Study On The Quality Assurance System Of Modern Distance Education

The socialization quality of present society determines that one should learn endlessly and all through the life. The wide use of web-based modern information technology in education has provided such a chance, and at the same time promoted the emergence and development of modern distance education (MDE for short). With the rising of MDE, people begin to pay special attention to its quality. Therefore we are presented with the problem task given by the time on how to assure the quality of MDE and construct a quality assurance system that can accord with the present condition of modern distance education in China.This thesis begins with a thorough analysis of the nature and quality concept of MDE, which serves as the theoretical base for later researches. MDE is a web-based study activity instructing independent participants. And this nature determines the quality concept of MDE. Its basic quality concept goes like this: " The school is not the factory; the students are not the products; what MDE affords is only service; the objects of the service are mainly learners, institutions and society." The primary concept of quality assurance system of MDE involves offering optimized modern distance education service on the premise of exercising present education resource. The quality assurance system of MDE is an organic whole combined with assuring measures and supervising means, through which MDE is carried out according to its set training objectives and quality standards. Usually this system can be divided into internal quality assurance system and external quality assurance system.Then, some qualitative and quantitative analyses are made on some elements and sub-systems that influence on the quality of MDE. The first is the qualitative analysis. The basic activity involved in MDE is distance instructing practice, and therefore the elements affecting distance instructing practice and learners' independent study in MDE are the main elements influencing the quality of MDE. In terms of the elements, the ones constituting distance instructing activity and those composing learners' independent study activity are basically the same, so we choose distance instructingactivity as a starting point in studying the quality assurance system of MDE. On the base of communication theory, the author of the thesis first of all constructs the MDE mode, and analyzes the internal and external elements affecting the quality of modern distance instruction. The internal elements include the learners' characters, the instructors, the instructing platform and the courses, and the external involves the college administration, instructing centers, and other learner and social factors. Then the author discusses several main sub-systems affecting the instruction quality. These sub-systems are constituted with the above internal and external elements and may include the sub-system of course design and development, the sub-system of inactivity among learners, the sub-system of study supply, the sub-system of college management and evaluation. The second is the quantitative study. On the base of the above analysis, the author carefully designs the questionnaire and makes some thorough investigation. By doing so, the elements and activities (sub-systems) affecting the quality of MDE are proved and revised from the quantitative perspective, and four main elements affecting the quality of MDE are abstracted out thereby, namely, resource, activity, management, and evaluation.Next, the internal quality assurance system mode of MDE is established. The internal quality assurance system is divided into four levels, including one series of standards-the establishment of resource standard system, one series of criteria-the establishment of process handling criteria, two modes-management mode and evaluation mode, two authentications-authentication of academic credentials and authentication of the society. The internal quality assurance system regards standards and criteria as the yardstick, management and evaluation systems as the means and the authent...