It has been suggested that growing interest in curriculum assessment and development in higher education is the result of a number of external and internal factors. External factors include increasing government interest in quality assurance, accessibility, and degree completion rates; growing recognition of the important role university graduates…

As instructors adopt web-based learning environments, they must consider how students' evaluations of learning reflect the overall quality of instruction. Traditional course evaluations are used for faculty retention, tenure and promotion decisions, but also provide instructors with valuable information on the quality of their instruction. This…

There is significant potential for error in long production processes that consist of sequential stages, each of which is heavily dependent on the previous stage, such as the SER (Scoring, Equating, and Reporting) process. Quality control procedures are required in order to monitor this process and to reduce the number of mistakes to a minimum. In…

There have been calls to increase the autonomy of higher education institutions in Europe for a number of years. They have been counterbalanced by demands for increasing accountability and a European quality assurance system. In London in 2007, the European ministers of education decided to implement a European register of accredited quality…

This study points out the need for evaluation criteria for business resources on the Internet, so that both corporations and special libraries will be better able to judge the value of the Internet as an information source and increase their competitive edge in today's global market. The research addresses concerns that unfiltered information on…

Intended for individuals wishing to be qualified as Deaf Interpreters by the Virginia Quality Assurance Screening (VQAS) program of the Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, this monograph describes the program in question-and-answer format. It addresses the following topics: what the VQAS is; who administers the VQAS; the…

This document analyzes the inspection reports of the five further education (FE) colleges in Britain that have achieved a grade of 1 for quality assurance (QA), identifies key lessons for the improvement of programs in other FE colleges, and refers to helpful FE publications. The five colleges consisted of two general FE colleges, one sixth-form…

This guide is designed to help prospective students, counselors, public agencies, and institutions better understand distance school accreditation and how the accreditation procedures of the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) work. The guide defines distance education, discusses who the accrediting…

The International Standards Organization (ISO) has developed standards to provide a uniform framework for quality assurance in organizations' products and services. Commonly referred to as ISO 9000, these standards focus on achieving and sustaining the quality of the product or service produced to continuously meet purchasers' needs, and give…

The author discusses the trend toward faculty mediocrity in university departments. The author suggests that equality breeds mediocrity. Inequality should be legitimated in the interest of the whole as a possible solution. (DE)

The paper describes Quality Service Management (QSM) as applied to the provision of services to disabled and other special needs persons. QSM is defined as a systems approach to consumer relations based on the belief that quality care may be achieved only within the context of overall services management. Differences among "quality…

This paper defines professional certification as a voluntary process regulated by a profession to measure competencies possessed by its practitioners. A hierarchy of motives for certification is illustrated, and its importance for the fields of adult education and human resource development (HRD) is emphasized. The evolution of the concept of…

Because the mass marketing of educational support services through franchised reading clinics is growing on a daily basis, both reading specialists and reading supervisors need to become aware of the growth of this industry and of its implications for the educational system. Primary forces in the franchising movement, Sylvan Learning Corporation,…