An Exploration Of Quality Assurance System For Web-based Distance Education In Universities

The theme of this thesis has been selected under the background that pilot Web-based Education Colleges(WEC for short) in national universities have been started up and developed rapidly since 1999.So far sixty-seven WECs have been upbuilt and the enrolment of learners has reached 800 thousand which is unimaginable for conventional education. Whereas these colleges have increased the enrolment scale and afforded more educational opportunities,the problem of quality assurance has consequently been listed in the agenda for immediate solutions.Since there're no research fruits available,we should make in-depth studies in the course of practice and construct the quality assurance system(QAS for short) for WEC.This study is guided by both managerial science and distance education theory.On the whole.the author explores the QAS from two aspects:internal QAS and external QAS.This paper is composed of five parts as following.At first.the author introduces the background of the theme selection and her research plan.Considering that distance education has an irreplaceable function of broadening educational access during the process of popularization of higher education,the Chinese government advocates to establish WECs in national universities.Meanwhile,many overseas universities have also been setting up their own virtual colleges in China one after another as the result of education internationalization.Hence WECs are confronted with such many challenges from home and abroad that only by providing service of high quality can they get victory.The first chapter discusses several basic technical terms like distance education,e-Learning,online/web-based education and web-based distance education . Since Web-based Distance Education is more suitable for representing the essential work of WECs ,the author determines to use it through the thesis.The second chapter illustrates how the investigation and research has been made in WEC of Lanzhou University in order to find out major problems about the service quality.The third chapter centers on the internal QAS.Firstly.the author analyzes the six systematic elements related to learns' study such as web teachers,study collective.curriculum resources, web-based distance education organization, localteaching centers and social circumstances.Secondly.the operative mechanism of the system is analyzed from both longitudinal and horizontal aspects.Particularly from horizontal aspect does the author divide the systematic activities into two modules interaction among learners & web teachers and learning supportive service.Lastly,four major aspects.which are managerial philosophies,technological mode &curriculum resources.web teachers and construction of local teaching centers,have been dealt with to improve the present quality situation of WECs.The fourth chapter explores the external QAS for WECs in universities.The present situation of QAS has first been surveyed.Based on that,some suggestions and ideas concerning the formulation of evaluation standards and establishment of certification organizations are put forward.In conclusion,the whole study follows such steps:first conducts investigation and research-in practice ,and then constructs theoretical framework.Both theoretical exploration and investigation complement each other.