Title: Quality initiatives in Jordan: the accreditation requirements case

Authors: Emad A. Abu-Shanab; Ahlam Alsmadi

Addresses: Management Information System Department, College of Information Technology and Computer Sciences, Yarmouk University, 21163, Irbid, Jordan. ' Management Information System Department, College of Information Technology and Computer Sciences, Yarmouk University, 21163, Irbid, Jordan

Abstract: The Ministry of Higher Education in Jordan and the accreditation council are working toward a national accreditation plan for all public and private universities in the country. Attempts to evaluate the quality of education, curricula and graduates in the information technology fields are becoming of high priority. In this paper, an assessment framework is proposed to help in the evaluation of the IT field toward the goal of local and international accreditation. The framework described all educational system stakeholders and their possible interests and contributions to the improvement of this system. An empirical test was conducted to explore the attributes distilled in the proposed framework, and explore the perceptions of IT faculty members with respects to the major attributes that are crucial to the quality of education. Results, conclusions and future recommendations are listed at the end.

Keywords: accreditation requirements; quality assessment; Yarmouk University; Jordan; ICT graduates; information technology; communications technology; quality initiatives; government ministries; Higher Education Accreditation Council; national plans; accreditation plans; public universities; private universities; curricula; education quality; assessment frameworks; ICT evaluation; local accreditation; international accreditation; stakeholders; faculty members; education economics; educational development; curriculum design; pedagogical issues; pedagogy; computing education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEED.2011.043829

International Journal of Education Economics and Development, 2011 Vol.2 No.4, pp.303 - 319

Published online: 11 Oct 2014 *

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