This article uses the theoretical framework developed by Elken and Stensaker to examine the characteristics of the quality assurance internal bodies in relation to composition, activities and factors perceived as critical for the success of quality assurance implementation within higher education institutions. The article is based on data…

This study explores the establishment of communities of practice within teaching and learning centres (TLC) as strategies for advancing faculty development in higher education, examining their implementation in the US and Europe, with a specific focus on Italy. Utilising organisational benchmarking, we employed an explanatory, comparative, and…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are complex entities interacting with a variety of stakeholders. Scholars have widely discussed the approaches and models of value co-creation in the higher education context. However, the attention has been primarily focussed on a single category of stakeholders, namely students. The article aims at eliciting…

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the effects of quality management practices (QMPs) on innovation in higher education (HE), and how organizational innovation (OI) may influence technical innovation. Design/methodology/approach: The hypotheses were tested with partial least squares structural equation modeling on a sample of 449 valid…

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) interact with a multiplicity of stakeholders, whose value expectations significantly affect their functioning. Students and academics represent the primary stakeholders of HEIs, directly contributing in their organizational success. Although they inherently perform as service co-producers, students and…

Accreditation systems in higher education are widespread both in the USA and in Europe. However, numerous reservations have appeared in the literature about whether these systems can comprehend and represent the quality of university courses. This study sets out to contribute to this debate by discussing whether the results of the recent…

The two main trends in the development of higher education worldwide are universal access and digital transformation. These trends are bringing about an increase in class sizes and the growth of online higher education. Previous studies indicated that both the large-class setting and online delivery threaten the quality, and the exploration of…

Despite the strong criticisms, mass student surveys play an important role in the quality assurance process of national higher education systems. While some national higher education systems have a long history of using student surveys to inform teaching and course quality improvement (e.g. the UK, Australia), in Italy, where the quality assurance…

Quality is a multidimensional and transversal concept also in the field of higher education. This and other considerations revealed some problems during application of quality principles to study programmes, emerged from the first accreditation experience in Italy. The objective of this article is to provide a simple self-assessment tool for…

Purpose: The explanatory study aimed to understand the global perspective of quality education and describe transformative strategies that empower teacher educators and equip the education system and future teachers to act as change agents by fostering learning processes that support students towards a sustainable future.…

To make their mandate more efficient, universities have to either offer services to students either produce innovation and scientific research. From this point of view it is difficult for universities to focus their attention on economic and financial performance. Instead, it is much more relevant for the university to find models of governance…

Purpose: It is not easy to grasp the concept of "value" in the higher education context. In fact, different stakeholders generally hold diverging perspectives about the value generated by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the value expectations and perceptions of current and former students…

Since 1987, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (FMUC) has been engaged in mobility programs, making efforts to encourage and support the internationalization of its students. Mobility programs are designed to strengthen the dimension and quality of the Higher Education, to encourage transnational cooperation between Universities, to…

This article aims to analyse Italian universities' official websites discursive practices to assess their involvement in the university third mission: the contribution by universities to the social and economic development of the environment in which they act. To achieve it, textual data were extracted from the official websites of the 91 Italian…

This article focuses on the role of student feedback in the process of higher education quality assurance. The most recent reforms of the educational systems encourage teachers to enlarge their educational paradigm by experimenting with assessment practices that would go behind accountability and be more responsive to students' learning needs. In…