英国开放大学质量保证关键要素研究

Critical Factors of Quality Assurance in Open University—A Case Study of UK Open University

质量是远程教育的生命线。随着我国网络教育的发展和国家开放大学及地方开放大学的更名，远程教育如何与普通教育达到同等的质量水平，如何保证开放教育的质量，引起了越来越多研究者的关注。本研究采用质性研究范式，运用半开放访谈法，对以高教育质量而著称的英国开放大学的15 名专业人员进行深度访谈。研究者借助质性研究工具Nvivo 对访谈内容进行内容分析，揭示英国开放大学课程开发、学习支持服务、教学管理和专业教师四个维度的质量保证关键要素。文章旨在为我国远程教育界较为全面了解英国开放大学质量保证提供实证性的基础研究，并为我国开放大学建设提供参照和借鉴。

Quality is the lifeline of distance education． Following the establishment of the Open University of Chinaand local open universities and the development of online education，researchers pay more and more attentions to thequality of distance education． Whether open universities should keep the identical quality standard with conventional universityor these universities can develop their own quality standards has brought long debates． This paper focuses onthe critical factors of quality assurance of the UK Open University． The methods of paradigm and half － open interviewsare used in this research． The Ｒesearchers interviewed 15 staff with different roles in the Open University． Contentanalysis and qualitative research tool Nvivo were used in the data processing． Four critical factors of quality assurance，such as curriculum development，students service，teaching management and professional staff were discoveredfrom staff perceptions in UK Open University，and it also can be used as a reference to China distance education researchersand the development of open universites in China．