The 7th Online Forum:
Capacity Building of Quality Assurance Agencies and Universities: Professionalism and Effectiveness
Led by Professor Angela Yung Chi Hou
Facilitated by Professor Jianxin Zhang and Professor Deepthi C. Bandara
The purpose of the APQN online Forum is to encourage participants from APQN members, either individually or in groups, to discuss topics related to quality assurance of higher education through the guidance of colleagues who are experts in the field of the chosen topic. The APQN online forum is anticipated to act as a platform for a very intense discussion and reach successful outcomes to satisfy all APQN members and meet their professional needs.
Up to present, APQN on line forum has been held six times, including “Learning Outcomes and Accountability – the Role of EQA and IQA”, “Role of EQA on IQA on Quality of Cross-border Higher Education”, “Quality Assurance for Sustainable Learning, Teaching and Research in Higher Education”. This year, APQN will continue to conduct the 7th online discussion forum during Aug, 2018. The upcoming forum will focus on three themes: Staff capacity building of QA agencies, Reviewer professionalism enhancement, and University staff QA manageable skills.
1. Staff capacity building of QA agencies
As quality guardians of higher education, quality assurance agencies are required to guarantee “the credibility of the review process and to ensure the objectivities and transparency of their decisions or recommendation”. In order to achieve the goal, QA agencies should recruit capable human resources, develop favorable governance and maintain a stable financial system. Inevitably, quality of QA staff is the core of elements for a great success in QA exercises from a QA agency’s point of views. Over years, APQN has promoted staff exchange programs for all APQN members to learn and share each other’s QA experiences as well as enhance the staff capacity. The first theme of the forum will mainly discuss the strategies for QA agency’s staff training and the impacts of APQN staff exchange programs on QA agencies
2. Reviewers’ professionalism enhancement: All QA agencies will agree that professionalism of reviewers determines quality of external review activities. It is believed that “academics without QA training make their judgements only on the basis of what they know, and fail to appreciate innovations, so the external review process becomes a force for conservatism” (David, 2014, p3). Therefore, many Asian QA agencies consider reviewers’ training as a basic requirement before an onsite visit starts. In order to ensure that a visit team would successfully and professionally complete review exercises, QA agencies set guidelines or regulations for reviewers’ qualification and selection. In addition, QA agencies put strong emphasis on adequate training and capacity building methods for reviewers. Under this theme, qualification and selection of QA experts will be discussed interchangeably. All participants will be also encouraged to share good practices of reviewer training in their agencies.
3. University staff QA manageable skills:
A success of an external review will depend on a well-established internal QA mechanism of a university. According to CHEA principle one, it indicated that “Quality assurance should be an integral part of institutional governance and clearly identified within the overall institutional management structure and system”. In addition, it emphasized that, “The functions and responsibilities of the quality assurance office should be clearly articulated” (Hou, 2016, p.9). In other words, the staff of University QA office should be fully committed to develop a quality assurance mechanism and provide training for faculty members and staff. Hence, University QA office would need to employ a sufficient number of QA professionals in order to design QA system, which would facilitate IQA implementation over teaching and learning activities. Therefore, the final theme will focus on university QA administrators and staff’s professionalism as well as their QA knowledge enhancement.
Accordingly, the three-week forum will mainly focus on QA professionalism and effectiveness from both QA agency and university’s perspectives. Hence, the three sub-themes will be further discussed and facilitated by the following persons:
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Staff capacity building in quality assurance agencies by Professor Angela Yung Chi Hou
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Reviewer professionalism: qualification, selection, and training by Professor Jianxin Zhang
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University staff QA knowledge enhancement: quality in teaching and learning and IQA implementation by Professor Deepthi C. Bandara.
Timeline and Topic
|
Date/Week |
Contents |
Facilitator |
|
Aug 5 |
Introduction |
Prof. Angela Yung Chi Hou, Prof. Jianxin Zhang & Professor Deepthi C. Bandara |
|
Aug 6 to Aug 10 |
Staff capacity building in quality assurance agencies |
Professor Angela Yung Chi Hou |
|
Aug 11 to Aug 16 |
Reviewer professionalism: qualification, selection, and training |
Professor Jianxin Zhang |
|
Aug 17 to Aug 21 |
University staff QA knowledge enhancement: quality in teaching and learning and IQA implementation |
Professor Deepthi C. Bandara |
Before we start our discussions and sharing, would you please come to Hi and introduction yourself to all participants !!
Look forward to meeting you all in the sky !!