This article analyses the student assessment procedures of 12 universities in the UK, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic with respect to their alignment with the European standards and guidelines on the quality of assessing higher education students (European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance [ESG] 1.3). Based on qualitative…

In Europe there is no common quality assurance framework for the delivery of guidance in higher education. Using a case study approach in four university career guidance services in England, France and Spain, this article aims to study how quality is implemented in university career guidance services in terms of strategy, standards and models,…

Many quality assurance systems rely on high-stakes assessment for course certification. Such methods are not as objective as they might appear; they can have detrimental effects on student motivation and may lack relevance to the needs of degree courses increasingly oriented to vocational utility. "Alternative assessment" methods can…

The Australian government recently established a national regulator with responsibilities of registration and accreditation of all kinds of higher education providers including universities. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) subsumes the functions of the previous Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) with…

This article describes a "conscientious consumerism" project that involves the student as the consumer to either commend or complain to a company about a recent product or service experience. This activity and presentation helps students develop an understanding of the commendation/complaint management process within organizations while…

The AACSB accreditation process reflects basic quality principles, providing standards and a process for feedback for continuous improvement. However, implementation can lead to unintended negative consequences. The literature shows that while institutionalism and critical theory have been used as a theoretical base for evaluating accreditation,…

In this article I discuss contemporary tensions between policy, research and practice within Danish early childhood education and care. I present a critical, but open-ended, pastiche narrative with elements of modernization, evidence-based practice and (post-) positivistic research. I draw on postmodern and post-pragmatist sources to construct…

Academic boards play a key role in the maintenance of quality standards and the provision of strategic leadership on academic issues. The current research investigated the role provided at present to Australian universities through their academic boards. All universities described their academic boards as their principal academic body. The…

In universities around the world, plagiarism management is an ongoing issue of quality assurance and risk management. Plagiarism management discourses are often framed by legal concepts of authorial rights, and plagiarism policies outline penalties for infringement. Learning and teaching discourses argue that plagiarism management is, and should…

Although Vi?t Nam's experiences with quality assurance (QA) policy development have been influenced by its relationships with, and funding from, the World Bank and regional organizations, the state-centric values of the Socialist Republic of Vi?t Nam still navigate the implementation process. The development of QA in Vietnamese higher…

This paper investigates institutional policies and academic practices of student assessment in four Portuguese higher education institutions (HEIs) in the wake of European policy developments driven by the Bologna Process. Specifically, it examines the correspondence between European policy recommendations related to student assessment (promotion…

The study underlying this article investigates the factors under which European policy initiatives with respect to higher education (HE), such as the Bologna Process, lead to policy change at the national level. In theoretical terms, it uses institutionalist approaches to the Europeanization of public policy developed in the fields of comparative…

In spite of recent methodological developments related to quality assurance in mixed methods research, practical examples of how to implement quality criteria in designing and conducting sequential QUAN [right arrow] QUAL mixed methods studies to ensure the process is systematic and rigorous remain scarce. This article discusses a three-step…

With the growing demand for quality online education in the US, developing quality online courses and online programs, and more importantly maintaining this quality, have been an inevitable concern for higher education institutes. Current literature on quality assurance in online education mostly focuses on the development of review models and…

There remains a lack of published empirical data on the substantive outcomes of higher learning and the establishment of quality processes for determining them. Studies that do exist are nationally focused with available rankings of institutions reflecting neither the quality of teaching and learning nor the diversity of institutions. This article…