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Increased emphasis on offering quality education underscores the need for developing a rigorous process for assessing academic programs in higher education. In this chapter, we develop a practical and rigorous framework for comprehensive assessment of academic programs. This framework generates in-depth communication between the academic departments and the university administration. It provides a useful tool for advancing the university mission, setting priorities, allocating resources, and identifying future areas of potential growth. This data-driven framework covers a wide range of qualitative and quantitative variables. To ensure a smooth and efficient implementation of the assessment process we present the critical stages in the development of a successful program assessment framework − from determining the assessment criteria, establishing the organizational climate, appointing the assessment committee, preparing program self-studies, to collecting and analyzing data. We present real examples from the author’s home institution to illustrate and support the reader’s understanding of the framework.

The present paper's purpose is to review the literature related to quality assessment and performance evaluation in academic libraries, whether empirical or theoretical, and to extract key issues. It aims to explore which criteria exert a significant relationship with the academic libraries' performance quality; identify a set of criteria that appears to be useful for assessing the quality of academic libraries ITBS; and use these criteria to develop an instrument or evaluation checklist for evaluating the quality of academic libraries ITBS.

Related keywords such as “academic libraries research”, “academic libraries evaluation”, “academic libraries assessment” were searched on the web as well as some leading databases. In addition, available library resources as well as online book databases were consulted. Key issues were identified, categorized and discussed to develop the evaluation checklist suggested by the paper.

A number of indicators have been developed and tested in quality assessment studies debated in the paper. The literature reveals that evaluating ITBS in academic libraries should be considered to a greater extent and thus, more evaluation studies on the basis of validated tools are needed.

The review does not claim to be comprehensive.

The paper can serve as a research roadmap concerning quality assessment of ITBS in academic libraries for researchers, managers, academic authorities and users.

The aim of this research is to assess the influence of the underlying service quality variable, usually related to university students' perception of the educational experience. Another aspect analysed in this work is the development of a procedure to determine which variables are more significant to assess students' satisfaction.

In order to achieve both goals, a twofold methodology was approached. In the first phase of research, an assessment of the service quality was performed with data gathered from 580 students in a process involving the adaptation of the SERVQUAL scale through a multi-objective optimization methodology. In the second phase of research, results obtained from students were compared with those obtained from the teaching staff at the university.

Results from the analysis revealed the most significant service quality dimensions from the students' viewpoint according to the scores that they provided. Comparison of the results with the teaching staff showed noticeable differences when assessing academic quality.

Significant conclusions can be drawn from the theoretical review of the empirical evidences obtained through this study helping with the practical design and implementation of quality strategies in higher education especially in regard to university education.

Standards should provide a means for transparently comparing academic programmes delivered by higher education providers and the research activities they carry out. The purpose of this study is to investigate the different sets of standards related to the quality assurance of academic programmes in four countries with regard to the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG), developed by the European Association for Quality Assurance, for internal quality assurance within higher education institutions. The main aim is to find the convergence and divergence points and to test the consistency of terminologies in use which may impede international collaboration to develop one comprehensive international quality assurance system.

The study relied solely on desk-based research and no fieldwork or interviews were conducted for data collection; a point-by-point comparative approach has been applied to explore the standards related to quality assurance of academic programmes.

Although there is a great deal of convergence between the different sets of standards compared in this study, fundamental differences still exist.

This study compared the standards of academic programmes in four countries with the ESG. To generalise the findings of this study, future research may include other standards for comparison.

This study engages in the debate of how quality of higher education will remain maintained, in times, when higher education is facing challenges such as internationalisation, which requires new initiatives and integrated mechanisms to facilitate mutual recognition of qualifications of students and staff moving across borders.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of university ranking systems as instruments of university quality assessment. Some controversy surrounds the methodology used to compile such instruments. Accordingly, different compilers have adopted different methods to produce these rankings. This study examines to what extent this diversity in methodology is now converging in the context of Spanish university rankings.

To conduct this research, a two-step approach was adopted. First, the indicators used in four Spanish rankings were examined. Second, empirical analysis was used to identify differences between university rankings.

Results reveal that, despite the vast number and variety of indicators, there is a positive, significant relationship between rankings. Spanish university rankings thus show some degree of convergence.

Because rankings influence behavior and shape institutional decision making, a better understanding of how these assessment tools are devised is essential. Research on these ranking systems therefore offers an important contribution to improving the quality of higher education institutions.

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive survey of Spanish university rankings. It offers a new perspective of the state of the art of the Spanish university ranking system. The paper also presents a set of managerial implications for improving these benchmarking tools.

Academic social (question and answer) Q&A sites are now utilised by millions of scholars and researchers for seeking and sharing discipline-specific information. However, little is known about the factors that can affect their votes on the quality of an answer, nor how the discipline might influence these factors. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Using 1,021 answers collected over three disciplines (library and information services, history of art, and astrophysics) in ResearchGate, statistical analysis is performed to identify the characteristics of high-quality academic answers, and comparisons were made across the three disciplines. In particular, two major categories of characteristics of the answer provider and answer content were extracted and examined.

The results reveal that high-quality answers on academic social Q&A sites tend to possess two characteristics: first, they are provided by scholars with higher academic reputations (e.g. more followers, etc.); and second, they provide objective information (e.g. longer answer with fewer subjective opinions). However, the impact of these factors varies across disciplines, e.g., objectivity is more favourable in physics than in other disciplines.

The study is envisioned to help academic Q&A sites to select and recommend high-quality answers across different disciplines, especially in a cold-start scenario where the answer has not received enough judgements from peers.

Quality assurance and management is vital for the continuous improvement of the content, delivery and development of teacher education programmes. This paper seeks to explore theoretical issues and ideas in assessing the quality preparation of teachers in the Singapore context.

An academic quality framework provides an architectural approach to optimizing quality processes, transitioning from a disjointed set of quality processes to an integrated workflow based upon established best practices.

The architectural framework provided a systematic focus to develop and sustain the academic quality of the teacher development programmes. Quality change and developments occur through collaboration and learning. The emphasis is on quality management as a process-oriented strategy.

There is a shift in paradigm from traditional models of programme evaluation to a systems approach that incorporate multi-dimensional models to impact administration, teaching and research in a teacher education institution. Thus Singapore's teacher education quality management should be considered beyond a set of measurement tools towards a systematic, scheduled and focused examination as a whole, as a process-oriented strategy.

The purpose of this editorial is to comment on the paper by Saunders and Wong in this issue. In doing so, the paper reflects on the notion of academic quality within marketing research, along with the systems in place to evaluate and reward it.

The paper takes a reflective, discursive approach.

The author finds that, while Saunders and Wong make a number of pertinent observations, and come up with interesting solutions, the notion of academic quality espoused in their paper is based on a logically flawed set of arguments.

The paper is primarily a personal view, and thus does not rely on any empirical research.

There are key implications for many parties involved in the creation and assessment of marketing knowledge. In particular, scholars would be well advised to consider notions of quality in relation to their own work, rather than rely unquestioningly on existing definitions. Policy makers and research managers (e.g. business school deans) also need to consider what quality in academic research really is, and how to appropriately direct and reward it.

The paper provides another perspective on the well‐established debate regarding quality, and thus it is hoped will stimulate further thinking.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are becoming more aware of the effects of globalization and of the fact that the need for international work experience, as well as partially or fully acquired education abroad, is increasing. The aim of the research is to analyze factors influencing international students’ decision regarding the country and HEIs and to evaluate students’ learning experience and satisfaction with their choice to develop suggestions for the improvement of different dimensions related to the quality and export of higher education.

Several research methods, such as literature review, logical and comparative analysis, as well as the empirical method to obtain information by conducting a survey, and the induction method to interpret and generalize the survey results are applied in this research. To discover learning experiences and determinants of students’ choice of the host country and HEI, research was carried out, under which two questionnaires were developed. The survey involved foreign students from seven HEIs in Latvia and one Estonian university.

The environment in which HEIs operate is becoming more open to the increasing international influence and competition and leads to increasing opportunities for international studies and choice available to students. The quality of the academic staff and study programmes are the most important factors in creating value for the student. As a result of the research, suggestions for higher education quality improvement and export development have been structured within economics, culture and quality dimensions into three levels – individual, institutional and state.

The study does not analyze the foreign students’ countries of origin in terms of political, economic situations or other factors. Upon researching the proportion of foreign students in Latvian HEIs, it was found that most students acquire education in Riga; therefore, regional HEIs have not been included in the survey.

The results obtained can be used to improve the quality of higher education and encourage the export of higher education by introducing the necessary changes in the areas identified during the research at the state as well as HEI level. The authors also provide an insight into the areas where implementation of changes is necessary to improve the international students’ level of satisfaction and their learning experience.

Since the 1980s, higher education institutions in many developed Western countries have been facing competition for resources, have undergone economic rationalisation, adopted a New Public Management style of performance management and aspired to meet global standards of quality. This chapter explores the self-tracking practices of academic institutions and workers as they negotiate a field that has moved away from a quality evaluation system based primarily on social reputation towards one based increasingly on quantified outcome indicators. Universities typically measure research performance not only in terms of quantity of outputs but also the ‘attention capital’ they receive, for example, the number of citations or awards and prizes. These metrics and the emphasis on attention capital generally encourage a culture of competition rather than collaboration, while promoting the ‘celebrification’ of academic life. We argue that this trend has been intensified by technologies that gamify research achievements, continuously update citation and ‘read’ counts, and promote networked reputation. Under these conditions, academic institutions and workers have attempted to pursue a variety of positioning strategies that represent different degrees of conformity, resistance and compromise to the power of metrics.