As part of the process of enhancing quality, quality culture has become a taken-for-granted concept intended to support development and improvement processes in higher education. By taking a theoretical approach to examining quality culture, starting with a scholarly examination of the concept of culture, and exploring how it is related to…

After more than two decades of external quality assurance, there is an increasing interest in questions concerning the impact and effects of this activity. Following an external evaluation of NOKUT--the Norwegian quality assurance agency, this article studies the impact of external quality assurance in detail by analysing quantitative and…

The article is an epistemological analysis of quality, standards and quality assurance. A positivist, phenomenological and critical epistemological framework is used to explore the interrelationships between quality, standards and purposes and approaches to quality assurance. The article concludes with an embryonic analysis of the implementation…

The annual meeting of the ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education) IQA (internal quality assurance) Group gathered some 60 participants in the premises of the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO) in The Hague in June 2009. This seminar was a successful follow-up to the first ENQA IQA…

Following national adaptations to the Bologna-declaration, accreditation is increasingly becoming the most dominant form of quality assurance of higher education in Europe. Over the last decade, national authorities have set up both institutional and programme accreditation procedures, currently accompanied by a growing number of private…

There has been considerable debate about the impact of external quality assurance in higher education. This paper describes a discussion at the INQAAHE workshop in The Hague, attended by representatives of agencies, exploring the effects of external quality processes on institutions and programmes. The summary, probably for the first time,…

In the context of the debate about quality and its assurance and assessment in higher education, a study was undertaken of professional regulatory bodies (PRBs), and their involvement in British higher education. The study involved a survey of 92 professional and regulatory bodies, in-depth interviews with group representatives, discussions at a…

Various total quality management (TQM) approaches are explored and some core elements specified. Generic problems of TQM and those relating to higher education are analyzed. It is argued that while there are some aspects of TQM that are applicable in the collegiate setting, the specific approach is inapplicable in higher education. A new…

Argues that there is little rationale behind current methods of assessing higher-education quality because there is little exploration of what constitutes quality. Despite good intentions, quality monitoring has become overly bureaucratic, and potential for significant change is hampered by an inappropriate focus on accountability, not on…

The battle-lines are drawn up in the various struggles for control of supranational external quality monitoring (accreditation and evaluation). The different types of supranational quality processes are outlined (as they existed at the time of the presentation of the paper to the Conference). The question asked is: who benefits from the extension…

Explores external quality monitoring in higher education, including types of external bodies, their modus operandi, and reasons for evaluation. Concludes that external evaluation is legitimating the status quo, failing to ask significant questions about the reality of learning experiences for students. Suggests that quality monitoring engage more…

The concept of quality in higher education is discussed, including ways of thinking about quality, its relevance to higher education, interrelationships, and philosophical/political bases. The relative nature of quality is examined, and five differing conceptualizations are identified: quality as exception, perfection, fitness for purpose, value…

Introduces the special issue and summarizes the views of delegates about each of the conference's three themes: "Has external quality review had its day?"; "Has control of quality been usurped by the market and by information technology?"; and "Does the development of mass education necessarily mean the end of…

This paper outlines the preponderant approaches to external quality evaluation, including the purpose, focus, object, rationale, and methods of external evaluations. Accountability, compliance and, in some countries, control are much more frequent rationales for external monitoring than improvement. Research on the impact of quality monitoring is…

The development of various national and supra-national accreditation systems is currently being discussed as a possible response to an increasingly internationalized and deregulated higher education sector. However, the establishment of such procedures may have unintended consequences, not least with respect to limiting the diversity of higher…