Quality assurance (QA) addresses questions such as:
- How high is the desired and actual quality of the university’s work?
- How do you know?
- What criteria, indicators and evidence do you use to support your claims?
- How reliable are the judgements of quality made by the university and its academic, administrative, support and service units?
- What do the stakeholders (internal and external) say about you?
- How can the desired and actual quality be improved?
- How do you know that your work is maximally effective, efficient, efficacious and impactful?
- How do you know that everyone is going in the same desired direction (aligned)?
QAE addresses major questions such as:
- What does the university/unit say it values and is doing in its work, procedures and operations?
- What procedures and processes does the university/unit have for planning, implementing, monitoring, reviewing, developing what it says it values and does about its work, procedures and operations?
- How does the university/unit know and inform itself and internal and external stakeholders if these procedures and processes are operating/being used, effective, efficient, efficacious and impactful in meeting the university’s/unit’s stated mission, values, purposes, policies, contents and criteria for the effectiveness of its work, procedures and operations?
- How does the university/unit inform itself/stakeholders about how its procedures and processes for evaluating and improving its work are effective in terms of outcomes and quality (i.e. impact analysis)?
- How high is the quality of the work, procedures and operations of the university/units, using what key performance indicators, benchmarks and benchmarking, and with what results?
- How has the university/unit improved its quality over time, and how does it know and inform itself of this?
- What recommendations can be made for needed interventions and developments for continuous improvement of its quality?
- How, where, by whom and in what time frames isthe quality being improved and enhanced, based on what evidence and plans for its work, procedures and operations?
- How does the university/unit know if its plans are working well: effectively, efficiently, efficaciously, with impact, with what success criteria to judge its achievement of its plans and developments?
- How does the university/unit know that it is on course with its plans for development and improvement?
The intention here is to demonstrate that the university, its academic, administrative, service and support units have procedures and processes for QAE, that these are actually working and are bringing about a positive difference and impact, and that they meet international standards.