In order to provide participants with knowledge about as well as tools for conducting quality assurance activities in higher education, the Saudi Arabia Higher Education Quality Assurance (HEQA) Program was designed to achieve the following goals and objectives:
- Provide participants with an international professional development opportunity, facilitated and delivered by experts in the field
- Examine current trends and practices related to quality assurance in higher education
- Review various aspects of domestic and international higher education accreditation
- Expose participants to actual field examples of quality assurance initiatives, such as those aimed at increasing instructional effectiveness
- Development of a quality assurance team project reflecting the insights and information gained from the program
The Saudi Arabia HEQA Project utilized a variety of delivery methods, including lectures, seminars, professional dialogues and debriefing sessions, mentorship, site visits to the Provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence and development workshops. Participants had the opportunity to interact with University of Pittsburgh staff responsible for improvement of both faculty and instruction through seminars and workshops facilitated by expert professors from the Higher Education Management Program within the University of Pittsburgh’s Administrative and Policy Studies Department. Furthermore, participants were given full access to library and computer resources at the University of Pittsburgh. The wide range of activities and components in this project allowed participants to consolidate and deepen insights derived from their interactions with faculty and staff at the University of Pittsburgh.
