Keynote Address for the NADEOSA ConferenceUniversity of Pretoria South Africa 12-13 August 1999

Author: Shona Butterfield The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand

Title: Implementing Quality in Distance Education: an Institutional Perspective

Introduction

Quality and/or quality assurance occur within a context. Educational institutions operate in many different environments with different societal pressures, different basic infrastructures in things like postal services, technology; different funding systems; different legislative and regulatory environments; and different student and stakeholder expectations. This presentation is based in my understanding of our context as an institution in New Zealand. Where the issues are similar you may find our response has relevance. On the other hand, your context may be so different that our response would be quite inappropriate. I look forward in discussion to hearing what your issues are and how you are responding to them.

Some key issues that are forcing change in the wider societal context include: the demand for education that develops human resources to assist in the economic development of nations; the ongoing demand for lifelong learning; the rise in importance of systems that work for indigenous peoples; the demand for increasingly personalised ways of accessing study in a context of increasing globalisation; the changing world of work where we now have multi-nationals offering degrees within their own corporations and at the same time we have more and more people needing to create businesses for themselves; the impact of technology in creating "haves" and "have nots", along with the tremendous opportunities that it offers; the inability of governments to fund expansion in tertiary education – and consequent increasing fees for students in many jurisdictions.

For each of us the importance of these contextual issues is determined by the way in which they impact in our local environment. We operate in a country where private telephones in homes are the norm; where most homes have both TV and video recorders; where the postal service to most cities occurs within 48 hours – and it is cheap; where distance education has long been valued and qualifications gained by that mode have equal standing; and where in tertiary education we are now funded on the same basis as contact institutions. In our New Zealand context I add the progressive shift to a market driven and therefore increasingly competitive tertiary sector. We gain Government subsidy on as many equivalent full time students as we can enrol. We also set our own fees – with each course priced to its market.

The Purposes of Tertiary Education

The following framework developed by Dolence and Norris (Transforming Higher Education p4) is interesting because it puts higher education in the context of the transformation that is occurring from the industrial age to the information age. Nations and local communities are at quite different stages in this process and this will influence the way they view purposes and requirements for education - and for how quality of that education is viewed.

In the last decade our institution has progressively moved to meet every facet of the information age as described. The purpose of our institution is to support learners or those who teach and mentor them. We have unbundled the learning process so that students and their supporters can choose to access what they want when they want it. For example, they may choose resources only, or resources only with assessment, or resources with teaching support and assessment. Enterprises may buy learning resources alone or they may want workplace assessor training as well. The key for any customer – student or enterprise – is "You buy what you want".

Organisational

Analysis

TOPNZ Path

Customer Path

(You Choose)

A key component in supporting this model has been the restructuring of the institution to support this strategy. Course design is a separate unit from Faculty. It comprises project managers and education consultants (designers). Once a course is approved for production, a project manager has responsibility to produce it to the time, cost and quality specifications in the detailed proposal (which IS prepared by Faculty). Content specialists (authors) are contracted for that task. When they are full-time Faculty, which is by far the most common occurrence, our academics have three options: continue to meet all requirements of the job as an academic to meet agreed outcomes and do the contract as secondary employment; take leave from their academic post to be employed as a contractor for fixed price; or negotiate secondment to the Course Design Unit with that unit funding their replacement cost in Faculty. The latter is the most common model, but all operate. The project manager does not have to recruit authors from Faculty. They may be contracted from other institutions, from industry, from overseas. The key objective is to get the best person for the job.

Phipps et al (1998) in reviewing quality in distance learning state

"We believe there are central threshold questions which relate to basic collegiate values and purposes that accreditors must confront because of the prevalence of distance learning. These questions concern the role of the faculty and the degree of professional autonomy and academic freedom they have within an institution. They also concern minimum expectations for student involvement in an intellectual community and the prominence of a culturation, personal skills and values development as central qualities of higher education. To answer these questions requires a fresh look at both the design and control of the curriculum and the core purposes of collegiate higher education in society."

The authors are right, I think, about the issues – but not about their cause. Distance learning is not the driver re-evaluating the purpose of tertiary education. Rather, the driver is the increasing range of "purposes" tertiary education must meet. In our country this recognition is slowly dawning and institutions are differentiating for quite specific purposes. The role of faculty is different in different circumstances: each valid in its own context. In a traditional institution it may well currently be that of the dispenser of knowledge. In a distance education institution the role is likely to be one of facilitating and guiding the learning process. Each valid in its own context. . The role of faculty in this circumstance is in the learning support and assessment. Our faculty may be supporting students who are learning from resources developed by the UKOU or some other provider. We do not accept that this model has diminished the academic freedom of staff, particularly given that another key aspect of their role as faculty is to be actively involved in research in the discipline they teach.

The key outputs for which academics may have responsibility in our institution (and each will have personal performance measures negotiated annually) include student retention rates; reliable assessment of student work; research outputs; professional/industry credibility; service delivery management for key clients; contract research and consultancy. Some will focus more on teaching and some more on work with industry or other key clients. Still others may be engaged purely in research.

The rest of my presentation is predicated in our Polytechnic’s experience of the need to be an institution of the information age, our understanding of the wider environmental trends impacting on higher education, our knowledge of our own local environment and on the implications of this context for quality.

"When I use a word" said Humpty Dumpty to Alice (in Through the Looking Glass), "It means just what I choose it to mean." In relation to quality, we might all be Humpty Dumpty. On this occasion I’ve focussed on two definitions: fitness for purpose – a simple one, and the more complex subjective and objective attributes of a product or service which satisfy customers expectations and perceptions at the time of purchase and during the useable life of the product or service.

Students

Distance and open learning are, in fact, interesting test-beds for refining new approaches to quality precisely because their explicit purpose is to make learning opportunities accessible in new ways and contexts. In tertiary education usually this means servicing students who fall outside the traditional 18-24 year old cohort who are engaged in full-time, full year study.

At The Open Polytechnic we have 30,000 students. They are anything but an homogeneous group. Pluck an Open Polytechnic student at random from the database and you might find a 20 year-old trades trainee studying plumbing; or a 16 year-old secondary student studying childcare in her school class as an elective option; or a 36 year-old mother of three completing her accounting degree while holding down a demanding managerial position. You might find a high-achieving whizz-kid in a hurry, racing through his computing degree and spurning any form of support beyond his course materials; or an unemployed 56 year-old man with no formal educational qualifications trying to get back into the workforce, and genuinely terrified by the very thought of writing his first assignment in 40 years – or ever.

Our students are enrolled in over 700 "courses," ranging from a single unit standard to diploma and degree level; from horticulture and bush safety to psychology and marketing. Most are studying part-time but not all. Three quarters are people in employment studying to upskill for job or career reasons, but a sizeable group are people at home wanting to enter or re-enter the job market. Thirty percent study at degree level; 13 % have no educational qualifications at all. Twenty six per cent are aged 24 years or younger; 26 % 40 years or older; most choose to study with us but some have no other option because of geographic isolation, disability or because their course of choice is not available at their local institution.

I labour the point; but the point is worth labouring. We serve a highly diverse body of students with quite, sometimes radically, different needs and expectations in terms of the learning experience they contract from us. A key aspect of "quality" in this context is to know who our different types of students are and to seek to provide them with appropriate support.

As an example, recent research has revealed a sub-group within one of our degree programmes who are more likely to struggle with their studies: younger males (29 years or below) who are not fully employed and only educated to secondary school level. Not surprising perhaps. But unless you find out about such a group within a given programme, you can’t do anything about its particular problems eg. by identifying them early and giving more proactive tutoring (this group were more likely to prefer group to solo study, and to want a high degree of structure). Note that the overall student satisfaction figures for course advice on the degree programme in question were significantly above the (very good) Polytechnic average; the "problem group" were concealed within these figures.

On the other hand, students’ generic expectations and perceptions of service quality in areas such as tutor accessibility and timeliness are rising in response to factors such as new technology and, especially, the customer service standards set by commercial organisations. Increasingly, for example, our students want to access their personal tutor immediately by phone, and prefer to leave a voicemail message rather than speak to a duty tutor. It doesn’t matter that in a contact institution you need to make an appointment to personally consult your lecturer. Our students, particularly at the higher levels, increasingly expect this contact whenever they want it. They compare our service quality with call centre and mail order firms in many ways. It is the course content and the qualification where they look to benchmark against a traditional institution. I would also note how quickly expectations change. When we first introduced voicemail students were uncomfortable with using the technology; now it is the preferred option if their personal tutor is unavailable. (See Appendix 1 for some examples)

McLachlan-Smith (1998) demonstrates that knowledge of learner needs is a critical factor in providing quality. Her research looked at examples of how teacher-learner relationships, assessment and marking procedures, and course administration and availability affected a student’s ability to complete the paper to a satisfactory conclusion. Key problems included poor application of concepts of adult learning, lack of recognition of workload involved in the materials provided, lack of a "teacher voice" in materials, providing guidance. Strengths included materials where the structure of the course was clear, with good information about workload and strong theory/practise links providing choice and opportunity for feedback. Interestingly, students who have positive assessment experiences tended to comment favourably on the paper as a whole and herein lies one of the critical issues for the education provider. One perspective is insufficient to determine quality, particularly in assessment. Processes for ensuring validity, reliability and moderation are essential to ensure standards are maintained.

This particular study highlighted very similar experiences to those of our institution in relation to administration and teacher availability being key determinants of student perceptions of quality. We have also found issues in the study programme to be a key factor in retention. In our latest survey of students who did not complete courses, 27% found the course more difficult than expected and 30% found it took more time than expected. This is not acceptable. We are now working to improve our pre-course counselling and our early detection of students who are having difficulty to try to improve student success.

I have given only a few examples to try to highlight how we at an institutional level respond to quality expectations of students while retaining academic integrity. I want to briefly look at two other key stakeholders before I move to more general institutional quality systems responses.

Government

As the main funder of tertiary education Government has its own expectations of quality. As Brennan (1998) notes, they put quality assurance systems in place

• to ensure accountability of public funds
• to improve the quality of higher education provision
• to inform funding decisions
• to inform students and employers
• to stimulate competitiveness within and between institutions
• to undertake a quality check on new (and sometimes private) institutions
• to assign institutional status
• to support the transfer of authority between the state and institutions
• to assign institutional status
• to support the transfer of authority between the state and institutions
• to assist mobility of students
• to make international comparisons

Particularly as a purchaser of education, but also as owner of public institutions, our Government has instigated significant quality assurance mechanisms through the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. These were very similar to those of the CNAA in the UK and, as happened to the CNAA the role and function has been reviewed now that institutions have robust quality management systems in place. Consequently we are in the process of moving to a "lighter touch" from a new agency – the Quality Assurance Agency of New Zealand. (From my brief introduction to the purpose and operations of SAQA, it seems what is envisaged has many similarities to the system we have developed. However, I am glad to see that SAQA seems to be building on the good aspects and learning from the mistakes that we have made.)

To obtain government subsidy, any institution will have to be accredited by QAANZ and each course will also need to meet quality standards.

Industry

If quality is "fitness for purpose", then employer views on what constitutes quality in tertiary education, in New Zealand at least, tend to focus on practical, immediate outcomes. In staff training this means proven productivity gains; in recruitment this means work-ready graduates with a mix of generic and technical skills and a problem-solving mind-set. Industry also expects institutions to promote innovation and research and development. Since the introduction of our National Qualifications Framework, we have also had a huge increase in workplace learning and assessment which has brought new challenges for quality assurance. Another development is the requirement from enterprises for specific qualifications tailored to their needs, but made up of unit standards on the national framework. They don’t necessarily want to support their workers for a whole National Qualification. However, they do want a qualification from a provider that has ‘quality mark’. For their staff the advantage is a qualification made up of unit standards that are portable. They are recognised anywhere in New Zealand and can be put towards other qualifications in future.

Given this context, then how does our institution develop a way of continually improving to meet or exceed changing demands? The Open Polytechnic’s vision is to support open learners at any age or stage. In order to fulfil that vision we need highly flexible, responsive systems that deliver quality outcomes for a diverse range of learning needs. We need these systems to operate at a mass scale. And we need them to support quality in its widest sense - meaning customer service and continual process improvement, as well as academic standards.

How do we do it? Most important and absolutely critical is the response any client gets from any staff member of our institution. A student who is not given good service during enrolment may never get started. The behaviour of staff in every daily interaction with clients is the key determinant of their perception of quality. Having said that, systems and processes – and a number of tools provide support to assist in that quality focus. Our style of open learning provides both consistency and transparency in quality. Standardised development and delivery systems mean the course that is validated by external accreditation is exactly that which the student will receive in their tuition. The involvement of external course writers, editors, moderators and monitors, from the wider tertiary sector and from industry, is a positive input and influence on the maintenance of quality, relevance, and the currency of learning materials.

I don’t underestimate the importance of our mission. Supporting learners is just as passionately pursued by our mailroom staff in getting a 24 hour turnaround of mail BECAUSE THE STUDENTS NEED PROMPT FEEDBACK, as it is by Faculty. Every section of the institution can relate what they do to this mission. More than that, we know we want to be FIRST choice in open learning – so there is a real challenge there to stretch us, particularly in our competitive environment.

The leadership of the Academic Board in bringing rigour and vitality to our focus on quality is a key factor in the way our institution works. Its functions include approval of new programmes or courses, the review of or changes to courses, approval of students’ grades, credits and exemptions, and dealing with such issues as research, ethics, and academic freedom. A key aspect of the Board’s quality work is to foster debate on academic issues and to monitor relevance of its programmes. It also ensures the Polytechnic meets external accreditation requirements – in particular, those of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.

For various tasks The Open Polytechnic uses internal and external peers to review, moderate, write, edit or comment on courses, assessments and grades. As required, the views, comments, and support of external stakeholders are sought and taken into account at the time of developing new programs or during reviews.

Students are surveyed through a number of instruments to provide feedback at institutional and lecturer level, including an independently conducted annual survey of satisfaction across a comprehensive range of quality measures. These results feed into our planning strategies for improving our service.

Our core quality management system for the institution is fully ISO certified. ISO certification isn’t an end in itself, it is a tool for continuous improvement, both in the design of work processes and in customer service.

The Polytechnic’s Quality Policy is based on the philosophy of "Right First Time", and has five key objectives:

• Maintain academic accreditations and ISO certification
• Maintain and improve work processes
• Identify where clients’ needs are not being met
• Improve performance
• Support staff through resources and training

The tools used to put the policy into practice include an intranet-based document control system that gives staff instant access from their workstations to all core systems, forms, procedures, policy and regulations.

This means the way we publish our documents meets our needs as we go about our work, and we have built into the publishing system all the "good practice" things (such as version control, sign-offs etc) needed to ensure that people do have the latest copy, and incidentally to meet the ISO standards. (Again, our context is one where all staff have personal access to our Intranet. This makes a huge difference to the systems we can use.)

An automated client service process captures all customer complaints, issues - and compliments - and ensures immediate action is taken wherever necessary. External complaints are addressed within 48 hours, and actioned within five days. All complaints are recorded and analysed to improve work processes. Preventive actions are taken to make sure mistakes are not repeated. Again, I want to emphasise this as a key component of quality. "Complain early, complain often – do complain because that’s how we learn" is the message we want given. Having done that, if it is to have value, the follow through is critical. As Chief Executive, I put considerable personal emphasis on that.

This system is administered by staff we have trained as operators all over the campus. Along with actioning client service procedures the system provides a responsive, interactive database for managing audits, controlling and reviewing documents, and keeping lists of our approved suppliers.

An internal quality auditing system operates alongside this. Using 24 auditors – staff who, as part of their professional development, have been specifically trained to do this for say 1 week each year - this provides an independent check on work practices against agreed documented work systems, checks we meet the ISO standard, and provides feedback to managers. Quarterly management review reports are provided to the Executive on the results of internal and external audits, evaluation of external suppliers who have a direct impact on the quality of the service The Open Polytechnic supplies, and trends arising from complaints and non-conformances.

We have also adopted an organisation-wide risk management process. Risks and potential consequences are identified for all core business processes, the level of acceptable exposure is then determined by Executive, and internal controls checked for appropriateness to achieve that level. This part of the process has enabled us to identify where we have more controls than required – and can remove some with resultant cost efficiency gains– and where we are exposed through lack of controls and need to develop these. An annual audit programme then provides for continuous improvement.

A quality culture is enhanced through a generous staff development programme focussed on ensuring staff are competent to meet the needs of their job in our institution tomorrow, and including support and encouragement to engage in further study. Having a vision that all staff can relate to - supporting learners – a shared understanding that our sustainability comes from ensuring academic integrity and financial viability, and having very specific business plans and performance measures are critical factors in ensuring this investment pays off for the institution and for staff.

Monitoring performance against standards

What gets measured gets managed. The key is to set the right indicators so that you are really measuring what contributes to quality. This is a testing process that needs constant revision to ensure you are not simply measuring for passive compliance purposes, - that there is a value obtained from knowing the results of the measure.

At The Open Polytechnic we set a range of indicators in relation to quality, timeliness, cost, quantity and location and report on these to the Government annually. As well as overall student satisfaction, we obtain ratings on a whole range of indicators e.g.

Student perceptions about the Polytechnic

Is the first choice when deciding where to study

Provides effective and quick response to enquiries

Demonstrates expertise in tutors’ feedback

Provides a personalised service

Provides courses for the future

Demonstrates expertise in layout and presentation of course material

Provides clear information about courses

Provides a comparable standard of qualifications

Provides flexibility and choice

We also report course retention and completion statistics; value for money perceptions; external accreditation comments. Our current emphasis is on improving our retention/completion rates, and a range of strategies are being implemented to achieve this.

Our response may not suit your purpose

This description of our institutional response has simply been that. It is not a prescription for any other institution. Our systems for ensuring quality are related to our context and our clients. A ‘fit for purpose’ requirement demands no less.

Fit for Purpose means constant attention to relevance

In New Zealand the provision of education comes within the Fair Trading Act and the Consumer Guarantees Act. As tertiary education has moved more towards a market or student demand driven system with reduced government subsidy and annually increasing student fees, the propensity for students to use legal redress has increased dramatically. Recent examples are: in one case students asserted both that the quality of teaching was not at the level they expected and that the qualification was not valued by employers. In a second case the course in question did not deliver the content and outcomes specified in the Prospectus. And in a third case students maintained that they had enrolled in a programme understanding that it would gain degree status before they graduated. When that accreditation was not successful they sued for loss of income as they had a qualification that was worthless in the marketplace. The compensation sums being demanded are substantial.

It is a sad comment on education when students find it necessary to go to a different system entirely to obtain justice. There are warning signals here that are very similar to those being given the professions. The public are not confident in the self-regulation of professions. Even the addition of lay members to the Medical Council, for example, does not seem to have allayed concerns of professions "looking after their own" when it comes to getting a fair deal. Institutions need to be mindful of public perception in this regard. The public want an education system that is seen to be held accountable. If our own quality systems are not seen to be relevant to the quality issues as the public perceives them, they will use litigation as an alternative.

External Quality Assurance

External quality review in higher education was developed in the USA many decades ago. In more recent years a number of countries have created external quality agencies to undertake such reviews and a variety of methods have been developed. Many incorporate the preliminary step of a self-review against stated criteria and commonly there is a visit to the campus of the educational institution by a small team of reviewers.

I have just been part of a small team of academics who met to consider the impact of the growth of virtual education on common models of accreditation. In a virtual university without a campus, for example, what can the quality reviewers visit? The initial premise for some of the group was that a different system for accreditation was required. Rowntree (1998) provides a useful article based in this view. He sets out 20 questions of quality, specifically to assess materials based teaching and learning. Others in our team were adamant that if the audit focus was firmly on outcomes, standards should be able to be created that applied for any delivery mode. We also believe this to be a more useful approach than the separate route which can create "first class" and "second class" notions of quality. What would be different is the information required by the review panel in order to reach its conclusions and probably also the way it might obtain the evidence required to reach its conclusions. Our publication will be available next month from the New Zealand Universities Academic Audit Unit.

In many instances proxies are used to reach judgements of quality. This means assumptions are being made about relationships. For example, it is not uncommon to find assumptions that certain characteristics of staff - like tenure and qualifications; or resources - Library size or computer numbers - are cited as quality indicators. Rarely have these been validated. I believe it is encumbent on institutions to contribute to development of quality indicators because we CAN test their validity. If we don’t participate in this way, we will be judged by what others think are appropriate measures.

On technology, I very much like Liz Burge’s (1995) questions:

Its impressive but is it progressive?

It moves data but does it move minds?

It collects people but does it connect them?

It gives us the fast action lanes but does it give us the slow reflective country roads?

It’s a big wide highway but can everyone get on it?

It offers attractive solutions but are they iatrogenic in impact?

I think we get more focus on real quality by asking questions such as these rather than how many or what access is there to computers? Our research – Hutton (1998) – shows that our current students still want content given them in our normal good quality print format. They do not want to either read that on screen or down load and print it for themselves. To do the latter increases their costs and rarely would they be able to achieve the quality of production we are able to provide. Having said that, we are acutely aware this perception can change very rapidly.

I believe that changes will occur in the ways we are currently assuring quality in conventional institutions because of the requirement to think again about the assumptions on which quality judgements are made which distance learning, transnational programmes and virtual delivery are bringing about.

A traditional classroom or lecture-room concept has often fostered passive uptake of information from students and rote memorisation. Quality assurance has been on the "performance" or lecturing skill of the teacher. Web mediated learning opportunities enable students to interact with mentors, classmates and experts in one on one interaction. Students in a single class could be geographically dispersed, - maybe with not even one fellow student in the same country. However, it is quite possible to monitor the web interactions and form a judgement about the quality of the learning taking place. "Classroom" observations can be replaced by the auditor logging in to an on-line student discussion.

A common question in campus-based reviews relates to library holdings. The assumption is that if there is adequate stock in the library, students will have access to appropriate information. I’m sure many of you from your own student experience can vouch for the fact that this assumption does not necessarily hold. If we can form a more generic question like "tell us about the mechanisms your institution has for assisting students to access appropriate information", then library holdings can form the evidence required but equally so can access to web databases. Annette Skov (1998) cites three criteria for judging quality of web sites: meta information, credibility and timeliness. One might also want to know about the timeliness of availability of information to students and the cost of it, to come to a view about whether the particular means of institutional support that is being offered does in fact ensure the student can have adequate and timely information to complete their course.

Let’s take another example: Student:staff ratios. Throughout the education system a low student:staff ratio tends to be used as an indicator of quality although the evidence to support a direct relationship with student learning outcomes is very thin. If quality of teaching is to be measured, a more demanding question which can be asked of institutions delivering in any mode could be "how does this institution ensure that teaching staff are fully competent at any time for all the teaching tasks required of them?" That may lead to evidence of classroom presentation skills in one mode and telephone counselling skills in another. The ability to manage email, or conduct videoconferences with classes in another country and culture may be important quality issues in some circumstances. As I’ve said before, one measure is rarely sufficient to give robust judgements on quality. Here I would want to relate the current student satisfaction, retention and completion statistics with those of graduate satisfaction and reasons for attrition given by students who have not completed and the moderation reports from external peers on our assessment tasks and student grades. In this way I think it is possible to get a very good understanding of the quality at an institutional level, at course level, and if desired at individual academic level.

Lee Harvey (1998) sounds a warning: "a major problem is the lack of convergence of quality monitoring and innovations in teaching and learning. There is little evidence (Rhea 94) anywhere in the world that quality monitoring and innovations in teaching and learning are pulling in the same direction …. EQM (external quality monitoring) in most countries does not deal with the nature of the learning, partly because it does not examine the nature of "quality". On the contrary, EQM tends to be conservative driven by accountability requirements and tends to inhibit innovation in teaching and learning.

The Future of EQA

In my mind, I keep coming back to the characteristics of the information age and the definition of quality as fit for purpose. Our customers will define that purpose in terms of their own expectations and perceptions and if external quality agencies do not focus on auditing what is relevant from that perspective the agencies will themselves become increasingly irrelevant as their judgements become devalued.

With globalisation there are increasing demands for transnational accreditation. This is occurring particularly among professions but also with consortia of tertiary institutions who commit to particular standards of quality and then allow students to cross-credit courses freely within institutions within the consortium.

In our own institution we have just sought validation by the UK Open University for our New Zealand Qualifications Authority approved degrees. What we have recognised is that our students want internationally portable qualifications and the fact is that a UKOU degree has better currency than a New Zealand Open Polytechnic one outside of New Zealand. We have also undergone accreditation in the State of Victoria in Australia to enable us to enlarge our market by offering our Bachelor of Business there. Two quite different purposes for external quality validation, and, appropriately, different systems and requirements to become accredited.

How quality will be assured and by whom in future will very much depend on the purpose for which the particular external accreditation is sought. It seems inevitable that institutions with diverse programmes, and therefore different graduate expectations, will need to meet the requirements of a variety of agencies. For example, accreditation from a national government qualifications authority may be needed in order to receive government funding; professional accreditation may be necessary to ensure graduates can gain entry to a particular profession; other accreditations such as ISO or IIP may be useful where industry support is important, or simply because to provide education in another country such systems may be mandated. As globalisation increases, maybe organisations like GATE will play an increasing role while national agencies decline. Or maybe the roles of each might differentiate them with a GATE providing the international portability and national organisations the local applications. What is certain is that there will be change – and educational institutions need to be both involved in fostering the developments and ready to respond.

Capability and Capacity of Staff - Continually improving to be ready for tomorrow

I have talked a lot about systems processes and tools. Far more important than any of these are the people, - the staff of our institutions. I earlier explained the importance of keeping daily focus on the behaviours of faculty and administration staff. It is this behaviour (or what Jan Carlzon of Scandinavian Airlines has called each "moment of truth") that defines the quality of an institution.

We know that we have core competencies in our institution in the design and production of high quality learning resources and we sell those as a separate product in their own right. Another core competence is our distribution system. We are able to get courseware and ongoing support to students via post or the web in timely fashion. A defining core competence is the way our academics support students to learn in a variety of ways including phone counselling, audio conferencing, written feedback, contact classes, and so on. Coupled with this is excellence in assessment of student competence. Despite the fact that internally we know we can do much better, over and over again we are told by our students that the distinguishing feature of our institution is the manner in which we integrate and deliver the total service to them. That can only happen when staff understand the contribution they each make to that process, when they are willing to work together to take on the issue the student raises and see it through whether it is their personal responsibility or not, and where they feel the institution supports them and invests in their development to ensure they can continue to meet student demands as they change.

Any institution that really supports learning focuses on both context and needs of the learner. In supporting staff to do that the institution finds itself constantly challenged to specify the performance measures in all aspects of its service and letting its customers know what these are. It listens and takes action on the feedback to ensure continuous improvement and innovation. It is highly likely that such an institution would have little difficulty in meeting any quality assurance requirements. It is also likely it will be an institution where students will want to study and where staff will want to work. If that culture is sustained, is there a better overall hallmark of quality?

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Harman, Grant. ‘The management of quality assurance: a review of international practice.’ Higher Education Quarterly 52, no. 4 (1998): 345-364.

Harvey, Lee. ‘An assessment of past and current approaches to quality in higher education.’ Australian Journal of Education 42, no. 3 (1998).

Hutton, Lynley. ‘On-line research: interim report.’ Excerpt from Research Report, (1998).

Kanji, GK. ‘An innovative approach to make ISO 9000 standards more effective.’ Total Quality Management 9, no.1 (1998): 67-78.

Marshall, Stephen. ‘Professional development and quality in higher education institutions of the 21^st century.’ Australian Journal of Education 42, no. 3 (1998): 321-334.

Martens, Erika, and Michael Prosser. ‘What constitutes high quality teaching and learning and how to assure it.’ Quality Assurance in Education 6, no.1 (1998): 28-36.

Mayes, Ann, and Frank Banks. ‘High quality and new standards: an open learning contribution to the improvement of pre-service teacher education.’ Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, California, 13-17 April 1998.

McLachlan-Smith, Claire. ‘Designing for dialogue at a distance: reflections on how to create and maintain an effective teaching-learning relationship with students.’ Journal of Distance Learning 4, no. 1 (1998): 11-22.

Mills, Roger. ‘Quality assurance and standards open and distance education: the current experience of the Open University, United Kingdom.’ Extract from Pan Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning: Empowerment through Knowledge and Technology, Brunei, 1-5 March 1999.

Mills, Roger, and Judith Fage. ‘Quality assurance: internally embedded or externally controlled?’ Extract from Pan Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning: Empowerment through Knowledge and Technology, Brunei, 1-5 March 1999.

Moreland, Neil, and Michael Clark. ‘Quality and ISO 9000 in educational organizations.’ Total Quality Management 9, nos 2 and 3, (1998): 311-320.

Phipps, RA, Wellman, JV and Merisotis, JP ‘Assuring Quality in Distance Learning: a preliminary review.’ Washington DC: Council for Higher Education Accreditation (1998)

Quality assurance in UK higher education: a brief guide. Gloucester: Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 1998.

Rowntree, Derek. ‘Assessing the quality of materials-based teaching and learning.’ Open Learning, June (1998): 12-22.

Skov, Annette. ‘Internet quality.’ Database 21, no. 4 (1998): 38-40.

Swinson, Chris. ‘Tomorrow’s professions.’ Draft paper, June 1999.

Strydom, AH, and LOK Lategan. ‘State of the art of quality assurance in South African higher education: evaluation of existing initiatives and reflections on new initiatives to meet a changing higher education context.’ Quality in Higher Education 4, no.1 (1998): 73-83.

Trow, Martin. Managerialism and the academic profession: quality and control. Quality Support Centre Higher Education Report No. 2. London: The Open University, 1994.

Watson, David. ‘The pit and the pendulum: some thoughts on the impact of quality assurance on HE institutions.’ Commentary for the QSC Conference: the Impact of Quality Assurance on UK Higher Education, London 15 May 1998.

Woodhouse, David. ‘Quality assurance in higher education: the next 25 years.’ Quality in Higher Education 4, no. 3 (1998): 257-273.

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