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Promoting a Collegial Approach in a Multidisciplinary Environment for a Total Quality Improvement Process in Higher Education

1995; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0260293950200109

1469-297X

Dawn E. R. Watson, Rhonda Hallett, Neil T. Diamond,

Quality and Supply Management

ABSTRACT This paper describes a project‐based approach to the introduction of quality assurance processes and practices at Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne in the area of academic programme delivery. The focus of the project is to harness the pre‐existing collegial culture of academe to create lateral multidisciplinary teams of academics. A description of one project concerned with establishing feedback mechanisms demonstrates how cross‐fertilisation of ideas was fostered and significant outputs were achieved through these relationships in a comparatively short time. The paper concludes that the project demonstrates the value of harnessing the collegial culture of academe to the implementation of TQM principles in higher education settings. It stresses the value of culture binding through transformative processes in quality improvement especially in diverse multi‐campus environments. Additional informationNotes on contributorsDawn E. R. Watson DAWN E. R. WATSON is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Business Computing at Victoria University of Technology and co‐leader of the Feedback Quality Improvement Team. She is actively involved in research particularly in articulation, credit transfer, learning styles and academic performance in higher education and has conducted a number of research projects focusing on employment profiles and future training needs funded by the Department of Employment, Education and Training. Rhonda F. Hallett RHONDA F. HALLETT is Manager of the Quality Projects Unit at Victoria University of Technology and was responsible for managing the five projects comprising the TQIP. Her research interests include issues related to the introduction of quality assurance processes in higher education settings. She is currently conducting projects which address a number of these issues. Neil T. Diamond NEIL T. DIAMOND is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences at Victoria University of Technology and co‐leader of the Feedback Quality Improvement Team. Before joining VUT Neil worked for 10 years as a statistician with ICI Australia and has maintained strong industry links. He has extensive consulting and training involvement in quality improvement.