An Introduction:
Quality units in higher educational institutions are an important element in most countries in which accreditation and quality assurance organizations have been established, and it is a process that can only take place inside the educational institution itself. This requires great efforts, distinguished leadership, and appropriate support from those responsible for the educational institution and those in charge of implementing the work of these units. Hence, the process of establishing quality units within educational institutions has become an important procedure and a basic requirement needed by accreditation and quality organizations from any higher educational institution seeking to obtain academic accreditation and quality assurance.
General Objective:
Quality Assurance Centers are established in post-secondary educational institutions to lead, support and coordinate quality assurance processes in all units of the educational institution.
Arrangements of the Quality Assurance Center:
The center should be led by a senior faculty member (usually called a director), who should be knowledgeable and experienced in post-secondary quality assurance and has ability to provide effective leadership.
The director of the Quality Assurance Center should be administratively accountable to the President, Rector, Dean or other senior faculty member in the administration such as the Vice Rector for Academic Affairs.
A general quality committee should be established in the educational institution headed by a senior faculty member in the central administration of the educational institution. Such committee should consist of members representing all administrative units in the educational institution, as much as possible. The members of the committee should have good knowledge of quality assurance processes and be able to provide appropriate advice and recommendations on various topics and issues related to quality assurance in the educational institution, in addition to their leadership role in adopting quality initiatives and programs within the scope of their work in the educational institution.
Those responsible members for quality assurance must be appointed in the administrative units of the educational institution. The quality committees can also be established in large units, as well as divided into subcommittees in the educational institution in order to develop and give advice on some specific topics related to quality.
The (general) Quality Committee in the educational institution performs different tasks such as giving advice to the Quality Center regarding its various activities, improving internal quality regulations in the educational institution, providing appropriate recommendations to the administration regarding plans to improve quality in the educational institution. In addition, the general committee reviews and certifies forms and documents used during quality assurance activities in the educational institution. Committee members must also play a leading role in facilitating the implementation of quality assurance initiatives in the educational institution’s departments and units, following up on the quality of performance in the educational institution and submitting the necessary reports about that.
As for the requirements of the Quality Assurance Center/Unit from the staff, it depends on the size of the educational institution, the multiplicity of its facilities, and the extent to which the center's responsibilities are centralized or distributed among all departments and units of the educational institution. In any case, the procedures followed in the quality centers focus on the smallness of the center and its effectiveness. Therefore, the staff usually includes between two to five members, including the director of the center, the administrative support team, the secretariat, and one or two specialists to perform certain responsibilities.
The Quality Assurance Center is located close to the senior administration building. It contains one or more offices, and facilities for storing information and documents related to the center and retrieving them when needed. The location of the center should allow easy access to the meeting place.
Responsibilities of Quality Assurance Centers:
One of the most important primary responsibilities undertaken by the Quality Assurance Center/Unit is to lead, coordinate and support quality assurance processes in all parts of the educational institution through:
- Making a commitment to improve quality through:
- Raising educational institution's employees' awareness of the importance of quality assurance processes and teaching them the necessary strategies to achieve them
- Developing the concept of "mission" and the concept of "objectives" in order to improve quality in the educational institution and encourage all units in the institution to carry out similar procedures, each in its specialization
- Conceptualizing what developments and distinguished achievements should be done in the educational institution through quality processes
- Involving all beneficiaries of the educational institution's activities in developing quality assurance strategies, and working to educate the community about the important achievements that have been achieved
- Providing assistance and support to departments and administrative units in the educational institution in order to implement quality improvement plans, and this includes:
- Making the necessary arrangements for nominating and choosing quality officials in the administrative units of the various departments of the educational institution
- Conducting training sessions and workshops for the staff in the educational institution on quality assurance processes
- Conducting training sessions and workshops on teaching strategies and assessments related to the different types of intended learning outcomes
- Cooperating with internal departments and units in the educational institution during the preparation programs or the appointment of new employees to raise awareness and provide support to achieve quality assurance strategies
- Assisting in the preparation of quality improvement plans and evaluating the process of the administrative units within the educational institution
- Developing and approving official forms used in the educational institution for the purpose of conducting surveys and reports on quality indicators such as education assessment and operations, surveys of employers and alumni opinions, forms for program and specialization descriptions, and other kinds of reports
- Providing technical support to calculate the validity and reliability of tasks related to evaluation surveys
- Conducting periodic surveys of graduates and other beneficiaries of the educational institution's activities
- Communicating with the beneficiaries of the educational institution's activities, and seeking to know their opinions and advice regarding quality development strategies
- Assisting internal units to hire freelancing evaluators to assist them in their activities related to quality assurance while taking their advice on ways to improve quality
- Providing reference materials and disseminating information about developments related to quality assurance and accreditation, and polarizing the good procedures in other educational institutions, whether inside Saudi Arabia or in other countries, which would assist staff throughout the educational institution in improving quality
- Coordinating the overall strategies of the educational institution to ensure quality improvement through:
- Developing a plan to improve quality in the educational institution as a whole
- Determining a key performance indicator to be used in all departments of the educational institution so that individual units can identify additional indicators related to their own activities
- Keeping files and records of plans, reports, statistical data, and other information to be retrieved from time to time, following up on improvement plans, controlling implementation and evaluating units' success
- Controlling the institutional evaluation processes, and coordinating them with the external evaluation processes to which the concerned programs in the educational institution are subject
- Preparing reports on quality assurance developments for the entire educational institution. This includes:
- Preparing annual reports on quality assurance and submitting them to the senior administration and the board of directors, explaining the main performance indicators and fixed information, based on the reports of the internal units
- Preparing internal studies at the level of the institution (Organizational Self-Assessment) and coordinating them to coincide with the time and implementation of internal studies at the program level (Program Self-Assessment) in all institutional educational processes
- Preparing documents and forms to be used by the Quality Center. Such materials include the following:
- Forms for submitting quality improvement plans
- Forms for describing mission, objectives, indicators, and performance measurement processes
- Files of programs, courses, and majors
- Forms for annual program reports and courses' specifications and reports
- Forms for programs' evaluating surveys to be filled by graduates
- Forms for surveying the opinions of other employers and beneficiaries of the unit's activities
- Forms for presenting self-study reports
- Functions that must be taken care of by the Quality Center when setting the institutional strategy for quality assurance, which include the following:
- Mission and objectives.
- Learning and Teaching - within each program and the educational institution as a whole
- Research
- Community relations
- Governance and administration
- Quality assurance systems
- Student admission and support services
- Learning resources
- Facilities and equipment
- Financial and administrative planning
- Staff and faculty recruitment processes
It must be taken into account the processes and the results of all the functions of input operations with a focus on results. There must be a clear understanding of the performance levels to be reached, in addition to establishing objectives and performance indicators for measuring and comparing the effectiveness of the evaluation processes in the workplace and laying down plans for improvement.
Strategic Plan Unit
Unit's tasks include:
- Preparing the stages of the strategic plan through:
1. Analyzing the current situation
2. Establishing the strategic plan (strategic goals)
3. Adopting and approving the strategic plan
- Forming the strategic plan committees; the guidance and supervision committee, and the executive committee
- Reviewing the college's strategic plan in line with the university's strategic plan