About the authors
Dr Iqbal Akthar is programme leader on the BA (Hons) Mass Communications course at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. An experienced educator, he has taught and worked with international students for the past ten years. He currently works closely with a number of overseas institutions to deliver distance learning courses and is especially concerned with enhancing the student experience. His main interests lie in the application of new technologies to learning and teaching, particularly in the field of distance learning. His current research is on students’ performance and support.
Dina Zoe Belluigi is currently a lecturer at the Centre for Higher Education Research, Learning and Teaching (CHERTL) at Rhodes University, South Africa. Her research in the field of higher education studies is concerned with understanding issues of student agency, intentionality and ethical relations between teacher and student. Her primary current research project explores such problematics as authorship in educational dynamics; ethical approaches to assessment and judgment; how the roles of lecturer and student are constructed; the conditions for creativity; and the possibilities of moving the student experience from alienation to engagement. Dina is also a practising artist, with a teaching background in fine art studio practice. Much of her research looks at learning and teaching in the creative arts disciplines.
Peter Burden is a professor at the Okayama Shoka University in Japan where he has taught for over 20 years. He received his EdD in TESOL from the University of Exeter in the UK and has published widely on both teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of the use of teaching evaluations. His current research interests focus on learner perceptions and teacher/learner dissonance as well as the use of metaphor to inform teaching practice.
Dr Goh Kim Chuan is a professor and Head of the Office of Academic Quality Management, National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has wide experience in higher education, having worked at three universities in Southeast Asia for 37 years. He has spent the last 20 years at the NIE, where he has been Head of Department, Associate Dean of Programmes and subsequently of Student Development, and for the last three years, Head of Academic Quality Management. His involvement in student development and institutional policies relating to quality management covers chairing various committees, task forces and working groups, including programme reviews, promotion and tenure, institutional climate, and international conferences.
Dr Angela Evangelinou-Yiannakis is an honorary research fellow of the Graduate School of Education, The University of Western Australia (UWA). For over 30 years, she has been a teacher and leader in secondary education and has also worked in higher education, most recently in the area of teaching English and literacy to pre-service teachers. Her research expertise is in the teaching of Greek as a second language in Australia under the ‘seconded teacher scheme’ from Greece. She has held numerous leadership positions in this area and has represented UWA as a specialist in the field. She held the position of Chair of the Modern Greek Syllabus Committee for 19 years and was the Director of Greek Studies, Vice Principal and Acting Principal of Perth’s sole Greek Orthodox day school for 17 years. More recently, Dr Evangelinou-Yiannakis has undertaken research into the provision of formative feedback to students in higher education. As a member of the Executive Committee of the Western Australian Institute for Educational Research (WAIER), Dr Evangelinou-Yiannakis has helped to coordinate and promote locally-conducted research through WAIER’s research seminars. She has presented papers both nationally and internationally, and published a number of articles.
Dr Koh Noi Keng is a senior lecturer at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore, an institute of the Nanyang Technological University. She has been a teacher, discipline head, Head of Department and Deputy Principal. Advocating diversity in learning and teaching at the teacher training institute, Dr Koh spearheads financial and business education in Singapore schools. She was the branch Training Manager and Senior Curriculum Specialist for Economics and Commerce education in the Humanities Branch at the headquarters of the Ministry of Education, Singapore, and is currently business education programme coordinator at the Humanities and Social Studies Education Academic group in NIE.
Dr Patricie Mertova is currently a research fellow in the Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK. She was previously a research officer at the University of Queensland, Australia and, prior to that, a research fellow in the Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT) and the Centre for Higher Education Quality (CHEQ), Monash University, Australia. She has recently completed her PhD focusing on the academic voice in higher education quality and has research expertise in the areas of higher education and higher education quality. Her background is also in the areas of linguistics, translation, cross-cultural communication and foreign languages.
Nina Miklavc majored in international business at the University of Vienna, Austria and works for the Evaluation and Quality Enhancement Department at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Drawing on her profound knowledge gained as personnel development manager of a non-profit organisation and at the University of Applied Sciences bfi Vienna as Deputy Director of Studies, career advisor and course instructor, Nina’s main responsibilities are the design of new quality management measures in learning and teaching, as well as the enhancement of existing measures, which include devising course evaluations, developing feedback instruments, implementing teaching awards, and improving initiatives which address the quality culture among faculty.
Professor Sid Nair is currently with the Centre for Advancement of Learning and Teaching, University of Western Australia (UWA), Perth. Prior to his appointment to UWA, he was Quality Adviser (Research and Evaluation) in the Centre for Higher Education Quality (CHEQ) at Monash University, Australia. He has extensive expertise in the area of quality development and evaluation. He also has considerable editorial experience and is currently Associate Editor of the International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education (IJQAETE). Prior to this, he was a managing editor of the Electronic Journal of Science Education (EJSE). Professor Nair is an international consultant in a number of countries establishing quality centres, such as Oman and India. He is also involved in a project to implement effective student evaluations across Indian universities.
Mahsood Shah is the Principal Advisor for Academic Strategy, Planning and Quality with the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, working closely with faculties and schools and providing strategic advice to the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) on all aspects of academic strategy, academic quality, reviews, and enhancement of institutional learning and teaching outcomes. Shah has 18 years’ experience in tertiary education in various roles, with responsibilities related to strategy development, strategy implementation and reviews, quality assurance, leading external quality audits, review of academic and administrative units including review of academic programmes, performance monitoring in all areas of the university including the development of IT enabled management information capability, course accreditations with professional bodies, stakeholder surveys, student experience, and building institutional research capacity in universities. Prior to joining RMIT University, he led strategy development and quality assurance in three other public universities in Australia and has also worked closely with many private for-profit higher and vocational providers in Australia in quality assurance and institutional accreditation.
Associate Professor Keith Trevor Thomas joined academia after an early career in the Australian Defence Forces, teaching on both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Australia, China and Vietnam. He is currently the Associate Director of CLEAR and the Head of Programme Evaluations at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests are primarily in the areas of leadership and organisational change, as well as academic development in higher education.
Oliver Vettori is Director of Programme Management and Quality Management at Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Austria and a university lecturer at WU and the University of Vienna, as well as the co-founder and acting coordinator of the Network for Quality Management and Quality Development of the Austrian Universities. He regularly works as an expert, trainer and consultant in the fields of quality management, higher education development and learning and teaching, for organisations such as the European University Association, World University Services Austria, and numerous international higher education institutions. His current areas of research are higher education management and governance, quality assurance, qualitative research methodologies, and meaning structures in organisational fields.