Posted in December 2023
Enhancing quality assurance in continuing education through an organisational cultural change
Article written by Clelia Paraluppi, Patricia Mancebo May, Ceyrine Pellikaan and Naomi Wahls and published in the European Journal of University Lifelong Learning (EJULL) as part of the EUCEN Conference 2023.
Abstract
The TU Delft Extension School for Continuing Education underwent a collaborative process
to strengthen its quality culture involving professionals and leaders working on designing,
developing and delivering its online courses. In this paper we describe the steps taken
towards an enhanced Quality Assurance (QA) system. A key part of the Extension School’s
strategy to guarantee excellence in its online courses is the continuous training provided for
instructors and teaching assistants who form the course teams. This is delivered in several
ways: specialised hands-on courses and dedicated portals, personal guidance throughout
the entire course development process, and an extensive offer of short trainings. This
approach contributes both to higher quality for our online courses and to the professional
development of our teaching staff, who bring their newly acquired experience and online
materials back to their in-campus courses. In this paper, we share the lessons learned on
establishing an organisational quality culture, defining QA standards and processes, and we
showcase how the professionalisation of instructors plays a pivotal role in offering high-quality education.
Keywords
Quality assurance, quality culture, continuing education, professional development, course development
Reference
Paraluppi, C., Mancebo May, P., Pellikaan, C. & Wahls, N. (2023) ENHANCING QUALITY ASSURANCE IN CONTINUING EDUCATION THROUGH AN ORGANISATIONAL CULTURAL CHANGE. European
Journal of University Lifelong Learning, 7(2), pp. 89-96. © eucen, 2023.
https://doi.org/10.53807/0702ADf6
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License
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), which permits reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator, the purposes are non-commercial and distribution of remixed, adapted or build upon material should be released under the same license.