Leading the quality management of online learning environments in Australian higher education

Abstract

The paper presents the findings of the first year of a nationally funded Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) project on the quality management of online learning environments by and through distributed leadership. The project is being undertaken by five Australian universities with major commitments to online and distance education. Each university, however, has a distinctive location, history and profile in the sector. The first year of the project has seen the development of a quality management framework with six interrelated elements. The framework is being applied, refined and validated in the second year of the project. Allied with the development of the framework, was the conduct of focus groups at each of the five partner institutions in the middle of the first year. These focus groups composed a range of staff involved collectively in the leadership of the organisation's online learning environment. Prominence was given to the nature and value of strategic planning, due diligence conducted in selecting and mainstreaming technologies, evaluation approaches informing decision making, and the various relationships between different leadership levels and domains. A number of key issues which emerged relating to the elements identified in the framework are examined.

Focusing the kaleidoscope: exploring distributed leadership in an English university

“…While research into this area appears relatively sparse, recent research in Australia seems to suggest that adopting distributed leadership models in higher education can be successful (Harkin and Healy 2013) with the approach proving especially useful in relation to leading the quality management of on-line learning environments (Holt et al 2013, Holt et al 2014 and in building leadership capacity in learning and teaching (Jones et al 2014, Jones et al 2012. What is less clear, however, is how useful adopting a distributed leadership model is in relation to supporting academic staff in a research-led environment, which is something this paper hopes to address.…”

Quality Pursuit: an academic informed, evidence-based approach to Assurance of Learning

“…At the time the 360QP was under development, at least two Australian Higher Education institutions had developed broad learning and teaching quality frameworks: Deakin University's Learning Futures (Deakin University, 2013) and the University of Wollongong's Curriculum Transformation (University of Wollongong, 2014). Other institutions and Australian Government-funded projects (e.g., Krause et al, 2013;Lawson et al, 2013) made significant contributions to quality enhancement, but only to specific aspects such as benchmarking (Booth, 2013) and online quality management (Holt et al, 2013). The sector was rated as having an "undeveloped approach to Assurance of Learning" (Lawson et al, 2013, p. 58).…”

Üniversite Öğrencilerinin Sosyal Ve Öğrenme Amaçlı Teknoloji Kullanım Becerileri

“…Kuruluş tarihlerine göre Türkiye'de köklü, genç ve yeni kurulmuş üç üniversitedeki lisans öğrencilerine sosyal ve öğrenme amaçlı teknolojileri kullanımlarının tespiti için dört bölümü uygulanmıştır. Bu anket daha önce Avustralya'da değişik üniversitelerde öğrencilerin teknoloji ile ilgili deneyimleri ve beklentilerini ölçerek bu üniversitelere yeni teknolojileri nasıl adapte edecekleri ve mevcut teknolojilerin revize edilme konularında geribildirim sağlamıştır (Holt et al 2013;Gosper et al 2013) (Gosper vd. ,2013).…”