Examines difficulties in developing clear charter school standards, capacity, and expertise, recognizing the charter school movement as the conflation of several sometimes contradictory ideas; discussing tensions between competing versions of charter schooling; considering four modifications that could render charter regulation more effective; and…

Examines the effect of assessment and accountability requirements on the English department at Eastern Kentucky University. Aims not to offer solutions but to help to define the problems faced by a particular department at a particular university in a particular context, with the assumption that other departments are facing similar problems. (TB)

The four articles in this special issue stress the importance of producing knowledge in educational administration that has high utility and high quality. Five summary principles are discussed, along with recommendations for improving research coordination and making research findings more accessible to policy makers and administrators. (MLH)

The American Camping Association 2001 National Conference at Walt Disney World draws parallels between the administration of camp programs and practices at Disney World. Seminars led by Disney managers focus on recruitment of college students, development of a corporate culture and philosophy, emphasis on environment, and quality service that…

Illustrates how and why the link between internationalization and quality assurance in higher education is being established by looking at developments that suggest convergence between the two. Emphasizes the implications of wider international developments on Europe as a whole, and elaborates implications for quality assurance of the Bologna…

Review of literature on trends in quality-assurance systems for tertiary education throughout the world followed by a discussion of the implications of these trends for tertiary education in the Caribbean. (Contains 26 references.) (PKP)

The future of test construction for certain psychological ability domains that can be analyzed well in a structured manner may lie--at the very least for reasons of test security--in the field of automatic item generation. In this context, a question that has not been explicitly addressed is whether it is possible to embed an item response theory…

If you build it, will they come? This is one of the fundamental questions anybody creating a Web site has to confront, whether you're a business person, a Web professional or a home user. One of the fundamental ways to ensure people do come, and return, is to make the content of your site as appealing and as accessible as possible. A new study by…

Philip Kendall's (1997) editorial encouraged authors in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (JCCP) to report effect sizes and clinical significance. The present authors assessed the influence of that editorial--and other American Psychological Association initiatives to improve statistical practices--by examining 239 JCCP articles…

This paper considers the role of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) in promoting the improvement of UK research over the past 27 years. The views of some BERA representatives, as expressed at Conferences, in occasional publications and particularly in the pages of Research Intelligence, suggest a certain complacency. These…

This paper looks back on 10 years of accreditation in Hungary, in which the Hungarian Accreditation Committee completed the accreditation of all the country's higher education institutions and their programmes. Drawing from the lessons learned, and also based on the recommendations of the external panel that reviewed its work, the Hungarian…

Quality assurance is well known internationally but the notion is relatively new in Norway. To understand some of the issues and dilemmas that emerge in the Norwegian reception of quality assurance in higher education, this article traces how quality assurance is gaining its form and how international trends are understood, transposed and adopted…

The Higher Education Quality Committee of the Council on Higher Education in South Africa recently carried out an evaluation of all MBA programmes offered in the country by South African as well as foreign higher education institutions. The MBA review is located within the context of the implementation of a comprehensive external quality assurance…

This short report explores the quality of the care process for children with intellectual disabilities. A Delphi procedure was used to identify a set of indicators for the quality of the care process reflecting the perspectives of the care providers, the parents and the experts. The sample consisted of 59 individuals involved in different ways in…

Voltammetry principles are introduced to students by means of a bipotentiometric method to determine vitamin C in fruits and vegetables. The aim is to draw attention to voltammetric methods, particular to the study of current-potential curves, stressing the potential applicability in areas of food quality control.