Childcare regulations ensure children's rights to Early Childhood Care and Education settings that protect them from harm and promote their healthy development. To ensure that settings comply, power is vested with regulatory bodies that are tasked with enforcing regulations. Using a qualitative methodology, 43 interviews were undertaken with Early…

Background: Having an objective means of evaluating the quality of behaviour support plans (BSPs) could assist service providers and statutory authorities to monitor and improve the quality of support provided to people with intellectual disability (ID) who exhibit challenging behaviour. The Behaviour Support Plan Quality Evaluation Guide II…

The scope of institutional research (IR) undertaken in Australasian universities is progressively expanding. A traditional focus on student life cycle elements such as enrolment, retention and satisfaction has been complemented for some years now by other areas of focus including research performance and community engagement. More recently,…

While research is abundant on quality assurance in higher education, very little has been done to study informal learning in general and its relation to quality assurance in particular. Reporting on a study of informal learning among PhD students in natural sciences in an Iranian university, this article is an attempt to address this issue.…

This paper describes several models of teamwork used in business curricula at Zagreb School of Economics and Management (ZSEM) in Croatia. Since its foundation in 2002, ZSEM has been implementing best academic practices for quality assurance. This is done both in terms of integrating ICT in teaching and learning, as well as applying contemporary…

Transdisciplinarity has been a veritable mantra, especially in the humanities and social sciences, for twenty years or more. Yet academic structures and research application requirements still struggle to come to grips with cross-boundary research and teaching. Making universities more trans-discipline-friendly is a tricky task, however. As Wendy…

This handbook combines the outcomes of the "Symposium on Quality Schools" (April 14, 15 and June 2, 3, 1994, Toronto, Canada) with a continuing presentation of the quality philosophy. It is designed to guide the development and implementation of quality-driven educational programs. Quality schools are committed to creating enhanced…

Learning materials serve as major learning resources for distance learners, and quality learning materials help students learn effectively at a distance. This paper addresses comprehensive aspects of design, development, production, and quality assurance of multi-media learning materials, based on the experience of Indonesia's Universitas Terbuka…

This report discusses the application of the International Organization for Standards's ISO9000 quality assurance standard and Total Quality Management (TQM) to higher education in light of the "new collegialism." It defines the basic elements of ISO9000 and TQM, reviews the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, and notes efforts…

Analyzes inspection results for 22 English and Welsh secondary schools to explore the nature of, and responses to, OFSTED (Offices for Standards in Education) inspectors' recommendations about using internal monitoring and evaluation to improve classroom practice. In their action plans, some schools respond with bureaucratic procedures, while…

Explains activities involved in the production of a multimedia course at the Open University (United Kingdom) and suggests that similar concerns arise with coproduction projects. Highlights include the need for planning; production schedules for different media; controlling quality, quantity, and cost; collection and dissemination of information;…

This article looks at the quality assurance practices amongst three (3) groups of staff in the School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia, i.e. lecturers, resident tutors and support staff. 9 dimensions of the Quality Assurance Practices i.e. Staff Development, Planning, Work Process, Team Work, Prioritise Customers, Performance…

Research on Australian organizations in five industry sectors--building and construction, food processing, electronics manufacturing, retailing, and finance and banking--has identified these three key drivers of enterprise training: workplace change, quality assurance, and new technology. Operation of the training drivers is moderated by a range…