Europe's leading institutional association for online, open & distance higher education

This article by EADTU, published in the Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education (2022), illustrates how quality assurance models and practices in Europe have evolved towards a multilevel and multi-stakeholder approach. It describes the development of quality assurance systems and guidelines for digital higher education in Europe in recent decades.

Diversity and Inclusion generate great attention and even more so for EADTU members as they have a dedicated task in organising education also for disadvantaged groups of students by offering them easily accessible learning paths made fit for a great diversity of students.

This report is set up by the expert pools of the EMPOWER programme established by EADTU to cover the latest trends and developments in new modes of teaching.

The report is the outcome of a Special Interest Group (SIG) on Online Assessment, representing 17 EADTU member institutions. The mission of the group is to share members’ local expertise in how to design and plan institutional online assessment strategies and the experiences from delivering under the conditions of the Covid19 pandemic and in a post pandemic world.

This paper revisits the current flexibilization of the education landscape (modular learning and stacking of learning units) and what the implications are for current good practice in recognition as promoted by the LRC.

The 2021 report summarises the ICDE Quality Network’s analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2021 in accelerating the inclusion of online elements in so many Higher Education institutions in all parts of the world, together with the need for revised understandings of Quality Assurance to support this transition.