You are here:

Quality Assurance for Online Higher Education Programmes: Design and Validation of an Integrative Assessment Model Applicable to Spanish Universities
ARTICLE

, Autonomus University of Barcelona

IRRODL Volume 19, Number 2, ISSN 1492-3831 Publisher: Athabasca University Press

Full Text

Abstract

The quality assurance of online Higher Education online programmes is one of the great challenges faced by Spanish universities. Regular assessment of these programmes is essential in order to take actions to improve their quality. The said assessment should be complex and include all of the components of the programme, as well as its planning and implementation stages and its effects. The purpose of this paper is to present a model designed to assess the quality of online Higher Education online programmes that includes the assessment of the quality of the programme itself, as well as its continuous assessment. In order to design the model, the author conducted a bibliographical analysis of different standards, models, and guides developed in Spain and other countries to assess online education. The model was validated by 23 international online education experts. The results of the validation were triangulated with specialized literature, thus allowing the author to make decisions regarding whether to change the model by keeping, reformulating, or removing a dimension or indicator. As a result, two variables, fourteen dimensions, and 81 indicators were obtained. In order to verify the utility of the model it was applied in the assessment of four online programmes. The model guides the persons in charge of the implementation of online programmes and allows to conduct a more comprehensive assessment of the programme in order to discover its strengths and weaknesses, and opportunities for its improvement. The model can be also applied by online programme designers as a guideline for creating other, high quality programmes.

Citation

Marciniak, R. (2018). Quality Assurance for Online Higher Education Programmes: Design and Validation of an Integrative Assessment Model Applicable to Spanish Universities. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(2),. Athabasca University Press. Retrieved March 27, 2023 from .

Keywords

References

View References & Citations Map
  1. Ardila Rodríguez, M. (2011). Calidad de la educación superior en Colombia, ¿Problema de compromiso colectivo? [Quality of Higher Education in Colombia. A collective commitment issue?] Revista Educación y Desarrollo Social, 5(2), pp. 44-55. Retrieved from
  2. Association for Standardisation of Spain. (2012). Norma UNE 66181:2012. Quality management. Quality of virtual education. Madrid: AENOR.
  3. Barnard, D., & Echols, J. (2015). The anatomy of K-12 online programs: Practical ideas and guidelines. London: Rowman and Littlefield.
  4. Berge, Z., Collins, M., & Dougherty, K. (2000). Design guidelines for web-based courses. In B. Abbey (Ed.), Instructional and cognitive impacts of web-based education (pp. 32-40). London: Idea
  5. Cabero Almenara, J., & Llorente Cejudo, M.C. (2013). La aplicación del juicio de experto como técnica de evaluación de las tecnologías de la información (TIC) [The application of expert judgment as an assessment method for information technology (ICT)]. Eduweb. Revista de Tecnología de Información y Comunicación en Educación, 7(2), 11-22. Retrieved from http://servicio.bc.uc.edu.ve/educacion/eduweb/v7n2/art01.pdf
  6. Careaga Butter, M., Meyer Aguilera, E., Graciela Badilla Quintana, M., Jiménez Pérez, L., & SepúlvedaValenzuela, E. (2017). Quality assurance for postgraduate programs: Design of a model applied on a university in Chile. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 18(1), 267-292. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i1.2670
  7. Chmielewski, K. (2013). Diagnoza stanu kształcenia na odległość w Polsce i wybranych krajach Unii Europejskiej [Diagnosis of distance education in Poland and selected EU countries]. Warsaw, PL: Demos Polska. Retrieved from www.koweziu.edu.pl/pliki/projekty/p4/diagnoza_st_kno_polska_ue.pdf
  8. Eby, G. (2015). Identification, evaluation, and perceptions of distance education experts. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
  9. European Foundation for Management Development. (2006). Manual on EFMD CEL quality criteria. Retrieved from Quality Assurance for Online Higher Education Programmes Marciniak http://www.efmd.org/images/stories/efmd/downloadables/Manual_CEL_Quality_Criteria.p
  10. Giorgetti, C.G., Romero, L., & Vera, M. (2013). Design of a specific quality assessment model for distance education. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education 10(2), 301-315. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7238/rusc.v10i2.1742
  11. Hernández, M., García, M., Padilla, G., García, J., & Leal, F. (2012). Modelos de la tutoría virtual [Models of online tutoring]. In G. Padilla, F. Leal, M. Hernández & J. Cabero (Eds.), Un reto para el profesor del futuro: La tutoría virtual (65-90). La ciudad de México: SINED.
  12. Higher Education Compliance and Quality. (1997). Guidelines for distance education. London: HECQ.
  13. Instituto Latinoamericano y del Caribe de Calidad en Educación Superior a Distancia. (2010). Guía de autoevaluación para programas de pregrado a distancia. [Self-assessment guide for undergraduate distance learning programmes]. Loja: CALED.
  14. Jung, I., & Latchem, C. (2012). Quality assurance and accreditation in distance education and online. New York/London: Routledge.
  15. Khan, B.H. (2007). Program evaluation in e-learning. Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved from http://asianvu.com/bk/elearning_evaluation_article.pdf
  16. Marciniak, R. (2016). Autoevaluación de programas de educación universitaria virtual [Selfassessment of higher virtual education programmes] (Doctoral dissertation). Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
  17. Marshall, S. (2006). ELearning maturity model. Version two. Process guide. Wellington, AU: Victoria University of Wellington.
  18. Martínez Mediano, C. (2013). Assessment of the programmes, models and procedures. Madrid: UNED. Marúm-Espinosa, E. (2011). Quality of service in higher distance education. A perspective from Mexico. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia, 14(2), 49-62.
  19. Meza, J. (2012). Modelo pedagógico para proyectos de formación virtual. [A pedagogical model for online training projects]. Bonn, DE: GIZ. Quality Assurance for Online Higher Education Programmes Marciniak
  20. Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. (2016). Educación superior universitaria. [Higher education]. Retrieved from http://www.mecd.gob.es/educacion-mecd/
  21. National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain. (2012). Guía de autoevaluación: Renovación de la acreditación de títulos oficiales de grado, máster y doctorado programa ACREDITA [Self-assessment guide: renewal of the certification of official undergraduate degrees, master’s degrees and PhD degrees. ACREDITA program]. Madrid: ANECA.
  22. National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain. (2015). Guía de Autoevaluación: renovación de la acreditación de títulos oficiales de Grado, Máster y Doctorado Programa ACREDITA [Self-assessment guide: renewal of the certification of official Undergraduate degrees, Master’s degrees and PhD degrees ACREDITA program]. Madrid: ANECA. Retrieved from http://www.aneca.es/Programas/ACREDITA/
  23. National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain. (2017). Programas de Evaluación [Assessment Programmes]. Retrieved from http://www.aneca.es/Programas-de-evaluacion
  24. Online Learning Consortium. (2002). Five pillars of quality online education. Retrieved from https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/about/quality-framework-five-pillars/
  25. Ossiannilsson, E., & Landgren, L. (2012). Quality in e-learning—A conceptual framework based on experiences from three international benchmarking projects. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. Special Issue on Quality in e-learning 28(1), 42–51. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1365-2729.2011.00439.x
  26. Padilla Vargas, I. (2005). Educación a distancia: Ofrecimientos con calidad y eficacia [Distance education: high quality and effective offers.]. Retrieved from http://www.uprm.edu/ideal/hermes2005/calidad.pdf
  27. Pérez Juste, R. (1986). Pedagogía experimental. La medida en educación. [Experimental pedagogy. Measurements in education]. Madrid: UNED.
  28. Pérez Juste, R. (2014). Evaluación de programas educativos [Assessment of education programes]. Madrid: La Muralla.
  29. Petkova, Y., & Radeva, D. (2014). A model and an index for e-learning quality assessment. Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Learning, 2014, 176-181. Retrieved from http://elearning-conf.eu/docs/cp14/paper-26.pdf
  30. Raeesi, I., Qorbani, D., & Akhgar, B. (2010). A conceptual model for measuring the quality of elearning through knowledge sharing indicators. Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Information Knowledge Engineering (IKE), 2010, USA, 383-387. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7df3/365eb74a07122aad2740a99150564b0ba223.pdf
  31. Rushby, N., & Surry, D. (2016). Wiley handbook of learning technology. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Quality Assurance for Online Higher Education Programmes Marciniak
  32. Shattuck, K. (2014). Assuring quality in online education: Practices and processes at the teaching, resource, and program levels. Sterling: Stylus Publishing.
  33. Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. (2016). Datos y cifras del sistema universitario español. Curso 2015-2016 [Data and numbers of the university system of Spain. Academic year 2015-2016.]. Madrid: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Retrieved from http://www.mecd.gob.es/dms/mecd/servicios-al-ciudadanomecd/estadisticas/educacion/universitaria/datos-cifras/datos-y-cifras-SUE-2015-16-web-.pdf
  34. Surry, D.W., & Ensminger, D.C. (2009). Supporting the implementation of online learning. In P.L. Rodgers (Ed.), Encyclopedia of distance learning, (1994-1999). New York: IGI.
  35. University of Wisconsin. (2008). Logic model. Retrieved from http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/evaluation/evallogicmodel.html
  36. Veytia Bucheli, M., & Chao González, M. (2013). Las competencias como eje rector de la calidad educativa [Competences as the guiding principle for the quality of education.]. Revista electrónica de Divulgación de la Investigación, 4. Retrieved from http://mistareas.com.mx/redi/4/pdf/SABES_4_2MARIAPDF_V1.pdf
  37. Vlachopoulos, D. (2016). Assuring quality in online course design: The roadmap. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 17(6), 183-205. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v17i6.2784

These references have been extracted automatically and may have some errors. Signed in users can suggest corrections to these mistakes.

Suggest Corrections to References

Also Read

Related Collections