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Making sure that a higher education distance learning course meets student expectations is critical to ensuring the quality of the student experience. Judging whether a course delivers to its promise is a particular challenge when the course is delivered by distance learning and there is no regular face‐to‐face contact with students, the more so when courses are faced with alternative conceptions, and external audits, of quality. The paper identifies the contested nature of quality, examines models of evaluation, relates them to existing forms of evaluation facing education courses, and offers an alternative constructivist approach based on the notion of a service template.

Peter joined local government following a career in nursing, specialising in psychiatric social work. Following qualification in social work, he worked in practice, including attachments to primary health, in both the US and UK. His managerial career has taken him into both public and private sectors. He was Strategic Director of Social Services in Kent for eight years and during this time took the largest Social Services department in the country from ‘poor’ performance to ‘excellent’ before being appointed as Chief Executive of Kent County Council. Kent is one of the largest local authorities in the country and has been rated as one of the very best performing authorities. Peter also chairs the South East England Centre of Excellence which concentrates on sharing best practice and creating a smart environment with regard to efficiency and performance, and is working closely with the Government on Futures.Peter led nationally for ten years on asylum matters for the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS), chaired the National Taskforce and for five years until recently the National Register for Unaccompanied Children (NRUC). He also started a network of principal gateway authorities in the European Union to discuss common problems and develop a framework of best practice. Peter is now leading for the region on the national migration forum. He has also been invited by Lord Darzi to become a member of the Health Innovation Council. Peter has a national reputation for innovation and was nominated by The Guardian newspaper as one of the top 100 Innovators in the public sector in the UK and shortlisted for the 2006 Public Sector Power 100 Awards.Now in his fourth year as Chief Executive at Kent, Peter continues to pursue ‘innovation, effectiveness and an outcome‐based modern public service’.