A brief look at the need to improve the quality of instructional design. (AA)

Inveighs against the prevalent commodified discourse in higher education, especially as it affects curriculum planning, quality assurance, and learner typologies, suggesting that educational research, in offering models drawn, but now divorced, from practice may contribute to this negative impact. Critiques a polarized model distinguishing…

The paper presents definitions of key terms concerned with development of medical practice guidelines, identifies eight attributes of good practice, and examines issues of guideline implementation and evaluation. The eight attributes are validity, reliability and reproducibility, clinical applicability, clinical flexibility, clarity,…

Describes a management training project at GTE Corporation that aimed to improve the quality of every product and service they offered. (JOW)

Discusses six steps to follow when documenting an ISO 9000 quality system: using ISO 9000 to develop a quality system, identifying a company's business processes, analyzing the business processes; describing the procedures, writing the quality manual, and working to the documented procedures. (SR)

A technique developed to monitor the quality of manufactured products, statistical process control (SPC), incorporates several features that may prove attractive to evaluators. This paper reviews the history of SPC, suggests how the approach can enrich program evaluation, and illustrates its use in a hospital-based example. (SLD)

Discusses "excessive activity syndrome," the condition that exists when too many Total Quality Management (TQM) activities have been implemented and limited results have been achieved. Offers symptoms of EAS and suggests treatments. (JOW)

Lessons learned by two neophyte trainers in a corporate quality improvement program include (1) the importance of team training; (2) training across levels, mixing different departments and responsibilities; and (3) concreteness and small group instruction. (SK)

Asks where the sources of quality in documentation lie. Concludes that the only way to achieve quality is through professional communicators. (SR)

Proposes a new approach to ensuring full and accurate disclosure of information about a website. The SiteLegend approach uses a hyperlink to fully inform consumers regarding 12 essential components of websites. This article describes each of the 12 components, then provides an example of an active online link that illustrates actual use of the…

Describes requirements for ISO 9000 certification in industry, using a factory example. Shows how requirements might be applied in higher education, with "product" being the actual learning outcome and "customer" anyone who purchases educational services. Addresses issues of continuous improvement in higher education. (SK)

Applying microeconomic theory to No Child Left Behind predicts that its use of significant consequences for schools that do not reach 100% proficiency on rigorous standardized tests by 2014 will likely prevent most, if not all schools, from providing a high-quality education for their students. The central problem is cost. Quality assurance models…

This study investigates the quality assurance of web-supported learning and may be considered a self-evaluation exercise of the e-learning design and production unit at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. While the 'quality' discourse and the 'e-learning' discourse are topical, there is little evidence of research projects which attempt to…

This paper examines the introduction of peer review of teaching in a pre-1992 university in England. The paper first considers the theoretical dimensions. Peer review of teaching is generally seen as a quality enhancement rather than a quality assurance instrument and a powerful means of encouraging the continuing professional development of…