Dates: 3 - 18 June 2002
Hosted by: Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU)
Moderator: Dr. Mike Robertshaw, Associate Professor, School of Science and Technology, The Open University of Hong Kong
Reporter: Dr. David Murphy, Acting Director, Centre for Research in Distance & Adult Learning, The Open University of Hong Kong - on behalf of Dr. Mike Robertshaw
Structure
Overall, at least 186 persons subscribed to this conference. Of these, 49 posted messages, with the highest number coming from the moderator (31 - the next highest was 22). Technical problems intruded at times, with the main one being duplicate postings, which made the total number of individual postings difficult to calculate (209 including the duplicates). The organizers managed to remove many of them, but it was a continuing problem that was intrusive and irritated many participants. There was also an auto-reply repeated posting - it required some effort on the part of organizers to remove the offender, and some 'legitimate' postings may have been removed in the process. One 'wit' was prompted to remark that it 'Seems the list is having some quality assurance problems of its own.'
Outline
Moderator began with a welcoming message that noted his wish to stimulate a 'lively exchange of views'. The responses at this stage got straight into the topic, with one reply exhorting application of 'the ISO 9000 Quality Management System standard to your Distance Education activities'.
To stimulate participants, moderator posed question "Like some religions has QADE lost touch with its roots?", with a brief analysis to back up his contention that the answer is yes. Responses were somewhat slow in coming, with one participant noting that 'I don't think those of us at ... know enough to have lost touch with our QA roots!'.
The management of the discussion then occupied most of the next batch of postings, with participants responding to the moderator's call to provide brief outlines of themselves in their first posting.
There was a brief flurry of messages on the question of 'what is quality anyway?', with the moderator giving a brief list of viewpoints, from the well-known 'Fitness for purpose' through to 'Transformation of the participant'.
Lively discussion was then embarked upon with respect to the value of ISO standards, with clear differences of opinion emerging. Though there were supporters, others claimed that it was more about quality control than quality assurance.
At this stage the conference meandered somewhat, with much of the ongoing discussion being 'informational' in the sense of 'this is how we do it here', and 'I've heard that this is how they do it there'. The moderator attempted to bring it back to the topic by introducing the notion of a 'quality culture' that needs to be part of organizations for them to succeed in QA.
As the conference continued, some participants illustrated QA achievements and/or problems by citing specific examples within their own institutions, while others tried to focus on the big issues within QA, such as perspective. Still others provided links to articles or reports dealing with QA.
Related topics such as quality enhancement were also brought into the discussion, it being claimed and agreed by some that as far as the advancement of teaching and learning is concerned, it is more important than QA, which merely seeks to establish a minimum standard or benchmark. The moderator continued to be constantly involved by commenting on most topics as they arose, and raising others as the discussion waned. In this he and others were successful in keeping things going, in that at least a couple of claimed 'lurkers' began posting.
Examples were given of institutions demonstrating leadership in QA approaches, and exhortations made that it is imperative that distance educators apply QA to their institutions, if only to display that second-chance education isn't second-rate education.
At that point the discussion drifted into tangential issues, such as 'ICT and new learning paradigm', 'Shifting paradigm' and 'Synchronous v. asynchronous', which, combined with the multiple posting of messages problem, made the conference difficult to follow.
As the conference entered its last few days, the moderator attempted to bring participants back on track with the need to start 'looking forward to summing up for the Durban conference. Are there any QADE issues that have been mentioned already or need to be mentioned that you feel should be /emphasised/included in my report?' One response called for a working definition, based on the discussions.
Unfortunately the multiple copies problem continued to beset the conference, prompting the moderator to call a halt, stating 'Given the large number of iterative copies that continue to infect the server it would seem sensible to take the hint and finally call this conference to an end.'
Conclusion
Overall, the virtual conference on quality assurance in distance education was only partially successful, partly due to the intrusiveness of technical problems. Key quality issues were raised and debated, with most participants agreeing that while it was a good and necessary part of any system, care had to be taken in its implementation, especially with respect to leadership, ownership and the need for a quality culture. Quality assurance should not become the province of a quality unit, but an integral part of all aspects of distance education.
--David Murphy