Quality Assurance in an International Higher Education Area


Book Description

Rethinking the purpose and the aim of higher education has led to new and alternative ways to assure the quality of different higher education systems. In the case studies of six OECD countries, Andrea Bernhard exemplifies the ongoing trends and changes of quality assurance systems along peer-reviewed country reports and interviews with national and international experts. The comparative analysis is based on international, descriptive, discursive, and analytical aspects concentrating on the theoretical concepts of massification, diversification, privatisation, and internationalisation. The author highlights the leading trend towards quality assurance within an international higher education area and provides recommendations to establish a functioning quality assurance system within the observed higher education systems and beyond their borders. This book is valuable reading for academics, practitioners, and policy makers in the field of higher education.
















Academic Fault Lines


Book Description

How did public higher education become an industry? This unprecedented account reveals how campus leaders and faculty preserved the vitality and core values of public higher education despite changing resources and expectations. American public higher education is in crisis. After decades of public scrutiny over affordability, access, and quality, indictments of the institution as a whole abound. Campus leaders and faculty report a loss of public respect resulting from their alleged unresponsiveness to demands for change. But is this loss of confidence warranted? And how did we get to this point? In Academic Fault Lines, Patricia J. Gumport offers a compelling account of the profound shift in societal expectations for what public colleges and universities should be and do. She attributes these new attitudes to the ascendance of "industry logic"—the notion that higher education must prioritize serving the economy. Arguing that industry logic has had far-reaching effects, Gumport shows how this business-oriented mandate has prompted colleges to restructure for efficiency gains, adopt more corporate forms, develop deeper ties with industry, and mold academic programs in the interest of enhancing students' future employment prospects. She also explains how industry logic gained traction and momentum, altering what constitutes legitimacy for public higher education. Yet Gumport's narrative is by no means defeatist. Drawing on case studies of nine public colleges and universities, as well as more than 200 stakeholder interviews, Gumport's nuanced account conveys the successful efforts of leaders and educators to preserve and even strengthen fundamental public values such as educational access, knowledge advancement regardless of currency, and civic responsibility. Ultimately, Academic Fault Lines demonstrates how intrepid faculty and administrators engaged their communities both on and off campus, collaborating and inventing win-win scenarios to further public higher education's expanding legacy of service to all citizens while preserving its centrality to society and the world.




A Handbook to Guide Educational Institutions Through the Accreditation Process


Book Description

With this book, Drs. Coffey and Millsaps fill the need for a practical yet scholarly guide to the entire process of accreditation for any institution about to undertake this endeavor. Topics are arranged in the order that an institution will most likely need this information as it begins the accreditation process. Beginning with a basic definition of accreditation, the book expands that to include different types, traces the beginnings of accreditation, and updates this subject with future challenges. This book avoids addressing region-specific, mutable criteria, leaving such matters to publications from the various regional accrediting bodies. Instead, it includes best practices from many institutional studies and/or sources which allow readers to choose the ones most useful for their own institutions. Initial chapters deal with giving tips for the self-study director, choosing a committee structure to support the self-study, and selling the entire campus on the process, most notably by gaining the president's involvement early. the report, ways of distributing it for campus feedback, and methods of organizing the resource room. Chapters 6 and 7 give practical information about what an institution can do to insure a smooth, productive, and harmonious site visit by the visiting team. Chapters 8 and 9 deal with what occurs after the site visit, both regionally with the visiting team's report to the regional accrediting body and locally as the institution responds to any suggestions or recommendations. Finally, the last chapter invites readers to assess their entire self-study process to determine what worked well and what did not for future reference. It also reminds readers of the important benefits of undergoing such a study. And all of these topics include citations and examples from the literature of accreditation to substantiate the points made. This is a book for any administrative, faculty, or staff member of an institution who wants to learn how to conduct a successful self-study from its inception to the final response to the regional or specialized accrediting body. this topic.