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This paper aims to provide a framework for continuous, quality, low cost professional development opportunities at the university level to improve the quality of the instructional practices and/or curriculum used in the teacher education program.

Background of the design, needs assessment and implementation of professional development (best practice seminars) based upon the established best practices principles is described.

Provides information about the various seminars that were held each year based upon the faculty needs assessment which is administered biennially. This needs assessment is developed based upon input from the yearly Beginning Teacher Assistance Program survey, P‐12 Regional Professional Development Center Advisory Group, current research and yearly goals set by university departments.

A useful framework for other colleges and universities to provide continuous, quality, low cost professional development opportunities. At the very least, these seminars will raise awareness of current instructional practices and curriculum that is currently being used in P‐12 schools to raise student achievement. Hopefully, these “best practice” seminars will change instructional practice and curriculum at the university level to improve teacher education programs.

This paper fulfills an identified need in the field of continuous quality improvement in the field of teacher education and offers a very useful framework for establishing a design to complete professional development at the university level.

The current study examined several aspects of validity evidence for the Faculty Readiness to Teaching Online (FRTO) scale.

Data were collected from 307 faculty in higher education. Construct validity was evidenced through an exploratory factor analysis and a reliability coefficient. Differential validity was explored using the differential item functioning analysis to explore potential bias in items due to gender and age. In addition, convergent validity was tested by correlating FRTO with years of teaching online, the primary modality of instruction and whether there is required training in online teaching by the institution.

The findings from validation showed that new factors emerged and also demonstrated differences based on instructors gender and age, as well as based on teaching experience and primary modality of teaching.

The findings confirmed the previous study's results (Martin et al., 2019) and provided some modifications to the instrument. The factor structure did not conform to the original four factors proposed in the instrument; instead, the newly loaded factors were course design and facilitation, course technologies, course expectations and resources and time management. The revised instrument can be presented and discussed at online teaching professional development programs to help faculty understand the core competencies they need to better instruct students.

This chapter compares faculty self-assessment of teaching with student opinion of instruction in an online environment, in order to determine the level of agreement between faculty self-assessment and student assessment, in areas of overall program strength and directions for individual and whole-group professional development. A faculty self-assessment of teaching inventory based on established guidelines was administered to participating faculty in the Master of Library Science program at East Carolina University, and scores were compared to students’ ratings of instruction for one academic year. Scores were corrected for bias, tabulated, and Pearson correlation and t-scores were calculated. The method used produced an effective benchmarking and diagnostic tool, and indicated directions for instructional improvement. Because the study was for the express purpose of internal, formative evaluation, model data tabulations are presented as examples only. Data from the actual study are not presented. Limitations of the study are that items on student evaluation of teaching surveys may not always lend themselves to concept mapping, and that data were collected only for one academic year in a single program. The chapter contributes a method that is replicable and scalable, demonstrates that data are relatively easy to acquire, and that procedures are simple to implement, requiring only basic statistical tests and measures for analysis. Results can be interpreted and understood without extensive knowledge of quantitative methods. There are few studies that compare students teaching evaluations with faculty self-evaluations, and none that specifically address it for library and information science education programs.

To analyze the main elements of continuous improvement (CI) in higher education and the concerns of academia's stakeholders in the implementation of such an approach. Suggests guidelines for the development of a culture more receptive to the implementation and maintenance of a CI approach in higher education.

A review of published literature (1982‐2004) facilitates identification of elements of CI, and concerns of academia's stakeholders for the adoption of a CI approach in higher education. The reviewed sources are grouped into three major sections: the CI approach, implications of CI, and an illustrative example – EQUIS.

The adoption of a CI approach in higher education requires not only upper administration commitment, but also uncovering the current underlying culture and examining the appropriateness of the objectives to adopt CI. A culture of a long‐term commitment to CI implies engaging the administrative and academic systems and all the stakeholders of the institution. This was identified as a major road‐block for quality initiatives.

There is a wide range of stakeholders to consider and some stakeholders have diverse objectives in pursuing a CI approach. Future research should explore these agendas to identify core issues needing to be addressed to speed up the shift towards a CI culture.

Required accreditations in colleges and universities offer an increasingly important role to a CI approach in higher education and its impact on academic stakeholders.

This paper fulfils an identified information/resources need and offers practical help to colleges of business seeking accreditations and institutions of higher education pursuing CI initiatives.

This paper aims to describe a two-stage sustainability curriculum assessment, providing tools and strategies for other faculty to use in implementing their own sustainability assessments.

In the first stage of the five-year curriculum assessment, the authors used an anonymous survey of sustainability faculty and requested data that would verify the survey’s self-reporting: updated sustainability syllabi, and answers to the question, “where have you integrated the three aspects of sustainability – biological systems, social systems, economic systems – into this course?” Finding that the self-reporting results did not match the evidence on the syllabi, the authors interrogated their methods from the faculty workshop trainings for sustainability curriculum transformation.

The authors’ workshops had not provided clear definitions for “sustainability” and the learning outcomes expected in sustainability courses. They had also not addressed the role of transformative pedagogy in teaching a holistic approach to sustainability. The research identified and transcended five key barriers to implementing sustainability curriculum: an over-reliance on faculty volunteers, unclear and unenforced expectations about sustainability implementations, a failure to recognize and circumvent institutional and philosophical barriers to teaching sustainability’s interdisciplinary approach through disciplinary-based curriculum, conceiving of sustainability pedagogy as transmission rather than transformation, and overlooking the ecology of educational systems as nested within the larger sociopolitical environment.

This study confirms the limitations of faculty self-reporting unless augmented with verifiable data.

Sustainability educators can use this research to devise curriculum or program assessment on their campuses: the mixed-methods approach to data collection, the inquiry into sustainability workshop trainings, the elements required on sustainability syllabi for building a coherent sustainability studies program, the resources for practicing a transformative sustainability pedagogy, and the barriers to sustainability implementation along with strategies for surmounting these barriers will all be of use.

This paper explores and combats root causes for an all-too-common disconnection between positive faculty self-assessment and syllabi that do not fully integrate sustainability across the disciplines.

This study aims to identify various teachers’ professional activities (TPAs) and classify these TPAs according to their relative importance for the professional development of teachers.

The systematic review of the literature had been conducted to identify various TPAs in the institutions. Later, an empirical research had been conducted through confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS 20.0 to classify these TPAs according to their relative importance using the natural gap in standardized beta (β) values. In total, 96 administrators of 35 technical institutions of Punjab (India) offering engineering and management programs and 93 veteran educational experts had responded in a field survey.

The results of the study identified eight TPAs and further revealed that “regular self-assessment,” “adopting a creative problem-solving approach” and “developing deep commitment to make the difference” qualify among the “most important” activities for the professional enhancement of the faculty.

The study highlights different TPAs that they must establish, raise, promote, encourage and organize for their development. The study further classifies different activities according to their relative importance. The institute can evaluate their resources, budgets and efforts according to the relative importance of such activities. The classification of TPAs would help faculty to increase their efficacy.

This study aims to investigate how sustainability has been incorporated – or mainstreamed - in a school at one university through techniques of responsibilization and accountabilization.

Inspired by the extended case study methodology, the authors participated, observed and analyzed two audit-inspired processes, whose aims included ensuring that sustainability was integrated into the educational process.

By following two audit-inspired processes, the authors show how teachers were asked to respond to open-ended survey questions and by doing so emerged as responsibilized subjects. Although the teachers were given lots of space to interpret the concept of sustainability and show how it was translated into the programs and courses offered, the teachers were made accountable as established organizational hierarchies were reproduced when responsibilization was formalized through techniques of accountabilization.

The analysis moves beyond the instrumental epistemologies characterizing much of the positivist-oriented research in higher education. As with all studies, the authors study also has methodological limitations, such as involving a single higher education institution. There is a general need for more empirical research in this area in order to build theory and to understand whether the concepts of responsibilization and accountabilization can also be applied in other higher education contexts.

The study shows that higher education administrators engage in processes of responsibilization and accountabilization through formalized processes of interpellation, as documents and self-assessment exercises tie teachers to organizational contexts.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that introduces the concepts of responsibilization and accountabilization as social relationships in higher education governance.

The benefits of an educational shift to graduate attribute development have been foregrounded in the educational literature since the early 1990s. Attribute mapping in documentation with no change to assessment constitutes a surface approach. This paper aims to use as an example a deep approach that uses software to facilitate staff and student engagement.

In 2002 the author developed online criteria‐based assessment software ReView, together with a process involving the constructive alignment of assessment tasks. This was used in an academic development context to assist staff to integrate graduate attribute development through the assessment of student work. The time‐saving features of the online software, colour‐coded feedback about attribute development and its facilitation of students' self‐assessment were significantly successful parts of this approach.

A time‐saving strategy using software as a facilitator can encourage change to assessment practices. The inclusion of discipline content as part of attribute‐related assessment criteria assisted staff engagement with a developmental approach to attributes. Top‐down directives need bottom‐up processes and both are assisted by factors such as external accreditation and course reviews.

The paper clarifies graduate attribute terminology issues and identifies problems with “top‐down directives”. It describes innovative online criteria‐based assessment software used to facilitate graduate attribute integration and student self‐assessment. Assessment processes that give students a progressive portrait of their attribute development are few and far between. This paper offers data about one successful approach to this issue.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between management support, quality infrastructure, staff training and the effectiveness of quality enhancement cells (QECs) established in higher education institutions.

Data were acquired via a structured questionnaire dispatched to faculty members across 12 public and private universities, primarily situated in Punjab, Pakistan. Among the 200 questionnaires distributed, 180 were retrieved and 140 were deemed valid. The proposed relationships were examined using SPSS–25 and PLS–SEM.

The results show a positive and significant relationship between management support, quality infrastructure and staff training with QECs' effectiveness. The study also highlights that the effectiveness of QECs is “Good” in only two of the 12 universities, while in most universities it is “Barely Acceptable”. Furthermore, QECs' effectiveness is slightly better in public universities compared to private institutions.

The study employs convenience sampling and a cross-sectional approach, focusing on faculty members from 12 universities, primarily in Punjab, Pakistan. To enhance future research, larger samples and probability-based sampling should be considered, while involving quality managers and students for a broader perspective.

The research suggests policymakers and university leaders should strengthen their support by providing resources, quality infrastructure and training for academic and administrative staff. This would enhance the effectiveness of QECs and improve the overall quality of education in both public and private universities.

This study contributes to the literature on quality assurance in higher education by emphasizing the significance of QECs concerning management support, quality infrastructure and staff training – areas that are often overlooked in Pakistani universities.