From Internal Evaluation toward Quality Assurance in Distance Higher Education of Iran

Abstract

<span>Iranian higher education (HE) includes two headquarters named Ministry of <span>Science, Research and Technology and Ministry of Health and Medical <span>education; it also contains about 1500 universities and HE institutions. There <span>are presence and distance courses in HE. But because of the existing variety <span>and flexible courses in distance education it attracts considerable notice to <span>itself. This kind of education is mainly fulfilled through Payam-e-nour <span>University (PU). Therefore, expansion of this education necessitates an <span>evaluation of its quality and assurance system. PU with having 45 involved<br /><span>departments<span>4 <span>is considered among universities providing distance education. <span>Results of doing internal evaluation (IE) in departments of this university <span>indicate the requirement of university attention to its input, process and <span>output quality. Considering the diffuseness in educational region and centre <span>of this university, existence of inequality in educational, studious and <span>professional service exposure is unavoidable; however these cases with the <span>mechanism of evaluation and accreditation could be recognized, and through <span>their recognition or reduction, quality improvement would be possible. <span>Hence, after reviewing of Iranian HE, with emphasizing on internal <span>evaluation, achievements of one decade quality management in HE in <span>general and in distance education in particular will be discussed.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></span></span></span>