Improving distance education through Programme Quality Assurance

Abstract

This paper describes the experiences of a major Australian university in the implementation of a system of Programme Quality Assurance (PQA), to shed light on improving the quality of global distance education programs. The system described makes use of quality cycles to enhance the quality of all university programmes. The study, which involved a series of interviews with several of the stakeholders in this system, found that some mistakes had been made in initial systems implementation that resulted in a number of academic staff distrusting the system. It illustrated, however, that use of this system was acknowledged by most stakeholders as an important contributor to improving quality in distance education, rather than just measuring it.

A Better E-Train

“…Interviews were tape-recorded and interviewees were later given a chance to make any corrections they thought necessary to the final manuscripts. Participants were questioned about how the PQA system affected their work, what they thought of the system, what they thought it might achieve in improving educational quality-especially that relating to e-training-and any implementation or other issues with the system that concerned them (Davey and Tatnall 2003). Published papers on the topics of EQA and PQA and appropriate system documentation (Tatnall and Davey 1997) were also used to complete the case study.…”