2001 Conference Proceedings
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CROSS ATLANTIC COLLABORATION TO PROVIDE A PILOT QUALITY AUDIT
DOCUMENT FOR A GROUP OF TECHNOLOGY CENTRES
Mr Dan Comden
DO-IT Program USA
Mrs E.A.B. Draffan
Assistive Technology Centre
University of Sussex UK
Quality assurance is usually demonstrated by documented
systems comprising policies and procedures, linked to those
formal monitoring processes provided by an organisation. Its
purpose is to provide a sense of order, continuity and confidence
that matters have been addressed in a formal manner. It is often
rooted in common approaches and standard ways of both undertaking
and discharging activities, which facilitate comparison and
benchmarking between departments or programmes. (adapted from
Morgan & Hodgkinson,1999) The National Federation of Access
Centres (NFAC) was formed in 1986 and has worked to ensure a
consistent level of support to students with disabilities. Access
Centres assist college-level students with disabilities in
obtaining the level of support needed for a successful college
and later university education. The Federation members are housed
at a variety of higher education, further education and specialty
colleges within Britain.
Though Access Centres may be housed within a variety of
different types of institutions, the Centres themselves can serve
students with a diversity of educational goals. Students pursuing
Higher Education (HE) may be assessed at a Further Education (FE)
institution and vice versa. Specialty education sites, such as a
school for the deaf, may assess both FE and HE students as well
as students within their own institution. Ensuring a consistent
level of service regardless of the institution that houses the
Centre is a major objective of the NFAC.
Quality assurance in Higher and Further Educational services is
an international issue. Funding and service agencies throughout
the world will be affected by implementation of QA standards if
none are currently implemented. Over the last decade it has
become an important vehicle for securing change with a view to
enhancing the student's experience. Additionally, more
stakeholders, such as government departments and other support
agencies are being drawn into the debate and are seeking to
influence the way we work in the field of assistive technology.
Funding bodies often require proof of evaluation techniques and
in UK the Quality Assurance Agency is working through all
sections of Higher education.
Some Access Centres have developed guidelines for quality
assurance. Additionally, the Federation has created a general
code of practice. However, to date there has been no NFAC-based
system for auditing all Centres to ensure a consistent level of
quality service to serve the needs of students with disabilities.
The quality audit checklist project has been set-up within the
Federation to address this issue. Initial versions of the
checklist have been circulating amongst NFAC members in 1999. In
spring of 2000, the members decided to use an auditor from
outside the Federation to evaluate the document as compared
against a variety of Centres. The auditor used needed to be
familiar with accommodation, support, and assessment issues as
well as a variety of technologies commonly used by college-level
students.
Though the auditor was unfamiliar with the intricacies of
funding for students with disabilities in the U.K. higher
education system, a brief training program was devised and
provided during the initial phase of the project. Ongoing
education by all five Centre managers also contributed to
increasing the auditor's knowledge of funding schemes and issues.
The bonus of having an external auditor from USA was that there
could no doubt about the transparency of the process. The
auditor's experience in collaboration with a variety of other
organisations via the DO-IT Program was deemed an important
element of the project.
Site Visits
For the purpose of evaluating the Quality Audit Checklist, a
total of five Access Centres were visited. These sites were
chosen to represent the variety of Centres within the Federation
from a larger group of sites that volunteered to assist with the
project. Of the 28 total Centres that are NFAC members, these
five Centres represent approximately 18% of total membership. At
the beginning of the site visit process, total time spent on site
was the majority of a workday. As site visits progressed through
the five Centres, the pilot audits took less time as the pilot
auditor became increasingly familiar with the document.
Proposed audit checklist changes
The original audit checklist did not have the individual criteria
or questions ordered. To better identify the various questions
when referenced a numbering scheme was applied to sections and
individual questions. The original Table of Contents for the
checklist is below.
Access Centre Profile
Physical Accommodation and Accessibility of Facilities Staff
Resources and Personnel Issues Equipment Resources Business Plan
and Centre Management Management of Clients, Client Information
and End User Evaluation Management and Quality Assurance
Publicity and Marketing Activities Meeting NFAC Requirements
Conclusion and Access Centre Action Plan The majority of items
within the original checklist were to be answered by the Centre
manager rather than the auditor. Much of the information would
need to be gathered by the Centre under audit rather than by the
auditor. Therefore it was proposed that the checklist be divided
into two sections. The first and largest section would be sent to
the Centre prior to the audit visit and should be prepared and
ready for the auditor. The auditor would fill out the second
section after the site visit. The complete checklist would then
be sent to the Federation once the audit checklist had been
completed. The proposed checklist structure follows:
Section A - Centre's Responsibility
- Access Centre Profile
- Staff Resources
- Technology and Training Resources
- Funding and Business Plan
- Client Information and Quality Assurance
- Publicity and Marketing
Section B - Auditor's Responsibility
- Accessibility of Centre
- Staff Evaluation
- Technology and Training Evaluation
- Client Information and Quality Assurance
- NFAC Requirements
- Conclusion and Action Plan
The two-part technique of Centre and auditor having clearly
defined roles in responding to the audit checklist should reduce
any redundancy. It should be the goal of the audit process that
the auditors do not need to gather any materials that are within
the domain of an Access Centre. This will allow more of the
auditor's time to be used in the actual evaluation process rather
than information gathering.
The final version of the recommended report has been designed to
be printed and filled in by hand. Providing responses to the
audit questions and criteria can also be carried out on a
computer and such method of completion should be considered in
the future.
Issues raised by this Pilot Scheme
. Were there major differences found between Centres?
While there are differences in funding arrangements and scope of
service, all Centres visited offer the same level of service to
students seeking assessments and assistance with selecting
appropriate technology and services to accommodate for their
disability. It was interesting for this auditor to note that
though Centres may concentrate on the perceived differences from
other Centres, there are more similarities than differences. The
range of service provided in sheer number of assessments could be
quite different if one was to break out DSA vs. FE work. However
it's important to point out that though the funding for
assessments may be different, the end result of providing a good
service to students needing the assessments was maintained.
Should Audit results be published? The NFAC will need to decide
how the results of the audit are dealt with. Will the full report
be available to the general public or to NFAC members only? Or
will the conclusion only be released? How do you prepare for an
Audit? The recommended quality audit checklist should be made
widely available on the NFAC's Web site. This will allow easy
distribution of the material and also allow clients to see that
the NFAC is working to ensure an appropriate and effective
service. One of the more interesting comments consistently made
by Centre managers participating in this pilot process was that
the mock audit was a useful tool to have a comprehensive overview
of their Centre's strengths and weaknesses. Do the Benefits
outweigh the disadvantages? An audit can produce:
- A common framework to prescribe a Centre's core activity. If
it is too complex it may be time consuming and therefore
expensive to manage.
- A confidence that systems and procedures are operating
correctly and efficiently. However, if they are changed too
often, this may promote disillusionment in the Federation and
staff.
- A basis for monitoring and control but if the process is hard
to understand staff training will need to take place. Who will
pay for this training if the NFAC rather than the host
institution is requesting the audit?
- A basis for comparison and benchmarking across the NFAC but
this can lead to bureaucracy and even limit entrepreneurial
activities.
- A standard approach and capacity for incorporating best
practice but initial enthusiasm may not be matched with long-term
commitment. (adapted from Morgan & Hodgkinson, 1999)
Conclusion
The audit process may need to be put out to tender but time is
not on the side of the NFAC. Maintaining the momentum of this
initial attempt at auditing the Centres and ensuring that Quality
Enhancement can take place is important. It is hoped that the
quality audit document will be taken forward and decisions can be
made about peer review along with external auditing. "Quality
Enhancement refers to all those initiatives pursued as a result
of reflection, evaluation or appraisal, which lead to the
introduction of positive changes designed to improve the
activities or process in higher education". (Morgan &
Hodgkinson, 1999)
The auditing process needs to be seen in a positive light and
needs to be easy to undertake on a regular basis. If the NFAC can
achieve these objectives then students will continue to benefit
from a service that has gained in reputation and needs to stay in
the forefront of assessment and support for technology and
learning strategies for those students with disabilities in HE
and FE in UK.
References
Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education http://www.qaa.ac.uk/
Morgan & Hodgkinson (1999) Quality Assurance in Surveying
Education, Pub; The International Federation of Surveyors,
Copenhagen http://www.ddl.org/figtree/pub/figpub/pub19/figpub19.htm
Middlehurst, R. (1999) Quality Assurance and Quality
Enhancement: a tool for change. Presentation http://www.ucc.ie/quality/Slides/tsld001.htm
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