Maintaining the quality and comparability of qualifications has become a major priority for vocational education and training (VET) systems world-wide, especially for those countries which have decentralised assessment and reporting systems. In the absence of external examinations, one policy solution to align the assessment standards of different…

Academics and scholars need to publish their research results. In addition, they are required to publish scientific papers to prove their research commitment and to achieve certain academic titles in higher education institutions. Globally, there are many scientific journals of well-known publishing houses/universities, which offer opportunities…

We here analyse the ethical dimensions of the UK's "Research Excellence Framework" (REF), the latest (2014) version of an exercise which assesses the quality of university research in the UK every seven or so years. We find many of the common objections to this exercise unfounded, such as that it is excessively expensive by comparison…

The article examines the status and knowledge contributions of professional doctorates (PDs) undertaken by practising professionals who in most cases are not intending to join the academic community. The purpose of these doctorates is usually to research and develop an original contribution to practice through practitioner-research. Giving greater…

This article examines key lessons learned by Russia while developing national assessment system in education. It shows that reforms are more likely to succeed backed with sustained political support, clearly defined goals or priorities, gradual introduction, and open discussion with stakeholders. [This article was translated by Lucy Gunderson.]

With the phenomenal expansion of distance education in Asia during the past three decades, there has been growing public demand for quality and accountability in distance education. This study investigates the national quality assurance systems for distance education at the higher education level in Asia with the aim of contributing to a better…

The procedures commonly employed for quality assurance in higher education are designed as if the endeavour were a technical process, whereas it may be more useful to view it as a political process. For example, quality assurance requires making choices among competing conceptions of quality, and in so doing privileges some interests over others.…

Higher education institutions worldwide invest significant resources in their quality assurance systems. Little empirical evidence exists that demonstrates the effectiveness (or otherwise) of these systems. Methodological approaches for determining effectiveness are also underdeveloped. Self-study-with-peer-review is a widely used model for…

Background: Care and service trajectories for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) are routes within the healthcare delivery system that consist of all the steps that people with ID and their families have to take in order to realise the needed care and services. In contrast to the growing system-orientated knowledge concerning quality of…

The interest in "assessment for learning" (AfL) has resulted in a search for new modes of assessment that are better aligned to students' learning how to learn. However, with the introduction of new assessment tools, also questions arose with respect to the quality of its measurement. On the one hand, the appropriateness of traditional,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is the presentation of a new method for blog quality assessment. The method uses the temporal sequence of link creation events between blogs as an implicit source for the collective tacit knowledge of blog authors about blog quality. Design/methodology/approach: The blog data are processed by the novel method for…

Background: Care and service trajectories for people with intellectual disabilities are routes within the health care delivery system that consist of all the steps that people with intellectual disability and their families have to take in order to realize needed care and services. In contrast to the growing body of system-orientated knowledge…

Example programs play an important role in the teaching and learning of programming. Students as well as teachers rank examples as the most important resources for learning to program. Example programs work as role models and must therefore always be consistent with the principles and rules we are teaching. However, it is difficult to find or…

The government of Ireland, like many European countries, is currently under severe pressure from external forces to grow the economy. One possible way to maintain and grow its economy is through the production of a highly educated and globally competitive workforce. In an effort to develop such a workforce, the government, through the Department…

Rankings have become a widespread phenomenon in an increasingly competitive world of higher education. They differ with regard to their aims, objectives, target groups, and with regard to their relationship to quality and quality assessment. Generally, rankings are an external assessment of the performance of higher education institutions; they…