“Rolf is one of the most intellectually energetic, imaginatively enthusiastic, practical visionary I have ever met. He has more ideas than he can handle, a generous curious mind he draws people in with elegant effortlessness and egoless collaboration, and extraordinary things happen.” From beginning of November 2011 until end of March 2011, I was responsible on behalf of the European Foundation for Quality in E-Learning, to work on the following Tempus project, aiming the modernisation of higher education in EU neighbourhood countries:
DL@WeB
The DL@Web project is enhancing the quality of distance learning at Western Balkan Higher Education Institutions. As a first step in this project, current quality models for distance learning have been reviewed and compared against each other. In particular the leading European organisations in this field e.g. ENQA, EADTU, EADL, EDEN, EFQUEL and national benchmarks such as JISC, HSV, CACE, DETC, ODL QC, NADE, QAA, ACODE and NVAO have been analysed about their approach and their quality models.
In a later stage, a compliant quality framework for Distance Learning in the Western Balkan states shall be generated in compliance to European guidelines and standards. After testing the framework in some piloting universities, the objective is to generate training materials and to conduct national workshops in all of the countries involved.
My activities:
- Reviewing and contributing to the document "Analysis of Existing Practices for Quality Assurance in Distance Learning
- Participating in project meetings
- Conducting administrative activities
There is a strong potential in such a project in particular that Europe gets aware about a common approach for innovative quality assurance in Higher Education. ENQA has developed a guideline, but I see a need for an agreed quality framework targeting the innovation driven change process in traditional universities. It might be that a quality assurance framework for distance learning universities can bring important benefits into the debates on traditional quality assurance for universities.
One of the few independent people, who are able to oversee the current developments, is Anne-Marie De Jonghe. She has recently wrote a position paper for EFQUEL about the "Readiness of traditional universities for quality and innovation".
