four main facets: the Educational System, Quality Assurance Managing and Control, Strategic Planning and Globalization. Also presented are international “best-practices” in quality assurance in higher education, from Japan and Finland.

The significant growth of number of students enrolled in tertiary education institutions in the recent past decades has caused an unprecedented expansion of higher education systems. The rapid and constant social, economic and technological mutations and international competition make the importance of qualitatively well-educated citizenry and labor forces very decisive. Globalization has developed a powerful impact on the development of higher education and imposes new challenges for the organization (standards, financing, regulations). Systems of higher education tend to detach from the national models and adopt a more "global" orientation. The implementation of quality assurance is one of the recent and most decisive transformations of higher education. Different higher education systems are trying to develop assessment tools (internal and external) to improve the quality of teaching, research and extension activities, and these are either based on experiences of selected countries or are extensively country specific. The quality assurance procedures that were often dependent on national directorial traditions have gradually tended to converge and led to a setup of common tools and standards. Countries under a centralized system tend to impose a uniform and general model while decentralized systems give greater freedom to universities to set up their own quality. International rankings of universities also contribute to impose a set of transnational standards and values, which is also being considered as indicative by the stakeholders. The present book tries to look at the quality assurance mechanism, international rankings and its impact in both absolute and comparative fashion in context of 11 countries from different parts of the world.

The management of quality and sustainability in higher education institutions ensures that proper standards are maintained. Such enforced standardization allows for the highest caliber of training opportunities for various fields and disciplines. The Handbook of Research on Quality Assurance and Value Management in Higher Education is an authoritative reference source for the latest scholarly research on quality management and assurance programs and standards in college-level environments. Highlighting global perspectives on academic and professional learning, this book is ideally designed for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and professionals actively involved in the field of higher education.

By bringing together leading experts on quality assurance in higher education from seven countries (from Europe, the USA and South Africa), this volume intends to go several steps further than most publications on the same subject. Containing comprehensive discussion of the most relevant trends in quality assurance regulation, translation and transformation, researchers and policy makers will find an engaged, academic reflection on how quality assurance is embedded in higher education and in a dynamic way to assess its impacts and potential improvements.

Quality accreditation in higher education institutions (HEIs) is currently a buzzword. The need to maintain high-quality education standards is a critical requirement for HEIs to remain competitive in the market and for government and regulatory bodies to ensure the quality standards of programs offered. From being an implicit requirement that is internally addressed, quality assurance activities become an explicit requirement that is regularly audited and appraised by national and international accreditation agencies. HEIs are voluntarily integrating quality management systems (QMS), institutional and program-specific, in response to the political and competitive environment in which it exists. Through its higher education department or by creating non-profitable accreditation bodies, many governments have implemented a quality framework for licensing HEIs and invigilates its adherence based on which accreditation statuses are granted for HEIs. Global Perspectives on Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education Institutions provides a comprehensive framework for HEIs to address quality assurance and quality accreditation requirements and serves as a practical tool to develop and deploy well-defined quality management systems in higher education. The book focuses on the critical aspects of quality assurance; the need to develop a concise and agile vision, mission, values, and graduate attributes; and to develop a system that effectively aligns the various activities of the HEI to the attainment of the strategic priorities listed in the institutional plans. The chapters each cover the various facets of the quality assurance framework and accreditation agencies' requirements with practical examples of each. This book is useful for HEI administrators, quality assurance specialists in HEIs, heads of academic departments, internal auditors, external auditors, and other practitioners of quality, along with stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in quality assurance and accreditation in higher education.

This book examines the much-debated question of how to unleash the potential of young people with promising intellectual abilities and motivation. It looks at the increasingly important topic of excellence in education, and the shift in focus towards the provision of programs to support talented students in higher education. It provides a systematic overview of programs for talented students at northern European higher education institutions (HEIs). Starting in the Netherlands, where nearly all HEIs have developed honors programs over the past two decades, the book explores three clusters of countries: the Benelux, the Nordic and the German-speaking countries. For each of these countries, it discusses the local culture towards excellence, the structure of the education system, and the presence of honors programs. In total, the book reviews the special talent provisions for nearly four million students at 303 higher education institutions in eleven countries. In addition, it offers an analysis of the reasons to develop such programs, a look into the future of honors education and a practical list of suggestions for further research. The Sirius Program assigned Marca Wolfensberger to carry out this research.