Quality Assurance in the Distance Education Program of USM

1. Introduction

Quality means different things to different people. Each of the stakeholders of an academic program of distance higher education (students, faculty, administrators, employers, and government) is likely to have different views about what constitutes quality. Inevitably, therefore, any discussion of quality assurance must take into consideration the lack of consensus evident in the literature and the workplace about what quality service actually looks like.  Fortunately, defining quality assurance is less problematic (Seaborne, 1997: 77).

Robinson (1994: 186-187) defines quality assurance is the set of activities that an organization undertake to ensure that standard are specified and reached consistently for a product or service.  It has as its goal the avoidance of faulty products or services whereas quality control operates retrospectively ‘inspecting out’ or discarding faulty products, which fall to conform to a predetermined standard. Quality control and quality assurance, together with the assessment of quality system (that is, the monitoring evaluation and audit of procedures) are overlapping functions in regulating how an organization or venture works. They all have a role in quality management approaches, the best known of which is TQM.

In education and training through open and distance methods, we often use the term quality in relation to course materials and services indicate their ‘fitness for the purpose intended’. This definition raises the question of whose purpose we are talking about. With any course, there are a number of different interested parties or stakeholders: there are the course designers, the funders or sponsors of the course, the student themselves, and increasingly their employers.  The major concerns of each of these stakeholders may well differ from each other (Calder, 1994: 195).

In this presentation the system developed at the School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), within the scope of the above definition i.e. planned and systematic actions backed up by management to assure quality of a product or service (Gumpp, 1995: 138) is discussed.

 
2. Background
USM is a dual-/mixed-mode institution. It is a public funded institution, and one of the objectives of the distance learning program is to give a second chance to access higher education to the public as a social service of the government. Therefore, the fee paid by the students is extremely low (that is, per credit) compared to the other institution offering of the same program.

The USM distance-learning program, which has been in operation for 28 years, has gone through two rigorous external evaluations. Those evaluations were done to check whether the programs offered fulfill its objectives. The program was launched in 1971 on an experimental basis till 1982 when its status was changed to that of a regular program giving the status of an established faculty (Dhanarajan, 1987: 559).

From its inception in 1971 till 1992, the students were expected to spend a compulsory residential on-campus together with other final year students. This provision of the university senate was to maintain the high quality of the USM degree.

From the intake of 1992/93 and 1993/94 for the sciences and arts programs, respectively; the final year on-campus requirement was abolished. This decision was taken after careful study and the senate was satisfied that the quality of the distance learning mode is the same if not better than the conventional mode in the final year on-campus.

It is still mandatory for each student to attend two weeks (for science, management, education, arts, and science foundation programs) and four weeks (for engineering program) residential requirement (we called it ‘intensive course’) on-campus every year. They will be barred from taking the final examination if they fail to attend and their study will be automatically postponed.

During the intensive course, the science students do all the practicals that cannot be done at the regional centres (especially those practicals that need sophisticated and expensive equipments and must be under the closed supervision of the course managers), and for the engineering students they do all their practicals on-campus (at the Perak Branch Kampus in Tronoh) like any other full-time conventional system students, and for the arts-based students they meet their course managers for academic counselling or tutorials or to do some practicals and field work.

In the board of studies of the engineering programs, the Institute of Engineers Malaysia and the Board of Engineers Malaysia insisted that in order for the academically qualified candidates to be offered a place for the B.Eng.(Hons) program they must come from the engineering environment (that is, working in the engineering firms).

 
3. The Philosophy

The USM senate is very concerned with the quality of the graduates who go through the distance learning program. Therefore, it is the policy of the university that only those programs that are already offered on-campus can be considered to be offered through the distance learning mode. Even then, it must go through rigorous study by the internal experts and the school board first before the board of studies make recommendations to the senate for approval. Then, the proposal is sent to the Ministry of Education for the final approval before offering.

Each new program must go through this strict procedure thoroughly even though the program follows the same curriculum and the same or equivalent course curriculum as on-campus courses.

4. Curriculum Development

The USM system is quite rigid in that we are offering courses or programs that already exist or is on going in the on-campus conventional system. Therefore, various stages in the curriculum development are already done by the on-campus departments. Based on the on-campus experiences we transformed them into various media format which are suitable to adult learning through distance education system (Saleh, 1994).

a. Program Approval

As stated above, the program offered through distance learning mode must follow the same structure as on-campus program. A draft curriculum is usually prepared by a select committee made up of internal experts. The curriculum development committee discussed thoroughly the draft before get approval from the school board. The proposal is sent to the academic planning committee, then to the senate for scrutiny and approval.

For a new program, the senate will form board of studies where the members of the board will comprise representatives from the private and government agencies, professional bodies, individuals who are experts in the respective field, librarian to go through the proposal together with the internal experts and the university top management. The duty of this board of studies is to study the program thoroughly and make recommendation, in a complete report to the senate for approval. The senate will ask for approval from the Ministry of Education for implementation and funding.

The Board of Studies normally comprises the following:

• The Vice Chancellor - Chairman

• Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic)

• All the Deans concern

Representative from:

• The Ministry of Education (normally Director General, Secretary General, Higher Education Secretary, Division Heads, and etc)

• The School Academic Board of the departments concern

• Professional bodies

• Private sectors

Individual as an expert in a particular field

• Librarian

• Registrar - Secretary

 

The Board of Studies will follow the system approach as follow:

• Needs analysis

• Goals and Objectives

• Course Curriculum Development

• aims, goals and objectives

• selecting media

• resources

• assessment

Writing the instructional material

• Evaluation

• Revision

There are two steps involved in the curriculum development i.e. the program and the course curriculum, which is part of the program development. Then, the writers will write the instructional materials based on the approved course curriculum.

b. The Course Team

From 1983 the course development procedures followed the house style in self-instructional modular form that suitable for adult learners studying at a distance. Therefore the writers (normally the expert in that particular field and impossible experienced face-to-face lecturers) will be expected to work with a team of experts identified by the school.

The course team normally comprises instructional designer, media and subject experts, and the writer (who will become the course manager at least for the first year of the course offering), and is led by the deputy director (production). The draft lessons are circulated among the team for ‘friendly’ comments and review before a final version is done for production. These are then evaluated thoroughly for one or two academic years. Following evaluation a revision is done and the revised course is then printed to match industry standard. Materials produced thus are used for at least the next five years (Dhanarajan, 1987: 581). This course team approached was strictly followed in the eighties.

In the nineties the course team concept is still being followed, but with slight modifications. The identified writers write the draft module based on the approved course curriculum, then the manuscripts are sent to the external academic assessors for evaluation of the academic content based on the approved course curriculum. At this stage some writers may need the help of instructional designers in order to conform with the house style. The comments of the external assessors are discussed in the academic section chaired by the program chairman and the section will make recommendation to the distance education technology committee for approval.  The approved manuscripts are then sent for makeup and edited by the appointed editor (if necessary). The camera-ready-copy are sent to the publishers for printing and open market distribution (see Saleh, 1999).

 

5. Course Evaluation and External Examiner

In distance education some of the course work components such as practicals and assignments are done at the regional centers. This approach may raise big question mark about their quality and originality. We are very concerned about the quality, and it must be the same or equal with the conventional on-campus system. Therefore, the practical session are conducted and supervised by the qualified part-time tutors appointed by the university, the report must be submitted at the end of each practical sessions.

Although very few practicals are conducted at the regional centers, but if the reports are graded by the part-time tutors, the course managers must provide the marking scheme, and moderation must be done by the course managers to ensure the marks given by various part-time tutors are consistent with the marking scheme.

The course managers are advised to mark the assignments or answer scripts themselves. If they have to use the part-time markers appointed by the university, some questions of each answer scripts must be marked by the course managers, and of course he/she must be responsible for the consistency of the marking done by the part-time markers. The university is very strict about this, and the part-time markers should have experience in teaching the said course.

The continuous assessment is run at the regional centers and during the intensive course on-campus. The resident tutors and part-time tutors are appointed as chief invigilators and invigilators, respectively. The rules and procedures of the final examination are strictly followed.  And the final examination is conducted under the supervision of the examination unit of the state education department, which also conduct exam for the University of London external degree under Malaysian Examination Council. The rules and regulations for the examination are printed in the guidebook, which are provided to every new-registered students.

After 1983, the university allocated 1-2 external examiner slots for each academic session. They come here for about a week and do some marking of the answer scripts (randomly), the exam question has been sent to them before they come, meet the lecturers, students, and resident tutors at the regional centers, and if possible visit the exam centers. The external examiners will then submit a report which cover the quality of the program compared to the international standards and to his own university, and make recommendations to the vice chancellor.

The vice chancellor normally will ask the dean to discuss at the school board (except in cases involving names and sensitive issues involving other persons, the names were omitted before the discussion). If possible the external examiners are expert in their field as well as the distance education system. Until now, the school have already appointed external examiners from UKOU, University of the Air, Japan; University of Murdoch, Australia; Distance Learning University, Indonesia; National University of Singapore, National University of Malaysia and University of Malaya.

6. The System

a. Orientation

The admission section of USM processes the advertisement and selection of the new students every year. With the help of Computer Center, a merit list is generated by computer based on the total of both academic and socioeconomic points. The selection process is done by the university admission board chaired by the vice chancellor.

The successful applicants will be asked to register and follow the orientation for about a week at the main campus. For Sabahan, the orientation is in Kota Kinabalu and in Kuching for Sarawakian. The orientation is compulsory and the offer will be withdrawn if they do not come and register.

During the orientation day, they will be briefed on the system how to study at a distance, course registration, and distribution of the learning materials. Then, they have to follow the academic planner.

b. Student Support

Supported distance education combines the provision of high quality multimedia teaching materials with tutorial and counseling support. Together they provide for an integrated system of course presentation, incorporating advice on preparation to study, and describing options for the choice of course and award, support, and administrative arrangements (O’Shea and Downes, 1997: 63). Students receive an academic planner for each course they are registered. The planner helps them pace through their studies and links suggested dates for the study of each module with corresponding video conferencing or practical (if necessary) sessions and assignments.  Some arts courses are provided with study guides where the learning processes are guided in detail by the course managers.

The 20 regional centers (8 for the engineering programs and 12 for the other programs) scattered throughout Malaysia provide services to student to attend video conferencing and practical (if necessary) sessions, face-to-face tutorials (for regional centers in Sabah and Sarawak if necessary), make some references for science and engineering students (some reference books are provided to the regional center library), and socialization for the distance learning student association (non-formal and with dean’s approval to carry out their activities). The part-time resident tutors also help in the administrative matters and enquires about the program.

Each resident tutor and part-time tutors are given the job descriptions for them to follow in carrying out their duties at the regional centers when they receive the appointment letters. They are in close contact with the deputy dean and the respective assistant registrars if they have problems at the regional centers or the school needs their help to arrange other activities. And the distance learning student association. also works closely with the resident tutors not only in the academic matters but also in other student activities.

c. Delivery System

Even though the USM distance learning program has been using the electronic media since 1988 for the audio teleconferencing, 1991 audio graphic teleconferencing, and 1995 video conferencing (full-motion), for two-way communication; the print self-instructional modules and study guides are still the main medium for the educational transaction.

Before we introduce the above electronic media, we first conducted a pilot study to see its pedagogical effectiveness and cultural suitability with the local environment. Of course it must be cost effective (see Saleh, 1997).

Many of the modules are already transformed to the online system, and we hope that this system can be accessed by the students from the next academic year i.e. year 2000/01.