Evaluating quality management in university departments

Purpose – Despite the abundance of research on quality management there is no universal consensus on how best to measure quality in higher education. This paper undertakes a critical evaluation of the different methods used to assess the quality of provision in higher education departments in the UK. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on relevant literature, the authors develop a quality audit tool that incorporates all key components of effective quality management programmes and apply it to a single UK case study department. Findings – The findings suggest that the potential for quality enhancement is determined by the manner in which the evaluation is conducted and subsequent change implemented. Perhaps unsurprisingly there is currently an emphasis on internally derived quantitative data and there is potential to enhance the management of the quality of HE programmes. Originality/value – This paper concentrated on the development of a quality audit tool and tested this within one UK department

Quality management in higher education: a review of international issues and practice

The issue of quality management has been embedded in higher education institutional agendas for quite some time. Despite current research and debate, there is no universal consensus on how to measure and manage quality within higher education and thus a variety of approaches have been adopted by different institutions. This paper presents a review of current quality management practices within international higher education institutions. The review identifies that there is a reliance on industrial models, however these have been applied with only partial success. The limitations identified with this approach suggest the need for refinement of current practice, particularly in relation to the centrality of student learning within higher education environments. While the findings are applicable to all HE subject areas, they may be of particular relevance to management fields, and those within hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism management where there has been limited subject specific research undertaken to dat

Phylogenetic Analysis of a Spontaneous Cocoa Bean Fermentation Metagenome Reveals New Insights into Its Bacterial and Fungal Community Diversity

This is the first report on the phylogenetic analysis of the community diversity of a single spontaneous cocoa bean box fermentation sample through a metagenomic approach involving 454 pyrosequencing. Several sequence-based and composition-based taxonomic profiling tools were used and evaluated to avoid software-dependent results and their outcome was validated by comparison with previously obtained culture-dependent and culture-independent data. Overall, this approach revealed a wider bacterial (mainly γ-Proteobacteria) and fungal diversity than previously found. Further, the use of a combination of different classification methods, in a software-independent way, helped to understand the actual composition of the microbial ecosystem under study. In addition, bacteriophage-related sequences were found. The bacterial diversity depended partially on the methods used, as composition-based methods predicted a wider diversity than sequence-based methods, and as classification methods based solely on phylogenetic marker genes predicted a more restricted diversity compared with methods that took all reads into account. The metagenomic sequencing analysis identified Hanseniaspora uvarum, Hanseniaspora opuntiae, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Lactobacillus fermentum, and Acetobacter pasteurianus as the prevailing species. Also, the presence of occasional members of the cocoa bean fermentation process was revealed (such as Erwinia tasmaniensis, Lactobacillus brevis, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactococcus lactis, Leuconostoc mesenteroides, and Oenococcus oeni). Furthermore, the sequence reads associated with viral communities were of a restricted diversity, dominated by Myoviridae and Siphoviridae, and reflecting Lactobacillus as the dominant host. To conclude, an accurate overview of all members of a cocoa bean fermentation process sample was revealed, indicating the superiority of metagenomic sequencing over previously used techniques