Academic recognition: Academic recognition is a set of procedures and processes for the acknowledgement and acceptance (subject to conditions), between institutions and countries, of higher education qualifications.…………………………………………….

Academic year: The academic year is:
1. the duration of a specific program of study (which may not last a complete 12 months and is divided into terms, semesters or quarters)…………………………………………...
2. the start and finish dates of the annual cycle of an institution of higher education.

Access / Accessibility: Access is the process of enabling entry to higher education.

Access courses: Access courses are preparatory programs for students to gain entry to higher education.

Accountability: Accountability is the requirement, when undertaking an activity, to expressly address the concerns, requirements or perspectives of others.

Accreditation: Accreditation is the establishment or of the status, legitimacy or appropriateness of an institution or program of study.

Accreditation body: An accreditation body is an organization delegated to make decisions, on behalf of the higher education sector, about the status, legitimacy or appropriateness of an institution, or program.

Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL): APEL is the formal acknowledgement (based on professional assessment) of learning acquired from previous experience, usually from experience unrelated to an academic context.

Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL): Formal acknowledgement (based on professional assessment), by way of granting credit, of students' previous learning: credit is given towards a program of study or towards professional body accreditation.

Accreditation duration: Accreditation decisions are usually limited to a fixed and stated period of time, after which the institution or program is required to engage with a more or less rigorous re-accreditation process.

Accreditation status: Accreditation status is the embodiment of the decision made by the accreditation body.

Accreditation survey: Accreditation survey is a term mainly applicable in the US context and refers to a process of checking compliance.

Accreditors: Accreditors are agencies that provide recognition to institutions as part of an accreditation process

Action: Action is a term used in the United States to imply a judgment or decision following an accreditation.

Additional learning opportunities: Additional learning opportunities are elements of the program of study that augment the usual classroom teaching of the syllabus content.

Adverse action: Adverse action is a term used in the US to refer to failure to achieve/retain accreditation.

Agency: Agency is, in the context of quality in higher education, shorthand for any organization that undertakes any kind of monitoring, evaluation or review of the quality of higher education.

Aim: An aim is an overall specification of the intention or purpose of a program of study or institutional mission or policy.

Alumnus: An alumnus (plural alumni) is a graduate of an institution.

Appraisal of student learning: Appraisal of student learning is the process of providing formative and summative feedback to students on the development of their learning

Assessment: A general term that embraces all methods used to judge the performance of an individual, group or organization.

Assessment of student learning: Assessment of student learning is the process of evaluating the extent to which participants in education have developed their knowledge, understanding and abilities.

Assessment of teaching and learning: Assessment of teaching and learning is the process of evaluating the quality and appropriateness of the learning process, including teacher performance and pedagogic approach.

Assurance: Assurance of quality in higher education is a process of establishing stakeholder confidence that provision (input, process and outcomes) fulfils expectations or measures up to threshold minimum requirements.

Audit: Audit, in the context of quality in higher education, is a process for checking that procedures are in place to assure quality, integrity or standards of provision and outcomes.

Audit report: An audit report is a codification of the process, findings and outcomes of the audit process, usually prepared by the auditors and project team.

Autonomy: Autonomy is being able to undertake activities without seeking permission from a controlling body.

Bachelor-master's: Bachelor-master's is the shorthand for a two-cycle system of higher education that is being introduced across the European Higher Education Area as part of the Bologna process.

Bachelor degree: A bachelor degree is the first-level higher education award, usually requiring three or four years' study but more in some medical subjects.

Benchmarking: Benchmarking is a process that enables comparison of inputs, processes or outputs between institutions (or parts of institutions) or within a single institution over time.

Blended learning: Blended learning is a flexible approach that combines face-to-face teaching/learning with remote (usually internet-based) learning.

Bologna process: The Bologna Process is an ongoing process of integration and harmonization of higher education systems within Europe.

Certification: Certification is the process of formally acknowledging achievement or compliance: it can be used to signify the achievement of an individual, such as a student, or of an institution.

Classification: Classification is the process of identifying types of institution based on their core functions or economic status.

Comparability: Comparability is the formal acceptance between two or more parties that two or more qualifications are equivalent.

Competence: Competence is the acquisition of knowledge skills and abilities at a level of expertise sufficient to be able to perform in an appropriate work setting (within or outside academia).

Compliance: Compliance is undertaking activities or establishing practices or policies in accordance with the requirements or expectations of an external authority.

Continuing education: Continuing education is:
1. a generic term for any program of study (award-bearing or not) beyond compulsory education.
2. post-compulsory education of a short-term nature that does not lead directly to a major higher education qualification.

Continuing professional development (CPD): Continuing professional development (CPD) refers to study (that may accumulate to whole programs with awards) designed to upgrade knowledge and skills of practitioners in the professions.

Control: Control is the process of regulating or otherwise keeping a check on developments in higher education.

Co-operative education: Co-operative education includes work experience as part of the learning experience.

Corrective action: Corrective action is process of rectifying problems.

Correspondence course: A correspondence course is a study unit undertaken by the student remotely from campus via written communication with teachers.

Credit: Recognition of a unit of learning, usually measured in hours of study or achievement of threshold standard or both.

Credit accumulation: Credit accumulation is the process of collecting credit for learning towards a qualification.

Credit transfer: Credit transfer is the ability to transport credits (for learning) from one setting to another.
Criteria: Criteria are the specification of elements against which a judgment is made.

Criteria-referenced assessment: Criteria-referenced assessment is the process of evaluating against a set of pre-specified criteria.

Curriculum: Curriculum is the embodiment of a program of learning and includes philosophy, content, approach and assessment.

Degree: Degree is the core higher education award, which may be offered at various levels from foundation, through bachelors, masters to doctoral.

Diploma: Diploma is:
1. a generic term for a formal document (certificate) that acknowledges that a named individual has achieved a stated higher education award…………………………………
2. an award for a specific level of qualification (diploma level) which in some countries is between a bachelor and a masters-level award……………………………………………..
3. a term for any award beyond bachelors level up to but excluding doctoral level awards, including continuing education certification.

Diploma supplement: A diploma supplement is a detailed transcript of student attainment that is appended to the certificate of attainment of the qualification.

Dissertation: A dissertation is an extended (usually written) project involving research by the student, which contributes significantly towards a final assessment for a (higher) degree.

Distance education: Distance education is higher education undertaken by students in a setting remote from the physical campus of the higher education institution.

Distributed education: Distributed education occurs when the teacher and student are situated in separate locations and learning occurs through the use of technologies (such as video and internet), which may be part of a wholly distance education program or supplementary to traditional instruction.

Doctoral degree: The doctoral degree is the highest level of award in most higher education systems.

Effectiveness: Effectiveness is the extent to which an activity fulfils its intended purpose or function.

Efficiency: Efficiency is the extent to which an activity achieves its goal whilst minimizing resource usage.

Employability: Employability is the acquisition of attributes (knowledge, skills, and abilities) that make graduates more likely to be successful in their chosen occupations (whether paid employment or not).

European Credit Transfer System (ECTS): ECTS is a system for recognizing credit for learning and facilitating the movement of the recognized credits between institutions and across national borders.

Evaluation: Evaluation (of quality or standards) is the process of examining and passing a judgment on the appropriateness or level of quality or standards.

Ex-ante assessment: Ex-ante assessment involves undertaking an evaluation of the conditions for the launch of a program or institution.

Excellence: Excellence means exhibiting characteristics that are very good and, implicitly, not achievable by all.

Ex-post assessment: Ex-post assessment involves undertaking a review of an operational program or institution.

External evaluation: External evaluation is:
1. a generic term for most forms of quality review, enquiry or exploration.
2. a process that uses people external to the program or institution to evaluate quality or standards.

External evaluation team: External evaluation team is the group of people, including persons external to the program or institution being reviewed, who undertake the quality evaluation.

External examiner: An external examiner is a person from another institution or organization who monitors the assessment process of an institution for fairness and academic standards.

External expert: External expert is someone with appropriate knowledge who undertakes a quality or standards review (of any kind) as part of a team or alone and who is external to the program or institution being reviewed.

External institutional audit: An external institutional audit is a process by which an external person or team check that procedures are in place across an institution to assure quality, integrity or standards of provision and outcomes.

External quality monitoring (EQM): External quality monitoring (EQM) is an all encompassing term that covers a variety of quality-related evaluations undertaken by bodies or individuals external to higher education institutions.

External review indicator: An external review indicator is a measurable characteristic pertinent to an external quality evaluation.

External sub-institutional audit: An external sub-institutional audit is a process by which an external person or team check that procedures are in place to assure quality, integrity or standards of provision and outcomes in part of an institution or relating to specific aspect of institutional provision or outcomes.
 

Faculty: Faculty is:
1. the organizational unit into which cognate disciplines are located in a higher education institution
2. a shorthand term for the academic (teaching and research) staff in a higher education institution.

Faculty review: Faculty review has two different meanings, the first based on faculty as a term for academic staff, the second based on faculty as an organizational unit:
1. Faculty review is a process of reviewing the inputs, process or outputs of a faculty as an organizational unit; its structure, mode of operation, mission, aims and objectives.
2. Faculty review, (meaning review of academic staff) evaluates the performance of researchers and teachers.

Fees: Fees are the financial contribution made by students to their higher education

Fitness of purpose: Fitness of purpose evaluates whether the quality-related intentions of an organization are adequate.

Follow up: Follow up is shorthand for procedures to ensure that outcomes of review processes have been, or are being, addressed.

Formal learning: Formal learning is planned learning that derives from activities within a structured learning setting.

Formative assessment: Formative assessment is evaluation of student learning that aids understanding and development of knowledge, skills and abilities without passing any final judgment (via recorded grade) on the level of learning.

Foundation program: A foundation program provides an introduction to degree-level study.

Franchise programs: Franchise programs are study units of one higher education institution adopted by and taught at another institution, although the students formally obtain their qualification from the originating institution.
 

Grading: Grading is the process of scoring or ranking student academic work as part of assessing student learning.

Graduate: A graduate is someone who has successfully completed a higher education program at least at bachelor degree level.
 

Higher degree: A higher degree is an award beyond the basic-level higher education qualification.

Higher education: Higher education is usually viewed as education leading to at least a bachelor's degree or equivalent.

Impact: Impact in the context of quality in higher education refers to the consequences that the establishment of quality processes (both internal and external) has on the culture, policy, organizational framework, documentation, infrastructure, learning and teaching
practices, assessment/grading of students, learning outcomes, student experience, student support, resources, learning and research environment, research outcomes and community involvement of an institution or department.

Improvement: Improvement is the process of enhancing, upgrading or enriching the quality of provision or standard of outcomes.

Informal learning: Informal learning is: …………………………………
1. learning that derives from activities external to a structured learning context.
2. Unstructured learning within a structured learning environment.

Inspection: Inspection is the direct, independent observation and evaluation of activities and resources by a trained professional.

Institution: Institution is shorthand for institution of higher education, which is an educational institution that has students graduating at bachelor degree level or above.

Internal evaluation: Internal evaluation is a process of quality review undertaken within an institution for its own ends.

Internal institutional audit: Internal institutional audit is a process that institutions undertake for themselves to check that they have procedures in place to assure quality, integrity or standards of provision and outcomes across the institution.

Internal sub-institutional audit: Internal sub-institutional audit is a process that an institution has for checking that procedures are in place to assure quality, integrity or standards of provision and outcomes within a department, faculty or other operational unit or that specific issues are being complied with across the institution.

Internal quality monitoring: Internal quality monitoring (IQM) is a generic term to refer to procedures within institutions to review, evaluate, assess, audit or otherwise check, examine or ensure the quality of the education provided and/or research undertaken.
 

Joint degree: A degree awarded by more than one higher education institution.

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Learning outcome: A learning outcome is the specification of what a student should learn as the result of a period of specified and supported study.

League tables: League tables is a term used to refer to ranking of higher education institutions or programs of study.

Level:
1. Level refers to the complexity and depth of learning.
2. Level refers to the formally designated location of a part of a study program within the whole.

Licensing: Licensing is the formal granting of permission to: (a) operate a new institution, (b) a new program of study, (c) practice a profession.

Lifelong learning: Lifelong learning is all learning activity undertaken throughout life, whether formal or informal.
 

Management audit: Management audit, in higher education, is a process for checking that management structures and abilities are appropriate for assuring quality, integrity or standards of provision and outcomes.

Master's degree: Master's degree is an award higher than a bachelor's degree.

Mobility: Mobility is shorthand for students and academics studying and working in other institutions, whether in the same country or abroad.

Mode: Mode of study refers to whether the program is taken on a part-time or full-time basis, or through some form of work-linked learning and may include whether taken on campus or through distance education.

Module: A module is a formal learning experience encapsulated into a unit of study, usually linked to other modules to create a program of study.

Module specification: Module specification is statement of the aims, objectives/learning outcomes, content, learning and teaching processes, mode of assessment of students and learning resources applicable to a unit of study.

Monitoring: Monitoring has two meanings:
1. the specific process of keeping quality activities under review;
2. a generic term covering all forms of internal and external quality assurance and improvement processes including audit, assessment, accreditation and external examination.

Mutual recognition: Agreement between two organizations to recognize each other's processes or programs.

Norm-referenced assessment: Norm-referenced assessment is the process of evaluating (and grading) the learning of students by judging (and ranking) them against the performance of their peers.

Objective: An objective is:
(a) a specific statement about what students are expected to learn or to be able to do as a result of studying a program: more specifically this is a learning objective;
(b) a measurable operationalization of a policy, strategy or mission: this is an implementation objective.

Off-shore provision: Off-shore provision is the export of higher education programs from one country to another.

One-level degree structure: One-level degree structure is where a single program of study results in a final (masters-level) award.

Outcomes: Outcome is:
1. shorthand for the product or endeavors of a higher education institution (or sector), including student learning and skills development, research outputs and contributions to the wider society locally or internationally (institutional outcomes).
2. shorthand for learning outcome.

Outputs: Outputs refers to the products of higher education institutions: including, graduates, research outcomes, community/business activities and the social critical function of academia.

Oversight: Oversight, in the quality context, refers to the process of keeping a quality process or initiative under observation, such that a person or organization has a watching brief on developments.

Ranking: Ranking is a term used to refer to the rating and ordering of higher education institutions or programs of study based on various criteria.

Re-accreditation: Re-accreditation is the re-establishment or re-statement (usually on a fixed periodic cycle) of the status, legitimacy or appropriateness of an institution, program (i.e. composite of modules) or module of study or of the professional recognition of an individual.

Reciprocity: Reciprocity is the acceptance by one agency of the outcomes of a quality process conducted by another agency.

Recognition: Recognition is the formal acknowledgement of the status of an organization, institution or program.

Recognition of prior learning: Recognition of prior learning is formal acknowledgement of previous learning, from informal as well as formal learning situations.

Regional accreditation: Regional accreditation is recognition of an institution within a regional context: it is much the same as national accreditation but is not restricted to national boundaries.

Regulatory body: A regulatory body, in the context of higher education, is an external organization that has been empowered by legislation to oversee and control the educational process.

Report: Report (n.) is the documented outcome or results of an evaluation process.

Research assessment exercise (RAE): The RAE is a process, in the UK, that assesses the quality of research to enable the higher education funding bodies to distribute public funds on the basis of research quality ratings.

Review:
1. Review is generic term for any process that explores the quality of higher education.
2. Review refers to explorations of quality that do not result in judgments or decisions.

Review team: The review team is the group of people undertaking a quality monitoring or evaluation process.
 

Self-assessment: Self-assessment is the process of critically reviewing the quality of one’s own performance and provision.

Semester: A semester is a division of the academic year; usually two semesters in a year.

Seminar: A seminar is, ideally, a small-group teaching situation in which a subject is discussed, in depth, by the participants.

Site visit: A site visit is when an external evaluation team goes to an institution to evaluate verbal, written and visual evidence.

Specialized accreditation: Specialized accreditation refers to any accreditation process that relates to specific discipline areas.

Stakeholder: A stakeholder is a person (or group) that has an interest in the activities of an institution or organization.

Summative assessment: Summative assessment is the process of evaluating (and grading) the learning of students at a point in time.

Substantial equivalency: Substantial equivalency is a term used in the US to indicate that an overseas program is essentially the same as a US program of study.

Thesis: Thesis is:
1. shorthand for doctoral thesis, the outcome of a student research at doctoral level.
2. an argument proposing and developing a theory about a substantive or conceptual issue.
3. an intellectual proposition.

Total student experience: Total student experience refers to all aspects of the engagement of students with higher education.

Transcript: A transcript is a printed or electronic record of student achievement while in higher education.

Transnational education: Transnational education is higher education provision that is available in more than one country.

Tuning: Tuning, in the context of quality in higher education, refers to the process in Europe of adjusting degree provision so that there are points of similarity across the European Higher Education Area.

Undergraduate: Undergraduate is a student who is undertaking a first-level degree program of study, normally a bachelor's degree or equivalent.

Unit: Unit has two meanings in the context of quality in higher education, one as subject and one as object of quality review
1. unit is the generic name for a quality monitoring department internal to an institution.
2. unit is any element that is the subject of quality review: institution, subject area, faculty, department or program of study.

Validation: Validation is a process of confirming that an existing program of study or a newly designed one can continue or commence operation.

Value for money: Value for money is one definition of quality that judges the quality of provision, processes or outcomes against the monetary cost of making the provision, undertaking the process or achieving the outcomes.
 

Validation: Validation is a process of confirming that an existing program of study or a newly designed one can continue or commence operation.

Value for money: Value for money is one definition of quality that judges the quality of provision, processes or outcomes against the monetary cost of making the provision, undertaking the process or achieving the outcomes.
 

No Data Currently Present

No Data Currently Present

No Data Currently Present