In response to global competition in higher education, university rankings have been developed. These have been interpreted as indicating the regions and countries with the most prestigious and competitive higher education institutions. The rankings are viewed as important in many countries, but their role is ambiguous and contested in the Nordic…

Student mobility in the Nordic countries has traditionally been characterized by cultural cooperation and egalitarian values. Yet, the region has not been isolated from international trends towards emphasizing excellence and competition in the global knowledge economy. Policy framing is here used as an analytical lens for analysing national policy…

The many challenges faced by instructors in distance education have been extensively documented in current literature. Nevertheless, the relative importance of such challenges has not been researched to the same extent. As instructors and institutions face limitations in terms of time and budget, the ability to effectively prioritise challenges…

As higher education quality assurance in many countries in Europe has become a mature activity, some agencies carrying out external quality assurance are developing beyond their core tasks and missions. The current study identifies new tasks taken up within quality assurance agencies and analyses the drivers behind such development. Based on an…

Gender equality goals for higher education are found in all national legislations. This notwithstanding, quality assurance conceptual frameworks and practitioners' work in the European Higher Education Area have tended to be gender-blind and thus remained disconnected from gender equality concerns. Focusing on the policy innovations recently…

The purpose of this study is to determine the direction of causality between the quality of education and technological development for the selected Northern European countries over the period 2006-2017. To this end, we employ the bootstrap panel causality test. The findings of our study indicate that the quality of education leads to changes in…

This book provides an overview and evaluation of the quality of bilingual education found in internationalised higher education institutions. Its authors focus on the multifaceted roles that language(s) play in these growing multilingual spaces and analyse and identify the many factors that account for quality multilingual degree programmes. The…

The purpose of this study was to extend an understanding of success experienced by leaders in teaching development units. Using a framework comprised of narratives of constraint, this qualitative study interviewed 38 academics in leadership roles from Finland, Australia, Sweden, Norway, the United States, Canada, Scotland, and England. Findings…

This article considers the conditions, possibilities, and challenges of creating what is referred to here as a 'reflective space' within a higher education course for principals. It is informed by the findings of a qualitative research inquiry conducted in the interests of enhancing the principals' learning and professional praxis and the…

Evidence can be used to support digital course design. The aim of this paper is to discuss how teachers can develop local evidence to support digital course design. Previous research has focused on how practice can be based on research, while we have a limited understanding of how local evidence is used and produced in practice. Local evidence…

Because there is close cooperation on quality assurance in the Scandinavian countries, one would expect there to be convergence of quality assurance policies and practices in Scandinavian higher education. Few studies have analysed these quality assurance policies and practices from a comparative viewpoint. Based on empirical evidence produced in…

This article studies issues of coloniality in so-called capacity-building projects between universities in Africa and Scandinavia. Even fifty years after independence, the African higher education landscape is a product of the colonial powers and subsequent uneven power relations, as argued by a number of researchers. The uneven geography and…

In recent years, the enhancement of learning and teaching has become a priority, not only for higher education institutions, but also for national governments, the European Union and the Bologna Process. This report aims to map the learning and teaching landscape in 28 higher education systems and to provide insight into how teaching enhancement…

This paper reports on the design, development and evaluation of a novel process for quality assurance of assessments for entire educational programmes. The process was developed and tested by multidisciplinary teaching staff and consists of five phases: inventory, analyses, evaluation, planning change and realising change. The process for quality…

Education holds promise as a vehicle for sustainable global development and human capacity development, as reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. International education has become a prominent feature in contemporary times on the educational landscape as students become increasingly mobile in pursuit of their…