Editorial

Citation

Srikanthan, G. (2008), "Editorial", Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 16 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/qae.2008.12016daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Quality Assurance in Education, Volume 16, Issue 4

The articles in this issue present a variety of perspectives on quality in education. They range from strategic management at an institutional level to curriculum design at a programme level. In the same way the articles and reviews cover both research supervision and effective teaching in a coursework. They also address the issues of quality frameworks for e-learning, as well as the dilemmas of authentic academic writing. Overall, they all touch upon a range of aspects which make up the rich mosaic of quality assurance in education.

In the first article in this issue Juha Kettunen presents a general conceptual framework, which can be used to evaluate quality and institutional performance in higher education. Strategic management is widely used in higher education institutions and is a strong candidate for considering a general framework for management. The balanced scorecard approach presented in the article is said to be designed as a mechanism to communicate and implement the strategic plan, and make it more understandable to the stakeholders.

The following paper by Stephen Dann describes the application of two key quality frameworks for improving the delivery of postgraduate research supervision. The frameworks are used to identify key areas of overlap between services marketing practice and postgraduate research. The two diverse areas of theoretical work are said to integrate the experience and knowledge for service to postgraduate students.

In the next article Alistair Inglis compares the ways in which a range of quality frameworks for e-learning have been validated, and identifies a number of factors that impact on the validation processes. The paper identifies the need for more attention to be paid to the development of methods of validation that are both objective and robust. This paper provides some baseline data to serve as a basis for future work to validate quality frameworks.

With the increasing emphasis on academic publications, Graham Badley considers in the next article whether the notion of authenticity is useful or meaningful in the context of developing academics as writers. The essay offers a critique of some of the current views of authenticity in higher education and suggests the usefulness of a transactional theory of writing for higher education.

In the following article Sauber, McSurely and Rao present a case study of the process of designing and measuring learning competencies in programme development. The paper illustrates these through the process of development of a programme on supply chain management. The approach is said to present challenges in collecting and analysing assessment data, and opportunities for continuously improving the programme.

In the book review that follows Robyn Barnacle reviews Assessment of Doctoral Education … edited by Maki and Borkowski. The reviewer finds the book to be “… not only informative but useful, comprising a veritable treasure trove of strategies, assessment models and research findings”. The book is thus considered to be an informative addition to the growing body of literature on doctoral education.

Adele Flood follows with another book review of the title Rethinking Teaching in Higher Education edited by Saroyan and Amundsen. The review starts with a firm recommendation: “Read this book” which seems to sum up succinctly the reviewer’s position. Adele goes on to describe the book as “… highly readable, informative and engaging”, which is why it seems to be “… a good text to have on the shelf, when pondering: what to do, why do I do this and what can I do to change others’ practice.”

Finally, the team hopes that the articles included for your consideration in this issue will provide inspiration for reflection, individually and collectively, to review some of the perspectives on, and practices for, quality in education.

G. Srikanthan