Quality standards and indicators

In 2022 for the first time, ES developed and implemented a set of Quality Standards & Indicators to successfully benchmark all its quality activities. Currently, in the Netherlands there are no agreed standards for continuing education at the national level. However, to align with campus education, ES builds upon the existing quality standards of the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO) and makes these fit for purpose for online education courses and programmes1.

The ES Quality Standards & Indicators apply to three levels: Institutional, Portfolio, and Course. This three-level approach allows us to better organize and execute our QA System to guarantee a closer alignment with the existing quality culture, activities, and policies in place at TU Delft. For every standard and indicator, there are key stakeholders responsible or accountable for meeting the indicators and, ultimately, the quality standard. A ‘responsible’ stakeholder is the one who carries out the work individually or with a team to complete a task.

1 The quality standards are informed by other internationally renowned standards e.g., Online Course Quality Review Rubric (State University of New York;) E-Excellence Benchmark (European Association of Distance Teaching Universities); Quality Matters.

An ‘accountable’ stakeholder is the ‘owner’ of the work that they must sign off (approve) and is ultimately responsible for meeting the indicator; there are no financial nor legal implications associated with this role, with the exception of members of the Management Team as prescribed in the ES Management Regulations (ES Beheersreglement). There can only be one accountable person specified for each task or deliverable, and at least one responsible person, although others can be delegated to assist in the work required.

A comprehensive description, with measurements for each indicator and responsible stakeholders, can be found in Annex 1: Table for the operationalisation of the Quality Standards & Indicators. The three tables in the next section summarise those in Annex 1, giving for each standard the responsible and accountable stakeholders at institutional, portfolio and course level. Annex 1 provides the full description of the measurements and the stakeholders for each of the indicators; these will be evaluated and any necessary changes will be updated in future versions of this handbook.