Review by: Schönwald, Ingrid (2007-03-31)

This article discusses benchmarking the use of ICT in teaching and learning from a theoretical perspective as well as based on a case study on a benchmarking relationship between the Open University (OU) and the University of Sydney.

The article starts with a reflection on the important role of quality assurance (QA) of student learning in the current international higher education climate. The authors differentiate three models of QA for educational contexts: the transformative model, the university of learning model and the prospective model. Various QA approaches and measures that are used in universities are discussed, such as accreditation bodies, measurement of student characteristics, and collecting student evaluations of the learning experience.

The authors differentiate between QA strategies that focus on accountability and a retrospective approach to QA and strategies that focus on improvement and a prospective approach to QA. They critic that in the existing research on standards for distance and on-line learning and research on quality and standards in higher education in recent years, underlying coherence amongst the benchmarks in relation to each other is rarely made explicit.

The authors aim at developing a relational and prospective benchmarking relationship that focuses on ongoing quality improvement in the subject development and teaching process. This benchmarking relationship is studied in a case study on the Open University (OU) as a British distance-education provider and the University of Sydney as an Australian campus-based university.

Three key benchmarks were chosen and related to the process of embedding ICT in subjects:

1. How student evaluations of ICT in their learning experience are incorporated into the redevelopment processes of subjects using ICT;
2. how faculties systematically review and plan for ICT resource requirements for teaching and learning goals; and
3. how a team-based approach to redeveloping ICT-supported subjects is promoted, so that an appropriate mix of educational, technological and project management knowledge is available to the lecturers’ responsible for the subjects.

The process which is used to relate the benchmarks to each other was conceptualized in terms of a five stages subject development and teaching process. The benchmarks discussed in this article focus on three key aspects in the development and teaching process:

• What are the key aspects of the quality model underpinning the subject development and teaching process being benchmarked?
• What are the in-built mechanisms in the process that allow the universities to continually review and improve current practice of how they integrate ICT into the development and teaching of subjects?
• What are some of the strategies used to remove impediments to the successful implementation of the process of integrating ICT into the development and teaching of subjects?

This study provides an initial framework in which benchmarks for the use of technology in the subject development and teaching process can be further developed. It would be interesting to see, as the authors state at the end of this paper, how the quality indicators developed in this case study can be applied in other universities.