Quality pilots
- Hilma - University Network for Women´s Studies
- Palmenia Centre for Continuing Education, University of Helsinki
- Open University, University of Kuopio
- Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki
- Department of Social Psychology, University of Helsinki
- Swedish as a Foreign Language-course - Hanken, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration
The goals of piloting were - to enhance and disseminate quality consciousness
- to create and develop pilots´ quality improvement
- to test the Quality Manual (functionality, usability, contents)
- to create user pathways in the QM to allow various approaches to quality management work
- to evaluate and report activities on quality improvement as a pilot
- to create a network on quality issues
The VOPLA project offered the pilots seminars, workshops and personal mentoring on how to begin e-learning quality improvement. During 2006, the pilots defined their own goals for the piloting year, described their current situation on e-learning, and chose the activities in their e-learning that needed improvement. By the end of 2006, the pilots reported on ther progress. All the reports were published in the beginning of 2007 in Vopla project's second report in an open pilot seminar. Each pilot had their own mentor from the VOPLA project team, who guided and supported the pilot´s work during the year. Experiences and results of the quality piloting year The Quality Manual was used and applied in various imaginative ways by the pilots during the piloting year. For example, the Handbook of Online Courses offered some pilots different quality criteria to check and improve their online course development, implementation and evaluation. One pilot took the quality matrix of online courses as the basis on their faculty’s and one of its department’s quality improvement. Another pilot at first chose to use a process description of an online course, also found in the Handbook of Online Courses, but after some thought and research found another way of describing the processes of their course. The idea and the background information for a more suitable way of describing their processes was found in the general quality materials on the VOPLA project’s web pages. Yet another pilot used the QM to start a discussion on quality issues in their university network, which resulted in a slight change of attitudes towards the ideas, language and implementation of quality management. The Quality Manual can also be used for example in evaluation of a project and its outcomes as well as in planning future projects. Also, the QM is applicable to assessing the quality of research projects, their processes and web sites, but also in assessing and evaluating any other process. |
