Document Type

Conference Paper

Rights

This item is available under a Creative Commons License for non-commercial use only

Publication Details

2nd. European Quality Assurance Forum:Implementing and using quality assurance, strategy and practice, University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy, 15-17 November, 2007.

Abstract

Conventional wisdom in the literature attests to the importance of involving academic staff in strategic planning and self study programs but there is a lack of empirical evidence to substantiate this argument. This paper reports on the findings of an empirical investigation of the effectiveness of three strategic planning and three self study programs, undertaken in one Higher Education Institute (HEI), between 1997 and 2006. It was found that the level of engagement of academic staff was a key factor in the effectiveness of the programs – the more engagement the more effective the programs were. The research methodology was based on six systematic program evaluations (Rossi et al. 2003) and the main data sources used were documents (e.g. Proceedings of the Governing Body, Academic Council, senior management team, etc.) and interviews with n=17 members of the management team.