The document discusses the importance of quality in technical education, highlighting various challenges and opportunities in enhancing educational standards through accreditation and quality assurance models. It emphasizes the role of information technology as an enabler for efficiency and effectiveness and outlines the need for active student and faculty involvement in creating a culture of quality. Additionally, it addresses the regulatory frameworks for quality assurance and urges institutions to adopt systematic approaches for continuous improvement in educational practices.

1. IT in Enhancing the Quality of
Technical Education:
Opportunities and Challenges
Dr S G Deshmukh
ABV-Indian Institute of Information Technology &
Management Gwalior
deshmukh.sg@gmail.com
All India Seminar on Sustaining Quality in Technical Education in India: Challenges Ahead
12th July 2008 at N Delhi

2. Remarks..
 Quality is never an accident. It is
always the result of intelligent
effort. It is the will to produce a
superior thing.
-- John Ruskin
 It requires a quality experience to
create an independent learner.
--Myron Tribus

3. Outline of the presentation
 Imperatives for quality
 Models for QA: Accreditation
and Educational Excellence
 Implications and Role of IT
 Challenges
 Concluding remarks

4. Imperatives ..
 World of accelerating multi-
dimensional change
 Shift to knowledge economy
 World without border
 Quality of services: Washington
accord ?
 Revolutions in Information &
Communication Technology (ICT)
Engineering Education System MUST
translate these challenges through a
Quality response

5. Trends in education – vis a vis
Quality
 1987 - ISO 9000 series  awareness in
areas other than manufacturing [BS 5750]
 1989/90 – ISO 9004 Part 2  addendum for
the Service Industry
 About the same time – spillover to training and education as part of companies’
requirements of “purchases” from vendors
 ISO9000:2000 edition
 Quality = Competitive advantage for
educational institutions
 UGC/AICTE’s initiative: Accreditation
 Educational Excellence Award Models
 QCI’s initiative: Accreditation Standards for
Quality School

6. OECD work on education indicators
OECD Handbook for Internationally Comparative Education Statistics: Concepts, Standards, Definitions
and Classifications, OECD, 274 pages, May 2004

7. Indicators of quality..
a) teacher / student ratio ; academic staff /
non-academic staff ratio,
b) quality indicators concerned with
academic staff,
c) quality indicators concerned with non-
academic staff,
d) incentives for promotion of qualification
of academic and non-academic staff,
e) budget structure, particularly as
concerns ratio of staff costs and other
costs,
f) pattern of funding

8. What is the Philosophy ?
 Tenet 1 : Customers are vital to the operation of the
organization. Without customers, there is no business, and
without business, there is no organization (Deming 1986).
Students as customers, as products and as co-producers !
Quality calls for a restructuring of management methods to
create that quality. Organizations to turn nearsighted, top-
down management "on its head" by involving both
customers and employees in decisions for continuous
improvement
 Tenet 2 : Management needs to listen to nontraditional
sources of information in order to institute quality,
People want to do quality work and that they would do it if
managers would listen to them and create a workplace
based on their ideas (Deming, 1986).

9. How does this translate to Education?
 Role of Students: Administrators need to involve students
in their own education by training them to question the
learning process, and once the students have questioned it,
administrators need to seriously consider student proposals
for change (Olson 1992).
 Role of Teachers: It calls for changes in teachers'
relationships with both students and administrators;
teachers need to view engineering education through
students' eyes, and they need to work with administrators
as a team. This teamwork is largely the responsibility of
administrators, who need to delegate some of their
responsibility and power to teachers (Rhodes 1992).
 Testing and Evaluation: Instead of using standardized tests
and grades to measure students' progress, institutes that
embrace quality often try to assess student progress
regularly throughout years (Blankstein).

10. Summary on Quality
 Quality is about satisfying customers
 Quality is holistic
 A system needs feedback to make it useful and
feedback is useful to improve products and
services
 Regular and designed feedbacks better than
unsolicited ones
 Quality is everybody’s job
 Training is needed for staff to do quality jobs
 A way of thinking has to be developed; does
not just happen :To learn new things, we need
to unlearn old things

11. Management by Measurement
Feedback from the students.
 Responsiveness of top management
in implementing feedback
 Number of times assistance
provided by teacher in inter-
disciplinary projects
 % reduction in absenteeism
Shift from Efficiency to
Effectiveness through
measurement

12. Remarks..
 Efficiency : may relate to Quality of
institution
 Effectiveness : may related to
Quality of Education per se !
Role of IT is vital in Efficiency and
Effectiveness

13. Use of Information Technology (IT)
 IT as an enabler and facilitator
 IT as a tool
 IT for streamlining processes
 IT for bringing in transparency and
objectivity

14. “IT Thinking" Paradigm
 Everything is a process
 All processes have inherent
variability
 Data is used to understand the
variability and drive process
improvement decisions
 Unless you document, you cannot
improve: Documentation facilitated
by IT

15. IT
capability
Meaning Example
Transactional IT can transform
unstructured processes
into routine transactions.
Employee records, (faculty. etc.) can
be structured
Automatical IT can replace or reduce
human labor in a routine
process
Preparation of attendance reports,
preparation of defaulters reports etc.,
goods inspection report etc.
Analytical IT can bring complex
analytical methods to
bear on a process
Calculations of CGPA, student
/teacher evaluation using multi-
attribute decision making models
Informational IT can bring vast
amounts of detailed
information into process,
Data on extensive profile of students,
faculty , staff
Sequential IT can enable changes in
the sequence tasks in a
process often allowing
multiple tasks to be
worked on
simultaneously.
Various steps required for checking
credentials of a candidate for
admission process, placement related
procedure etc.
Tracking IT allows the detailed
tracking of task status,
inputs, and outputs
Tracking the status of a particular
purchase order., tracking inventory of
an item ,use of consumables, use of other
financial resources.

16. EXTERNAL STANDARDS
AUDIT THE CURRENT
SYSTEM
GAPS IN THE CURRENT
SYSTEM
YES
ASSESS WHAT NEEDS TO
BE DONE TO SATISFY THE
STDS
DEVELOP THE
PROCESSES NEEDED
AND IDENTIFIED ABOVE
DETAIL THE PROCESSES
AND INCLUDE IN THE
CURRENT SYSTEM
REVIEW STDS &
CURRENT SYSTEM
CONTINUALLY
NO
QA
SYSTEM

17. Quality Assurance
To make quality the defining element of
higher education in India through a
combination of self and external quality
evaluation, promotion and sustenance
initiatives.
Regulatory System – UGC, State
Governments, Affiliating Universities
Built-in regulatory controls through
- Assessment and Accreditation
NAAC (General Education); NBA (Technical Education)
2

18. Perspective 1: Accreditation
Model
To ensure that existing systems are
continually improved and reviewed for
improvement
Accreditation is formal or public declaration that the technical programmes complies with a
set of previously established standards by the apex body in technical education (AICTE) by
assuring the quality and entrusted the work to NBA
 It is a structured assessment of compliance to the accreditation
standard
 It provides an opportunity to acknowledge quality in educational
systems
 It intends to guarantee quality and public accountability in the
educational system, encouraging trust in students, parents, employers,
education administration and society in general.
 It stimulates the academic environment for promotion of quality of
teaching-learning and research
 It encourages self-evaluation, accountability, autonomy and
innovations.

19. Criteria University
level
institutions
Affiliated/
Cons. College
Autonomous
College
Curricular Aspects 150 100 50
Teaching-learning and
evaluation
250 350 450
Research, consultancy and
extension
200 150 100
Infrastructure and
learning resources
100 100 100
Student Support and
progression
100 100 100
Governance & Leadership 150 150 150
Innovative Practices 50 50 50
Total 1000 1000 1000
Accreditation model (NACC)
9

20. Use of IT in Accreditation model
 Teaching-learning & Evaluation
 IT interventions: use of web, internet,, on-line
student evaluation forms, on-line quiz, faculty
web page , on-line learning management
systems
 National initiative such as NPTEL
 Infrastructure and learning resources
 IT devices such as interactive boards, multi-
media aids,
 Student Support and progression
 On-line counseling service : Ex: IITD’s
Board of Student Welfare)
 Innovative Practices
 For teaching, evaluation and student
involvement

21. Role of IT
IT enabled procedures
 Use of various database
 IT enabled training and orientation
programmes
 IT for Internal Quality Assurance
Mechanisms
 Initiating ICT – enabled assessment
 Collaborating with others
 Provision for professional
development

22. Use of IT: Enterprise wide information
systems
 Software to connect various modules such as :
Admission, Student Information System,
Examination, HR, Finance,, Procurement etc.
 Advantages: Streamlining of processes, objectivity,
transparency and accountability
 Example:
 In-house developed solution at IITD
 Campus Connect : An institutional Resource Planning
System
 IBM Lotus® Symphony : Set of intuitive easy-to-use
applications for creating, editing & sharing
documents/spreadsheets and presentation.

23. Use of IT: Learning Management
System
 Deployed at IIITD
 For Faculty: uploading of lecture
notes, ppts, on-line evaluation
test/quiz etc).
 For Students: Notice board,
discussion forum
 For Administration: Attendance,
grade record, monitoring of
progress,

24. USE OF IT: NPTEL
 Web enabled curriculum
 The main objective of NPTEL program is to enhance the
quality of engineering education in the country by
developing curriculum based video and web courses. This is
being carried out by seven IITs and IISc Bangalore as a
collaborative project.
 In the first phase of the project, supplementary content for
129 web courses in engineering/science and humanities
have been developed. Five major engineering disciplines
have been covered in this project so far (NPTEL Phase I) at
the undergraduate (B.E./B.Tech) level.
 Civil Engineering
 Computer Science and Engineering
 Electrical Engineering
 Electronics and Communication Engineering
 Mechanical Engineering

25. Use of IT: Best Practices as shown on
AICTE website
Use of IT such as video
conferencing for delivering quality
lectures to a large number of
students.
Muthayammal College of Arts & Science,
Kakkaveri,Tamil Nadu
Use of IT in Institutional
governance, such as introduction
of smart cards for the students as
well as for the faculty members.
1. College of Engineering, Amravati, Maharashtra
2. Gogte, Institute of Technology, Belgaum, Karnataka
3. Jaipur Engg. College & Research Centre, Jaipur,
Rajasthan
4. Maruthi Institute of Engineering & Tech., Tamil Nadu
5. The Rajaas Engineering College (Formerly the
Indian Engineering College) Vadakkangulam, Tamil
Nadu
Access to vast information
available in digital library through
Internet.
1. Lourdes Matha College of Science & Technology,
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
2. SIES Graduate School of Technology, Mumbai,
Maharashtra

26. Use of IT: PDCA Cycle & Quality
Assurance
PDCA
Cycle
Quality Assurance
Increasing
Expectations

27. Perspective 2: Engineering
Education Excellence Model
 Enables to assess quality efforts on a
variety of factors
 Supports a template for improvement
 Encourages Self-assessment, Peer-
assessment
 Enables “Management-by-
Measurement”
 Acts as a platform for “Best
Practices” and Benchmarking

28. UPTU Academic Excellence Award
Model
Enablers
Item Weightage
(in %)
Top Management’s commitment to Quality & Academic
Leadership
10
Faculty Resources Development & Management 5
Quality Policy & Strategy 5
Academic Resources 10
Academic Processes 10
Results Faculty & Staff satisfaction 10
Students satisfaction 10
Impact on Society 5
Academic Results 25
Placement Results 10

29. Academic
Processes
100
(10 %)
Top Mgmt
Commitmt &
Leadership
100
(10 %)
Faculty
Resources
Developmt
& Mgt.
50 (5 %)
Quality
Policy &
Strategy
50 (5 %)
Academic
Resources
100
(10 %)
Faculty &
Staff
Satisfaction
100 (10 %)
Students
Satisfaction
100
(10 %)
Impact on
Society
50 (5 %)
Academic
Results
250 (25 %)
Placement
Results
100
(10 %)
Enablers 400 points (40%) Results 600 points (60%)
UPTU Academic Excellence Award Model
Source: www.uptu.org

30. ‘How’ of the Model ....
 A panel of eminent jury headed by an
outstanding academician having experts in
quality management from academics,
industry and other NGO’s evaluates a institute
 panel analyses the self – assessment report of
each aspiring institution and decides on a cut
– off score based on self – assessment report
to site visit the organizations short-listed.
 A five member team of assessors visits the
site and arrives at a consensus score among
the members of the team on each of the 10
factors and total score.
 This is presented before the panel

31. SN Sub factors High
05
Very
Go
od
04
Good
03
Satisfactory
02
Low
01
1. Recruitment process leading to
excellence
2. Financial compensation
package/process
3. Perks and performance incentives
4. People development process-
encouragement to improve
qualifications
5. Work culture
Faculty Development & Management
(50)
6. Faculty & Staff performance
appraisal process
7. Networking with reputed
academic institutions-
encouragement & support
8. Ambience in offices of faculty &
staff
9. Encouragement for industry
interaction
10. Skill-up gradation / conference
Sponsorship and peer interaction

32. S
n.
Sub factors High
05
Very
Good
04
Good
03
Satisfacto
ry
02
Low
01
1. Quality policy on student
admissions
2. Quality policy on faculty
recruitment process
3. Quality policy on faculty
promotion/recognition
process
4. Student orientation
5. Industry (employer)
orientation Quality Policy &
Strategy (50)
6. Quality of physical
ambience
7. Quality improvement
policy for faculty & staff
8. Vision / Mission leading
to quality
9. Core values leading to
quality of education
10
.
Quality Management
Systems-ISO etc in place

33. Distinctive features
 Objective appraisal by outsiders
 Helps in documenting various
processes
 Correlation between enablers and
results thus proving evidence for
quality success
 Provides support for Accreditation
and ISO 9000

34. Engineering Education Excellence model –
Self Assessment Process
Develop Commitment
Plan Self Assessment Cycle
Establish Model and Reporting
System
Communicate Plan
Educate Staff
Conduct Self Assessment
Establish Action Plan
Implement Action Plan
Review
Progress

35. Criteria S
0-
10
11-
20
21-
30
31-
40
41-
50
51-
60
61-
70
71-
80
81-
90
91-
100
Leadership 100 B
Policy &
Strategy
50 B
Faculty
Resources
50 B
Academic
Resources
100 B
Processes
100 B
Faculty
satisfaction
100
B
Student
Satisfaction
100 B
Impact on
Society
50 B
Academic
Results
250 B
Placement
Results
100
Inst 1 Inst 2 B - Best
Score comparison

36. Benefits of Educational Excellence Award
Model
• Winners share their knowledge
• Process motivates employees
• Process provides a well-designed quality
system
• Process requires obtaining data, thus builds
objectivity and transparency in the system –
Management-by-Measurement
• Process provides feedback

37. Related to Opportunity Benefits
Accreditation IT helps in documenting
various processes such as
admission, selection of faculty,
evaluation of student feedback
etc.
Makes processes data
driven, transparent
Engineering
Education
Excellence model
Assistance provided by
making various components of
the model; implementable at
the ground level: for example
records on processes,
leadership, informational
resources ,
students/faculty /alumni etc.
Facilitates record keeping
and helps in self-assessment
so that improvement can be
quantified, measured and
tracked

38. Accreditation Education Excellence Model
Prescriptive and Normative Non-prescriptive and flexible
Process oriented Based on Systems perspective
Focus on primarily student exam results
and placements. Meager importance for
societal contribution.
Research based result oriented framework
including governance and social
Responsibility
Monitoring mechanism need to be
strengthened after accreditation
Top management involvement and
commitment is essential.
Feedback and follow up may not be
learnable by the individual
Learn from the feed back process by
every individual in an institution
Modular (Teaching learning,
supplementary processes etc.) based
assessment
Alignment and integration of institutional
goals i.e. Build on existing strengths ie.
Targeting of opportunities for
improvement.
Lack of clarity and direction on
performance
More clarity on clarity and direction on
performance

39. Opportunities offered by IT
 Can affect the design and delivery
mechanisms related to teaching-
learning processes
 helps in streamlining various non-
valued added processes
 helps in making the processes
objective & transparent

40. Some of the hurdles…
 Many academics and practitioners do not understand
the centrality of quality standards
 Standards are seen as the opposite of creativity in design
 In many curricula economic constraints, legal constraints,
compliance and interoperability are considered secondary
 ..and sometimes absent
 Techniques and devices based on standards are often
taught with little or no regard to standards
 …taught without referring to the standardization
infrastructure

41. Challenges
 Educational administrators must become “data and information
savvy”. Typical surveys (such as India Today, Onlooker survey)
ranks educational institutes on various parameters. For such
ranking, it is necessary that internally, the institute must have
a data cell and quality assurance cell whose responsibility is to
promote use of quantified data for improvement..
 While using any quality framework, ,it is important to employ
statistical process control and the concepts of common and
special causes in determining levels of accountability in
education. Thus, procedures relevant to these should be setup
for acquiring, recording, manipulating and analyzing
data/information for reviewing and improvement. This will
require sensitization and adequate training to educational
administrators, faculty and other stakeholders.
 The quantitative framework of education excellence
model identifies some of the fundamental requirements
and characteristics of the technical institutions.
 The challenge is to identify various non-value addition
processes and use IT to weed them out.

42. Challenges.. (contd.)
 Procastrination concerning changes
in HE ...
 Dangers of a top-down approach to
force change
 - academics tend to be conservative
concerning their institution - they must
be convinced of the need to change
 - role of leadership - government,
regulatory bodies , Professional societies,
NGOs , institutions, etc ...
 - academic staff ( and society in general )
show low awareness about the concerned
issues

43. Challenges…
 The quality philosophy is built around three
basic ideas,:
 to become customer driven instead of being self-
focused,
 to concentrate on the process rather than being
preoccupied with results;
 and to use employee’s thinking ability.
Educational institute need to deploy
various initiatives to realize this
philosophy.

44. How to implement Quality
Involvement
 Quality involves everyone Quality not
just concern of AICTE /MHRD or College
administration - involves everyone, including
student, teacher, alumni, financial supporters
 Continuous improvement System
always looking for ways to improve processes
to help quality
 Stakeholders involvement :Every
stakeholder has vital role to play in spotting
improvement opportunities for quality and
identifying quality problems

45. When we try to bring about change in our
societies, we are treated first with
indifference, then with ridicule, then with
abuse, and then with oppression. And finally,
the greatest challenge is thrown at us. We
are treated with respect. This is the most
dangerous stage !

46. Thanks a lot for your patience …
deshmukh.sg@gmail.com