Introduction
"What is important in knowledge is not quantity, but quality. It is important to know what is significant, what is less so, and what is trivial. -Leo Tolstoy
By 2025, the projected global demand for higher education could reach 263 million students, which is an increase from a little less than 100 million students in 2000 (Karaim, 2011, p. 551). This could represent an increase of 163 million students in 25 years (Karaim, 2011). As the demand for quality education increases, there is a growing demand for quality assurance (QA) for international universities where there is increased mobility of students, faculty, programs, and higher education institutions in global networks (Hou, 2012; Varonism, 2014). Quality assurance can be a driver for institutions to achieve excellence in higher education. However, ensuring that the quality of educational programs meets local and international standards simultaneously has become a great challenge in many countries (OECD & World Bank, 2007). Hence, a need emerges for cooperation of quality assurance agencies and acceptance of quality assurance
In order to address this emerging need, a common framework for a quality assurance model would provide consistent assessment of learning design, content, and pedagogy (Puzziferro & Shelton, 2008). As shown in Figure 1, a conceptual model of quality assurance (QA) in higher education comprises several areas. As such, the aim of this paper is to examine the literature surrounding quality assurance in global higher education. It provides an overview of accreditation as a mechanism to ensure quality in higher education, examines models of QA, and explores the concept of quality (including definitions of quality and quality assurance). In addition, this paper provides a review of research on the effectiveness of quality assurance practices, with a particular focus on student involvement with quality assurance.
The Concept of Quality Assurance in Higher Education
Internationalization in higher education has resulted in "a growing demand for accountability and transparency . . . [which has] in turn led to a need to develop a quality culture, while addressing the challenges of globalized higher education" (Smidt, 2015, p. 626). In a practical sense, quality assurance reviews provide external, third party, independent, objective insights. Such reviews offer observations about partner institutions, products, programs, services, and processes, and they provide recommendations for improvement. Nonetheless, "the perception of quality assurance is very multi-dimensional and contextual and a gap exists in the view between professionals in quality assurance and academic staffand students" (Smidt, 2015, p. 626). Several key dimensions of quality in higher education include excellence, value, consistency, and meeting needs and expectations; yet no one quality assurance framework can address all aspects of quality, so choices are made about what kinds of quality are assessed (Harvey, 2014; Wilger, 1997).
A common framework for a quality assurance model would provide consistent assessment of learning design, content, and pedagogy (Puzziferro & Shelton, 2008). However, there are many disparate ways to characterize quality in education. According to Barnett (1992), there are two conceptions of quality in higher education. The first is tacit conceptions of value and intellectual property in academia. It is the character and quality of the contributions of higher education's members that are at issue rather than any outcomes. The other conception of quality is the performance conception, in which higher education is seen as a product with inputs and outputs. In this view, the quality of higher education is measured in terms of performance as captured in performance indicators. Another conception of quality in higher education is of faculty-student interaction (Lundberg & Schreiner, 2004; Vincent, 1987).
The literature contains many different definitions of quality assurance in higher education. …
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The quality assurance (QA) in higher education has a major role to play in signaling excellence and to improve the institution aspect. This paper is to investigate the Arab Open University (AOU) commitment to the QA system. The AOU is the first university which offers the open learning system in the Arab countries. It consists of seven branches distributed in the Arab world, with headquarter in Kuwait. Quality assurance in AOU covers areas such as curriculum content and design; course materials; teaching; learning and delivery channels. This study tries to answer a number of questions regarding the processes AOU follows to insure QA: To what extent does AOU satisfies the QA standards for the open learning; is there a significant difference related to programmes and gender in assessing the quality of tutoring; learning resources and the quality of the courses. The study shows that the quality assurance objectives at AOU-Jordan have been met through the umbrella of the Open University Validation Services (OUVS) of the United Kingdom and the Ministry requirements of the Higher Education in Jordan, Further analysis has been accomplished and finally some suggestions for quality improvements have been introduced. The study reveals a high commitment to QA. Descriptive and statistical analyses show that AOU satisfies most of the QA standards for the open learning
Keywords: quality assurance, open learning, higher education, AOU, OUVS
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INTRODUCTION
The issue of quality assurance (QA) in higher education has received growing interest from researchers over the past two decades. Given the unique position of higher education in the Knowledge Based Society, QA has a major role to play in signaling excellence. Quality assurance can be defined as "a planned and systematic review process of an institution or program to determine that acceptable standards of education, scholarship, and infrastructure are being maintained and enhanced" (Sorin and Shinji , 2009). In other words, Quality Assurance (QA) is a process that aims to set quality standards for any institute such as a university with its learning system. The QA is also interested in how to improve the institution in all aspects (Alan, 1997).
Countries understand More than ever that it is important to build a national commitment to QA in higher education According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) "a strong quality culture in tertiary education institutions-shared by the academic leadership, staff and students- helps to reinforce the QA system" (O'reagain and Keegan, 2000, P. 9).
QA studies have recently become very important for higher education world wide. Many countries have applied the QA to their universities. The QA has been applied to universities in a number of ways (Alan, (1997), for example the university wants to ensure that the standard of education that have been offered meet at least the general standards. The results of researches present in the specialized literature emphasize that the evaluation of both e-services and traditional services is based on the customers' individual experiences (Balog, A., Ivan, I., 2006). There are many issues related to QA. The first one is that there is no explicit meaning of quality and its assurance (Mishra, 2007). The other one is the heritage of traditional education which is based on face-to-face tutoring and the assumption that this kind of education is the quality teaching. Another one is related to distinguishing among quality processes like framework, benchmarking, quality assurance and quality improvement (Inglis, 2005).
Quality Assurance is a process oriented to guaranteeing that the organization services and practice are carried out against some predetermined standard. Quality assurance makes no assumptions about the quality of competing organizations (O'reagain and Keegan, 2000). It can be said that QA is standardized process, but in practice, however, quality assurance standards would be expected to reflect norms for the relevant industry (O'reagain and Keegan, 2000). …
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