AROQA 3rd Annual Conference
“Towards Harnessing Quality in Education and Research: Challenges and Opportunities”
In collaboration with
Nasser International University, Arab Federation for Quality and Talal Abu Ghazaleh Organization
20 - 21 March 2011
Venue: Tripoli-Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya- Nasser International University
Call for papers
Deadline 15 February, 2011
Introduction
Recent technological advances have created a new paradigm of higher education, worldwide. New concepts and enhancement theories of education are introduced to meet expanding technological, sociological and political requirements. These theories devised basis for quality, diverse learning, digital education, technological innovation, and knowledge creation.
Education is characterized as a key element and a significant resource for economic development, technological innovation, and knowledge creation. Educational institutions, particularly in the Arab region, have witnessed major developments such as the rise in the number of universities and students, the private sector’s investment in higher education; in addition to the emergence of new types of education such as Open Education and Distance Learning.
This expansion in higher education should be paralleled with a ceaseless effort to raise the standard of education in Arab universities. The quality of higher education is at the core of the mission and is one of the primary objectives of the Association of Arab Universities.
Standards in Education usually characterize the quality of teaching, resources, impact on economic development, and the quality of life of students. Differences in education qualifications and delivery became apparent, and seem to have originated by the pedagogical delivery processes and topology of the educational systems. Social fabric and educational barriers are identified among the main concerns in leading quality efforts in academic institutions.
The trend has changed, and institutions began to realize the importance of the development and implementation of accreditation procedures and quality assurance methods to prepare active citizens with high levels of knowledge, competencies and skills in order to maintain cohesion in the social fabrics. In the meantime, the impact of global market forces has challenged academic institutions to keep up with relevant academic values, internationalization of education, and recognition of cross boarder qualifications. As result, an increased awareness toward quality assurance and accreditation has become apparent.
This belief has led to the development of mechanisms for controlling and ensuring the quality and outcome of learning. These mechanisms are based on applying processes of internal and external evaluation, which are voluntarily applied by institutions and by independent qualified professional entities.
For this purpose, the Arab Organization for Quality Assurance in Education (AROQA) was born in 2007 as a private non-profit organization. AROQA came to embody the vision of the Association of Arab Universities and in line with the approach observed in several developed countries. It has an amazing potential, most dramatically in its impact on enabling institution to “boot up” and join the globalizing developed world in maintaining high quality standards in education.
This conference makes it an opportune time to bring together representatives of accreditation agencies, educational institutions, and quality research community; to jointly discuss ways to ameliorate today’s growing and global challenges in quality education in a new paradigm of learning quest and knowledge development. Our goal is to invite some of the world’s foremost innovators from the fields of education, quality assurance, accreditation, in an effort to take a major step towards the development of accreditation standards and multi-level sustainable models for quality education.
This conference invites all stakeholders of education to discuss how to raise awareness on quality of education and research in the Arab world, and discuss challenges and opportunities to joining the world move towards quality improvement in education.
Conference Objectives
Academics, policy leaders, businesses and participants in the conference will discuss and debate standards in quality education, accreditation, and pedagogical concerns in educational institutions. The theme of the conference will focus on developing new learning models, accreditation systems, policies for quality education, means of knowledge sharing and dissemination, capacity building.
The conference will seek to achieve the following objectives:
To raise awareness among policy makers about proper means and standards for quality assurance systems and standards for accreditation in educational institutions.
To explore international and regional cooperation for improved quality in education
To raise awareness about world standards and procedures necessary to obtain accreditations.
To address challenges that hinders the implementation of quality assurance systems in education and discuss ways to overcome these challenges
To identify trends and best practices for quality assurance in education and discuss cooperation venues to seek implementation
Participants
The conference will be of interest to stakeholders of quality assurance, policy makers, faculty members, administrators, program directors, and quality managers. Participation is open to:
Ministers/ Directors-General of education and higher education
President, Vice-presidents, Directors in educational institutions
Quality assurance officers and practitioners in institutions and organization
Heads and management teams of national and regional quality assurance agencies
Quality/ Accreditation development partners
Civil society
Student associations
All stakeholders in education
Call for papers
We welcome contributions on the following topics:
Standards and guidelines for quality assurance and accreditation in education
Challenges and opportunities of quality assurances systems and frameworks (learning resources; monitoring of student progress and achievements; periodic program reviews; labor market requirements, etc.)
Best-practices, implementation strategies, and policies of quality assurance in education
Quality management systems with ICT tools
National networks promoting quality assurance and accreditation standards
Program design and curricula methodologies emphasizing student-centric learning outcomes; modes of delivery; and pedagogical models (distance-learning, e-learning, long-life learning)
Paper contributions are accepted in Arabic or English and should be submitted in PDF format. The deadline to submit contributions is 15 February 2011. After submission all contributions will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee to evaluate the pertinence of each submitted paper and the authors will be informed whether their contribution has been selected for presentation at the conference. All papers will be published in the proceedings in a CD-Rom format.
• Full-Paper propositions must be submitted in the form of six to eight pages, with no more than 3500 words and include the following:
• Abstracts should contain a title and plan of the article, and around 500 words and 7 keywords referring to the central themes and concepts developed in the article.
• Author presentation: surname, name, institution, full address, telephone number, fax, electronic mail and brief biography.
All papers must be submitted in a PDF format and sent to office @ aroqa.org
Important dates
February 15, 2011 Submission deadline
February 25, 2011 Notification of acceptance
March 10, 2011 Camera ready due
March 20-21, 2011 Conference
Registration and fees
Authors free
Non-Member: 75 USD
Member: 50 USD