US higher education accreditation agencies provide external quality evaluation for institutions and programmes to deliver quality control and assurance. Although there is ample discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of the accreditation process, this article reviews the academic literature to consider the impact that accreditation might have…

In this explorative study, the translation perspective from organisational studies is taken to analyse how national accreditation agencies interpret the so-called European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) and adjust these to the domestic context. Additionally, the study investigates how review panels make use of the ESG vocabulary in their review…

In light of the lack of scholarly studies on the determination of quality in bioethics education, this paper aims to elaborate the concept of quality, focus on its understanding in education and explore a definition of quality in bioethics education. The findings of the literature-based research indicate that quality is a multidimensional concept…

This article examines the extent to which the professional accreditation of professional higher education programmes can complement other quality assurance endeavours being carried out. An analysis of a sample of professional accreditation reports for pharmacy education programmes in Ireland provides insight into the priorities of the regulatory…

Nursing is a relatively new discipline in research with a small number of registered nurses holding a research higher degree (RHD). Entry into RHD study for nurses is often via a less direct route than the traditional bachelor's degree through honours to PhD pathway. The supervisor-candidate relationship is an important factor in RHD completions…

This article assesses the quality of research supervision in mainland Chinese higher education by critiquing the related literature. It provides an evaluative overview of the Chinese graduate supervisor-student relationship after presenting the supervision system that is at work. The study has revealed that despite the general satisfaction felt…

This article applies the theoretical framework of principal-agent theory in order to better understand the complex organisational relationships emerging between entities invested in the establishment and monitoring of cross-border international branch campus medical schools. Using the key constructs of principal-agent theory, information asymmetry…

In this article, 93 Greek university departments were evaluated according to their academics' h-index. A representative sample from the fields of social sciences and humanities, sciences, engineering, pharmacy and economics was adopted. In the reported study, 3354 (approximately 1 out of 3) academics serving in Greek universities were evaluated.…

This article undertakes a review of Australian and international literature and higher education policy in response to the changing nature of university academic boards (also known as academic senates or faculty senates). It shows that governance has become an issue for both the state and for universities and that within this context risk…

In recent times, higher education institutions have paid increasing attention to the views of students to obtain feedback on their experience of learning and teaching through internal surveys. This article reviews research in the field and reports on practices in other Australian universities. Findings demonstrate that while student feedback is…

Improving retention rates in post-school education has become a focus for policy-makers and researchers throughout the western world. Without doubt, any measure that helps students wishing to succeed in higher education is valuable. However, the dominance retention has achieved on a wide variety of educational fronts ranging from policy to…

There is a strong international interest in the enhancement of teaching quality. Enhancement is a big job because teaching is an extensive activity. It is a complex job because learning to teach is not, mainly, a formal process: non-formal, practice-based learning is more significant. These two points, extensiveness and practice-based learning,…

This paper reviews several cases of external evaluations of external quality assurance (EQA) agencies. The characteristics, methodology and findings of six such evaluations from three continents are discussed and similarities and differences are analysed. The lessons drawn from these six cases show that external evaluation of agencies is a…