Presidents wanting their institutions to maintain traditional educational primacy despite necessary changes occasioned by offerings made possible through technological innovations can rely upon the quality assurance mechanisms of their regional accrediting association. This article discusses how, by augmenting traditional standards as well as the process for their application, the associations address such areas as: the admission, promotion, and graduation of students; the availability of out-of-class services, including information resources; the integration of distance education programming into the institution as a whole; and public communication of the expectations, process, and results of distance education programming at an accredited institution.
I n 1999, impelled by a worldwide initiative of UNESCO, the six states of the Gulf Cooperating Council (GCC)-Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia-began formal consideration concerning establishing a r egional accrediting agency. Although the recommendations were positive, it was clear that several years would pass before the agency (if it became a reality) would begin to function, and therefore several of the individual countries decided to start the process internally. Qatar, which had no separate ministry of higher education and only one national university, was well positioned to adopt the U.S. model, establishing a system that would depend on peer review by institutional faculty and administrators, rather than the governmentdriven model frequently found in Western Europe, and could directly involve representatives of many constituencies outside the national government.It was determined that the standards for Qatar should build upon those used by the NEASC and that the university as a whole (rather than just its individual programs) should be evaluated.As part of an effort to establish standards and implement self-evaluation and institutional improvement, the president of the University of Qatar, Dr. Abdulla Al-Khulaifi, empowered the academic vice president to set up and chair a committee with representatives from each of the six colleges comprising the institution. Assisted by a former staff member of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), the committee undertook what was the nation's first participative process that would establish regular, written procedures to assess the current status of the institution and suggest improvements. After a review of the standards at the Quality Assurance Agency of the United Kingdom and at several U.S. regional accreditors, it was determined that the standards for Qatar should build upon those used by the NEASC and that the university as a whole (rather than just its individual programs) should be evaluated. In addition, the committee decided to have its findings validated through a visit by the Quality Assurance Agency of the United Kingdom, which would indicate how the university was conforming to its own standards as well as how conforming to those standards would position it in terms of international standards of excellence in higher education.Throughout the two-year process of establishing standards and assessing compliance, the University Evaluation Committee, as it was called, determined that its most pressing issues were, first, credibility-that is, there had been too many attempts at writing reports on the university's status that read more like public relations documents than serious self-studies. A number of complaints had been brought by faculty and others (often reported in the local press) that were extremely critical of the university. Many faculty believed that, absent meaningful follow-up, the effort required to establish standards would scarcely be worth their time and energy. Second...
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