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Quality assurance in online education: The Universitas 21 Global approach
Author(s) -
Chua Alton,
Lam Wing
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
british journal of educational technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.79
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1467-8535
pISSN - 0007-1013
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2006.00652.x
Subject(s) - quality assurance , agency (philosophy) , higher education , quality (philosophy) , medical education , distance education , psychology , pedagogy , political science , sociology , business , medicine , marketing , social science , philosophy , epistemology , law , service (business)
Despite the proliferation of online education, concerns remain about the quality of online programmes. Quality assurance (QA) has become a prominent issue, not only for educational institutions and accreditors, but also for students and employers alike. This paper describes some of the rather unique QA processes used at Universitas 21 Global (U21G), one of the new breed of online academic institutions, and its relation to U21pedagogica, the independent agency that approves U21G’s programmes. These distinctive QA processes relate to five main areas, namely, content authoring, courseware development, adjunct faculty recruitment, pedagogy and delivery. The authors believe that these QA processes have contributed significantly to student satisfaction and student retention at U21G. Furthermore, these QA processes can also be adapted to suit more traditional ‘brick‐and‐mortar’ universities offering online programmes.