In the competitive world of recruiting, the better an applicant can apply what has already been learned to a new environment, the greater the career opportunity. This study captured the transformative learning experience of students, guided by their instructors and industry partners, related to learning and executing Lean Six Sigma principles in a…

College has become a risky proposition for students as well as taxpayers. Fewer than six in 10 students who start a degree will ever finish, which means that they won't see a return on the money they've spent to attend--and if they took out a loan from the federal government, they might be left with unaffordable debt. In the latter case, the…

Academic researchers who seek to publish their work are confronted daily with a barrage of e-mails from aggressive marketing campaigns that solicit them to publish their research with a specialized, often newly launched, journal. Known as predatory journals, they often promise high editorial and publishing standards, yet their exploitive business…

As universities in the United Kingdom gear themselves up for the next Research Excellence Framework, REF2021, with peer review at its core, we critically re-visit the idea of peer review as a gold standard proxy for research excellence. We question the premise that anonymous peer review is a necessary and enabling condition for impartial, expert…

Potency assays of pharmaceutical products are designed to measure the amount of an active ingredient in a sample. They are important quality control tools for all medications, including intravenous (IV) admixture fluid bags which are commonly prepared by pharmacists in healthcare facilities via extemporaneous compounding. An interdisciplinary…

This paper addresses ethical issues in educational research with a focus on the interplay between research ethics and both internal and external quality of research. Research ethics is divided into three domains: (1) ethics "within" the research community; (2) ethics concerning relationships with "individuals and groups directly…

The Quality Control (QC) Guidelines are intended to increase the efficiency, precision, and accuracy of the scoring, analysis, and reporting process of testing. The QC Guidelines focus on large-scale testing operations where multiple forms of tests are created for use on set dates. However, they may also be used for a wide variety of other testing…

Efficiency in the 1980's, quality in the 1990's, compliance in the 2010's - private sector management techniques and mechanisms find their way to public services. This paper facilitates the understanding of how compliance management controls can improve operations and prevent or detect failure or wrong doing. The last few years' empirical research…

Urban public school districts in the U.S. vary in quality. Educational policies, distribution of resources, and the challenges that students bring to the classroom differ substantially across localities. Little surprise, then, that academic outcomes--such as high school graduation rates and average school performance on standardized…

The distinction between external assessment and internal assessment underpins a major reform to vocational qualifications underway in England. To be approved by the Department for Education, vocational qualifications must now include a minimum proportion of external assessment, regardless of subject. This paper discusses the nature and…

Gert J. J. Biesta is a widely known and respected scholar in the field of education. He has published a large number of articles, books, chapters and other work. He is currently professor of Education in the Department of Education at Brunel University London. This interview with Biesta touched on a wide range of topics. This article is a…

This paper explores the impact of external accountability on four mechanisms of network-internal quality control and the properties of (mandated) inter-organizational networks. An explorative case study approach examines the external accountability of a newly established educational network (MAT) and how schools and the Trust are held accountable…

The United States is a world leader in biomedical clinical research. America's existing human subject research regulations structure affords sizable protections for the ethical treatment of research volunteers. Early initiatives such as the Belmont Report were specific to federally funded research. Over the past several decades guidelines such as…

Recording interviews is a key feature of quality control protocols for most survey organizations. We examine the effects on interview length and data quality of a new protocol adopted by a national panel study. The protocol recorded a randomly chosen one-third of all interviews digitally, although all respondents were asked for permission to…

This article describes an examination of how undergraduate instructional design assistants (IDAs) scaled up an open badge system by assisting in creating open badges. External reviewers rated the open badge rubrics created by seven of these IDAs along with those created by instructors, and the results were compared by scored components as well as…