Available deliverables of the e-Quality project

Deliverable 2.1 : Quality issues in partner's countries

This document presents a comparative analysis of the partners' national contexts. This comparison is based on a questionnaire built from both general and specific informations:

• educational context
• representation and implementation of Quality
• implementation of Quality in the partner's institutions

The synthesis includes an interesting comparison on blocking or helping factors for quality implementation in Higher Education institutions.

Deliverable 2.2 : A conceptual model for ODL Quality processes

The document is a contribution to modelling the implementation of the ODL quality process. Based on the different approaches and experiences of the partners, the document focuses on 2 sub-processes: learning material design and production, and student support.

Deliverable 3.1 : General information on Quality process

The document is an introduction to the concepts of quality in general, and to quality in e-learning in particular. As being part of the training material, it focuses on very practical methods and tools instead of general considerations on quality. This document is not meant to be a research work but mainly a review of the state-of-the art in the quality field.

Deliverable 3.2 : the eLUP Editor software

In order to model quality into ODL processes in every institution, we designed a tool: the “eLUP Editor” (eLUP as e-learning Unified Process, by analogy with the Software Unified Process). eLUP is based on the Unified Modelling Language (UML). The eLUP Editor is devoted to structure, document, and share ODL concepts. The modelling language is very general. Activities are described by step-by-step procedures, artefacts (input data, and output results). The modelling language fits our needs: to describe a concrete implementation of a general quality approach.

Deliverable 3.3 : Best Practices Database

A best practice can be defined as a technique or methodology that leads to a desired result. Best practice holds the means to do things the best way. Best practices can be strategies, activities, or approaches that leads to achieving objectives and goals. Best practice can be found through research, experience or evaluation.

When best practices are implemented, contextual issues should be taken into account. In this contextual sense best practises can be seen as efficient solutions to a problem encountered or improvements in the state of affairs in e-learning caused by a changed way of doing things. The practise must have been implemented and positively evaluated, demonstrating an effective means of satisfying the users' need, based on explicit quality indicators. The users may be a student, a trainer, a tutor, or any stakeholders.

Deliverable 4 : Training documents

The training material produced in the e-Quality project is targeted for the professional users of information technology in Open and Distance Learning (ODL). By professional users we mean teachers, planners, material producers, technical and pedagogical support personnel working in the field of higher education. The specific target groups of the training material are the trainers or the tutors of quality issues in ODL, but the material is structured into thematic entities so, that different parts of it can be read as independent introductions into different aspects of quality in ODL.

Deliverable 5 : Training sessions global evaluation report

In this document we find the training sessions (TS) global evaluation report for the e-Quality project. The training sessions were performed in the following institutions: University Montpellier 2 (France), Open University of Catalonia (Spain), University of Tampere (Finland), Szczecin University of Technology (Poland), University of Lausanne (Switzerland).

Deliverable 6 : Training sessions evaluation methodology

This Work Package consists in a validation phase and aims at demonstrating:

• Real situation applicability for the developed methodology and tools
• The impact of training on production of ODL environments and course material, as a contribution to Quality, analysing actual production in real situations (including real students).

This validation required careful methodology and was time-consuming as trainees were observed in their professional context. The result is compiled in this document, using online document sharing and communication tools.

Deliverable 7 : Final seminar report

This document is the report on the final seminar of the e-Quality project. As indicated in the official proposal, a final seminar was to be organised to disseminate the projects' approach and results and more generally to address Quality in ODL. It was also decided to set it in Poland, in order to attract a large amount of professionals from eastern Europe, and to invite some key speakers from the international normalisation bodies. The seminar was held in Szczecin, Poland, September 21-22, 2006.