Transcript Document 7109505

Learning, Teaching and Research in Global Times:
Quality Assurance, Development of World-Class Universities and
Promotion of Excellent Higher Education Systems
The Role of Accrediting Agencies as Quality Assurance Gatekeepers
and College Rankers in Building World Class Universities
- A Taiwan Case
Dr. Angela Yung-chi Hou
Research Fellow & Director of International Exchange,
Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan
Director of Faculty Development & Instructional Resources Center ,
Fu Jen Catholic University
Dr. Ya Lun Taso
Research Fellow
Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan
June 4 , 2010
HEEACT, Taipei
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Introduction
• Globalization in the 21st century presents
universities and states with a number of
challenges and opportunities.
• No matter whether countries are developed
or developing ones, they are immensely
eager to build at least one world class
university, but they don’t know exactly
what they look like.
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What does a world class university look like ?
• Philip Altbach
– excellence in research, top professors, academic
freedom and an atmosphere of intellectual excitement,
governance, adequate facilities and funding.
• Jamil Salmi (World Bank) based on two rankings
– a high concentration of talent (faculty and students)
– abundant resources to offer a rich learning
environment and conduct advanced research
– favorable governance (features that encourage
strategic vision, innovation and flexibility, and
enable institutions to make decisions and manage
resources without being encumbered by
bureaucracy)
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Role of Quality Assurance Agency
• Some organizations in many nations, as
both roles of a quality assurance agency
and a ranker, started to assist governments
to develop world class universities and to
promote excellent higher education systems,
such as Pakistan, Malaysia, Kazastan and
Taiwan
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Different Quality Assessment Instruments of
Higher Education
• quality assurance, auditing, accreditation,
evaluation, ranking, benchmarking with
different purposes and processes
• they are all the most common forms of
accountability
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Evaluation vs. Ranking
• Evaluation” clearly “focuses more on how
successfully the institution is achieving its
goals and objectives”
• “ranking”, as a kind of measurement tool
for quality, is more debatable
– an ordering of institutions, within each of the
classification groups, on the basis of their
performance as measured by selected
indicators, including peer review and external
judgment.
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Roles of Accrediting Agency as a quality assurance
gatekeeper and a college ranker
• the type of ranking providers is quite
diversified
– Mass media
– Higher education institution
– Governmental accreditor
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QA agency as a ranker
• Advantages
– A higher acceptance within universities
– fairness and objectivity
• Disadvantages
– conflicts between ranking and consulting in the
context of QA.
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Taiwan Experience-HEEACT Case
• Quality Assurance Framework in Taiwan
Higher Education
– quality assurance and international
competitiveness
– Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation
Council of Taiwan was established in 2005
• HEEACT accreditation started in 2006
• HEEACT national and global rankings in
2007
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HEEACT Accreditation Model
• a five-year, program-based, nation-wide,
modified accreditation of over 76 four-year
comprehensive institutions
• Participation is mandatory
• three review outcomes
• “accredited’, “conditionally accredited” and
“denial”
• the average rate for accredited status is
83.21%
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HEEACT Rankings
• Purpose of developing a varying ranking
– It is expected that each institution will be able to develop its
own competitive edge and undergo self-positioning based
on the features of different ranking tools
• “Statistical Analysis on Taiwan WOS Papers,”
• “Statistical Analysis on Taiwan ESI Papers and h(m)
Indicators,”
• “Analysis on Patents by Universities and Colleges in Taiwan,”
and “Performance Assessment on University and Industry
Collaborations.”
• “Performance Ranking of Scientific Paper of World
Universities,” in 2007
• “College Navigator” in 2009
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HEEACT 2009 global ranking
Criteria
Productivity
Impact
excellence
Indicators
Weight
Number of articles in the last 11 years (1997-2007)
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Number of articles in the current years(2007)
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Number of citations in the last 11 years (1997-2007)
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Number of citations in the last 2 years (2006-2007)
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Average Number of citations in the last 11 years
(1997-2007)
10
H-index of the last 2 years (2006-2007)
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Number of highly cited papers(1997-2007)
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Number of articles in high-impact journals in the
current year (2007)
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2
0
3
0
5
0
Source: HEEACT (2009). Performance ranking of scientific papers for world universities. Retrieved Sept. 26, 2009 from
http://www.heeact.edu.tw/ranking/index.htm
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Figure 2: Proportion of Top Ranked Institutions by
Region
0%
18%
39%
America
Europe
Asia
Africa
43%
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Figure 3: Top 10 Countries with Top Ranked
Universities
Top 10 Countries
200
163
150
100
108
45
50
36
29
29
21
20
15
12
11
11
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Ne
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s
Sw
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a
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Fr
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Jap
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Un
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it e
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0
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“5 Year -50 Billion” Research Universities
• In response to the quest for a world-class
university, the Taiwan government launched the
Five-year 50 Billion Program for Developing
First-class University and Top Research Centers
in 2005.
• aims to develop at least one university as one of
the world’s top 100 universities in five years
• at least fifteen key departments or cross-campus
research centers as the top in Asia in ten years
• Eleven research universities were selected to be
funded in 2007 compared with twelve in the first
cycle of year 2005~2006.
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Outcomes of Taiwan’s Universities in HEEACT Performance
Ranking for World Universities (2007-2009)
Taiwan Institutions
2007
2008
2009
Total grants
(2005~2007
)
National Taiwan University
185
141
102
9000
National Cheng Kung
University
360
328
307
5100
National Tsing Hua University
429
366
347
3200
National Chiao Tung
University
471
463
456
2500
Chang Gung University
479
800
National Central University
483
1900
493
1500
National Yang Ming
University
/
475
Source: HEEACT (2009). Performance ranking of scientific papers for world universities. Retrieved Sept. 26, 2009 from http://www.heeact.edu.tw/ranking/index.htm
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Accreditation Outcomes in the Universities of 5year 50 Million (Second phrase)
• none of the programs among 11 selected
universities was denied
• the pass rate of two institutions in the
“Excellent” rank of 5 year -50 Billion
Program is lower than 90%
• National Chung Hsing University within a
“Great” rank has the highest pass rate up to
98%
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Teaching Excellence Program
• locally prestigious and multi-purposed but
not research-oriented. Under the “Teaching
excellence Program”
• they are given grants to improve their
overall teaching quality.
• In 2008, there were 31 institutions funded
with a total of $ 2.2 billion grant.
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Performances
• HEEACT 2009 global ranking
– none of the recipients of Teaching Excellence Program
is ranked on top 500
• HEEACT Accreditation
– two of them have passed the HEEACT program –based
accreditation completely
– none of the programs in 31 institutions is located in
the status of “denial”
– The pass rate among 16 of out 31 institutions is all
higher than 90%
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Several major findings following by some
waging arguments
• There is a high correlation between the global
rank and governmental funding among the 5 year50 billion institutions
• some research universities with great academic
reputation in the global ranking did not perform
better in the HEEACT accreditation
• the HEEACT accreditation gave recognition to
many teaching-oriented universities granted with
the MOE “Teaching Excellence Program”
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Responses from Taiwan institutions
• the two quality assessment tools—accreditation
and ranking developed by HEEACT, in some
aspects, did provide most Taiwan institutions with
some transparent information and clues in terms
of how to become a world class research or a
teaching-oriented institution.
• some research universities are under great
pressure to provide students with a good learning
environment and some other teaching universities
set their institutional long term goal of “Moving
into Top 500”.
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Conclusion
• ranking, better than accreditation, can guide
universities clearly how to develop
themselves as world “research” universities.
• Yet, it can not guarantee that they will
become world class “teaching” universities.
In this way, accreditation may still play a
very important role in overall good
teaching quality improvement of an
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QA agency as a ranker?
• if some evidence of the adequate use of
accreditation and rankings could be
provided for educational policy makers,
such as HEEACT, the duel missions of
quality assurance agencies may become
more and more recognized in the future.
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Thank you for your attention
Question and Comments
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